M.S., a citizen of Iraq, served almost nine years’ military service under the Saddam Hussein regime and avoided a third call-up in 2000 to serve in Saddam Hussein’s “Jerusalem Army”. He sold his business for less than it was worth, went into hiding and barely escaped with his life. In 2002 the author arrived in Denmark, without valid travel documents, and applied for asylum on the same day. He was placed in a center for asylum seekers. The Danish Immigration Service rejected his asylum application. The Service based its refusal on the assumption that the author would not suffer disproportionate punishment for escaping the third call-up for military service because he managed to stay in hiding in Baghdad for 12 months without being caught.
In 2004, the Board upheld this decision. Additionally, the Board argued that the refusal to join the army implied no danger after the fall of the former regime in Iraq in 2003, and that the author is a Sunni Muslim with a total of nine years of compulsory military service on record, which was not in itself a sufficient reason for granting asylum.
In 2012, the author applied again to the Board to request the reopening of the case. In the application, the author claimed that he could not return to Iraq because he comes from a prominent Sunni family and the area of his home was dominated by Shias inspired by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Between 2004 and 2006, the property of the author’s family was repeatedly attacked by military vehicles and their house was searched. The Board again rejected the author’s request for asylum and informed him that if he did not leave Denmark voluntarily, he “might be forcibly deported”. Notwithstanding the Board’s decision, the author did not leave the country.
Since April 2014, the situation in Iraq has further deteriorated due to the uprising and atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The conquest by this group of several larger cities in northern Iraq has brought about even more dangerous tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims. These tensions are the central ground for the author’s refusal to go back to Iraq.
The author, who was 70 years old at the time of his initial complaint, has been living in Denmark for 13 years, with the constant stress of possibly being returned to Iraq. He lives in an asylum centre and does not have any income. He received meals only while he had to report to the police twice a week, until 2014.
The author claims that by denying his request for asylum and his potential deportation to Iraq, the State party would violate its obligations under articles 6, 7 and 14 of the Covenant.
The CCPR is of the view that deportation to Iraq would, if implemented, violate the author’s rights under articles 6 (1) and 7 of the Covenant.