CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 25 février 2020

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display:inline-block } .s9FA8FCEA { margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .sF6A12959 { width:33%; height:1px; text-align:left } .s2EB42ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:10pt } .sC36A6361 { font-family:Arial; color:#000000 } .s85226119 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify; font-size:10pt } .s653E6C45 { font-family:Arial; font-size:6.67pt; vertical-align:super; color:#0069d6 }     FOURTH SECTION CASE OF A.S.N. AND OTHERS v. THE NETHERLANDS (Applications nos. 68377/17 and 530/18)       JUDGMENT   Art 3 • Expulsion • No risk of ill-treatment in case of removal of Afghan Sikhs to Afghanistan • No compelling humanitarian grounds against removal     STRASBOURG 25 February 2020     FINAL   07/09/2020     This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.   In the case of A.S.N. and Others v. the Netherlands, The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Jon Fridrik Kjølbro, President,   Faris Vehabović,   Paul Lemmens,   Carlo Ranzoni,   Georges Ravarani,   Jolien Schukking,   Péter Paczolay, judges, and Andrea Tamietti, Deputy Section Registrar, Having deliberated in private on 9 July and 10 December 2019, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last ‑ mentioned date: PROCEDURE 1.     The case originated in two applications (nos. 68377/17 and 530/18) against the Kingdom of the Netherlands lodged with the Court under Article   34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by five Afghan nationals. The Court decided that the applicants’ names should not be disclosed to the public (Rule 47 § 4 of the Rules of Court). 2.     The first application was lodged on 11 September 2017 by a married couple, Mr A.S.N. and Mrs T.K.M., who were born in 1977 and 1982, respectively, and who reside in Capelle aan den IJssel. They lodged the application also on behalf of their minor son and daughter, who were born in 2006 and 2008, respectively. 3.     The second application was lodged on 7 December 2017, also by a married couple, Mr S.S.G. and Mrs M.K.G., as well as by Mr S.S.G.’s mother, Mrs D.K.G. These applicants were born in 1974, 1982 and 1947, respectively, and reside in Emmen. Mr S.S.G. and Mrs M.K.G. lodged the application also on behalf of their minor daughter and sons, who were born in 2002, 2008 and 2016, respectively. 4.     The applicants were represented by Mr F.L.M. van Haren, a lawyer practising in Amsterdam. The Dutch Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Deputy Agent, Ms K. Adhin, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 5.     The applicants alleged that their removal from the Netherlands to Afghanistan would violate their right to life under Article 2 of the Convention and would expose them to a real risk of ill-treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention. 6.     On 22 November 2017 application no. 68377/17 was communicated to the Government. 7 .     On 16 January 2018, pursuant to a request to that effect by the applicants in application no. 530/18, the Duty Judge decided to apply Rule   39 of the Rules of Court in that application, indicating to the Government that it was desirable in the interests of the parties and the proper conduct of the proceedings before the Court that the applicants should not be expelled to Afghanistan for the duration of the Court’s proceedings. The application was communicated on the same day. 8.     The Government and the applicants each filed written observations on the admissibility and merits of the applications. In addition, in application no.   68377/17, third-party submissions were received from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Defence for Children – the Netherlands, both of which had been given leave by the President to intervene under Article 36 § 2 of the Convention and Rule   44   §   3. The parties to application no. 68377/17 replied to those submissions. 9.     On 27 June 2018 the applicants’ representative submitted additional information and observations to the Court. The Court decided, pursuant to Rule 38 § 1 of the Rules of Court, to include this material in the case file for the Court’s consideration. A copy was forwarded to the Government, who submitted comments on 10 August 2018. THE FACTS THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE Application no. 68377/17 10.     The applicant family, consisting of a husband, wife and two minor children who were originally from Kabul, Afghanistan, applied for asylum in the Netherlands on 22 October 2015. At that time the children were nine and seven years old, respectively. Officers of the Immigration and Naturalisation Department ( Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst ; “IND”) of the Ministry of Security and Justice ( Ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie ) held interviews with the husband and wife on 11 and 13 January 2016. Reports were drawn up of these interviews, which were conducted in Punjabi with the help of an interpreter. The applicants were given the opportunity to make written substantive changes and/or corrections to the reports, which a lawyer did on their behalf on 14 January 2016. Their asylum account may be summarised as follows. 