The applicant, an Afghan national, requested international protection in Sweden on 27 August 2014 as an unaccompanied minor. He claimed fear of persecution by the Taliban due to his Hazara ethnicity and his Shia Muslim faith. He also cited several psychiatric problems he had suffered from in his first years in Sweden. His claim was rejected by the Swedish Migration Agency in 2015, a decision upheld by the Migration Court and Migration Court of Appeal. A first expulsion order against him was issued on 29 October 2015.

From 2017 onwards, the applicant submitted several applications for impediments to enforcement of the expulsion order, claiming new grounds. He specifically alleged that he had converted to Christianity and came out as homosexual after the initial expulsion order against him entered into force in June 2016. The Migration Agency granted him a new interview for consideration of his asylum application in October 2017, during which he claimed that he had planned to be baptized but had been detained by the police at the end of the summer of 2017. He also asserted his homosexuality for the first time, and claimed that he did not disclose it during the initial procedure out of fear of stigmatisation and doubts about the legality of homosexuality in Sweden. The Migration Agency granted the applicant an additional interview, during which he suffered anxiety attacks, recounted his homosexual relationships in both Iran and Sweden and claimed that some of his acquaintances who had returned to Afghanistan knew of his sexual orientation and had threatened to persecute him upon his return to Kabul. He also alleged having been discriminated at the deportation centre for being openly gay and a Christian. The applicant also reported suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including suicide attempts, as certified by several doctors, resulting from repeated childhood sexual abuse. The Migration Agency found his claims lacked credibility and rejected his application by decision of 29 November 2017, which was upheld by the Migration Court in January 2018. He was also denied leave to appeal to the Migration Court of Appeal in February 2018. His subsequent applications for impediments to enforcement were also denied.

On 29 May 2018, the applicant submitted a communication to the Human Rights Committee under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political (ICCPR), claiming that his return to Afghanistan would expose him to persecution, ill-treatment and risks to his life, on account of his conversion to Christianity and his sexual orientation, which would result in a violation of Articles 6 and 7. He also claimed fear of ill-treatment and limited access to care due to his PTSD, and the fact that he had no family in Afghanistan. The Committee requested Sweden to adopt interim measures halting his removal, which were granted on 30 May 2018. Meanwhile, his first expulsion order of 29 October 2015 became statute-barred on 7 June 2020 and expired. The applicant filed a new asylum application, which was rejected by the Migration Agency on 14 April 2021 and by the Migration Court on 13 January 2022. The Migration Court of Appeal denied leave to appeal on 8 March 2022.

Sweden submitted requests to the UN Human Rights Committee for discontinuation of the communication because the 2015 expulsion order had expired and the applicant was no longer at immediate risk of deportation. It argued that the new 2020 asylum proceedings were a separate matter and that the applicant had not proven any personal risk of persecution. Sweden also pointed to his multiple false identities in different EU countries and the inconsistencies in his account of being gay and a Christian convert, noting he had not shown that Afghan authorities were aware of these factors or that he could not receive medical care in Afghanistan.

The Committee rejected Sweden’s request, reasoning that although the original deportation order was no longer valid, the applicant now faced a new expulsion order based on the same core protection claims (conversion, sexuality, mental health). Therefore, the risk of removal persisted, and the communication remained relevant.

On the merits of the communication, the committee first recalled its general comment No. 31 (2004) on non-refoulement, stressing the high evidentiary threshold to show a real, personal and foreseeable risk of irreparable harm upon return under Articles 6 and7 of the ICCPR. It examined both the domestic procedure before the Swedish Migration Agency and courts, and the substantive grounds raised by the applicant. It noted that the applicant had not presented to the committee the protection claims he raised in his first asylum application (related to risks posed by the Taliban) but those raised in October 2017 against the enforcement of his expulsion order (regarding his conversion, his homosexuality, his mental health and lack of a support network). The committee observed the Swedish authorities’ finding that the applicant had not substantiated his motivation for and process of conversion, his reasons for making it public, or his genuine intention to live as a Christian in case of return to Afghanistan. He had also not proven that he had genuine homosexual relations of which the Afghan authorities were aware. The committee noted that the authorities concluded that he had failed to plausibly demonstrate that he would face a foreseeable, personal and real risk of persecution or ill-treatment based on his claimed sexual orientation. The committee also observed that the Swedish courts had considered the applicant’s claims in the context of the current situation in Afghanistan but found that he had not demonstrated that information about his profile had reached the authorities in Afghanistan, or that he would be threatened for his assumed Western opinions. The committee therefore held that the applicant had not provided any additional information regarding the applications for impediments to enforcement or the claims raised therein, and had not substantiated that the conclusions of the domestic authorities were clearly arbitrary, manifestly erroneous, or amounted to a denial of justice.

In conclusion, the Human Rights Committee found the communication inadmissible under Article 2 of the Optional Protocol, as the applicant had not sufficiently substantiated a real and personal risk of persecution or serious harm in Afghanistan.