Even if former Finnish President Tarja Halonen (2006-2012) said today that deportations of asylum seekers should be suspended until the authorities have updated their security information of Afghanistan, Iraq and especially Syria, according to YLE News, there are plans to deport yet another Iraqi family with four children to their home country on Friday, April 28.
The youngest child of the family is about a year old and the eldest 6 years.
One of the sources that is trying to help this family and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the family is in danger in Iraq because their mother could face an honor killing for not having the consent of her parents upon getting married.
“The family has two rejections for asylum and they are staying at the asylum reception center in Pori,” the person said. “I wish our government would follow the law and not return women and children back to conflict areas where they are put in harm’s way.”
The Finnish Constitution doesn’t allow minors and adults to be deported to war zones.
Section 9 of the Constitution guarantees:
“The right of foreigners to enter Finland and to remain in the country is regulated by an Act. A foreigner shall not be deported, extradited or returned to another country, if in consequence he or she is in danger of a death sentence, torture or other treatment violating human dignity.”
Three of the four children of the Iraqi family posing in the picture could be deported from Finland next week.
Taking into account the the number of deportations to countries like Iraq will pick up this year, the Finnish parliament approved in December that children can be locked up like common criminals like in the case of the Iraqi family of nine at the Joutsen immigration removal center.
All the Finnish parties except for the Greens, Left Alliance and the Swedish People’s Party voted in favor of the law, according to a statement by Amnesty International.
