From Border to Safety Campaign
Everybody has the right to seek asylum. Free Movement has launched the From Border to Safety Campaign other actors concerned about the right to asylum.* Read the demands of the campaign.
The right to seek asylum is a human right to which Finland is committed under international law. The continued closure of the eastern border jeopardises the right to seek asylum. Russia’s political aims regarding its border practices do not justify the stigmatisation of people seeking protection or the criminalisation of seeking asylum. Closing safe and regular routes increases the use of dangerous routes and puts vulnerable groups, such as children, at particular risk. The campaign calls for the following:
- Finland must safeguard the right to seek asylum also at the Eastern border.
- The government must renounce pushbacks and other illegal actions that violate the non-refoulement clause.
- The criminalisation and stigmatisation of asylum seekers and people on the move must end.
- A border procedure that jeopardises fair asylum processing must not be introduced in Finland or at the EU level.
From Border to Safety Campaign has been launched by NGOs and individuals concerned about human and fundamental rights. The campaign defends the right to seek asylum by making researched information on humanitarian migration, experts’ views on Finland’s legal obligations, and the experiences of refugees/migrants available to the public and decision-makers.
Campaign demands and their justifications: Finland must guarantee the right to seek asylum, either by opening border crossing points on the eastern border for asylum applications or by creating other safe pathways through which one can seek asylum in practice. Finland is committed to protect the right to seek asylum under international law, such as under Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. This right ultimately protects the right to life and it is closely linked to other human rights, such as the prohibition of torture and other inhuman treatment, freedom of expression, opinion, conscience and religion, and the right to personal liberty and security. According to the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman keeping the eastern border closed jeopardises the right to seek asylum [1].
For years, European Union member states, including Finland, have tried to prevent the entry of refugees by border controls instead of creating safe routes. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), in 2023 alone, almost 4,000 people on the move died or disappeared on their way to Europe [2]. Closing the migration routes on the eastern border of Finland increases the risk of dangerous border crossings.
The government of Finland must commit itself to respecting the ban on collective expulsion and the ban on refoulement, and renounce any practices that violate them. The non-refoulement clause is a core principle of human rights law and it prohibits states from returning individuals to a territory where there is a real right of being subjected to persecution, torture, death penalty, or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The non-refoulement clause is unconditional and cannot be waived, not even in times of war or public emergency threatening the life of the nation. The clause is laid down, inter alia, in Article 9(4) of the Constitution and Article 19 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The prohibition of collective expulsion is enshrined in Article 4 of Protocol IV to the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 19 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The definition of collective expulsion covers any measure forcing persons to leave a territory or a country as a group, where the decision is not based on a reasonable and objective assessment of the individual case of each person.
Pushbacks are actions by which authorities return people who have crossed or attempted to cross the border back to the other side of the border without giving them the opportunity to claim asylum [3]. These actions violate the right to seek asylum, the absolute ban on refoulement and the prohibition of collective expulsion. Pushback has been talked about in public as if it were an official procedure, which it is not. Pushback is simply a critical term for the state’s refusal to allow an individual to claim asylum, but instead immediately removes them from the country, in violation of international conventions.
European courts have ruled that certain human rights obligations cannot be derogated from, even in exceptional circumstances, such as in an event of “instrumentalisation”. Illegal return operations have been committed by authorities in many EU countries and have been condemned by various courts [4]. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Poland violated Articles 3 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 4 of Protocol 4 at the Belarusian border. In a preliminary ruling, the ECJ has found that Lithuania’s measures to restrict the reception of asylum applications in the event of mass influxes were contrary to the Asylum Procedures Directive and Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Thus, even a mass influx or a significant increase in the number of migrants and asylum seekers does not exempt a State from guaranteeing the right to seek asylum or respecting the non-refoulement clause.
The criminalisation and stigmatisation of asylum seekers and people on the move must end. In many EU border states, the criminalisation of asylum seekers has led to violence against them. For example, in January 2024, the ECtHR ruled against Greece in a case where a migrant had been seriously wounded by gunfire from a Greek coastguard vessel (3566/16). Such violence is fuelled by comments in the public media where asylum seekers are repeatedly referred to as “illegal border crossers”. This term is incorrect and circumvents the fact that people are often forced to cross the border irregularly since asylum from the EU cannot be sought from outside the EU borders and no visa is issued for seeking asylum. It is highly unlikely that the Border Guard will investigate all border crossings by asylum seekers for state border offences. Rather these investigations should be suspended because, according to the Criminal Code, a person seeking international protection cannot be convicted of this crime.
The border procedure should not be introduced in Finland or at the EU level, as it jeopardises access to a fair asylum procedure and leads to widespread detention. Under the border procedure, asylum seekers who cross the EU external border would be detained until it is decided whether to process their application in the normal proceedings, in an accelerated procedure, or not to examine it. If the application is processed under the accelerated procedure, the Immigration Service would have four weeks to make a decision. The asylum seeker would be detained for the entire period. It has been already noted that Finland has not been successful in identifying asylum seekers who are in vulnerable positions, such as those who have been tortured and those who have experienced gender-based violence [5]. Such a rapid asylum procedure would further jeopardise the identification and individual assessment of these vulnerabilities.
At the end of last year, the EU finalised the so-called “migration package”, which focuses mainly on border controls and weakening the rights of asylum seekers [6]. The package also includes a mandatory border procedure for applicants from countries with less than 20% of their citizens granted asylum. The laws have been politically decided but have not yet been formally adopted and Finland is currently under no obligation to introduce a border procedure. Finland should lobby at the EU level for the border procedure to be abandoned.
Sources
[2] https://dtm.iom.int/europe/dead-and-missing
[3] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/738191/EPRS_BRI(2022)738191_EN.pdf
[4] https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/Guide_Art_4_Protocol_4_ENG
[5] https://www.pakolaisneuvonta.fi/haavoittuva-asema-turvapaikkaprosessissa/
[6] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/21/eus-migration-pact-disaster-migrants-and-asylum-seekers
* The campaign was active from March to July 2024. See https://rajaltaturvaan.substack.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/rajalta.turvaan/.
