CEDAW/C/62/D/53/2013 Denmark. On 16 September 2012, the Service decided to expel the author, and she applied for asylum. 4.2 The State party stated that the author had based her asylum request on her fear of the violence of her family and of her husband’s family following their marriage without the families’ consent. On 22 January 2013, the Danis h Immigration Service denied the author’s application for asylum. On 5 April 2013, the Refugee Appeals Board upheld that decision, considering that the attacks referred to by the author and recognized as facts by the Danish authorities had not been perpetr ated directly against the author. The State party argued that the author’s claim that her husband’s family had instigated the attacks had not been substantiated because she had never been threatened by them and the attacks had occurred directly after she b egan working at the beauty salon, not after the wedding. The Board concluded that the author had failed to demonstrate that she would probably be at real risk of persecution if she were returned to Pakistan. The State party considered that the fact that the author was a Christian with no network in Pakistan was not sufficient to change the Board’s assessment. 4.3 The State party provided detailed information about the work and composition of the Refugee Appeals Board and the legal basis of its decisions pur suant to the Aliens Act. It recalled that the Board was an independent quasi -judicial body and that its members could not accept or seek instructions from the appointing or nominating authorities. Pursuant to section 31 (1) of the Act, an alien may not be returned to a country where he or she will be at risk of the death penalty or of being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or where he or she will not be protected against being sent on to such country, in line with the principle of non-refoulement. That absolute provision applies to all aliens in accordance with the international legal obligations of Denmark. The State party further argued that the Board’s decisions were based on an individual and specific assessment of the relevant case. The claims of an asylum seeker were assessed in the light of all relevant evidence and their review took into account background information regarding the country to which the asylum seeker might be rem oved. 4 4.4 The State party argued that the communication should be declared inadmissible ratione loci and ratione materiae under articles 2 and 4 (2) (b) of the Optional Protocol because Denmark was not responsible under the Convention for the acts cited as the basis for the author’s communication. Whereas the Convention had no explicit jurisdiction clause limiting its scope of application, article 2 of the Optional Protocol clearly provided that communications “may be submitted by or on behalf of individuals … under the jurisdiction of a Stat e party, claiming to be victims of a violation of any of the rights set forth in the Convention by that State party”. Accordingly, the right of individual petition was clearly limited by a jurisdiction clause. The State party acknowledged that the author was currently under Danish jurisdiction. However, her claims did not rest on any treatment that __________________ 4 15-21603 The State party indicated that the background information included information from various sources, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Documentation and Research Division of the Danish Immigration Service, the Danish Refug ee Council, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and States’ country background documents (for example, reports from the Home Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the State Department of the United States of America and the Federal Ministry of the Interior of Austria), as well as reports from non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. 5/16