Finland: Complaints about alien's office
01 July 1994
Lost mail, illegal refusals of entry, failures to provide translators and denied family re-unifications are among the accusations in a leading Finnish NGO's complaint against the country's foreign affairs administration. In a complaint to the Ombudsman of the Parliament in Helsinki in July, the Pakolaisneuvonta (Refugee Advisory Centre) demanded a special inspection at the SUK police department in Helsinki, where asylum cases are dealt with.
Hitting a low of only 430 asylum-seekers entering Finland during the first six months of the year, the reasons are to be found in faulty procedures. In the complaint, the lawyers refer to cases of Iraqi asylum-seekers having been turned away at the Russian border without having had the right to a translator. In another case 15 Somali asylum-seekers where not allowed to leave a plane from Bulgaria at Helsinki airport. Re-unification of refugee families are also being denied. In one case an SUK official is said to have told a Somali man he could not bring his son to Finland, as "somebody must have been taking care of him all this time, and he's a member of that family now, just like a kitten adjusts to any new family". In another case an SUK official is reported to have told a Turkish torture victim that "this kind of thing could happen to any country-side worker". The NGO's complaint comes only a few days after the Finnish Ombudsman for Alien Affairs, Antti Seppala, had criticized the practice of train conductors on the St Petersburg-Helsinki trains sorting out foreigners with suspected false travel documents and handing them over to Russian militia before the Finnish border.
New Attempt to Close Borders
The governments of Finland and Estonia are negotiating for a readmission agreement, which would close the 80 km passage across the Bay of Finland for immigrants and asylum-seekers. On 24 May the Finnish Minister of the Interior, Mr Mauri Pekkarinen, and his Estonian colleague, Mr Heikki Arike, confirmed in Helsinki that the countries are negotiating for a readmission agreement, similar to the one in force between the Nordic countries. Estonia claims it has no funding for settlement of refugees and has not signed the Geneva Convention on Refugees. This comes only four months after the centre-right coalition decided against the advice of the Interior Minister, to still consider Russia and the Baltic republics unsafe for citizens of other countries.
The Minister of the Interior also proposed in June a reduction of asylum-seekers' rights to appeal decisions. Leaders of Finnish reception centres are challenging the changes. Finnish asylum decisions can be appealed to a Ministry of Justice board of appeals. Deportations can be appealed to the Supreme Court of Administration - the entire process in some cases lasts for more than three years.