11.     On a Friday morning in May 2015 the wife had asked the husband for permission to go to the nearby Gurdwara (Sikh temple) together with her sister who had come to visit them. The husband had consented to this. After the wife and her sister left the Gurdwara , the sister had been seized and dragged into a white car by unknown men. Unlike the wife, the sister had not yet put on her burqa. The wife had run straight back to the Gurdwara . 12.     The husband had still been in bed when his wife’s brother had come to the door. He had a threatening letter with him which he had just received, and which said that his sister had been kidnapped, and that the family must not tell anyone this, or they would come for his other sister – the wife – as well. The husband had told him that the two sisters had gone to the Gurdwara together. He had then gone straight to the Gurdwara , where his wife was still sheltering. 13.     The wife’s brother had subsequently received more threatening letters, demanding a ransom of four million Afghani. If they did not pay, the kidnapped sister would be killed and his other sister – the wife – would be kidnapped as well. The letters had been signed by the Taliban. 14.     Approximately two and a half months after the kidnapping, the applicants had become unable to contact the wife’s brother. His shop had been closed and no one knew where he was. The applicants had then started receiving threatening letters at their home address, demanding to be told where the wife’s brother was. If they did not do so, the applicants and their children would be kidnapped and murdered. 15.     The husband had come into contact with a man who could take people abroad. As it had taken some time to organise the journey (which involved the selling of the family home in order to pay for the trip), the applicants had left Afghanistan five months after the wife’s sister had been kidnapped, namely on 16 October 2015. During those months, the wife and her children had not left the house. The husband had continued to go to his work in a fabric shop during this period. He would always ensure that the door to the house was locked, including when he was at home, and the family would live very quietly and without putting any lights on to make it look as if the house was uninhabited. 16.     Accompanied by a “travel agent”, the applicants had flown from Kabul airport to Dubai, from which city they had taken another flight to an Islamic country whose name they did not know. A taxi had taken them to a river which they had crossed by boat. According to the husband they had then travelled on to the Netherlands by taxi, whereas the wife stated that they had also travelled by train on this part of their journey. They had arrived in the Netherlands on 19 October 2015. 17.     In addition to the problems described above, the applicants also stated that they and their children, like other Sikhs, had been bullied and beaten by Muslims on account of the fact that they were Sikhs. They had been verbally abused, people had thrown beef, bottles of urine and stones at them, and had spat at them. The children would be followed by persons with scissors threatening to cut off their hair. They had not been able to play outside and they had last gone to school (for Sikh children) a year before they had left Afghanistan. 18.     On 13 July 2016 the Deputy Minister of Security and Justice ( staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie ) issued a written notification of his intent ( voornemen ) to deny the applicants’ asylum applications. The applicants were given the opportunity to submit a written response to the notification ( zienswijze ), which a lawyer did on their behalf by letter of 5   September 2016. 19.     The Deputy Minister rejected the applicants’ asylum application on 7 September 2016. Based on their statements and the Afghan identity cards of the husband and the wife that had been submitted and been found to be authentic, the Deputy Minister considered their identity, nationality, origins and ethnicity credible. However, although they had shown that they originated from Afghanistan and were familiar with Kabul, they had not established that they had left that country only recently. In this context it was noted, inter alia : -     that no tickets and travel documents had been submitted capable of establishing the date the family had left Kabul, even though they claimed to have left on an international flight; -     that the identity cards had been issued a long time previously (the husband’s when he was about six years old and the wife’s in 1991); -     that the children’s identity cards, on the basis of which it could have been established that the applicants had been in Afghanistan at the time of issuance of the cards, had not been submitted, for which fact a series of inconsistent and implausible explanations had been proffered; and -     that the children spoke no Dari or Pashtu, the most commonly spoken languages in Afghanistan, which they would have been expected to speak to some extent, even if they spoke only Punjabi at home and at school, in order to get by in Afghan society. 20 .     