DENMARK. A 58-year old statesless Palestinian was deported to Lebanon today after 25 years in Denmark. The deportation was part of a sentence, the first part being jail time. The activist group “Stop the Deportations” (“Stop Udvisningerne“) calls the deportation order racist, because the man had already served his time in prison. In a press release they call it “double punishment”.
The group organized protests at the Copenhagen airport to try to stop the deportation, although they knew their chances were slim. In June 2008 they had similar protests against the deportation of rejected Iraqi asylum seekers. They remained unsuccessful both then and today. Today the group reports about violent arrests at the airport, where about 30 activists tried to block the check in area while others informed other passengers about the deportation.
“SOS Against Racism – Denmark” (“SOS mod racisme“) strongly warned against deportations like today’s and the recent deportation of an Afghan mother and her four children who were sent to Greece. Apart from constituting a breach of human rights and the Refugee Convention, the organization finds the deportations and the general asylum policy of the Danish government dehumanizing of asylum seekers – and warns that dehumanization has in the past led to far worse crimes.
“SOS Against Racism – Denmark” called on citizens to send letters of protest to Lufthansa, which carries out the deportations, and boycott the company.
“If we’re to save but a little of our own human decency we have to act against murder and torture of asylum seekers – even when the happen in countries they are deported to – and against the slow death many of them face in our own country,” said the organization in a press release.
3 responses so far ↓
Daniel Ringby // 1. May 2009 at 17:45 |
Surely human decency also involves abiding the law of the country in which you’re seeking political asylum (which, by the way, I doubt this person spent twentyfive years on doing), so what are you really complaining about, A?
Amila Bosnae // 1. May 2009 at 19:37 |
I don’t see the part where I’m complaining in this blog entry, but if I had to point at something to complain about, it would be the breach of human rights in the asylum system and (some of) the deportations.
Ulla Lauridsen // 9. May 2009 at 19:50 |
But what did he actually do to get expelled after so many years here? Do you really think we should just accept any amount of crime from people who are not citizens?