Udlændinge- og Integrationsudvalget 2018-19 (1. samling)
L 140 Bilag 21
Offentligt
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Norre Allé 7
2200 Copenhagen N
Denmark
[email protected]
www.sosracisme.dk
To the Embassies of the Member States of the Council of Europe
11th February 2019
Dear Sirs,
SOS Racisme Danmark urges the member states of the Council of Europe not to return asylum
seekers or refugees to Denmark if they have been rejected there or had their Danish residence
permit revoked.
Refoulement to Countries with Civil War
In violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights refugees and others from war-
torn countries risk being forcibly deported by Denmark to their country of origin, which is unable to
protect them.
In spite of warnings from the UNHCR
1 2
Denmark uses both Kabul and Mogadishu as Internal Flight
Alternatives. The Danish government keeps everything under wraps concerning forced deportations to
Somalia, but it is estimated that 14-16 Somalis were forcibly returned in 2016-2017. Around 1000 Somali
refugees and their relatives have had their residence permits revoked and are to leave Denmark as soon
as possible. Denmark has forcibly returned deportees to Afghanistan as well as Somalia by attempting
to deliver them to the immigration authorities in the airport. According to
acleddata.com
3
at least 1079
civilians were killed in Mogadishu in 2017, 587 of them in the terror attack of 14 October 2017; and in all
of Somalia 1843 civilians were killed that year. The number of civilians killed in Mogadishu was higher
in 2017 and there were more internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the city than in 2011, the year the
European Court of Human Rights ECtHR ruled that the return of anybody might violate Article 3 of
1
UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from
Afghanistan, 30 August 2018 https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b8900109.html [accessed 9 February 2019]
“UNHCR
considers that given the current security, human rights and humanitarian situation in Kabul, an
IFA/IRA is generally not available in the city.”
2
“UNHCR
Positions Concerning Forced Returns
Under the present circumstances, UNHCR continues to urge States to refrain from forcibly returning any
persons to areas of southern and central Somalia that are affected by military action and/or ensuing
displacement, remain fragile and insecure after recent military action, or remain under full or partial
control of non-State armed groups. General non-refoulement obligations under international human
rights law may be engaged in the context of forcible return of Somalis to southern and central Somalia.”
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project: www.acleddata.com/data is open for public use. Counts of
deaths stems
from ACLED’s database on Civilians, with counts for Somalia and from Mogadishu
(Banadir).
3
UNHCR Position on Returns to Southern and Central Somalia (Update I), May 2016
https://www.refworld.org/docid/573de9fe4.html [accessed 9 February 2019]
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ECHR (SUFI & ELMI vs the United Kingdom, para 248). Like in 2011 attacks on civilians by all parties
to the conflict took place and the future was then
–
as now
–
totally unpredictable in Somalia with
conflicts in most parts of the country.
We expect more deportees than today to flee to other European countries when a new law L 140
4
has
been passed by Parliament
–
according to schedule the Bill will be passed on 21 February 2019.
Subsequently all refugees will be given temporary residence permits and the need for protection will be
reevaluated at short intervals. Denmark will deport refugees to the country they fled from as quickly as
possible. Only refugees with Convention status will not be returned until there are fundamental, stable
and lasting changes in the country of origin. Refugees who have managed to acquire permanent
residence permits or Danish citizenship will of course be exempt.
In asylum cases the first authority is the Immigration Service and the next is the three-member Refugee
Appeals Board, which is the highest authority. Its decisions cannot be appealed to a Danish court of
law. Refugees with protective asylum status must be returned as soon as
Denmark’s
international
obligations are not violated by doing so. The decision may read as follows:
However, having evaluated all
background material, the majority of the Refugee Appeals Board holds that the general conditions in Mogadishu
have improved
–
although the conditions are still serious and must be characterized as fragile and unpredictable -
and the changes are not considered purely temporary.
Furthermore, the Refugee Appeals Board refers to two
majority decisions from the European Court of Human Rights in 2013 and 2015, where deportation to
Mogadishu was not held to be refoulement. However, on the one hand conditions were not quite as
violent as in 2011 and there were less IDPs in Mogadishu, on the other hand the two deportees had
relatives in the city, which is not always the case in deportations from Denmark.
According to L 140 the authorities must go to the limits of the conventions,
and revoking the
residence permits of refugees and reunified relatives must
only be omitted if it violates
Denmark’s
international obligations,
and conditions like work, education, health, language, integration, citizenship
and the circumstances of children must be given the least possible consideration. In spite of protests
from the UNHCR, also refugees resettled from UN refugee camps must be returned to their country of
origin if possible.
Thus Denmark will no longer be a safe haven to them. Therefore asylum in a third
country may be relevant since returning people to Denmark could end in refoulement.
L 140 also intends to stress out deportees as much as possible in order to induce them to leave
Denmark.
The following persons
must
reside in deportation centres: Persons who do not contribute to
their return and who are on tolerated stay
5
or have fought for foreign militias or are expelled convicted
foreigners who have served their sentences or rejected asylum seekers, all of whom cannot be returned
to their country of origin because of non-refoulement or because the country concerned refuses to
accept them. Here they live isolated from the rest of Denmark, under cramped conditions, with very
little pocket money, no possibility of working, studying, shopping, doing leisure activities requiring
space, or cooking. Deportees with children must
–
regardless of
the children’s schooling –
move to
Sjælsmark Deportation Centre. In Sjælsmark there are around 100 children. In some cases, children
attend government schools - but they have no right to do so. Only parents of toddlers may have a
refrigerator, so they can feed the children or give them milk in between meals
6
. Conditions are even
4
https://www.ft.dk/samling/20181/lovforslag/l140/index.htm (in Danish)
5
Tolerated stay is used for an asylum seeker excluded from international protection because she/he is
suspected of having committed a crime against humanity, but who cannot be returned because he or she
might be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
6
A
mobile phone video showing a conflict in
Sjælsmark’s
canteen of a 5-year-old being denied a piece of
potato and broccoli:
https://www.facebook.com/politiken/videos/909833045878260/
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worse at Kærshovedgård Deportation Centre, which is isolated with 7 km to the closest village and no
public transport.