The Deputy Minister further noted that, even if it were to be accepted that the applicants had recently left Afghanistan, it was most unlikely that the wife and her sister would have decided, and been allowed, to go to the Gurdwara by themselves. In this context regard was had to the applicants’ own statements about the impossibility for Sikh women to go out without male accompaniment, and to country-of-origin information from public sources which confirmed that it was nowadays inconceivable for a Sikh man to allow a female relative to go outdoors unaccompanied. It was similarly found unlikely that the sister would have left the Gurdwara while not yet wearing her burqa. The Deputy Minister noted, moreover, that from the interviews held with the applicants it appeared that the husband knew more details of the kidnapping than his wife even though he had not been present and she had. It was further considered remarkable that the Taliban had not contacted the husband directly if they were unable to find his brother ‑ in ‑ law, as they obviously knew the husband’s address and, even if the family made it look as if their house was uninhabited, the Taliban could have gone to the husband’s shop which he had continued to run. In addition, it was also considered odd that the kidnappers’ demands had changed: whereas they had wanted money from the wife’s brother, they had demanded information about that brother’s whereabouts from the applicants. 21 .     The Deputy Minister concluded that as the applicants’ account had been found to lack credibility, they had failed to make a plausible case for believing that they feared persecution within the meaning of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (“the 1951 Convention”). In assessing the risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention, he considered that, as the general security situation in Kabul did not amount to one of a most extreme case of general violence, there could not be said to be a real risk of ill-treatment simply by virtue of an individual being exposed to such violence on return to that city. It was further concluded that, although the applicants did belong to a minority group which had been designated as vulnerable in the asylum policy in force (see paragraphs 58-60 and 62 below), they had failed to make plausible their fear of treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention by submitting “specific individual characteristics” ( specifieke individuele kenmerken ) within the meaning of that policy, nor had it transpired that human rights violations had occurred in their “immediate circle” ( naaste omgeving ). 22.     The applicants, through their lawyer, lodged an appeal against this decision, submitting, inter alia , that the husband deeply regretted his mistake of allowing his wife and her sister to go to the Gurdwara unaccompanied. They emphasised that the information which the husband had about the kidnapping of his sister-in-law had been told to him by his wife and that any discrepancies between the two accounts were minor. They also argued that the persecution which the Sikhs in Afghanistan had had to endure since the 1990s from the Mujahedeen and the Taliban had led to their children being kept indoors and not going to school. These children had therefore never been in a position to pick up Dari. Moreover, the applicants submitted that in the impugned decision it was disregarded that, in the event that the applicants were not granted asylum for the reason that they had left Afghanistan already a considerable time ago, they would be forced to return to Afghanistan where the Sikh community was no longer a factor of social significance and the number of its members had been decimated. According to the applicants they ought to be granted a residence permit in the Netherlands in accordance with the asylum policy in force , according to which Sikhs were considered vulnerable, even if it were assumed that they had left Afghanistan already some years previously, for the reason that if a Sikh family returned to Afghanistan, there would – solely due to the fact that they would be recognised as Sikhs – immediately be a “limited indication of problems” ( geringe aanwijzing ; see paragraphs   58-59 below) within the meaning of that policy. 23 .     On 10 March 2017 the Regional Court ( rechtbank ) of The Hague, sitting in Haarlem, rejected the appeal, after having held a hearing on 30   January 2017. It considered that the Deputy Minister had on correct grounds found the applicants’ account relating to the kidnapping of their sister(-in-law) and the threatening letters to lack credibility, and it was therefore not necessary to deal with the question whether or not the applicants had left Afghanistan recently. Since the applicants had, moreover, not adduced any individualised arguments concerning problems which other Sikhs in their “immediate circle” had experienced, the Deputy Minister had rightly taken the view that the applicants had not made a plausible case for believing that, upon their return to Afghanistan, they would run a real risk of treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see paragraphs 58-59 below). 24 .     