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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-12
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xake8rnQVR8
yeah you know sunny day winter day in Helsinki and I stay I was just I mean around with my friends chatting when people around us started running I wasn't sure where they were going or why but I started running to then I saw someone lying on the ground oh my god is sincere I thought I held his hand as we waited for an ambulance little by
little understood what had happened Nasir had climbed up a tree and tried to hang himself he had come to Finland as an asylum seeker and that morning he had been thrown out from these refugee camp and he had nowhere to go no hope for him it was life changing and for me as a as a friend and a human rights advocate it was a defining moment
it's only about two years since I became a human rights advocate I have been researching migration for many years but when more people started arriving to Europe I realize this is what I had been studying for so when they're asleep then the so called refugee crisis unfold it I was in Greece receiving the boats and distributing bottles need it indirectly camps legal or not seeking asylum
means leaving behind everything you've ever known Darryl hall of your house your belongings maybe you and your family you do it because there's no way going back but what's keep you what keeps you going is the hope that maybe you find a place where you can walk safely on the street save me to speak freely what's on your mind I love whoever you choose a place
where their use justice and writes and future and hope in two thousand fifteen also Finland my home country started seeing more asylum applications I've lost my small Dutch Finland is a place of equality and human rights and I also saw it in practice when people opened regular people opened their homes and their hearts that those who need it the most not everybody was welcoming the new
Congress though we started hearing more and more that the asylum seekers only came to Finland for a holiday that they only came to collect our social benefits and take all women then we started hearing that something strange was going on with the silent decisions the people who would have been previously granted asylum one now denied it even brother S. what similar cases the one who came
first it's given asylum and the other who came maybe a month later austenite it sure S. is a political activist from Iran he had given up Islam and was working to make Iran a democratic state separating the state on religion and also pushing to make cordis thought autonomous this is a green rain dangerous working it in Iran I like many others working to make Iran more
equal he was caught by the secret police and tortured for many days when he got out the secret police was still after him so when he came to Finland case to get asylum should have been a strong one he takes all the boxes that are required to be granted asylum still he was denied it Finland reply it do the people coming in by making its loss
Maastricht the change it didn't feel like because first just some little tweaks here and now legal speak their but the effects were drastic you see her what happened to the percentage asylums given to Iraqis but the changes were made the number of asylum Scranton it went from eighty percent in two thousand and fifteen to only sixteen percent in meat do thousand and sixteen these changes were
accompanied %HESITATION by changes in the way our asylum decisions were made research shows that the asylum decisions were sloppy partly justified and based on insufficient country information how some used to work in the Iraqi army as a cook when he had his interview at the finish immigration service have to rely on an interpreter because he didn't speak much finish the interpreter translated that he had been
given special military training then Chrysler service concluded that it was unlikely that he had been working in the army as a cook after being given special military training that makes his whole story songs illogical and I'm reliable and he was denied asylum both the immigration service and how some Floyer failed to notice this crucial mistake in translation I shot then to Finland because her father met
and the whole family has been threatened how much spare secu does have told him that if they can't get him they will get one of his family specifically they had set that they will catch his wife or his daughter and raped and killed them but the decision from the immigration service came Ahmet S. wife and old under age children are given asylum but I sure was
not yeah she was over eighteen and therefore no longer considered part of the family in Finland sure S. the political advocate from either Iran who had been tortured by the secret police was also denied asylum the immigration service set that he's he that the immigration service did not believe that he had been tortured because the way he talked about it was not was not detailed and
emotional enough psychologists say that this is very common when torture victims talk about what happened to them so memories are so horrible that their minds don't let the people revisit them they took a test head hurts too much that immigrations of state believe however the tourists have left Islam but they said that it was still safe for him to go back to detail attract their products
Iran because Iran have not executed that many people for religious reasons in the past couple of years in two thousand and sixteen out of all the countries in the world Iran was number was the second in the number of executions carried out the number of faulty asylum petitions in Finland house become a twin has increased by twenty times in just two years when the decision was
first started rolling in I get to see me but I do think that it's just a mistake at least because inexperienced staff and because of unforeseen rush in processing does applications and if we just bring these problems in delight they will be fixed that wasn't the case instead the diseases maker doesn't make us told us not to worry everything is okay yes I mistakes have been
made but they have been corrects it and nobody sent back it's not safe for them to return originally this was supposed to be a two person talk I was supposed to talk with my friend Danielle who came to Finland as an asylum seeker in two thousand and fifteen when I first asked him to do this talk with me he's at peace I'll do it we knew
that this kind of publicity could be dangerous for him so we plan to take all the precautions need it to keep peace identity hidden but in the end he still decided that it was too dangerous for him to talk because the prosecutors are still after him and his family meanwhile finish immigration service says that it's safe for him to return home if someone would have told
me three years ago that this is what's happening in Finland right now I wouldn't have believed it because this is Finland you know her things like this are not supposed to happen in this clean neat and humane country that moment when I sat by Hassan after he had just tried to hang himself I'm sorry that moment when I sat by us here as he had just
tried to kill himself it showed me all the disbelief and desperation that our immigration politics are causing this is the crisis but maybe even more important was what happened afterwards people expressed their condolences that nothing had not seated in killing himself one police officer rolled online they are not good even not that they wished Nassir had died opening your eyes that these things can be really
painful it was for me for years I looked at these things from ma removed stereotypical perspective but now it sometime to see the human side of it the disappointment and disbelief when somebody some official tells you it's safe to go back when you know it's not the desperation when there is no no place to go Sam I wouldn't change it for a thing working with asylum
seekers has been the most amazing horrible heart breaking and the most important thing I've ever done a few weeks ago on a funny when the same I shot the daughter of meant was granted asylum her decision had been deemed faulty and almost after a year later than the than her family she finally got it she got her asylum but on that very same day Hassan army
cook support it he found the translation errors in he's process too late and he never got a proper asylum process it was horrible but what keeps me going is knowing that he was not deported without anyone noticing or caring maybe you know asking ourselves what happened to us here who tried to hang himself what happened to shore S. political advocate weapon tortured by the Iranian secret
police what happened to Daniel it was supposed to stand next to me today this it's the very same question each and what everyone of them and countless others in Europe are asking themselves every hour every day what will happen to me and to my left once this a crisis closing your eyes to these things doesn't make down justice go away if access it's quite the opposite
