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Iraqis on deportation row in Denmark

Iraqis and others fleeing conflict in their home country rarely gain asylum in Denmark, where they are asked to prove individualised persecution. This practice has no basis in international conventions.

In Denmark, there are mainly two avenues for protection for people fleeing conflict: either asylum in accordance with the Refugee Convention, or protection status.

A refugee is, according to the Refugee Convention, any person who has fled his or her home country due to a "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion".

To recognize an asylum-seeker as a refugee, Danish asylum authorities in general ask of every asylum-seeker to prove "concrete and individualised" persecution.

On a number of occasions, applications from Iraqi citizens have been rejected with reference to the civil war-like situation in Iraq as merely "generally difficult" circumstances, hence the asylum-seeker does not fulfil the criteria of being "concretely and individually" persecuted.

Untenable practice

The international conventions, which the Danish set of rules is built upon, provide no basis for this individualised persecution criterion. The fact that many people are exposed to violations at the same time does not exclude them from protection in accordance with international norms.

As a member of a group of persecuted people, each individual member will typically also be personally persecuted.

This has also been established by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. Most recently in August 2007, when they repeat that Iraqis from the Central and Southern Iraq should be considered as refugees based on the 1951 Convention criteria. Denmark is not following these recommendations.

If the individual asylum country, in any case, decides not to recognize Iraqis as Convention refugees, UNHCR recommends protection to be afforded on another basis - in Denmark, this would be the so-called protection status.

Protection status is only granted to asylum-seekers who "risk the death penalty or being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in case of return to his country of origin".

This Danish rule is almost a true replicate of Article 3 in the European Convention on Human Rights. However, while the practice of the European Court of Human Rights is not to ask asylum-seekers belonging to groups persecuted in their home country to prove individualised persecution, the Danish authorities insist that every single asylum-seeker has to be "concretely and individually" at risk of violations - also in the case of protection status.

Protection gap

The implications of the Danish criteria of individualised persecution and its application is a critical protection gap in relation to two groups; those who apply for asylum because they belong to a group of persecuted people, and those who seek protection because they arbitrarily are caught in a situation of generalized and indiscriminate violence.

When Iraqi asylum-seekers are refused asylum in Denmark, a lot of it can be explained with the Danish insistence on the "individualized persecution criteria", which amounts to an interpretation and administration of relevant international rules without legal justification.

Hence, there is no need for a change of legislation to help Iraqis in Denmark; there is need for a more reasonable interpretation of the existing law. The solution to the problem lies just before our eyes: an adjustment of the Danish practice so it agrees with the international obligations of Denmark.

896 on deportation row

In consequence, today 896 rejected asylum seekers (July 2007) are waiting to be deported by the Danish police. These include 508 Iraqis and 57 Somalis having fled both targeted and indiscriminate violence in their home countries.

Over 60 percent of the rejected asylum seekers have lived for more than three years in Danish asylum centres. Some up to nine years. Denmark operates with no limit to the period a rejected asylum seeker can be left to stay in a centre without being returned.

Rejected asylum seekers do not have the right to work, family unification or education (unless they sign a contract to return to their home country after finalizing the education). They have to report weekly to the police.

After years of dangling in a legal limbo, neither granted asylum nor returned due to the situation in their home countries, many rejected asylum seekers suffer from severe mental illnesses.

They pass days, months and years in total uncertainty and fear, without any possibility to plan their own and their children's future. The medical expenses and the rate of attempted suicides at the centres are high.