The applicants’ further appeal and request for a provisional measure, lodged by a lawyer on their behalf to the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State ( Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State ), were rejected on 4 April 2017. The appeal was found not to provide grounds for quashing the impugned ruling ( kan niet tot vernietiging van de aangevallen uitspraak leiden ). Having regard to section 91(2) of the Aliens Act 2000 ( Vreemdelingenwet 2000 ), no further reasoning was called for as the arguments submitted did not raise any questions requiring a determination in the interest of legal unity, legal development or legal protection in the general sense. No further appeal lay against this decision. 25 .     On 12 April 2017 the applicants completed a form in order to notify the IND that they wished to lodge a new asylum application. In an accompanying letter of the same date, their lawyer wrote that, even assuming the applicants had left Afghanistan a number of years before applying for asylum in the Netherlands, the fact remained that it was not in dispute that they were Sikhs from Afghanistan, who would have to return to that country if their asylum applications were refused. The lawyer added that Sikhs in Afghanistan, and more particularly in Kabul, no longer constituted an ethnic/religious community whose members were capable of exercising their civil rights. They had withdrawn into the Gurdwara in the Karte Parvan district and there were reportedly also two Sikh families living in the Gurdwara in the Shor Bazar district. Moreover, all reports of States and NGOs on the position of Sikhs in Afghanistan were agreed on the end of the social relevance and independent functioning of the Sikh community in Afghanistan. The position of Sikhs in Afghanistan had become marginalised to such an extent that they could not reasonably be presumed capable of providing Sikhs returning from Europe with a safe reception within their community. 26 .     The applicants lodged their fresh application for asylum on 6 June 2017 and they were interviewed on the same day. They also submitted a letter of 13 April 2017 written by the officer in charge of the office in the Netherlands of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the applicants’ legal representative in which, having been informed of the imminent deportation of the Afghan Sikh families concerned, UNHCR wished to draw the attention of the IND to the situation of Sikhs in Afghanistan. In that context, they cited the section on Hindus and Sikhs from their Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from Afghanistan of April 2016 (see paragraph 74 below), on the basis of which UNHCR considered that, depending on the individual circumstances of the case, members of the Sikh community may be in need of international protection. It was additionally noted in the letter that, since the aforementioned Guidelines had been published, the Sikh community in Afghanistan had continued to face threats and flee Afghanistan; it was estimated that in three decades 99% of the Sikh community had left the country. UNHCR further emphasised that when a group had been determined to be at risk, as the Deputy Minister of Security and Justice had done as regards Sikhs in Afghanistan, this reduced the requirement for other types of evidence such as past persecution. In UNHCR’s view, it was sufficient for the applicant to establish the fact that he or she belonged to the group because of the risk of harm that had already been objectively established for members of that group. Based on this analysis as well as on the constantly worsening situation of Sikhs in Afghanistan, UNHCR urged the IND to reassess the applicants’ refugee claim. 27 .     The report drawn up of the interview conducted with the husband contains, inter alia , the following: “ Are you still in touch with anybody in Afghanistan? No. You said your children cannot go to school. Did your children ever go to school? There are public schools, but there are many restrictions there for children who are not Muslim. They could not go to school there. ... Why do you think you will end up in prison or killed? I mean that we feel imprisoned. We can only stay in the Gurdwara . Not outside. And we no longer have work.” The report of the interview with the wife includes the following: “ Are there any other reasons why you have applied for asylum again? We cannot return to Afghanistan because the situation for Sikhs is very bad, it is not safe for women, children cannot go to school and even for men it is not safe.” 28 .     On 7 June 2017 the applicants were notified of the Deputy Minister’s intention to declare their second asylum application inadmissible for the reason that no new elements or findings, relevant for the assessment of their application, had been presented by them or had arisen. As to the letter from the officer in charge of the UNHCR office in the Netherlands (see paragraph 26 above), the Deputy Minister noted that this referred to country-of-origin information which already existed at the time of the proceedings on the applicants’ first asylum application and could thus have been submitted in those proceedings, but had not been. For that reason, that information could not be considered as new elements or findings. The Deputy Secretary further observed that the applicants had once again claimed that the difficult situation for Sikhs in Afghanistan rendered it dangerous for them to return and that their children would be unable to go to public schools; he considered that these claims also did not amount to new elements or findings. He further referred to the policy in force (see paragraphs 58-59 below) and held that the applicants had not made plausible the existence of “limited indications”, required to accept that they feared treatment in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. On behalf of the applicants, their lawyer responded in writing to the notification, and he also made written substantive changes and/or additions to the reports of the interviews, on the same day. 29 .     