Norway to deport a young Hazara asylum seeker to danger

Nicole Valentini

Just after a few weeks after a bloody attack on Hazaras in Kabul and within new diplomatic dialogue between the Obama regime and the Taliban, the Norwegian authorities have decided to deport a young Hazara asylum seeker back to a perilous situation.

M. Mozamil Azimi is an eighteen year old Hazara boy, his home country is in the midst of an international crisis and public interest , ongoing now for more than a decade. This country is called Afghanistan, and one of the worst places in the world in which to be born according to Save the Children Fund. It is also a country with the lowest rate of human/economic development according to the United Nations.

Mozamil was underage when he chose to leave his country with the purpose to go to the other side of the world. To live in a part of the world in which the possibilities to live a peaceful and satisfying life are the same for everyone. After more than a year of travel, getting through eight states, risking life several times and suffering every kind of violence and harassment, he reached his destination: Norway, one of the most developed and democratic countries in the world. For two years Mozamil has been locked up in a refugee centre without the possibility to learn the language or to receive adequate protection, even if this would be a universal right of every child. His request for international protection under the Refugee Convention of the UN has been rejected for two times in Norway because his life has not been considered in danger enough to be granted refugee status. Good sense and morality would suggest that a young boy that risks his own life to flee from a country at war devastated by ethnic conflict should be worthy of protection, but unfortunately good sense doesn’t makes the law. What the objective criteria that has allowed the rejection of his request is not clear. Also his ethnic affiliation should guarantee a greater attention to his case regarding the Refugee Convention protecting the rights of minority groups.

Indeed it is a documented fact that the Hazara people are one of the groups that suffered systematic crimes such as slavery, genocide, forced displacement and discrimination. They are still victims of a muted genocide and discrimination, both in Afghanistan and Iran. Just a few weeks ego, an attack on Hazaras killed over sixty people in Kabul. As the Karzai regime is trying to get closer to terrorist and anti-Hazara Taliban forces, the Hazaras’ life will be under greater threat. In 2008 the government banned well-know film "The Kite Runner" that tells a little bit about the Hazaras’ situation in Afghanistan. A film that most Norwegians including children have watched and a film that has won countless prizes at film festivals globally.

The attacks on Hazaras in Pakistan and Afghanistan should be considered a real attempt at genocide by Taliban and Al-Qaeda backed militants. The attacks on Hazaras before Karzai’s regime are well documented by international Human Rights organizations.

Moreover, Article 3 of the European Convention for the protection of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms provides that nobody can be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and as a consequence nobody can be deported to a country in which he could experience this kind of treatment.

Another important thing must be considered in the case of Mozamil: In 2008, two Italian lawyers filed an appeal to the Human Rights Court of Strasburg for 35 people (coming from Afghanistan and Somalia) including Mozamil, who were are illegally deported from Italian seaports to Greece. The court accepted the appeal and that is still now in progress and for this reason all these people cannot now be deported to Afghanistan. Mozamil needs immediate support and it also needs to open up a case against Norway in the European Court of Human Rights. Norwegian authorities keep him in a detention centre, “Trandum” where he doesn’t have access to open communication facilities such as internet. Norway is a member of European Court of Human Rights since 1949. The current judge in respect of Norway is Mr. Erik Møse.

Now Mozamil Azimi has got only two weeks before he is to be deported to Afghanistan where there will be just blood, dust and a dark and uncertain future awaiting him.

Norway was nominated most democratic country in 2010/2011, an irony given this case in point.
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Article published here: Kabul Press
URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2012/01/10/norway-to-deport-a-young-hazara-asylum-s