After a nerve-racking week, The Administrative Court has stopped temporarily deportation proceedings of Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 406 in Joutseno*, Finland.
“I was relieved when I heard the news from the lawyer (Friday),” he said. “This has given me hope and I almost gave up hope and didn’t mind if I died.”
Even if the deportation was stopped it doesn’t mean that the asylum seeker is out of the woods.
“On my second application for asylum I got a rejection from Migri (The Finnish Immigration Service),” he continued. “I don’t know how long it will take for the administrative court to decide but it may take as much as 3-6 months.”
The Iraqi asylum seeker said that he would like to be freed from detention but that the authorities are skeptical because he traveled to Germany, where he was deported back to Finland.
“I have told the police that I will not go anywhere or leave the country if I’m freed from detention,” he continued. “This detention center is a horrible place. There are human smugglers and murderers. What am I doing in such a place?”
* The asylum seeker who was locked up in this cell thought he was in Lappeenranta but in fact he was at the Joutseno immigration removal center located 20km away.