On 8 June 2017 the Deputy Minister declared the applicants’ second application inadmissible. Reference was made to the considerations set out in the notification (see paragraph 28 above), which were to be seen as an integral part of the decision. The response to those considerations submitted on behalf of the applicants had not led the Deputy Minister to come to a different opinion. 30 .     In their appeal against the Deputy Minister’s decision, lodged on their behalf by a lawyer, the applicants referred, inter alia , to the case of a Sikh Afghan man who, together with his wife and child, had been expelled to Kabul from the Netherlands in March 2017, despite UNHCR having urged the Dutch authorities – in a letter in much the same terms as the one mentioned in paragraph 26 above – to reassess the family’s refugee claim. This man had recently informed the UNHCR office in Kabul that he and his family were living with a friend in a relatively underprivileged and poor neighbourhood, near a Gurdwara , where other members of the Sikh community also resided (as well as Muslims). An attempt had been made to rob him and he had since been receiving threatening phone calls telling him that next time the callers would know what to do with him. They had also insulted his religion. The man had reported this incident to the police. In their report of their meeting with the man, UNHCR expressed the hope that the Netherlands and other European States would take due account in future of the dire situation in Kabul as well as the Afghan Government’s lack of capacity for providing adequate reintegration support and effective State protection. 31 .     Following a hearing on 29 June 2017, the appeal was dismissed by the Regional Court of The Hague, sitting in Middelburg, on 6 July 2017. It considered that the Deputy Minister had rightly found that no new elements or findings had been submitted. 32.     In their further appeal against that ruling, the applicants argued that the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ country reports on Afghanistan had been stating for years that the Sikhs in Afghanistan were suffering many forms of harassment, and the applicants had also described how they themselves had been exposed to aggression and threats, just like other Sikhs living in their neighbourhood. It had therefore been wrong to hold, as the Regional Court had done, that the applicants had failed to adduce individualised arguments relating to problems experienced by other Sikhs in their “immediate circle”. On 27 July 2017 the provisional-measures judge of the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State rejected the further appeal, as well as the request for a provisional measure, both of which had been lodged by a lawyer on the applicants’ behalf, with the same reasoning as set out in paragraph 24 above. Application no. 530/18 33.     The applicant family, originally from Kabul, lodged a first asylum application on 6 June 2014. At that time the family consisted of a grandmother, father, mother and two children [1] , who were at that time five and eleven years old, respectively. The IND held interviews, conducted in Punjabi with the help of an interpreter, with the adult members of the family on 28 and 30 July 2014. Reports were drawn up of those interviews and the applicants were given the opportunity to make written substantive changes and/or additions to those reports, which a lawyer did on their behalf on 22, 29 and 31 July 2014. Their asylum account may be summarised as follows. 34.     About eight months prior to the family’s departure, three people had forced their way into their home. The father had not been at home. Those present in the house had been told that they were to give the intruders everything they had. As this was not enough, the intruders had grabbed the mother and tried to kidnap her. The grandmother, together with her husband, had tried to protect their daughter-in-law, but the grandmother’s husband was hit on the head and beaten. After the grandmother and the mother had shouted for help, the intruders had left. The grandmother’s husband had died as a result of the beating. 35.     The applicants further described how they had constantly been subjected to harassment in Kabul on account of their adherence to the Sikh religion: they had been spat at, insulted, called “infidels”, and pressured into converting to Islam. The grandmother had had a stone thrown at her head while on her way home from the Gurdwara , and the father had had his turban pulled off his head. The women and children of the extended family had barely ventured outside, and the children had therefore not gone to school. A school for Sikh children had closed down; although they were allowed to go to Islamic schools, the applicants considered it too dangerous for them to do so. For this reason, the children only spoke Punjabi – the language spoken at home – and not Dari. 36.     