Sweden’s Insecure Asylum Testing

By Birgitta Elfström   

Sweden – HN — Christians are being driven out of Iraq. That is a fact. Churches are systematically being bombed. Christian women are being raped and forced to convert to Islam. Young Christian men are being beheaded in front of cameras. As part of as scaremongering recordings of the brutal murders are sent to all Christians. Priests, nuns and bishops are kidnapped and murdered. The list of the oppressing and persecuting acts is long, very long (see report). Many organizations call it ethnic and religious cleansing. So do I. In most parts of the country, being non-Muslim means you will face death. Iraqis who do not confess to Islam flee the country in hundreds of thousands.

Many of the asylum seeking Iraqis in Sweden are Christians. They have always been in the minority in Iraq. There were no particular problems between Christian and Muslim groups during the Saddam era. They lived side by side rather peacefully — so long as they were content with being robbed of their ethnicity, so long as they agreed to be called Christian Arabs or Kurds.

The bigger part of the Christian community in Iraq is Assyrian, also called Chaldean and Syriac, but to use these designations was forbidden by law. But at least they could practice their religion without any risks. There existed a freedom of religion in the country.

The current situation for the Christians in Iraq is horrifying. Who protects the Christian Iraqis from being killed? The Iraqi government does not. The U.S. does not. The world community, in which Sweden is included, has an obligation to act. It is not enough that Sweden is economically supporting Iraq. What difference does that make? Iraq is not exactly a poor country. Other efforts must be made.

On Nuri Kino’s blog I read with dread about how Christian Iraqis are denied asylum. The National Migration Board must comply with Swedish and international laws. According to Swedish law the applications must be considered on an individual basis. Only then can the case be settled based on whether the person seeking asylum has a right to protection or not. According to Swedish law, all Christian Iraqis have the right to protection. Christian Iraqis are being persecuted because they are Christian. They need international protection against the ongoing ethnic cleansing.

The National Migration Board ought to open their eyes to what is going on in Iraq. Facts are facts. If you send Assyrians back to Iraq, they must also be protected. The world community, in which Sweden also is included, must work for a safe haven for Assyrians and other minorities in northern Iraq, the so called Nineveh-plain. Only then can the Assyrians be sent back.

I have followed Nuri Kino’s work for many years now and feel the same frustration as him over the fact that neither Sweden nor the rest of the world acknowledge the attacks on the Christians for what they are: ethnic and religious cleansing.