[Music]
[Applause]
yup inna sunny day winter day in
Helsinki a nice day I was just hanging
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 too then I saw
someone lying on the ground
oh my god it’s Nasir I thought I held
his hand as we waited for an ambulance
little by little I understood what had
happened Nazir 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 his 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 had been
researching migration for many years but
when more people started arriving to
Europe I realized this is what I had
been studying for so when terrific when
the so called refugee crisis unfolded I
was in Greece receiving the boats and
distributing what was needed in the
refugee camps seeking and seeking asylum
means leaving behind everything you’ve
ever known your own home your house your
belongings maybe even 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
say please speak freely but on your mind
I love whoever you choose a place where
there is justice and rights and future
and hope in 2015 also Finland my home
country started seeing more asylum
applications I’ve always thought that
Finland is a place of equality and human
rights and I also saw it in practice
when people open regular people opened
their homes and their hearts to those
who need it the most not everybody was
welcoming the newcomers 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 asylum
decisions the people who would have been
previously granted asylum or now denied
it even brothers who had similar cases
the one who came first was given asylum
and the other who came maybe a month
later was denied 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 and religion and also pushing to
make Kurdistan autonomous
this is a really rain dangerous working
unit in Iran and 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 his case to get asylum
should have been a strong one
he ticked all the boxes that are
required to be granted asylum still he
was denied it
Finland replied to the people coming in
by making its lost more strict the
changes didn’t feel that big at first
just a little tweak here and a little
tweak there but the effects were drastic
you see her what happened to the
percentage of asylums given to Iraqis
when the changes were made the number of
asylums granted went from 80 percent in
2015 to only 16 percent in mid 2016
these changes were accompanied by
changes in the way Asylum decisions were
made
research shows that asylum decisions
were sloppy poorly justified and based
on insufficient country information
Hassan used to work in the Iraqi army as
a cook when he had his interview at the
Finnish Immigration Service he had to
rely on an interpreter because he didn’t
speak much Finnish the interpreter
translated that he had been given
special military training the
Immigration Service concluded that it
was unlikely that he had been working in
the army as a cook after being given
special military training that made his
whole story from illogical and
unreliable and he was denied Asylum both
the Immigration Service and her son’s
lawyer failed to notice this crucial
mistake in translation
Ayisha came to Finland because her
father Ahmet and the whole family had
been threatened ah chametz persecutors
had told him that if they can’t get him
they will get one of his family
specifically they had said that they
will catch his wife or his daughter and
rape and kill them but the decision from
the Immigration Service came I met his
wife and old underage children were
given asylum but I sure was not because
she was over 18 and therefore no longer
considered the part of the family in
Finland sure as the political advocate
from EDA
Iran who had been tortured by the secret
police was also denied Asylum the
Immigration Service said that he is 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 the memories are
so horrible that their minds don’t let
the people revisit them they eat just
hey it hurts too much the Immigration
Service did believe however that Trez
have left Islam but they said that it
was still safe for him to go back to the
theatre critic Iran because Iran had not
executed that many people for religious
reasons in the past couple of years in
2016 out of all the countries in the
world
Iran was number it was the second in the
number of executions carried out
the number of faulty asylum petitions in
Finland has become a twin has increased
by 20 times in just two years when the
decisions first started rolling in the
idealist in May wanted to think that
it’s just a mistake that is because of
the inexperienced staff it’s aunt
because of the unforeseen rush in
processing test applications and if we
just bring these problems into light
they will be fixed that wasn’t the case
instead the decisions makers
decision-makers told us not to worry
everything is ok yes the mistakes have
been made but they have been corrected
and nobody is sent back if 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 Daniel
who came to Finland as an asylum seeker
in 2015 when I first asked him to do
this talk with me he said yes I’ll do it
we knew that this kind of publicity
could be dangerous for him so we planned
to take all the precautions needed to
keep his identity hidden but in the end
he still decided that it was too
dangerous for him to talk because the
persecutors are still after him and his
family meanwhile finished 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 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 and sorry
That moment when I sat by Nazir 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 express their
condolences that Nazir had not succeeded
in killing himself one police officer
proton line they are not good even at
that they wished Nazir had died opening
your eyes do these things can be really
painful it was for me for years I looked
at these things from a removed
theoretical perspective but now I still
come 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
and the desperation when there’s no no
place to go still I wouldn’t change it
for a thing working with asylum seekers
has been the most amazing horrible
heartbreaking and the most important
thing I’ve ever done
a few weeks ago and a funny witness day
Aisha the daughter of Abbot was granted
asylum her decision had been deemed
faulty and almost after a year later
than than her family she finally got it
she got her Asylum but on that very same
day Hassan the army cook was deported
we found the translation errors in his
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’re now asking yourselves what
happened to Nazir who tried to hang
himself what happened to sure s
political advocate who had been tortured
by the Iranian secret police what
happened to Daniel who was supposed to
stand next to me today this is the very
same question each and what every one of
them and countless others in Europe are
asking themselves every hour of every
day what will happen to me and to my
loved ones this is the crisis
closing your eyes to these things
doesn’t make the unjustice go away if
access it’s quite opposite when too many
people close their eyes fast that allows
the injustice to continue the first step
in tain in making the change is to see
it please open your eyes
thank you
[Applause]
[Applause]