After the grandmother’s husband had been killed, they had held a family council, together with the grandmother’s brother and the latter’s wife who lived above them, and it had been decided that all of them would leave Afghanistan. They had sold their house and the fabric store owned by the grandmother’s husband and his brother, where the father also worked. During this time they had received two threatening letters, in which they had been called infidels. The grandmother’s brother and his wife had gone to the United Kingdom. Although the applicants would also have liked to go there because they had family living there, their “travel agent” had informed the father that that would take some time to organise and, wishing to leave Afghanistan for a destination safe for Sikhs as soon as possible, they had agreed to go to the Netherlands. 37.     On 4 June 2014, accompanied by a “travel agent”, the applicants flew from Kabul to Dubai, from where they used a connecting flight to travel to an unknown city. They were then taken by car to the Netherlands, where they arrived the next day. 38.     In the Netherlands, the applicants were also interviewed for the purposes of language analysis. In reports drawn up by the IND’s Language Analysis Section ( Bureau Land en Taal ) of 1 September 2014, it was concluded that, on the basis of their proficiency in Punjabi and Dari (as well as Pashtu in the case of the father), the applicants unequivocally displayed the linguistic characteristics of Afghans. 39.     On 1 December 2014, the Deputy Minister of Security and Justice notified the applicants in writing of his intention to reject their asylum applications. The applicants were given the opportunity to respond in writing to that notification, which a lawyer did on their behalf on 29   December 2014 and 20 January 2015. 40 .     The Deputy Minister rejected the asylum applications on 9   February 2015 primarily on the grounds that it was not considered credible that the applicants had only recently left Afghanistan. It was held in this context, inter alia : -     that they did not have up ‑ to ‑ date knowledge of the situation in Kabul where they claimed to have been residing (for example, they did not know the name of the mayor of Kabul); -     the mother could name only one street in Kabul; -     the father did not know the exact location of a polling station in their neighbourhood and his claim that this was because Sikhs did not vote was demonstrably incorrect; -     the father claimed to have spent just six weeks in military service in 1992 and having been tasked only with building-maintenance duties, which was considered unlikely given that the Afghan army had been engaged in combat with the Mujahedeen at the time; -     according to the applicants there were a number of Gurdwaras in Kabul, but they appeared unaware that at the alleged time of their departure only one of those had still been active; -     their description of the Gurdwara attended by them was incorrect; -     contrary to the applicants’ claims, a school for Sikh children had been open in Kabul around the time of their alleged departure; and -     it was unlikely that the children would not have been taught Dari, the most commonly spoken language in Afghanistan, if they genuinely had been living in that country. Having regard, also, to the dates on which the father and mother’s identity cards had been issued (1974 and 1986, respectively), it was even considered possible that the applicants had not been living in Kabul for decades. Not believing that the applicants had recently been resident in Kabul, the Deputy Minister found that no credence could be attached to the events which they claimed had taken place in the period preceding their departure for the Netherlands. Moreover, the Deputy Minister considered that the applicants’ accounts of those alleged events contained many contradictions and inconsistencies, in particular as regards the incident during which the grandmother’s husband had allegedly been killed and the threatening letters which they had purportedly received. For that reason it was not believed that those events had actually taken place. Although it was believed that the applicants were Afghan Sikhs, who were considered a “vulnerable minority group” under Netherlands asylum policy (see paragraphs 58-60 and 62 below), the applicants had failed to make plausible their fear of treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention by submitting “specific individual characteristics”, nor had it transpired that any human rights violations had been committed in their “immediate circle”. 41.     On the applicants’ behalf, a lawyer lodged an appeal against this decision. He argued, inter alia , that the assumption that the applicants had been gone from Afghanistan already for a protracted period of time meant that there was even less reason than in the case of a recent departure to accept that they could receive social and economic assistance from their own Sikh community. If expelled to Kabul the applicants would be confronted with such deplorable humanitarian conditions that it would amount to a breach of their rights under Article 3 of the Convention. 42 .     