BY DAG TIRSÉN
After being deported from Sweden and turned over to Peruvian security forces, Napoleón Daponte was subjected to a mock execution in a Peruvian prison. Only after an international campaign and much publicity in Sweden was Daponte allowed to return. But the Swedish immigration board still does not recognize him as a political prisoner and he can be deported again at any time.
This story was recently presented at a public tribunal in Stockholm, organized by immigrant and political organizations to expose the increasingly anti-immigrant policies of the Swedish government.
Okote Sewe, a journalist, fled from Kenya in 1992. He was forcibly circumcised and his wrist was broken under torture in prison there. He had written a book about the assassination of a Kenyan foreign minister, accusing the government of being responsible. The Swedish Immigration Authority argues that the fact he was released after the torture shows that he can return to Kenya without danger.
Anita Dorazio, a prominent fighter for the rights of asylum seekers and member of the National Council of Refugee Groups and Asylum Committees, presented facts about how difficult it is to gain asylum in Sweden. She explained that while a majority of people who sought asylum in Sweden a couple of years ago received it, now less than 10 percent of applicants are granted that status. Dorazio estimates that 7- 8000 refugees are hiding in Sweden to escape deportation.
Government officials use all kinds of pretexts to question the credibility of an applicant. If they have a passport they can be turned away on the basis that they couldn't possibly be persecuted if they have such an official document. If they don't have a passport they are suspected of having destroyed it to "hide the truth" and make the investigation more difficult.
The deportation policy is harsher now, Dorazio said. Previously, an attempted suicide could be a reason for the Immigration Authority to stop a deportation on "humanitarian grounds." Now it takes two suicide attempts.
Attorney Robert Camerini testified at the public tribunal that the Immigration Authority is violating international law by jailing children of refugees awaiting deportation. The United Nations convention on children, which Sweden ratified, outlaws imprisoning children.
Ken Lewis, another lawyer, compared the social democratic government's brutal immigration policy of today with actions of the Swedish government during World War II. At that time the Swedish government collaborated with the Swiss and German governments by stamping "J" on the passports of all Jews so they could be identified and turned away at the border.
Another witness at the tribunal was the representative of a group of 5,000 refugees from Bosnia, Yusuf Yakusevic. He spoke about a successful fight that had forced the Swedish government to stop their deportation. Considered Bosnian Croats, the 5,000 had obtained passports from the government of Croatia to enter Sweden and escape the war. Although their home was in Bosnia, the Swedish government refused to recognize them as refugees because they could "return to Croatia." The new minister of immigration, Leif Blomberg, drew a lot of attention to the group's deportation, taking great pains to ensure that the Croatian government would "receive" them.
But the group of Bosnians took on the fight, starting with a hunger strike last September that involved several hundred people. Later they occupied a church in the southern Swedish town of Karlskrona for several months.
When the fighting broke out in Croatia again, the Swedish government came under increasing fire for its attempt to send people back into a war. The Bosnians won the support of Amnesty International, church leaders, and politicians. A group of prominent actors and religious figures published a common statement denouncing the deportations.
The Swedish government finally backed off the deportations. It granted the refugees temporary asylum and said they could make new applications for asylum.