M.T., an applicant of Iraqi nationality, requested international protection in France, claiming fear of persecution by his family due to his sexual orientation and for being an atheist, and also claimed that he was at risk of harm due to a generalised conflict in his province of origin. By decision of 16 March 2021, the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA), rejected the request. On appeal, the CNDA allowed the request for refugee protection due to his membership of the social group of homosexual people in Iraq.

The court noted that although sexual relations between persons of the same sex are not expressly criminalized in Iraqi legislation, general provisions are used to prosecute, on various grounds, homosexuals and more broadly members of the LGBTI community, who are also the object of discrimination and serious violence committed, outside any legal framework, by agents of the state, including in Iraqi Kurdistan. The court observed that such violence, which can go as far as torture and assassination, is also the act of armed groups, numerous and active in a country which has been experiencing an armed conflict for many years. The court considered that the applicant was exposed to violence suffered within the family before his departure from Iraq as well as to the more general risk linked to the serious violence perpetrated by various sectors of Iraqi society against members of the LGBTI community.