Asylum seekers on hunger strike in Finland – No to deportations to Afghanistan!
16.10.2012
Two Afghan asylum seekers have been on hunger strike in Helsinki from the
10th of September. For the first two weeks there were three hunger strikers. By going on hunger strike they are opposing their deportation to Afghanistan, for they have reason to believe that their lives are in danger there.
The Finnish Immigration Service has refused to grant asylum to them. The hunger striking men have appealed to the Administrative Court of Helsinki about the negative response to their asylum claims but fear that the appeal will be rejected.
The hunger striking men are prosecuted in Afghanistan because of political activity. One of them has been tortured. Their close relatives have been murdered recently. The background of their individual prosecution in Afghanistan is the war that has been going on in the country for years and the dysfunction of the current government. Ordinary people have no way of getting protection neither against prosecution carried out by the Taliban nor against that carried out by state officials.