Namir al-Azzawin informed Migrant Tales by Facebook that he is out of hospital and will resume his hunger strike near Parliament. Zimema Mhone will upload a video shortly with an interview with al-Azzawin.
Al-Azzawin said he needed a tent. Does anyone have a tent to give or could lend?
We are saddened to inform the following news about Namir al-Azzawin, who has been on a hunger strike for three days.
Writes Zimema Mhone: “I just got word that Namir fainted and was taken to intensive care.”
Al-Azzawin wrote a letter on Sunday addressed to the people of Finland:
Dear People of Finland,
I started my hunger strike on Sunday in protest of the unfair decision by the Immigration Authorities (Migri), which claim that countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are safe to return asylum seekers. Many of us Iraqis were disappointed by the decision taking into account that we fled that country because it wasn’t and still isn’t safe. I will not stop my hunger strike until the Immigration Authorities change their decision.
We hope the best for him and a speedy recovery to this brave man.
Zimema Mhone*
When I woke up this morning, I did not know that I would be spending the afternoon with one of the most courageous people I have ever met in person. I went down to see Namir al-Azzawin, an Iraqi asylum seeker, after reading about his hunger strike last night on Migrant Tales.
I wanted to propose making a short film about his protest and gain a better understanding of the struggles migrants are currently facing in Finland. I wasn’t sure whether it is something he would want to do, given I am a complete stranger. I was also very nervous since this is a very real situation – in Finland, an estimated 20,000 asylum seekers are going to be denied residency permits because their countries have been upgraded to ‘safe’ by the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri).
Even those who were granted temporary permits may also have them discontinued based on the new Migri assessment. For asylum seekers from countries like Namir’s this is nothing short of a disaster. Namir is protesting this assessment with a hunger strike in front of Parliament House (more on this later…).
When I arrived at 12pm today, the location was empty but for some very saddening images.
Continue reading “Zimema Mhone: Iraqi asylum seeker hunger strike day 2”
Dear People of Finland,
I started my hunger strike on Sunday in protest of the unfair decision by the Immigration Authorities (Migri), which claim that countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are safe to return asylum seekers. Many of us Iraqis were disappointed by the decision taking into account that we fled that country because it wasn’t and still isn’t safe. I will not stop my hunger strike until the Immigration Authorities change their decision.
Namir al-Azzawi
(Migrant Tales will report on a daily basis about the progress of the hunger strike. We hope that other media and bloggers will visit Namir al-Azzawi and write about him and his hunger strike).
Continue reading “Iraqi asylum seeker hunger strike day 1: “Iraq wasn’t and still isn’t safe””
Two peaceful demonstrations by Iraqi asylum seekers took place Wednesday in Helsinki and Kemi to protest a Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) assessment that countries like Iraq are safe for asylum seekers, according to the organizers.
“About 150 people took part in the demonstration today in front of Parliament [in Helsinki],” an asylum seeker told Migrant Tales.
“This is an important message that we must get across,” said another asylum seeker in Kemi by phone. “Countries like Iraq aren’t safe for us to return.”
The new assessment by Migri makes it harder for asylum seekers in Finland to be granted residence permits.
Last year, some 32,500 asylum seekers came to Finland. Most of them were from Iraq.
The tightening of government immigration policies is attributable to the rise in anti-immigration sentiment and to the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party, which is a member of government with the Center Party and National Coalition Party.
Migrant Tales published on Friday a story where it asked about the circumstances of the death of an asylum seeker, Jayyed Abbas Jaffari (1995-2016), in early January that was staying at Luona’s reception center in Espoo. Was there negligence or not by the private company that runs reception centers in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa?
Luona claims that there was no negligence, or inadequate treatment, concerning the death of the young Afghani asylum seeker at its reception center in Espoo’s Nihtisilta.
But who should we believe? Has there been an independent investigation?
There are many unanswered questions not only about Jaffari but how asylum seekers are treated at Luona’s reception centers. While the Finnish Immigration Service (FIS) is responsible for the treatment of asylum seekers at reception centers, do they have adequate resources to do so?
Christian Democrat Interior Minister Päivi Räsänen has a dubious reputation in Finland for her homophobic and conservative religious views. In her latest attack against refugees, Räsänen writes that when an asylum-seeker gets a negative decision and doesn’t want to leave the country, the Finnish Immigration Service is required to give a residence permit if the person cannot return back to his or her country for a number of reasons.
Kaisa Väkiparta, head of communications at the Finnish Refugee Council, flatly disagrees with Räsänen’s claim.
“This isn’t true,” she writes. “The Supreme Administrative Court had to make an alignment concerning such cases because the Finnish Immigration Service wasn’t following the law. “
Väkiparta said that Räsänen’s plans to change the law would force the number of undocumented migrants in the country to rise.
Räsänen writes in a statement that such a “loophole” in the law, which permits asylum-seekers to get a residence permit after a negative decision, has lured more asylum-seekers to Finland.
The rise in such residence permits to asylum-seekers who have received a negative decision – according to Väkiparta – hinge on the residence permits that the Finnish Immigration Service was supposed to give in the first place.
