Religion – Weltanschauung – Recht [ RWR ]

The applicant, N.K., is a Pakistani national who was born in 1989 and lives in Créteil (France). The case concerns his potential removal from France to Pakistan, where he says that he would sustain inhuman or degrading treatment. Following his conversion to the Ahmadiyya religion, according to whose rites he was married in 2009, Mr N.K.’s cousin filed a complaint against him for proselytising. Shortly afterwards he was allegedly abducted, confined then tortured for several days before managing to escape from his kidnappers. After learning that an arrest warrant had been issued against him for preaching the Ahmadiyya religion, Mr N.K. left Pakistan.

He arrived in France in August 2009 and applied for asylum. Finding that his statements were not sufficiently substantiated, the French Office for asylum-seekers (the OFPRA) rejected his application in October 2009. For identical reasons the appeal by Mr N.K. against that decision was dismissed by the National Asylum-Law Court (the CNDA) in July 2010. Further to a decision refusing him leave to remain and ordering his departure from France, Mr N.K. was arrested and placed in a detention centre. His request for the re-examination of his asylum application was rejected by the OFPRA on 4 February 2011, at which point he requested the Court to indicate an interim measure under Rule 39 of its Rules of Court. The Court accepted his request and indicated to the Government not to proceed with N.K.’s removal. On 13 July 2011 the CNDA dismissed Mr N.K.’s appeal against the OFPRA’s decision of 4 February 2011.

Mr N.K. alleges that, if the removal order against him is executed, he risks sustaining treatment in breach of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment).

Press release ECHR 341 (2013) 10/12/2013