France has done it again and put Finland’s draconian asylum policy into the light of day for what it is: inhumane and politically guided.The Administrative Court of Appeal of Lyon has upheld a decision against transferring an Afghan family to Finland for fear that they could be deported to Afghanistan.
The decision followed a similar one in January when a similar administrative court in France upheld a ruling against transferring an Iraqi asylum seeker back to Finland for fear that he could end up deported and sent to Iraq.
Writes the European Database of Asylum Law about the decision by the Administrative Court of Appeal of Lyon:
“However, it upheld the lower court’s understanding that there is, in Kabul, a situation of indiscriminate violence as a result of the internal armed conflict in Afghanistan. Therefore, by not deciding to take responsibility for the asylum application and ordering the transfer of the applicants to Finland, where they could then be returned to Afghanistan, the transfer decision was unlawful and had to be quashed.”
The asylum policies of the Finnish Immigration Service are so extreme that they are turning against Migri and the government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä.
We saw something similar in the early 1980s, when the head of the Aliens Office, Eilä Kännö’s arbitrary and hardline policies against migrants backfired and forced her to retire.
Migri considers parts of Afghanistan and Iraq to be safe to deport asylum seekers.
Read the full statement here.