“The amount of asylum-seekers to Finland has been pretty stable in the past years, or about 3,000 people annually,” she says. “There is no factual base that the [so-called] loophole is luring people [to Finland].”
A total of 3,238 people applied for asylum in Finland compared with 3,129 people in the previous year, according to the Finnish Immigration Service. The largest single group of asylum seekers was Iraqis (819) followed by Russians (226) and Somalis (217).
The number of asylum seekers coming to Finland oscillated between 1,500 and 6,000 over the 5-year period from 2006 to 2010.
”The situation has been stable for a few years,” Esko Repo, head of the FIS refugee unit, was quoted as saying in Helsingin Sanomat.
A total of 4,055 asylum decisions were made by the authorities last year. Forty-five percent (1,827 applicants) were given asylum while the rest were rejected.
The average processing time for asylum applications was 190 days, with 80% of applicants processed in 156 days.
Meanwhile in neighboring Sweden, the total number of asylum seekers in 2013 was 54,259 persons, or whom 24,498 were given asylum, according to the Migration Board of Sweden. This compares with 11,983 asylum seekers in Norway in 2013 and 3,896 in Denmark during the first three quarters of the year.
By Dana
Why are we all so passive if we’re oppressed? What do you fear? What will you fear losing? Money? Benefits? What, then?
Where’s your humanity? Who makes up your mind for you? Who controls your thoughts? How do you build and make your morals and values stronger each day?
What is your religion? If you have few morals, then you and your religion don’t count much. Don’t fool yourself in the name of religion, and in the name of the law.
Do you hate me? Do you care about me? Yes, it’s easy not to care about me because it was three years that I spent on trying to bring my parents to Finland. I spent a lot of money. It cost me as well my time, my trust, my family, my dearest parents, my blood, my wish, my happiness and my hope.
When you lose a five-cent coin, u will probably search for it for at least 20 minutes. I spent three years searching!
I invite you to judge me and my case. Go ahead and show me ur hate over and over again…it’s easy for you because Finnish law works in your favor, not in mine.
Could you tell me why Finnish law works for you but not for me? What’s the difference between you and me, as a foreigner and foreigner, or as a foreigner and Finn?
Does it have something to do about human worth?
What does human worth mean to u? Can it be measured with money?
Why should I care for you if you have all you need?
What makes you feel happy about my situation? When i lost my parents you felt so happy – why? U think death only affects my parents and me?
Death will catch you sooner than you think and you can’t take your money with you, nothing, except yourself and your indifference and crimes.
FIS* laughs in our faces
FIS has a good time with our money and time
FIS instills tragedy that can destroy your life in the name of the law.
How would you stand up to FIS?
Would you struggle with FIS or become its jester?
How?
Show me how?
You could at least spare some of your pain on this blog.
*Finnish Immigration Service
By Dana
The Finnish Immigration Service (FIS) strikes terror in immigrants like me. I’ve lived for three years in uncertainty not knowing if I’d ever be reunited with my family. My mother died in May and my father in July. I hadn’t seen my beloved parents for seven years. I never thought that the last time we saw each other in 2006 in Iran, that we’d never see each other again.
The FIS was never helpful. It made sure that I’d live with uncertainty about ever being reunited with my family. The uncertainty persisted day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second.
The FIS not only terrorized with uncertainty but my family in Iran too. I tried so hard to improve my life in Finland. Having my parents at my side would have helped matters a lot. But nothing ever happened. My application was shelved in some lost FIS corner, where it gathered dust.
The aim of the FIS is clear: to put as many obstacles in front of me so my parents would never come and live with me in Finland. Its aim was simple: to ensure that I’d live alone and in loneliness for the rest of my days in Finland. How cruel and senseless…
Who are the FIS? They’re always showing off themselves as being so important…there are many family reunification cases like mine waiting in the FIS. Many, many are waiting for their turn, waiting, waiting. The FIS responds: “Oh, we have no time now…You are nothing, nothing, but wounded people, your deep filthy wounds…”
Who are those officials, judges in the appeals and supreme court? What kind of judges are they anyway? Judges of what? For whom? What values are they judging and defending? Not mine!
Yes – power is dark.
Dark power isn’t immortal and will lose in the end because it is its worst enemy… The Finnish Immigration Service not only work against me but against Finland, and itself…A dark wind is howling for them, it is a sad song indeed.
I got a negative decision three times to bring my mother and father to Finland. I’m have a feeling, and am certain, that they never took my case seriously. They never cared about me never mind my parents.
Even you, reader, hiding from my eyes. But GOD will answer you and tell you that you cannot hide from GOD because GOD is the Master of the Universe, which you are not. You are a virus, a dangerous virus that will soon infect the whole of Finland and then it’ll be too late because nothing will be able to save this country. Finland now has a fever, a high fever, hotter than your sauna, hotter than the suffering you inflicted on me and my family.
I do not care about those persons who may judge me, in silence or with words, on this blog.
Are you a Finn?
A foreigner?
Do you have your family with you by your side in Finland?
Has what happened to me happened to you? How has the FIS treated you? Speak, speak, speak out here on this blog…
Like I have, now.