According to L 140 another deportation centre is to be built in the desert 7-hectare island of
Lindholm.
Lindholm will hold 100–125 deportees. The island will be inhabited by foreigners on
tolerated stay, criminal foreigners or expelled convicted foreigners who have served their sentences,
and rejected asylum seekers convicted of petty crime such as possession of less than 10 g hashish, the
usual triviality limit. There will be a ferry, but the possibilities of getting away from the prison island
will be few. The costs of rendering the island habitable are immense.
The Danish politicians do not regard the deportation centres as prisons, but in reality they are worse
than open prisons. They are run by the Danish Prison Service and the staff are prison guards.
Kærshovedgård is fenced and has an electronic entry control system and Sjælsmark is in the process of
getting one. The inmates have duties of residence, of reporting, and of notification: They must notify
the staff if they leave the centre between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. or will not return by 11 p.m. The
Immigration and Integration Minister has
repeatedly stated that conditions must be “as intolerable as
possible” so the
duties and the isolation only function as harassment and even today the inmates are
given harsh sentences if they do not fulfil their duties. However, L 140 will multiply these sentences so
that omission of the three duties for 2-3
days will lead to 2 months’ imprisonment
with a maximum
penalty of two years in case of repetition. Furthermore, a special prison at Ringe in Funen is planned
for the punishment of expelled foreigners. Like the duties mentioned above the punishment has no
other purpose than inflicting suffering.
In 2012 the Supreme Court ruled in a case where a deportee had been submitted to reporting and
residence duties in an asylum centre for almost 4 years. The Court cancelled the reporting and
residence duties since such a long period of time at an asylum centre was held to violate Article 3 of the
European Convention on Human Rights. Today conditions in deportation centres are worse than
conditions were in asylum centres in 2012. A supreme court decision of 2017 held that just under 4
years’
residence,
reporting and notification duties for a person on tolerated stay violated Protocol No. 4
Article 2. A prolonged stay will also violate the right to freedom and security of the person and the
right to privacy and family life, cf. ECHR Articles 5 and 8.
In spite of the meaninglessness and the degrading treatment in the deportation centres almost nobody
wants to return to the country of origin, and many do not even have that option because they are
stateless, or because the country of origin will not accept them. The intention is to make life as
intolerable as possible for the inmates, so they eventually disappear from Denmark. Forty-seven of the
inmates of Kærshovedgård have subsequently been granted asylum under the 1951 Convention.
Almost nobody can be returned voluntarily, but many experience psychological issues, and many go
underground. Many have disappeared into a subsistence as undocumented migrants in Denmark or
abroad.
L 140 is the result of an agreement between the Liberal-Conservative minority coalition government
and the anti-immigrant
Nationalist Danish People’s Party,
and the Social Democrats intend to vote for
it as well. The
politicians’
scramble for the swing voters is more heated than ever because of the up-
coming general election and they are desperately trying to outdo one another in being tough on
foreigners - from non-Western cultures in general and Muslim cultures in particular.
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The Bill was prematurely introduced to the Folketing three days before the deadline of the hearing
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presumably because the general election is expected to be called soon and not later than mid-June 2019.
The most important feature about L 140 is that focus will switch from integration of refugees to
repatriation. Even UN resettled refugees/quota refugees will be returned to their country of origin at
the earliest possible opportunity. Following a report from the Danish Institute for Human Rights
concluding that especially children’s families living on integration benefits live in poverty, which may
be against the Danish constitution, the
“integration benefits” will now be called “self-supporting
&
repatriation benefits” and
lowered by 2,000 DKK per month after three years for families with children.
Since the last election in 2015 Denmark has constantly tightened the immigration and asylum
legislation. Apparently, the goal of the Government is to stay in power through tough immigration and
asylum restrictions with the objective of scaring refugees away from Denmark and trying to get rid of
rejected asylum seekers as quickly as possible, if need be by forcing them underground.
The Immigration and Integration Minister has placed a
digital tally counter on the Ministry’s website
to
display the Government’s tough immigration and asylum restrictions.
At present 100 restrictions have
been passed since 2015, but with the passage of L 140 the number of restrictions will escalate. We
therefore urge your country not to return asylum seekers to Denmark.
Yours faithfully
On behalf of SOS Racisme Danmark
Jette Møller, President
Anne Nielsen, Vice-president
SOS Racisme
is an anti-racist NGO, which was founded in 1988 inspired by SOS Racisme in
France. In 1991 the organisation merged with “The People’s Movement against
Xenophobia”,
established in 1985 and inspired by SOS Racisme France as well. The aims of the organisation
are to combat racism and discrimination and work for intercultural understanding by non-violent
means. The organisation is non-political and non-religious.
Hearing statement from the UNHCR in English: https://www.unhcr.org/neu/wp-
content/uploads/sites/15/2019/01/UNHCR-prel.-Observations-on-the-law-proposal-2018-20161-akt-nr.-
598518.pdf
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Hearing statements in Danish: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20181/lovforslag/L140/bilag.htm
Hearing statements: bilag 1, bilag 2, bilag 5, bilag 6, bilag 10, bilag 11, bilag 12, bilag 15
The Ministry’s comments to the statements: bilag 4, bilag 7, bilag 8, bilag
13,
Report from the Committee for foreigners and integration: bilag 18: Betænkning
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