Migrant Tales understands that the Kemi reception center, which is located in northern Finland, will take part in a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with a larger one planned for Helsinki Wednesday. The source at the Kemi reception center said that the demonstration is against a new assessment for Iraq, which now sees that it is a safe country to return asylum seekers.
The new appraisal made by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) includes Afghanistan and Somalia in its list of safe countries thus making it more difficult for over 32,500 asylum seekers to receive residence permits in Finland.
The source said that it hoped for at least 60 demonstrators to take part in the demonstration in Kemi tomorrow.
Despite the new assessment, Finland’s foreign ministry doesn’t recommend Finnish nationals to travel to such countries.
“This is a demonstration against Migri that claims that countries like Iraq are now safe,” the asylum seeker said. “We are grateful for all the help we have received up to now from Finland.”
Migrant Tales will update this story later this evening.