Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2009, Qupperneq 31

Our arrival on a Saturday afternoon
at a reception centre for asylum
seekers on the outskirts of Trondheim,
Norway’s third largest city, is met
with mixed reactions. The grounds of
the Sandmoen centre are empty; all
activity seems to be taking place in the
recreation room where a group of men
are playing pool. We're here to learn
about the situation of asylum seekers
in Norway, but some of the residents
we meet are uneasy about our visit;
others are only too willing to have their
stories heard.
The treatment of asylum seekers
is a contentious issue and one which
has received significant attention on a
local level in Iceland in recent months.
A comparison with Norway (see graph)
reveals that in 2008 Norway granted
asylum at three times the rate of
Iceland and positive decisions overall
per 1,000 inhabitants at almost 30
times the rate. Both countries rejected
applications in more than half of cases.
While Norway processes cases more
swiftly, the processing time in Iceland
is getting shorter.
Most of the individuals we spoke
with at the centre in Trondheim are
outspoken about their situation:
frustrated, even angry, about how
their applications are being handled―
others have given up on being granted
permission to stay. Ubayo, a young
man from Nigeria, is the first to
approach me when I invite everyone to
be interviewed. He is vocal about his
criticism of the authorities’ handling
of his case, and is confused as to why
he and some of his fellow countrymen
have not been granted asylum.
“Some people cannot go home because
of what is chasing them. Somebody
who is running for his life doesn’t
have any hope in the future to go back
home,” Ubayo says. “You are here to
settle down, to begin a new life [...] and
now they want to send you back. You
go crazy,” he adds.
Later, one of the residents shows
us the buildings in which they live.
Here we meet Belise, a softly spoken
young woman from Burundi, who
invites me inside. She shares her
roughly 20m² room (comprised of a
bathroom, kitchen, living and sleeping
areas) with another woman. The room
seems fairly standard for hostel-style
accommodation but Belise says it’s
difficult to share the small space with
a stranger for any extended period of
time.
Next we speak to Atif, the young
Afghani man who lives next door. He
invites us to his room for tea, where his
English-speaking friends join us. They
are keen to tell us how they ended up
in Norway, more than 5,000 kilometres
from their home.
Rashid, one of Atif’s friends, f led
eastern Afghanistan five years ago.
His application for asylum has
been rejected. However, he ignored
the Directorate of Immigration’s
instructions to leave the country;
instead he continues to live in Norway
without a permit, staying with
Norwegian friends who also offer him
occasional work.
“One year has passed so I am a
little bit brave now,” he says when
asked whether he worries about the
police deporting him. “All the time I
am thinking about the future ―it’s not a
life,” he adds.
Norway wants more restrictions
While the asylum seekers we speak
to say that they haven’t had any
negative experiences with locals,
the few people we speak to in
Trondheim are apprehensive about the
number of asylum seekers arriving
in Norway, particularly in light of
reports of asylum seekers linked
to criminal activity in the country.
A survey by Nordic broadcasting
companies released in April found that
Norwegians were the most negative
towards refugees and wanted the
most restrictions out of the Nordic
countries.
Gunn Hilde Garte, director of the
reception centre in Trondheim, says
that it usually takes a while for people
to accept the idea of living in an area
with asylum seekers.
“Reception centres tend to cause
some negative reactions among the
locals in the beginning, but after
a while people learn that there is
nothing to fear and that the camps can
be a good thing for the community.”
Unlike most of the others we meet,
Abu who arrived from Palestine five
months ago is optimistic about his
future, despite not having yet found
work. “Norway is a good country. It’s
cold sometimes, all the time actually,
but it’s OK. I feel good for my future
here,” he says.
Lengthy processing time a problem
While the reception centre staff in
Norway and the Red Cross and others
in Iceland organise regular social
activities for asylum seekers, the
Icelandic Red Cross Project Manager
for Refugees and Asylum Seekers,
Atli Viðar Thorstensen, emphasises
the importance of providing asylum
seekers with opportunities to work or
study, arguing that the lack of activity
can lead to depression among asylum
seekers.
“If people are rejected and they are
sent back to their country of origin
then it is bad if they have been waiting
for a couple of years and are not able to
do anything—no work, no education,
no Icelandic courses―no nothing. It
means that people will get depressed
and it will be more difficult for them
to return to their country of origin and
face life there.”
