Few Iraqi asylum seekers try to come to Finland
Interior ministry maintains tight policy
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So far this year, 170 Iraqis have sought asylum in Finland - slightly fewer than there had been at the same time last year.
"If this is measured against the European scale, Finland’s refugee numbers are fairly small, and the scale for this year and last is fairly similar", says Juha Similä of the Directorate of Immigration, which operates under the Ministry of the Interior.
In contrast, 4,900 Iraqis had applied for asylum in Sweden by the end of September this year.
The directorate has made 143 decisions on asylum status for Iraqi nationals, of which 87 have been positive. Most of those whose applications were rejected have been allowed to stay in Finland for the simple reason that Finnish police have been physically unable to take them back to Iraq.
In the view of the Ministry of the Interior, the situation in Iraq is not necessarily the kind of serious armed conflict that would serve as a basis for granting asylum or a residence permit. "Regardless of whether the country of origin is Iraq, or any other place, all applications are examined individually", Similä emphasises. He notes that the directorate’s decisions have been upheld by the Helsinki Court of appeals and in the Supreme Administrative Court.
This year, the Directorate of Immigration has granted six Iraqis full political asylum, and six others have been granted residence permits because of a need for protection. Another five have been granted residence permits for humanitarian reasons - such as illness or old age.
The remainder of the 56 decisions made so far on Iraqi applications for asylum have been negative. They have all been handed down on the basis of the Treaty of Dublin, which means that the applicant first arrived in another EU member state, or has made an asylum application in some other European country.
The Finnish Embassy in Damascus has seen an increase in visa applications by Iraqis as well as inquiries on the possibility of getting asylum, says Hans Ottelin, a Finnish official in Syria.
"To a great extent the people who ask the questions are Kurdish Iraqi citizens", says Ottelin. He says that the likely reason is that the Kurds have more contacts in Europe than other Iraqis. However, there are doubts about the authenticity of some of the papers.
"There at the Iraqi border [with Syria] there are reportedly stalls where passports and other documents are sold."
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 26.10.2006 - TODAY |
 Few Iraqi asylum seekers try to come to Finland
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