Iceland review - 2015, Qupperneq 55

ICELAND REVIEW 53
born in Iran to Afghan parents, the situa-
tion was different. He fled Iran for Europe
at age 23, arriving in Iceland in 2011 from
Finland, via Norway, hoping to be granted
asylum after receiving a negative in several
other European countries. “I traveled from
Iran, over the mountains into Turkey, by
boat from Turkey to Greece and then to
Switzerland by plane … after I got another
negative, in Finland, I decided to come to
Iceland,” he says of his eventual journey
here.
COOL RECEPTION
In 2014, Iceland received 175 applications
for asylum from individuals of 45 nation-
alities. The highest number came from
Albania, followed by Ukraine, Russia and
Iraq.
As of March 17 there have been 117
applications for asylum since August 25. “If
this trend continues, we predict that we will
receive 250 applications in 2015. Usually
December is quiet but last December was
very busy. There’s no quiet time anymore,”
Áshildur says. The increase is however in
line with developments in neighboring
countries, she says.
As far as Iceland’s track record on grant-
ing asylum is concerned, though, asylum
seekers face a cool reception on arriv-
al. Iceland receives few applications for
asylum compared to its neighbors, yet
even fewer asylum seekers obtain pro-
tection in Iceland. In 2014, a total of 33
individuals (including five who received
humanitarian protection) were granted
protection in Iceland, up from 12 in 2013.
Germany granted the highest number of
positive decisions in Europe in 2014 with
around 40,000 followed by Sweden with
33,721. The proportion of positive deci-
sions among all cases, including Dublin
and others, totaled 28 percent in Iceland in
2014, compared to 58 percent in Sweden.
“It’s no secret that among the Nordic
countries, Iceland grants protection to by
far the lowest number of asylum seekers,”
Red Cross spokesperson Björn Teitsson
says. “Sweden grants asylum to around
33,000 individuals each year. To reach the
same level, Iceland would need to accept
around 1,100 asylum seekers but we don’t
even take 50. We can do much better but
there needs to exist the political will to do
so,” he adds.
Speaking at ‘GO AWAY: Conference on
the Status of Refugees,’ held in Reykjavík
in November last year, MP for the Pirate
Party Birgitta Jónsdóttir said that while
asylum seekers aren’t the main concern of
politicians, they are on the agenda of some.
“It’s not the main issue [in discussion].
Parties don’t get votes for [focusing on]
this but among my people it’s something
we discuss a lot.”
It’s important to note that since 1956,
Iceland has also invited small groups of
quota refugees (ten arrived in 2014) to
resettle in the country in cooperation with
UNHCR, which has urged Iceland to
increase its quota.
The low number of positive decisions by
Icelandic authorities can partly be attribut-
ed to the fact that it’s not possible to travel
directly from most other countries, includ-
ing conflict zones, to Iceland without pass-
ing through another European Union (EU)
member state. The Dublin Regulation
states that the EU member state (Iceland,
Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein
have also signed the agreement) that played
the largest part in an individual’s entry
or residence in the EU—usually the EU
country they reached first—is responsible
for processing their case. It is often cited as
a reason for rejecting applications. In other
words, if an individual has been registered
by the authorities in another European
country but travels onwards from their first
point of arrival and seeks asylum elsewhere
in Europe, that country is able—but not
obliged—to send that person back.
The Dublin Regulation aims to ensure
that only one state is responsible for each
application. However, there has been wide-
spread concern that the system puts exces-
sive pressure on border areas, in particular
Greece and Italy, leading to the inability of
the countries to offer support or protection.
Head of the Asylum Department at the
Directorate of Immigration Þorsteinn
Gunnarsson confirms that many cases in
Iceland are so-called Dublin cases, around
47 percent in 2014, and that Iceland fol-
lows the rules on returning individuals,
including not sending people back to coun-
tries deemed unsafe. “We get much fewer
applications here in Iceland than in other
European countries and a large proportion
are Dublin cases. What is different between
Sweden, for example, and Iceland is that
many asylum seekers specifically seek out
Sweden as an end destination, because of
word-of-mouth that conditions are good,
while Iceland is usually not a first choice.
Iceland is just a small island, it’s hard to get
to and it’s not really a country that’s on the
radar. Our job is to determine whether it’s
our responsibility to investigate an individ-
ual’s case, and if it is, to investigate it and
determine if they have a legitimate case for
asylum.” When asked why Iceland doesn’t
decide to investigate Dublin cases too,
since it’s not obliged to send individuals
back, he says that the directorate follows
the Dublin regulation and that anything
else would be a political decision that
would have to be made by the Icelandic
government or legislature.
Some people working in the field in
Iceland have speculated whether the refu-
gee definition is interpreted more narrowly
here than elsewhere. Toshiki Toma, who
has worked with asylum seekers as a minis-
ter for immigrants at the National Church
for many years, and also as a volunteer with