Mykkänen: Finland to assess asylum system after French court cancels return

Mykkänen: Finland to assess asylum system after French court cancels return

Kai Mykkänen (NCP), the Minister of the Interior, spoke to reporters after a question-time debate at the Finnish Parliament on Thursday, 19 April.

 

Kai Mykkänen (NCP), the Minister of the Interior, says he has launched an internal assessment into whether or not the rights of asylum seekers are realised in Finland.

Mykkänen made the announcement during a question-time debate in the Finnish Parliament on Thursday, following an enquiry about the decision of the Administrative Court of Appeal of Lyon to stay the transfer of asylum seekers to Finland on grounds of concerns that they would subsequently be deported to Kabul, Afghanistan.

The Afghan family of four would have been returned to Finland under the Dublin Regulation, which prescribes that the member state of first entry is responsible for processing asylum seekers.

“It’s alarming that a court in another EU country has no confidence in our asylum procedure,” highlighted Touko Aalto, the chairperson of the Green League.

The Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), he added, has similarly been shown to have aligned its asylum policy considerably over the past few years. “We urgently need a thorough assessment of the asylum policy of Finland,” stated Aalto.

Mykkänen in his response reminded that also Afghan asylum seekers have been transferred from France to Finland under the Dublin Regulation, arguing that this as an indication that the countries differ only in their assessments of the situation in Kabul.

Finland, he stated, must nevertheless do its utmost to ensure human rights are realised also in individual cases, regardless of how difficult it can be to obtain reliable information.

“The big picture of course is that we’ve gotten over 40,000 asylum seekers over the few-year period when a massive number of people arrived in Europe. The fact that certain individual cases have popped up mustn’t overshadow the general interpretation. If we look at it analytically, I believe it stands an assessment of how the processes work,” told Mykkänen.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Photo: Antti Aimo-Koivisto – Lehtikuva
Source: Uusi Suomi

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