Following a hearing on 7 July 2015, the applicants’ appeal was upheld by the Regional Court of The Hague on 26 October 2015 in view of the fact that asylum had been granted in a number of other cases concerning Sikhs from Afghanistan despite the fact that in those cases also it had not been believed that the persons concerned had left their country of origin shortly before arriving in the Netherlands. 43 .     However, on a further appeal lodged by the Deputy Minister, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State found against the applicants on 29 August 2016. It held that some of the decisions invoked by the applicants concerned cases which were not sufficiently similar to theirs and that the other decisions to which they referred amounted to an erroneous application of the policy in force. As the impugned decision of the Regional Court, therefore, could not stand, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State went on to examine itself the grounds of appeal that had been submitted by the applicants to the Regional Court. It noted that according to the applicants, they ought to be granted a residence permit under the asylum policy in force, claiming that the following circumstances should qualify as “limited indications of problems” within the meaning of that policy: only very few Sikhs remained in Kabul; as Sikhs, they would be immediately recognisable and subjected to violence; they would be homeless and economically disadvantaged; and due to the small number of Sikhs in Afghanistan and the fact that they had not been living in that country for some time, they would not be able to call on the remaining Sikhs for help. Reiterating that in order to be eligible for a residence permit under the terms of the policy in force, the applicants were required to demonstrate “limited indications”, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State found that the circumstances adduced by the applicants were not “specific individual characteristics” and nor did they relate to problems experienced by other Sikhs in their “immediate circle”. Given that they had not been living in Afghanistan for some time, that their asylum accounts had been considered as lacking in credibility, and that they had not argued that others in their “immediate circle” had experienced problems as Sikhs, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State concluded that they had not plausibly demonstrated the existence of “limited indications”. 44 .     The applicants announced their intention to lodge a new asylum application with the immigration authorities on 24 February 2017. In an accompanying letter of the same date – the contents of which were almost the same as that of the letter mentioned in paragraph 25 above –, their lawyer pointed to the worsening security situation of Sikhs in Afghanistan and referred to a letter of 19 April 2017 concerning the applicants, written by the officer in charge of UNHCR’s office in the Netherlands, the text of which was virtually the same as that of the letter mentioned in paragraph 26 above. The letter of the applicants’ lawyer further contained the following: “It is also important to take account of the fact that D.K.G, born ... on 1 January 1947, is a member of the family. ... This 70-year-old woman’s medical file indicates that she requires practically continuous medical care which she will be unable to receive as an elderly Sikh lady in Islamic Kabul. ... The family also comprises H.S.G. who was born in the Netherlands and is currently nine months old. Due to the fact that the family counts a very young child and a very old woman amongst its members it will be even more difficult to find a safe place of refuge in Kabul than would in any event be the case.” 45 .     The applicants lodged their new asylum request on 20   September 2017 and they were interviewed on the same day. At their request, the interviews took place in Dari, with the help of an interpreter. The report drawn up of the interview with the father contains, inter alia , the following: “ Are there other reasons why you are applying for asylum again? My mother is sick. She is very old and will not get the help she needs in Afghanistan. ... My wife is unable to go outside in Afghanistan and my daughter cannot go to school there. ... Have you had any contacts with persons in Afghanistan recently? No. We have not had any contacts with persons in Afghanistan.” The report of the interview with the mother includes the following: “ Do you have any relatives in Afghanistan with whom you are in touch? No. Nobody at all. Do you have any friends in Afghanistan with whom you are in touch? No. Are there any Sikhs in Afghanistan who you do perhaps not consider as friends but with whom you are in touch? No. We do not have anybody.” The report of the interview with the grandmother contains, inter alia , the following: “ Suppose that you return to Afghanistan. What will happen to you? I used to live in my brother’s house. My brother has sold the house. I have no money and no accommodation. I also do not have anybody who can protect me. ... Are there any other reasons why you are applying for asylum again? My health is not good. I have been well taken care of in the Netherlands. I have had surgery and I get medication. This would not be possible in Afghanistan. Every hospital in Afghanistan refuses us. Nobody there is interested if you die. I am also happy that my grandchild is able to go to school here in the Netherlands. That is not possible there.” 