Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2009, Síða 18

In March, the current Minister
of Justice made a public show of
meeting with refugees to hear their
grievances. At this meeting, Ragna
Árnadóttir pledged to apply fair
and just procedure. However, as the
months go by and little changes, it
begins to look more and more like
a cynical public relations exercise.
And speaking of going through the
PR motions, Björg Thorarensen, the
head of the committee on refugees,
recently turned down a request for a
meeting with several individuals who
have been working tirelessly in support
of the refugees. Refusal was on the
bizarre grounds that the committee
had not planned on meeting with
“agents of the refugees,” an entirely
sensible policy only if one’s central aim
is to avoid informing oneself on the
issue for which you have been made
responsible, for fear you might actually
be forced to do something about it.
This Pontius Pilate approach to
public policy is also evident in the
sham report produced recently for
the Ministry of Justice on the thorny
issue of returning refugees to Greece,
the principal land route for refugees
into Europe. Sending refugees back
there under the third country rule
has long been controversial due to
appalling conditions and lack of legal
protection they face there. Many
are simply imprisoned before being
returned to their country of origin
without any semblance of due process.
The report claims that conditions have
improved, and to the intense surprise
of nobody, recommends returning
Icelandic refugees there. Back in the
real world, the EU officially rebuked
Greece less than a month ago, for
failing to meet minimum standards of
care for refugees. Cited in particular
was a detention centre originally built
for 280 people that currently houses
almost 2000.
Just last Sunday, in a dawn raid,
Greek police demolished an illegal
migrant camp, in what the Red Cross
described as deliberate attempt to
terrorise the occupants. The camp had
been in existence for almost thirteen
years, the direct result of Greek refusal
to establish proper procedures for
dealing with immigration and asylum.
At the end of the day, the refugee issue
in Iceland comes down to political
expediency, the golden rule of politics
that transcends the conventional
political spectrum. Refugees have
no votes, no family connections, no
inf luence, and, ultimately, no political
capital.
All of which brings us to
Dostoyevsky, who wrote that the
ultimate yardstick of a decent society
was the way it treats prisoners, its most
powerless and vulnerable members.
Such a litmus test could equally
apply to refugees, in which case it is
a test that this Republic has thus far
miserably failed.
In recent months, the treatment of refugees in Iceland and the
failure of the authorities to uphold the domestic and international
refugee law has finally come under some scrutiny. At the heart of
the matter is the principle of equality or the lack thereof, not just
in the treatment of refugees as second-class citizens, but also in
the strange legal immunity that only government officials (and
bankers) seem to have developed.
If the average citizen steals a chicken from the supermarket,
they can expect to face the legal consequences. Government
immigration officials, however, can blithely ignore supposedly
binding refugee legislation, and continue to walk the streets. Just
as with the economy busting bankers, it seems that the more
spectacular one’s crimes, the less likely one is to be brought
to account for them. Perhaps the only way to protect decent
society from such dangerous offenders is to lure them through
the turnstiles at Bónus with the hope that, in a moment of
madness, they may pilfer some poultry. Unfortunately the actions
the immigration directorate go beyond mere petty theft or even
bureaucratic incompetence involving several breaches of national
and international law
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2009
1. The law clearly states that a refugee has the right to be informed on every aspect
of their case and the “rights” to
which they are entitled in Iceland in
a language they can reasonably be
expected to understand. In clear legal
breach, refugees receive most relevant
papers, and even deportation orders,
in Icelandic. Such theoretical rights
are rendered worthless if the relevant
information is disseminated in a
language obviously incomprehensible
to its recipients.
2. For years, Iceland has successfully managed to evade its fair share of responsibility
for European refugees by invoking
the third country rule, whereby a
refugee can be returned to the original
country through which they entered
Europe. Under the Dublin Convention,
however, if the third country does not
make an official request, within three
months, to the original European
country of entry to take back the
refugee, then the refugee becomes the
responsibility of that third country .
In such circumstances, a refugee in
Iceland having come from Denmark,
for example, would then have the right
to have their case heard in Iceland. In
f lagrant breach of this internationally
binding agreement, Iceland routinely
returns refugees months, and in some
cases years, after the deadline has
expired.
3. Both the Dublin Convention and United Nations directives stipulate that illegal entry
by refugees should not be held
against them, or prejudice their
case. However, in a cynical attempt
to tarnish the reputations of refugees
in the eyes of the public, the recently
departed head of the immigration
directorate, Haukur Guðmundsson,
disclosed to the press that some of
the refugees had made it to Iceland
using false papers. As well as being a
clear breach of the law guaranteeing
refugees’ right to case confidentiality,
it is also the most idiotic of counter-
intuitive statements. Of course they got
here using false papers: if they were
in possession of genuine ones, they
wouldn’t be refugees in the first place!
4. When not breaching the letter of the law, the immigration directorate busies itself
breaching its spirit, with vindictive
raids on the refugee hostel in Kef lavík
and deportation operations on ten
minutes notice, despite the right
of refugees to at least query their
deportation order (in the unlikely event
they would actually be able to read it!).
5. Under refugee law, it is also illegal to deport refugees en masse, as each have the right
to be treated as an individual case.
Apparently undeterred by such minor
legal details, Haukur Guðmundsson
was on the verge of kicking out a group
of five refugees until the minister for
justice, Ragna Árnadóttir, stepped
in ordering a temporary stay on the
deportation order. After effectively
turning a blind eye to the goings on
for years, the Ministry of Justice, the
ultimate authority in these matters,
finally seemed to have become
engaged on the subject.
“Criminal” Immigration Officials Still At Large
issues | Asylum seeker special
18
Words
John Boyce,
Jórunn Helgadóttir
Guðjon Abbes
illustration
Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
¹ Laws and regulations on language barriers being broken: Article 24, chapter V of Laws on Foreigners (Lög um útlendinga); Article 57, chapter IX of Regulation on
Foreigners (Reglugerð um útlendinga); Article 5.2 of the European Convention on Human Rights; Article 3.4, chapter II of the Dublin Convention.
2 Laws and regulations on informing being broken: Article 25, chapter V & Article 30, chapter V of Laws on Foreigners; Article 57, chapter IX and article 64, chapter
XI of Regulation on Foreigners. Article 3.4, chapter II of the Dublin Convention (Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 of 18 February 2003).
3 Article 17.1, chapter IV of the Dublin Convention.
4 Dublin Convention, article 9.5 chapter III and article 31 of the Appendix on Refugees of the UN Human Rights Convention.
5 Article 18, chapter IV of Laws on Rights and Duties of Employees of the State (Lög um réttindi og skyldur starfsmanna ríkisins). (According to the 38th article of
VII. chapter of the same laws the director of the institution
(Haukur Guðmundsson) is responsible for its service to be in accordance with law and what is to be expected of the institution. If it is not the Minister of Justice
(Ragna Árnadóttir) has the authority to reprimand or to dismiss the director.
6 Breaking on law bound rights stated in Article 30, article 31 & article 34, chapter V of Laws on Foreigners. Abusing article 33, chapter V of Laws on Foreigners.
Breaking article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
7 Article 4 of State Laws on the European Convention on Human Rights.