Swedish court grants asylum to Iraqi Christians
In a decision with far-reaching implications, a Swedish court has approved an application for asylum made by an Iraqi Christian family, despite an agreement signed by Sweden and Iraq designed to obviate such applications.
In early 2008, Sweden and Iraq signed an agreement under which the Iraqi government pledged to protect religious minorities and returning refugees from ethnic and religious cleansing. Since then, Iraq failed to prevent Islamists from driving thousands of Assyrian (Chaldean and Syriac) Christian families from Mosul. The city is reportedly on the verge of being emptied of non-Muslims.
After being denied asylum by the Migration Board, the family (identified only by the father’s name, Harout) went to Sweden’s Migration Court, which found that the family is not safe anywhere in Iraq and granted permanent residency.
From the court’s decision:
Harout and his family belong to the Christian minority in Mosul, which according to country reporting in the case is a group subject to a high risk of threats and assaults. It has htrough [sic] the investigation come to light that Harout was running a garage and at a few occasions repaired military vehicles belonging to the American forces. After this he became victim of telephone threats and was accused to be a Christian traitor on three different occasions. The person or persons who threatened him urged him to leave the country instantly or else he would be killed. Besides this, Harout’s garage was destroyed in a bomb attack. It has, however, not been possible to establish whether the attack was attempted towards Harout personally or not. The Migration Court nevertheless finds the threats towards Harout are to be considered as severe assaults in terms of what is dictated by the Aliens Act and it is probable that he and his family, if they are forced to return home, will experience well-founded fear for repeated assaults. Futhermore, [sic] the Migrationsdomstolen [Migration Court] finds that they cannot profit from the protection the authorities in the country. It is neither a reasonable to expect them to be able to settle down in another part of Iraq. Harout, his wife and two children as people in need of protection are therefore granted permanent residency according to Chap 4, paragraph 2 first part 2 Alien Act.
The ruling would appear to imply that no threatened Iraqis can be deported, apparently rendering the Swedish-Iraqi agreement a dead letter.
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