Y.A.A. and F.H.M., both Somali nationals, seeking asylum in Denmark and were scheduled, at the time of the submission of the communication, to be transferred from Denmark to Italy within the Dublin II Regulation. The authors claim that their deportation to Italy would put them and their children at a risk of inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of article 7 of the Covenant.
The authors fled Somalia together in 2008. F.H.M. fled Somalia after having been subjected to serious harassment owing to her belonging to a minority clan. She claims that her family had been contacted and harassed by clan militia, police and government forces. Y.A.A. fled Somalia owing to a conflict with the Somali authorities and Ethiopian military. He had worked for a Somali television station and, on one occasion, had edited video recordings and pictures of Ethiopian soldiers who had been killed, which were to be broadcasted on the news. Subsequently, he was threatened by an unknown person on several occasions that he would be killed or imprisoned and accused of being responsible for the broadcast. The authors also fear that their daughters will be subjected to female genital mutilation upon return.
The authors arrived in Italy in October 2008 and were accommodated in asylum reception facilities in Bari for a few months. The authors were granted subsidiary protection in January 2009. Their residence permit, which expired on 25 March 2013, has not been renewed, since by that time the authors were residing in Denmark.
After being granted the residence permit, the authors were ordered to leave the reception facilities in Bari and hand in their asylum identification cards, which had given them access to food in the reception facilities. They were not given any assistance or advice on how to settle or where to go in Italy on a temporary or permanent basis and were advised to leave for other European countries. Facing homelessness, the authors travelled to Finland early in 2009. After four months, the Finnish authorities returned them to Rome. Upon arrival at the airport, they were given no assistance or guidance from the Italian authorities.
Facing homelessness once again, they took advice from other Somali refugees and went to Turin to live in an abandoned clinic occupied by homeless refugees and asylum seekers. The conditions were very poor and lacked basic facilities. There was no water, electricity or heat, and the sanitary facilities were poor. Many of the occupants were often under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and the authors felt unsafe, especially during F.H.M.’s pregnancy in 2009.
Faced with homelessness, and with no access to an integration programme or employment, the authors with their two children travelled to Sweden, where they applied for asylum in 2012. Their applications were rejected as they had been granted a residence permit by the Italian authorities. When the Swedish authorities planned to deport them to Italy, the authors travelled to Denmark, where they applied for asylum in 2012. Upon arrival in Denmark, the authors’ residence permits in Italy were still valid.

The Danish Immigration Service rejected their application for asylum. The case was sent to the Refugees Appeals Board, which upheld the decision by the Immigration Service, stating that F.H.M., and consequently Y.A.A., were in need of subsidiary protection owing to the risk of prosecution in Somalia, but that the authors could be returned to Italy in accordance with the principle of first country of asylum. In its decision, the Board stated that, although the residence permit of the authors was no longer valid, it expected them to be able to enter and stay legally in Italy, while applying for renewal of their expired residence permit.
The Danish Refugee Council requested the Refugees Appeals Board to reopen the case. The Council made reference to the fact that the authors had been denied entry in Italy and that the Danish police had not made any efforts to deport the authors in the previous year.
The Refugee Appeals Board has informed the Danish Refugee Council by telephone that they had received a reply from the Italian authorities through the Danish police, dated 8 August 2015, and that the Italian authorities would now accept the entry of the family.
The pleading has been presented to the CCPR. The Committee, acting under article 5 (4) of the Optional Protocol, is of the view that the deportation of the authors and their four children to Italy, without proper assurances, would violate their rights under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights