Sweden: Tamils refugees go into hiding
01 July 1995
A group of 29 Tamil refugees who arrived in Sweden by boat from Lithuania in June have gone into hiding after their applications for asylum were rejected. The Swedish government does not accept that Tamils are routinely subject to oppression in their home country. When informed they would be expelled back to Sri Lanka the group when into hiding with sympathetic Swedish people.
They are the first group of 1,200 "boat people" - with others from Iran, Iraq and Pakistan - to arrive in Sweden from the Baltic states since 1992 to be told they will be deported.
As concern mounts among refugee support groups and other NGOs about the new tougher line in Swedish asylum policy, a disturbing new case has come to light. A 26-year-old Peruvian woman and her nine-month-old baby, who arrived in Sweden in 1994 with her husband, a former active member of Peru's opposition movement, are due to be sent back to the Latin American country despite the fact that the mother is not deemed capable of looking after the child.
The husband recently began a ten-year prison sentence for assaulting and subsequently killing the couple's first child. The mother, who knew of the assaults but failed to prevent them, has had the second child taken from her and placed in foster care.
Sweden's social authorities have denounced the decision of the Invandraverket, the state immigration board, which was upheld on appeal by the Aliens Board, to deport the mother and child. Karin Rohlin, spokeswoman for the Swedish NGO Fund for Human Rights, said she did not believe Peru was a "safe destination" for someone with connections with the political opposition. "We are very concerned about the changes that are taking place (in Swedish refugee practice). We feel that Peruvians are being sent back to an uncertain future," she said.
A recent report by a cross-party parliamentary commission recommended a tightening not just of the interpretation of asylum regulations but also of a more restrictive rule framework. If adopted, the proposals seem certain to fuel the growing numbers of Swedes who take the law into their own hands, by hiding refugees in order to help them evade deportation.
Interpress, 23.6.95 & 25.7.95.