Sweden toughens stance on Iraqi refugees

 

Azzaman, February 18, 2009

 

The Swedish government is tightening rules under which Iraqi refugees seeking asylum could stay in the country and is using force to have them deported.

 

It recently mobilized its police forces to round up hundreds of Iraqis, among them babies born in Sweden, and force them back home.

 

Flats were stormed at midnight in several cities amid the cries of children. There are reports of mothers fainting on seeing their children hauled into police cars to detention centers before deportation.

 

The crackdown is in contrast to the tolerance the Swedish authorities have shown to the plight of Iraqis whose country has been devastated by U.S. invasion troops and sectarian strife.

 

The police usually separate children from their parents on the pretext that they need to take better care of them while in detention prior to their deportation.

 

In one instance, a few crying children were kept for at least three nights away from their parents at a time Sweden is internationally known to be more caring to children than any other country in the world.

 

Many of the children deported recently had spent years in Swedish schools and would find it extremely difficult to join Iraqi schools where the curriculum and language are so different.

 

The refugees, most of them handcuffed, are forced to board planes especially hired to carry them to Baghdad amid tight security and in the presence of armed Swedish guards.

 

Swedish newspapers have published pictures of police dragging Iraqis by force to board planes at the airport in Stockholm.

 

The tough measures have sent a wave of terror and fear among the nearly 5,000 Iraqi asylum seekers whose cases the Swedish Migration Board has turned down.

 

Many blame the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for striking a deal with the Swedish authorities which allows them to hunt down Iraqi refugees and dump them on the Baghdad International Airport.

 

But still they cannot understand how come a tolerant and liberal country like Sweden is involved in such practices.

 

Maliki has been harshly criticized in the local press for the agreement.

 

The regional Kurdish government in the north, which has refused to accept the deal, has urged the central government not to welcome Iraqi refugees residing in Western countries so long as conditions in the country are not secure and safe.