CAT/C/79/D/1055/2021 Facts as submitted by the complainant 2.1 The complainant is a carpenter and cabinetmaker by profession, who moved to Yaoundé in 2007. In 2010, he joined the ruling party, Rassemblement démocratique du peuple camerounais. During the presidential election of 2011, the complainant campaigned for the party in Yaoundé, where he was elected president of the party’s youth organization. Since the aforementioned party failed to adhere to its commitment to support him financially in his plans to start a business, the complainant joined the opposition party Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun. Elected head of the party’s local unit in a district of Yaoundé, the complainant campaigned for the party during the presidential election in 2018, which he claimed was marred by fraud. After losing the election, Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun organized demonstrations in Cameroon and abroad to claim victory. The complainant helped to organize a demonstration by his party, which took place in Yaoundé on 26 January 2019 while he was traveling in Equatorial Guinea. During this demonstration, several of the party’s activists, including its president, Maurice Kamto, were arrested. 2.2 In February 2019, the complainant received a summons from the police through his wife. On 9 April 2019, he took part in another demonstration organized by his party that took place in front of the military court on the occasion of the hearing of the president of Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun. On that day, several members of the party were arrested. As the complainant had left the scene earlier, he received a summons from the police, dated 12 April 2019, with which he did not comply. Another summons, to which he responded, was sent to him on 15 April 2019. The criminal investigation police then decided to place him in detention. The police officers remonstrated with him for having left Rassemblement démocratique du peuple camerounais. The complainant was ill-treated1 and forced to sign a document in front of the criminal investigation police, in which he promised to leave Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun. 2.3 On 29 or 30 April 2019, the complainant regained his freedom thanks to the intervention of a senior officer of the gendarmerie. On 1 June 2019, the complainant was arrested again during a demonstration for the release of the president of Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun and other high-ranking members of the party. He was detained in Yaoundé Central Prison, where the conditions were harsh owing to the tasks that he had to perform inside the facility. On the night of 24 and 25 November 2019, when he had left the prison on board a truck to carry out work outside the prison, one of the guards accompanying him facilitated his escape in exchange for payment from his family and some of his clients. 2.4 Following his escape, the complainant asked his wife to go to her family in her native village and he travelled overland to Nigeria. Ten days later, he met a smuggler who gave him a Nigerian passport with a Schengen visa issued by Switzerland. He left Nigeria from Lagos. After a stopover in Doha, the complainant arrived in Zurich on 13 December 2019.2 2.5 On 16 December 2019, the complainant submitted an application for asylum in Switzerland to the federal asylum centre in Boudry.3 On 24 April 2020, the State Secretariat for Migration rejected the complainant’s asylum application and ordered his deportation from Switzerland. On 27 May 2020, the complainant filed an appeal against this decision with the Federal Administrative Court and requested full legal assistance 4 from the Court. In an interim ruling issued on 10 June 2020, the Court rejected the complainant’s request for legal 1 2 3 4 2 The complainant has not provided any specific details about the abuse to which he was subjected. This information, which was provided by the complainant, contradicts that contained in paragraph 4.2 of the present decision, which was provided by the State party, according to which the complainant was banned from entering Switzerland between 28 December 2018 and 27 December 2021. On 23 December 2019, the complainant was given a personal background interview pursuant to article 26 (2) of the Asylum Act (No. 142.31) of 26 June 1998. On 3 January 2020, he was the subject of a hearing under article 5 of Regulation No. 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (Dublin III Regulation). On 10 February and 4 March 2020, in accordance with article 29 (2) of the Asylum Act, he was interviewed in greater depth by the State Secretariat for Migration about his reasons for claiming asylum. This appeal was supplemented by a memorandum issued on 2 June 2020. GE.24-09258