Concerning Mr. M.N vs Denmark for violation of article 6 or 7, 13 and 14 of CCPR.
The author is born in Afghanistan, and he worked for the Company International Management service (IMS) as a translator, since he is English speaking. His first assignment was to be a translator for the Australian Military forces, and he was thus under a contract with CTU (Company Team Uruzgarn). In late summer 2012 he was allowed to bring some boxes home with used clothes from Military camp. One box also had Bibles inside it and during a house search Afghan forces found the box with the bibles. Consequently, he was accused of distributing bibles in that area. Both the Afghan authorities and the Taliban accused him of being a “Motard”- Converted away from Islam, and also that he distributed Christian propaganda.
The author asked the Australian forces to help him, by admitting that some of their soldiers had left the Bibles in the box, however they refused to help him, and he had to flee. In Afghanistan he would have no chance of a fair trial, now that he had been accused of being “Mortard”, but even if he was to go free, the Taliban would kill him right away.
After his arrival in Denmark he started to read the Bible, when he was detained by the Danish police, and he found it to be of such importance that he Converted to Christianity. He started attending the Grønnevang Church in December 2013, and he is further participating in education with the purpose of Baptism by the end of August 2014. Since he Converted to Christianity during his stay in Denmark, he fears being killed or tortured on return to Afghanistan, since this is a violation of the Islamic rules in Afghanistan. The author was rejected asylum on July 16, 2014 with a deadline of 15 days to depart Denmark.
A complaint was filed to the UNHRC on 31 July 2014. 15 other similar Danish asylum cases were forwarded in which the Danish Refugee Board had reopened these cases and granted asylum. See for example “Military Service Case” or “ The Mixed Couple Case”. All of these Communications are or will be discontinued, because the asylum seekers are granted asylum after their cases were taken under consideration by the UN, and then they were reopened by the Danish Refugee Board. Several of those cases concern asylum seekers who are converting to Christianity in Denmark. These figures illustrate the great number of mistaken decisions made by the Danish Refugee Board with regard to non-refoulement, and thus illustrates need for the use of urgent interim measured in such cases. If these rejected asylum seekers had been deported by force to their countries of origin, it would have had catastrophic consequences for them all, but due to the use of interim measured this was avoided and they all have refugee status in Denmark as of today. Consequently, it is hoped that this will also be applied with regard to this Communication.
11. November 2016