Religion – Weltanschauung – Recht [ RWR ]

The case concerns the deportation of a failed-asylum seeker from Sweden to Iraq. The applicant, W.H., is an Iraqi national who was born in 1978 and currently lives in Sweden. She is originally from Baghdad and is of Mandaean denomination. She arrived in Sweden in August 2007 and subsequently claimed asylum. Her request was examined by the Migration Board and Migration Court and ultimately rejected in 2010 on the ground that she was not in need of protection in Sweden.

Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), W. H. alleges that, a divorcee belonging to a small, vulnerable ethnic/religious minority, she would be at real risk of inhuman and degrading treatment if returned to Iraq. She submits in particular that, without a male network or any remaining relatives in Iraq, she would be at risk of persecution, assault, rape, forced conversion to another religion and forced marriage.

Press release ECHR 075 (2014) 19/03/2014