COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

Danish authorities criticised for use of physical force on asylum seeker

A video has spread on social media appearing to show hard use of physical force by Danish authorities during the deportation of a woman whose asylum claims were rejected.

Published: 31 March 2022 17:51 CEST

Danish authorities criticised for use of physical force on asylum seeker

A screenshot from a Twitter video showing Danish authorities conducting an forced deportation at the Avnstrup asylum centre on March 29th. Screenshot used with permission

Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye has been summoned to a parliamentary committee, at which lawmakers from other parties can demand the minister respond to the incident, broadcaster DR reports.

The video was shared by Trampoline House, a Danish independent citizens’ resource NGO for asylum seekers and refugees. The organisation wrote on social media that the woman, a mother of three, was injected with a tranquiliser during the attempted deportation.

In the video, which was taken at the Avnstrup asylum centre, four people can be seen holding the woman to the ground, with her head held against the paving stones. She is visibly shaking in the footage. A man in civilian clothing then brings restraints which are used to tie her.

(1/2) SKRÆMMENDE VIDEO af morgenens tvangsfjernelse af den kurdisk iranske mor fra Hjemrejsecenter Avnstrup. Moderen blev smidt på jorden foran alle, mens fire personer forsøgte at passificere hende ved at sætte sig ovenpå hende. pic.twitter.com/7LfDCpjLKX

— Trampolinhuset (@trampolinhuset) March 29, 2022

The Danish Return Agency (Hjemrejsestyrelsen), the agency responsible for processing deportations, and the North Zealand police told news wire Ritzau that medicine had not been administered to the woman, however. They confirmed that physical restraint was used.

The woman, an Iranian national, was to be deported from Denmark with her two oldest children while her youngest child, who is one year old, remains in Denmark with its father, according to Trampoline House, which also wrote on social media that splitting the family represents a breach of the ECHR’s right to family life.

She is also reported to hold an expired Iranian passport.

“I can’t bear to think of the fate that awaits the Kurdish woman who was yesterday forcibly deported. I have called Tesfaye in to consultation so he can explain if this is really how we treat people if it’s up to the government,” Sikandar Siddique of the Independent Green party wrote on Twitter.

Rosa Lund of the Red Green Alliance said in comments to newspaper Politiken she was unaware Denmark was able to forcibly deport rejected asylum seekers to Iran because this would require a repatriation agreement with Iran, which Denmark does not have.

The Ministry of Immigration and Integration told the newspaper that this is in fact possible for persons who have an Iranian travel document, regardless of whether the document is valid.

“This forced deportation testifies to a complete failure of the Danish asylum policy. Both ethically and practically,” Trampoline House told The Local in a written comment.

The organisation called for more humane treatment of vulnerable asylum seekers and argued that this would in fact benefit the established policy of deporting persons whose claims for asylum are not granted.

“In Denmark we take away people’s basic rights and confine them into isolated camps. In the Netherlands the rejected are allowed to work, study and enjoy a much more normal life, until departure date,” it added, noting that in 2017, 4.4 percent of rejected asylum seekers left Denmark voluntarily, while the Netherlands recorded a proportion of 44 percent.

According to broadcaster TV2, the Danish Return Agency has confirmed that the woman left Denmark on a flight following the episode captured in the video, but has now returned to the country after sustaining an injury during the journey.

Danish law allows the use of physical force in deportations if necessary when a person without legal residence status in Denmark does not comply voluntarily with their deportation travel.

According to the country’s Aliens Act (Ulændingeloven), such enforced deportation must be “with respect for the individual and without unnecessary use of force”.

Police are responsible for carrying out deportations based on the decisions made by immigration authorities.

“If people don’t leave voluntarily, they can be deported forcibly. As long as you stick to restraint and don’t turn to violence, it’s within the framework [legally, ed.],” Niels Henrik Christensen, a lawyer specialised in asylum, refugee and immigration law, told TV2.

“Force is used and (authorities) have that right. Nothing in the video surprises me. I’m not saying that to defend it, but that is allowed,” he said.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

With the German far right coming out on top in two state elections earlier this month, the socialist-led national Berlin government has reimposed border controls on Western frontiers that are supposed to see freedom of movement in the European Union’s Schengen zone.

The Netherlands government, which includes the party of Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, announced on Wednesday that it had requested from Brussels an opt-out from EU rules on asylum, with Prime Minister Dick Schoof declaring that there was an asylum “crisis”.

Meanwhile, new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the left-wing Labour Party paid a visit to Rome for talks with Italian counterpart Georgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, to discuss the strategies used by Italy in seeking to reduce migration.

Far-right parties performed strongly in June European elections, coming out on top in France, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections which resulted in right-winger Michel Barnier, who has previously called for a moratorium on migration, being named prime minister.

We are witnessing the “continuation of a rightward shift in migration policies in the European Union,” said Jerome Vignon, migration advisor at the Jacques Delors Institute think-tank.

It reflected the rise of far-right parties in the European elections in June, and more recently in the two regional elections in Germany, he said, referring to a “quite clearly protectionist and conservative trend”.

Strong message

“Anti-immigration positions that were previously the preserve of the extreme right are now contaminating centre-right parties, even centre-left parties like the Social Democrats” in Germany, added Florian Trauner, a migration specialist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Dutch-speaking university in Brussels.

While the Labour government in London has ditched its right-wing Conservative predecessor administration’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, there is clearly interest in a deal Italy has struck with Albania to detain and process migrants there.

Within the European Union, Cyprus has suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syrian applicants, while laws have appeared authorising pushbacks at the border in Finland and Lithuania.

Under the pretext of dealing with “emergency” or “crisis” situations, the list of exemptions and deviations from the common rules defined by the European Union continues to grow.

All this flies in the face of the new EU migration pact, agreed only in May and coming into force in 2026.

In the wake of deadly attacks in Mannheim and most recently Solingen blamed on radical Islamists, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government also expelled 28 Afghans back to their home country for the first time since the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

Such gestures from Germany are all the more symbolic given how the country since World War II has tried to turn itself into a model of integration, taking in a million refugees, mainly Syrians in 2015-2016 and then more than a million Ukrainian exiles since the Russian invasion.

Germany is sending a “strong message” to its own public as well as to its European partners, said Trauner.

The migratory pressure “remains significant” with more than 500,000 asylum applications registered in the European Union for the first six months of the year, he said.

‘Climate on impunity’

Germany, which received about a quarter of them alone, criticises the countries of southern Europe for allowing migrants to circulate without processing their asylum applications, but southern states denounce a lack of solidarity of the rest of Europe.

The moves by Germany were condemned by EU allies including Greece and Poland, but Scholz received the perhaps unwelcome accolade of praise from Hungarian right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Moscow’s closest friend in the European Union, when he declared “welcome to the club”.

The EU Commission’s failure to hold countries to account “only fosters a climate of impunity where unilateral migration policies and practices can proliferate,” said Adriana Tidona, Amnesty International’s Migration Researcher.

But behind the rhetoric, all European states are also aware of the crucial role played by migrants in keeping sectors going including transport and healthcare, as well as the importance of attracting skilled labour.

“Behind the symbolic speeches, European leaders, particularly German ones, remain pragmatic: border controls are targeted,” said Sophie Meiners, a migration researcher with the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Even Meloni’s government has allowed the entry into Italy of 452,000 foreign workers for the period 2023-2025.

“In parallel to this kind of new restrictive measures, they know they need to address skilled labour needs,” she said.