Asylum seekers in both Iceland
and Norway can apply for a temporary
work permit on the condition that they
can either document their identity or
present it as “highly likely.”
However, according to Thorstensen,
the Directorate of Labour in Iceland
has been stricter when granting work
permits over the last few months,
presumably following the surge in
unemployment in Iceland, and gives
preference to nationals of countries
within the EEA.
Both countries apply Dublin
Regulation, Norway suspended
transfers to Greece
Haukur Guðmundsson, Director of
the Directorate of Immigration until
the end of May, says that the low
number of cases accepted by Icelandic
authorities can partly be attributed to
the country’s geographical location. As
asylum seekers cannot travel directly
from conflict zones to Iceland, the
country is unlikely to be their first port
of entry into Europe, meaning that the
Dublin Regulation can be applied to
many cases.
While Thorstensen agrees, he
says that some challenge the use
of the Dublin Regulation as an
explanation for the low percentage of
positive decisions. “People have been
speculating that the refugee definition
is interpreted more narrowly in Iceland
than in other countries, [but] I don’t
know about that.”
While signatories to the Dublin
Regulation are not obliged to send
asylum seekers back to the country
responsible for their application, both
Norway and Iceland do so in almost all
cases.
The UNHCR urges European
countries not to return asylum seekers
to Greece under Dublin and has
strongly criticised Greek asylum and
detention policies.
Earlier in the year, Iceland reversed
the decision to send back a group of
five individuals to Greece. The Alþingi
general committee however concluded
this week that although a Ministry
of Justice’s report found that there
were “serious f laws” in the treatment
of asylum seekers in Greece, the
conditions in Greece are improving
and Iceland could consequently
continue to send refugees to the
country. Norway on the other hand
announced last year that it had
temporarily suspended the transfer of
asylum seekers to Greece.
Six hundred and eighty asylum
seekers arrived in Iceland between
1990 and 2008. Two received refugee
status, 66 were granted protection
on humanitarian grounds and three
were granted refugee status on family
reunification grounds. Iceland falls
well short of the Norwegian, and more
importantly, European, rate of granting
asylum seekers refugee status.
The asylum seekers we spoke to
were seeking a new life in Norway, but
their stories of hope, frustration, and
desperation are echoed in Iceland and
elsewhere. According to the UNHCR,
383,000 applications for asylum were
submitted worldwide in 2008. The
responsibility to protect those at risk
must be shared. Norway and Iceland
both experienced a significant increase
in arrivals in 2008. Norway struggled
to accommodate new arrivals, and
while improvements have been made,
a greater devotion to resources to cope
with the increase and to also reduce
processing times, particularly in
Iceland, is needed.
*Names of asylum seekers have
been changed.
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2009
Asylum Seekers In Norway
Can we learn from our ancestors’ descendants?
19
Words
Zoë Robert
illustration
Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
2008 Statistics Comparison between Norway and iceland
Norway, like Iceland, is a non-EU Member State and a signatory to the Dublin Regulation.
iCELANd NORWAy
Number of arrivals 14,431 76
Number of arrivals (per 1,000 inhabitants) 3.1 .03
Number of arrivals (ranking among European countries) 3rd 20th
increase 2007-2008 120% 80%
*Applications processed by directorate of immigration 7,442 20
*Positive decisions (per 1,000 inhabitants) .635 .022
*Average processing time (months) 7.5 12-24¹
donations to UNhCR 2008 USd 61, 048, 237, rank 6th 100,000, rank 67th
Decisions on fully examined cases according to outcome 2008 (%)
Refugee status (EU average in 2008 = 13%) 14% 5%²
Protection on humanitarian grounds 11% 30%
Other protection 16% -----
Rejected 59% 65%
* Excluding Dublin and Family Reunification cases, as well as those who had their cases withdrawn
¹ Average for recent years according to Icelandic Directorate of Immigration
² Not including applicants granted refugee status on grounds of family reunification (FR). In 2008, three individuals were granted refugee status on FR grounds and permitted to join their family member who had received refugee status in Iceland. In
Norway 3,536 family immigration permits were issued to individuals who were to be reunited with persons of “refugee background.” Not processed as application for asylum as in Iceland.
Sources: Eurostat, Norwegian and Icelandic Directorates of Immigration, Icelandic Red Cross and UNHCR.