Police have long resumed repatriating Iraqi asylum seekers not suspected of crime, and whose applications to stay in Finland have been rejected National Police Board Inspector Mia Poutanen has confirmed to Yle.
On Sunday, Centre Party MP and member of Parliament’s administration committee Mikko Kärnä, issued a statement saying that police had resumed the deportation to Iraq of persons whose asylum applications had been denied. The resumption of the flights was first reported by tabloid daily Iltalehti.
In autumn 2019, police suspended the deportation of rejected asylum seekers who were not suspected of crimes after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found Finland guilty of human rights abuses after a man who was denied asylum and returned to Iraq was murdered weeks after his repatriation.
According to Poutanen the asylum seeker returns were shelved for a very short time – two weeks at the most.
Poutanen said that soon after the decision to suspend the flights was taken, the police board conferred with the Finnish Immigration Service, Migri, on the impact of the European court’s decision on the programme. She noted that the board and Migri came up with an operating model to first assess a proposed returnee’s circumstances from the perspective of the court’s ruling.
"Police are conducting repatriations to all countries normally at the moment. But before deportation, they are cooperating with Migri to ensure that they do not deport anyone if there is a risk that there is anything in the immigration decision that is similar to the case that resulted in the ECHR ruling," Poutanen explained.
As a result, the decision in mid-November to suspend deportation flights of asylum seekers whose applications were denied, had no practical impact. This is because there had been very few returns to Iraq before the decision was taken and they had no deportations planned at that time, Poutanen noted.
However Poutanen stressed that police always implement deportation orders when possible and that they always follow the principle of non-refoulement. Non-refoulement refers to a principle of international law that prohibits a country from returning asylum seekers to locations where they would be in danger of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political views or membership in a social group.
The police board spokesperson said that police are constantly dealing with deportation cases. "The issue of how many of them are actually implemented is not always up to Finnish authorities. The implementation of deportation decisions to Iraq is challenging at the moment," Poutanen pointed out.
In July 2018, Iraq announced that it would no longer accept asylum seekers who were not returning home voluntarily from Finland.
