Author: Migrant Tales

Speaking to two asylum seekers detained at the Joutseno immigration removal center

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A twenty-four-year-old asylum seeker, which Finland has tried to deport twice and failed, has been locked up for about two months at the Joutseno immigration removal center. The question is for how long can the authorities keep a man locked up for simply refusing to be deported?

The man, who is from Iraq and has two rejections for asylum in Finland, asks through his English-speaking roommate who to publish pictures of how he was beaten up by the police after be was forced off the plane.

“I came to Finland when I was sixteen and I’ve been locked up at Joutseno for one month,” he said on the phone. “I don’t understand why I’m going to be deported since my brother, who is living in Finland for four years, got asylum for the same reasons I told Migri [the Finnish Immigration Service].”

The young asylum seeker, who is also from Iraq, said that his father lives in Germany as a resident.


A picture of the twenty-four-year-old asylum seeker after he was removed from the plane. He alleges that the police hit him. In one picture not shown his teeth appear to be damaged possibly from the impact of a fist.

Continue reading “Speaking to two asylum seekers detained at the Joutseno immigration removal center”

UPDATE: Three suicide attempts allegedly took place within a month at the Joutseno immigration removal center

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The Joutseno immigration removal center must be a horrible place to spend your last days or weeks in Finland. Migrant Tales has heard that there have been at least three suicide attempts, two allegedly “successful” with one person hospitalized. 

Since the immigration removal center or the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) hasn’t confirmed what happened, we have to rely on other sources from within the immigration removal center. This is what we know so far:

  • About 20 days ago an eighteen-year-old Moroccan took his life;
  • Three days ago another young asylum seeker attempted to hang himself but was thwarted by his cellmate at the last moment. He is in hospital;
  • UPDATED: Last night, allegedly a twenty-two-old Iraqi (not Moroccan) took his life.

As mentioned, these are unconfirmed reports given by asylum seekers at the immigration removal center. We hope that Migri or the interior ministry will keep us up to date on what is happening at Joutseno.

An asylum seeker at Joutseno asked about the person who attempted suicide and they would not give any information on the matter.

This picture was taken on Saturday and allegedly a Moroccan national, 22, took his life at the Joutseno immigration removal center.

 

What happened at the Jouseno immigration removal center Saturday? Was there another suicide attempt?

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Migrant Tales has heard that a Moroccan national, who was allegedly put in solitary confinement, attempted to take his life Saturday. This is not the first case in a short while but there are two more. One of these allegedly ended in death. 

The snapshot below was apparently taken Saturday evening.

We will not post the video because it could expose the person’s identity and put him in harm’s way in his home country.

A man is being taken away on a stretcher.

 

UPDATED (25.2 at 9.53 am):

 

This is an ongoing story. It will be updated.

Another suicide attempt takes place at the Joutseno immigration removal center

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Migrant Tales has heard that a Moroccan national has allegedly attempted suicide at the Joutseno immigration removal canter of eastern Finland, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Two sources speak of three suicide attempts but these are unconfirmed. 

It would be good matter if the authorities at the Joutseno immigration removal center make public how many have died while attempting suicide and if the latest case was successful.

UPDATE from another source at 1.33am:

The police officer, and the asylum seeker’s lighter: “I’ll give it back to you in Baghdad”

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A twenty-one-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker, who was miraculously saved from deportation twice, told about his last ordeal. He remembers a woman police office in Mikkeli who took his lighter and said she would return it in Baghdad. 

The police officer took the asylum seeker’s lighter when they were smoking together. He offered her his lighter because the police officer din’t have a light.

“She kept the lighter and said that she’d give it back in Baghdad,” he said, confirming that she still hasn’t returned the lighter to him.

The lighter that the woman police officer promised to give back in Baghdad. She still has it and hasn’t returned it.

Is this the way the Finnish police acts with asylum seekers who are in shock and worried about their deportation?

Continue reading “The police officer, and the asylum seeker’s lighter: “I’ll give it back to you in Baghdad””

Finnair flight AY1433 to Berlin and the sad case of a deportee – #boycottfinnair!