yup inna sunny day winter day in
Helsinki a nice day I was just hanging
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 too then I saw
someone lying on the ground
oh my god it’s Nasir I thought I held
his hand as we waited for an ambulance
little by little I understood what had
happened Nazir 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 his 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 had been
researching migration for many years but
when more people started arriving to
Europe I realized this is what I had
been studying for so when terrific when
the so called refugee crisis unfolded I
was in Greece receiving the boats and
distributing what was needed in the
refugee camps seeking and seeking asylum
means leaving behind everything you’ve
ever known your own home your house your
belongings maybe even 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
say please speak freely but on your mind
I love whoever you choose a place where
there is justice and rights and future
and hope in 2015 also Finland my home
country started seeing more asylum
applications I’ve always thought that
Finland is a place of equality and human
rights and I also saw it in practice
when people open regular people opened
their homes and their hearts to those
who need it the most not everybody was
welcoming the newcomers 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 asylum
decisions the people who would have been
previously granted asylum or now denied
it even brothers who had similar cases
the one who came first was given asylum
and the other who came maybe a month
later was denied 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 and religion and also pushing to
make Kurdistan autonomous
this is a really rain dangerous working
unit in Iran and 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 his case to get asylum
should have been a strong one
he ticked all the boxes that are
required to be granted asylum still he
was denied it
Finland replied to the people coming in
by making its lost more strict the
changes didn’t feel that big at first
just a little tweak here and a little
tweak there but the effects were drastic
you see her what happened to the
percentage of asylums given to Iraqis
when the changes were made the number of
asylums granted went from 80 percent in
2015 to only 16 percent in mid 2016
these changes were accompanied by
changes in the way Asylum decisions were
made
research shows that asylum decisions
were sloppy poorly justified and based
on insufficient country information
Hassan used to work in the Iraqi army as
a cook when he had his interview at the
Finnish Immigration Service he had to
rely on an interpreter because he didn’t
speak much Finnish the interpreter
translated that he had been given
special military training the
Immigration Service concluded that it
was unlikely that he had been working in
the army as a cook after being given
special military training that made his
whole story from illogical and
unreliable and he was denied Asylum both
the Immigration Service and her son’s
lawyer failed to notice this crucial
mistake in translation
Ayisha came to Finland because her
father Ahmet and the whole family had
been threatened ah chametz persecutors
had told him that if they can’t get him
they will get one of his family
specifically they had said that they
will catch his wife or his daughter and
rape and kill them but the decision from
the Immigration Service came I met his
wife and old underage children were
given asylum but I sure was not because
she was over 18 and therefore no longer
considered the part of the family in
Finland sure as the political advocate
from EDA
Iran who had been tortured by the secret
police was also denied Asylum the
Immigration Service said that he is 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 the memories are
so horrible that their minds don’t let
the people revisit them they eat just
hey it hurts too much the Immigration
Service did believe however that Trez
have left Islam but they said that it
was still safe for him to go back to the
theatre critic Iran because Iran had not
executed that many people for religious
reasons in the past couple of years in
2016 out of all the countries in the
world
Iran was number it was the second in the
number of executions carried out
the number of faulty asylum petitions in
Finland has become a twin has increased
by 20 times in just two years when the
decisions first started rolling in the
idealist in May wanted to think that
it’s just a mistake that is because of
the inexperienced staff it’s aunt
because of the unforeseen rush in
processing test applications and if we
just bring these problems into light
they will be fixed that wasn’t the case
instead the decisions makers
decision-makers told us not to worry
everything is ok yes the mistakes have
been made but they have been corrected
and nobody is sent back if 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 Daniel
who came to Finland as an asylum seeker
in 2015 when I first asked him to do
this talk with me he said yes I’ll do it
we knew that this kind of publicity
could be dangerous for him so we planned
to take all the precautions needed to
keep his identity hidden but in the end
he still decided that it was too
dangerous for him to talk because the
persecutors are still after him and his
family meanwhile finished 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 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 and sorry
That moment when I sat by Nazir 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 express their
condolences that Nazir had not succeeded
in killing himself one police officer
proton line they are not good even at
that they wished Nazir had died opening
your eyes do these things can be really
painful it was for me for years I looked
at these things from a removed
theoretical perspective but now I still
come 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
and the desperation when there’s no no
place to go still I wouldn’t change it
for a thing working with asylum seekers
has been the most amazing horrible
heartbreaking and the most important
thing I’ve ever done
a few weeks ago and a funny witness day
Aisha the daughter of Abbot was granted
asylum her decision had been deemed
faulty and almost after a year later
than than her family she finally got it
she got her Asylum but on that very same
day Hassan the army cook was deported
we found the translation errors in his
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’re now asking yourselves what
happened to Nazir who tried to hang
himself what happened to sure s
political advocate who had been tortured
by the Iranian secret police what
happened to Daniel who was supposed to
stand next to me today this is the very
same question each and what every one of
them and countless others in Europe are
asking themselves every hour of every
day what will happen to me and to my
loved ones this is the crisis
closing your eyes to these things
doesn’t make the unjustice go away if
access it’s quite opposite when too many
people close their eyes fast that allows
the injustice to continue the first step
in tain in making the change is to see
it please open your eyes
thank you
[Applause]
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