Norway deports refugees who biked across Russian border in
sub-zero temperatures
Norway on Tuesday began a controversial new practice of
sending migrants and refugees who battled freezing temperatures to cross the
country's arctic border with Russia on bike, back across the border.
A bus with 13 people on board crossed the Russian border
after departing from a reception center in the Norwegian town of Kirkenes on
Tuesday night. It was -19 degrees Fahrenheit and snowing.
Norwegian authorities confirmed they began busing people
back over the Russian border in a bid to crack down on asylum seekers entering
the country. It is unclear where in Russia they were being brought or what
would happen to them next but The Guardian reports they were initially taken to
the Russian towns of Nikel and Murmansk.
In 2015, about 5,500 migrants and refugees, many of them
Syrian, capitalized on a loophole that permits cyclists to pass through the
northern Storskog crossing between Russia and Norway. The two countries
prohibit people from crossing the border on foot or by car without proper
documents, but cyclists were permitted to pass relatively freely at both ends
for much of 2015.
But Sylvi Listhaug, the newly appointed Norwegian
immigration minister promised in December to crack down on the flow of refugees
into the country. She announced last week that all those who crossed at
Storskog without an appropriate visa would risk being sent back to Russia.
Initially, local news outlets had reported those who crossed
the border would be sent back exactly the way they came: by bike. But police
later confirmed that the migrants and refugees would be transported by bus.
“If Norway is to have a fair asylum policy, we need to send
back those who are not entitled to protection,” Listhaug told parliament on
Tuesday evening, according to The Guardian.
Any refugee with a valid Russian visa would be deported, she
said, defending the new policy. The deportations have been criticized in Norway
and abroad, and activists and human rights groups worry that the deportations
violate international law.
Norwegian migration lawyer Halvor Frihagen told Al Jazeera
he believes the move violated European Union human rights laws.
"The asylum seekers are detained and have not been
given the possibility to appeal the decisions. This is in violation of the
European Convention of Human Rights, article 13," Frihagen told Al
Jazeera. "Norway considers Russia a safe first country of asylum, despite
several convictions in the European Court of Human Rights, including for
detaining asylum seekers with a view of deporting them to Syria."
Refugees Welcome To The Arctic, a charity group that works
to provide a warm reception for those entering Norway, posted a video of
Tuesday's deportation and called it "a disgraceful day in Norwegian
history."
" Norway is deporting refugees to Russia against UN
recommendations to an asylum system that is near non-existent! Norway is
deporting refugees to Russia against UN recommendations to an asylum system
that is near non-existent!" read a Facebook post from the group.
The group posted that they feared what would become of those
who were sent across the border back into Russia with limited resources.
Some of the asylum seekers still in Norway have reportedly
begun a hunger strike.
Those who arrived in Norway last year were just a fraction
of more than 1 million migrants and refugees who made their way to Europe from
the Middle East and North Africa in the worst migration crisis the continent
has seen since World War II. But Norway has been largely immune to the large
influx of refugees because of its northerly location, despite the ongoing
Syrian conflict that is driving much of the movement of people out of the
region and into Europe.
Norway had pledged to resettle just 9,000 Syrian refugees as
of the end of 2015.
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