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A couple traveled to Berlin on a Finnair flight Thursday. The passenger that witnessed a forced deportation on the flight wrote about it on her Facebook wall. Helsinki police chief inspector, Liisa Lintuluoto, denied in MTV3 that anything of the sort had happened on the flight.  

Writes the woman who saw the asylum seeker on the flight:

“On Fnnair flight AY1433 from Helsinki to Berlin there was a person who was being deported. There were two men sitting beside the man in the last row of the plane. His hands were bound with a cable tie. The man had blood coming from a wound in his head that was treated in a rudimentary manner. The man was shaking and looked into my eyes and said, ‘Please help me!’ After this, his mouth was taped and his head was placed between the knees, which was how he was detained. The police who accompanied him made it impossible to communicate with the person, who was suffering greatly.

Every person is entitled to being treated in a respectful manner with his human rights irrespective of the situation.

I will never forget that person’s suffering eyes and his pleas for help.”

The original posting on Facebook.

Migrant Tales knows one of the persons who saw what happened on the Finnair flight to Berlin.

Who do I believe?

The denials of the police in MTV3 are revealing. It’s what they don’t say that incriminates them.

Another culprit is Finnair. It is the national carrier of a country that is criticized by Amnesty International for its human rights violations of asylum seekers.

I will boycott Finnair, and I hope you do the same.

#boycottfinnair!

Asylum seeker in detention cell 208: “I’ll be released again – I hope I’ll never have to see this place again”

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A supreme administrative court order today stopped Monday’s deportation of an Iraqi asylum seeker in detention cell 208 (detained last year in cell 406). It was in November when the twenty-one-year-old asylum seeker, after being held for 32 days, was released under the same circumstances. 

At  4:30 pm sharp a guard at the Joutseno* immigration removal center told him that he’d released shortly.

The joy was evident in the asylum seeker’s voice as he vowed to never return to the immigration removal center.

“I’ll be released again,” he said. “I hope I’ll never have to see this place again.”

* 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.

Asylum seeker in detention cell 208: Two pictures, two views of the Joutseno immigration removal center

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Below are two pictures were taken of a window from the immigration removal center in the southeastern Finnish town Joutseno*. The photo on the left was taken on Thursday and the one on the right in November. 

Think about it. An asylum seeker travels hell and high water to come to a country in Finland. The trip is also costly. What are the last images if you get deported? A cell window and an airport.

Amnesty International published today its 2017/2018 report, and it doesn’t write pretty things about how Finland treats asylum seekers.

It states:

“Despite international NGOs raising concern, Finland continued to forcibly return asylum- seekers whose applications were rejected to Afghanistan.”

Forced deportations and the general situation of asylum seekers and migrants in Finland shows how much we have shut off empathy for coldness.

There is today in Finland a moral crisis that also inflicts the rest of Europe.

How can we claim to be a nation that loves freedom and upholds human rights if we deny others such rights?

* 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.

Migrant Tales Literary: The moon and me by Saboora

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Saboora* is a young Iraqi asylum seeker who turns to art to write about her long and painful journey from the Middle East to Finland. In the painting below, which she calls “The moon and me,” is about an asylum seeker, a leafless tree, and the moon. 

Saboora doesn’t deny that the person in the painting could be her.

“Since I have no-one to talk to and nobody understands what I want to say,” she said, “the only one I can talk to is the moon.”

The “Moon and me” by Saboora.

*Saboora’s real name has been changed because she is an asylum seeker.

See also:

The story of two asylum seekers in Finland: Aerzo’s and Saboora’s three drawings

CORRECTION: A Moroccan asylum seeker who was sentenced to a year in prison attempts suicide

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Migrant Tales understands that a Moroccan asylum seeker attempted to take his life at the Joutseno* immigration removal center. The man was doing a one-year sentence of which he had served eight months. 

In an earlier story, we said incorrectly that the asylum seeker had taken his life. He is allegedly in the hospital recovering.

“He was taken to the hospital Wednesday night after he hanged himself in his cell,” said the source. “He is supposed to be deported [back to his home country].”

Two pictures of the Joutseno immigration removal center taken from cell 406 in 2017.

* 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.