CCPR/C/106/D/1912/2009 mentioned on his identity card. He also notes that he would not be able to travel to the North, due to travel restrictions for Tamils and even if he were to travel to his village of origin, he may face arbitrary detention and torture, as displaced persons continue to be interned in the North. He therefore submits that his deportation by the State party to Sri Lanka would constitute a violation of his rights under articles 6, paragraph 1, 7 and 9, paragraph 1, of the Covenant. 3.3 The author underlines that the situation in Sri Lanka has evolved significantly since April 2009, when the State party made its most recent substantive decisions concerning the author. In the interim, the Sri Lankan authorities declared a military victory over the LTTE, and the open warfare between the LTTE and the government forces has therefore not subsided. However, in the aftermath of the military victory by the government forces, repression and mistreatment of Tamil civilians have not subsided. They continue to be subject to ongoing arrest, harassment and persecution in Colombo, as well as internment in the North and East. With regard to internal flight alternatives for Tamils from the North, the author cites the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from Sri Lanka, which highlight that Tamils from the Northern area are at heightened risk of human rights violations in the whole Sri Lankan territory. 6 Those guidelines further establish that it is not possible to identify particular categories of Tamils at risk and that in asylum claims by Tamils from the North of Sri Lanka, well-founded fear of persecution should be presumed. 3.4 The author further cites reports by the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch on the conditions in detention camps of internally displaced persons in Vavuniya district. He also cites an assessment by Amnesty International Canada on his specific case, stating that he is at serious risk of facing grave human rights violations should he be returned to Colombo. Indeed, the opinion letter dated 1 June 2009 states that Amnesty International is of the view that, as an ethnic Tamil male and failed asylum seeker, who is originally from Valvettithurai in Jaffna, and must, upon return reside in Colombo, the author is at serious risk of facing grave human rights violations. 3.5 In his communication, the author challenges the refugee determination and asylum procedures. He considers that the IRB decision questions his credibility on minor discrepancies, based on the divergence between the information provided by the author on the conflict and the official information received from the Sri Lankan authorities. In the author’s opinion one should never expect the agent of persecution to offer a transparent account of the facts and therefore the official account of the events is biased. The IRB did not at all consider the outstanding issue of persecution of the Tamil civilian population by the Sri Lankan authorities. The author also criticizes the fact that Canadian legislation does not offer any possibility to appeal the merits of an IRB decision. In this regard, as only new evidence can then be presented in the framework of the PRRA application, the latter was never meant to be an appeal against the IRB procedure, which the author deplores. 3.6 While the PRRA officer in the first PRRA application procedure did take note of numerous human rights violations against the Tamil population and the fact that the entire Tamil population, and particularly those who, like the author, hail from the North or East of the country are at risk of persecution or mistreatment, the officer concluded that the author would not face such treatment because he is not a young Tamil male. The only evidence related to that profile was related to the risk of forced recruitment of young Tamils by the LTTE or the Karuna faction. As for the H&C application, the assessment was also done by 6 See UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the Internal Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from Sri Lanka (April 2009). 5