46 .     On 20 September 2017 the applicants were notified that the Acting Deputy Minister intended to reject the renewed applications for asylum. In these notifications the Deputy Minister identified as relevant elements of the fresh asylum applications, inter alia , the allegedly deteriorated situation of Sikhs in Afghanistan and the applicants’ claim that upon return they would be subjected to discriminatory and aggressive treatment. In relation to the first element, the Deputy Minister considered that to the extent the applicants argued that they were eligible for an asylum residence permit because they were Sikhs and belonged to an “at-risk group” as well as to a “vulnerable minority group” (see paragraph 58 below), their asylum accounts had been found to lack credibility, and their submissions in support of their repeat asylum requests included neither “specific individual characteristics” nor circumstances experienced by others as Sikhs in their “immediate circle”. No plausible case had thus been made out for the existence of “limited indications” on the basis of which it ought to be accepted that the applicants, upon return to their country of origin, would run a real risk of serious harm. It could, accordingly, not be concluded that there were “limited indications” rendering the applicants eligible for an asylum residence permit within the framework of Article 3 of the Convention. In addressing the second relevant element named above, that is the individual circumstances submitted by the applicants, the notification to each adult member of the family contained the following, almost identically worded, paragraph: “The person concerned has further submitted that upon return to his country of origin he will be subjected to discrimination and aggression. The person concerned has not plausibly demonstrated that he runs a real risk of serious harm upon return. In that context it is considered that it cannot be concluded that the person concerned runs a real risk of serious harm solely for the reason that he is a Sikh. As already noted, both the asylum account and the alleged recent departure of the person concerned have been found not to be credible in the previous asylum request. It can therefore not be concluded that there would be a real risk in this context. It appears from the decision of the Council of State of 29 August 2016 in the proceedings on the previous asylum request that the arguments relating to this relevant element do not succeed.” (See paragraph 43 above for the Council of State’s decision of 29 August 2016.) 47.     The applicants were given the opportunity to respond in writing to the notification, which their lawyer did on their behalf by letter of 20   September 2017. On the same day the lawyer also made written substantive changes and/or additions to the reports of the interviews. 48 .     The second asylum application was rejected by the Acting Deputy Minister on 22 September 2017. As regards the reasons for these decisions, the Acting Deputy Minister referred to the notifications in which the most relevant aspects of the cases had been extensively addressed (see paragraph   46 above). The considerations set out in the notifications were to be seen as an integral part of the decisions. The Acting Deputy Minister considered that the response to the notification as submitted by the applicants gave no cause to reach a different conclusion than the one set out in the notifications and concluded that the applicants had still not substantiated their alleged fear of persecution and of treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention by submitting “specific individual characteristics”. 49 .     The applicants’ lawyer lodged an appeal against this decision, which was rejected by the Regional Court of The Hague, sitting in Middelburg, on 23 October 2017. The Regional Court held, inter alia : “12.     ... the respondent is entitled to require the appellants to make plausible with limited indications that they fear persecution in Afghanistan. Since it has been settled in law [in the proceedings on the applicants’ first asylum application] that the appellants’ asylum account lacks credibility, no limited indications pertain. ... 14.     At the hearing the appellants once more referred to ... a report from the US Department of State entitled ‘2016 Report on International Religious Freedom, Afghanistan 15 August 2017’. This report states that the number of Sikhs in Afghanistan is decreasing. According to the appellants this also entails a deterioration of the situation for them upon return. They will no longer have a network to fall back on. In the impugned decision the respondent ... correctly took the view that this document and the other documents [submitted] cannot be considered as the required specific individual characteristics which would lead to the appellants being eligible for asylum for the reason that they belong to an at-risk group or a vulnerable minority. These documents do not concern the appellants’ individual situation.” 50 .     The final decision was taken by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State, which rejected the further appeal, lodged by the applicants’