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BRUTAL DEPORTATION POLICY CHALLENGED
Morning Star Online
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/96454
Oct 15 2010
UK
Human rights and child protection groups told Austria on Friday to
stop detaining children and halt the deportation of well-integrated
foreign families who have been denied asylum.
In a joint appeal, Amnesty International Caritas, SOS Kinderdorf
and Diakonie urged the Vienna government to protect the rights
of non-Austrian minors and be more lenient about allowing young
asylum-seekers and their parents to remain in the country.
The appeal came just days after two eight-year-old twins were taken
into custody with their father in an early morning raid and deported
to Kosovo.
Their mother suffered a nervous breakdown after their most recent
application for permanent residence in Austria was declined.
She is still receiving treatment at Vienna's Otto Wagner Hospital
and doctors said she was at risk of committing suicide.
The family had lived in Austria since 2004 but were expelled after
they were denied asylum and refused to leave on their own.
Their plight has sparked widespread protest, with critics calling
the deportations heartless and inhumane.
Interior Minister Maria Fekter, a member of the People's Party,
stressed that Austria would continue to deport people resident in
the country for many years.
The rightwinger said she had no plans to change current regulations
which allowed immigration police to forcefully deport those residence
permits were rejected.
Ms Fekter angered opposition MPs and NGOs by calling the operation
of armed police procedure "constitutional and appropriate."
But the joint appeal argued that separating two children from their
mother and forcibly expelling them from the country was not necessary
to maintaining the republic's security.
"It's tough to grasp why well-integrated families whose children have
spent most of their lives in Austria and who speak German better than
their mother tongue aren't granted the right to stay for humanitarian
reasons," the appeal stated.
On Thursday a 14-year-old Armenian girl resurfaced after disappearing
the day before to evade police plans to pick her up from school so
she could be deported.
Her mother is currently on suicide watch in hospital.
The interior ministry admitted that 4,152 applicants had been detained
to await deportation during the first eight months of this year and
that that 1,667 people had been deported in that time.
From: A. Papazian
Morning Star Online
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/96454
Oct 15 2010
UK
Human rights and child protection groups told Austria on Friday to
stop detaining children and halt the deportation of well-integrated
foreign families who have been denied asylum.
In a joint appeal, Amnesty International Caritas, SOS Kinderdorf
and Diakonie urged the Vienna government to protect the rights
of non-Austrian minors and be more lenient about allowing young
asylum-seekers and their parents to remain in the country.
The appeal came just days after two eight-year-old twins were taken
into custody with their father in an early morning raid and deported
to Kosovo.
Their mother suffered a nervous breakdown after their most recent
application for permanent residence in Austria was declined.
She is still receiving treatment at Vienna's Otto Wagner Hospital
and doctors said she was at risk of committing suicide.
The family had lived in Austria since 2004 but were expelled after
they were denied asylum and refused to leave on their own.
Their plight has sparked widespread protest, with critics calling
the deportations heartless and inhumane.
Interior Minister Maria Fekter, a member of the People's Party,
stressed that Austria would continue to deport people resident in
the country for many years.
The rightwinger said she had no plans to change current regulations
which allowed immigration police to forcefully deport those residence
permits were rejected.
Ms Fekter angered opposition MPs and NGOs by calling the operation
of armed police procedure "constitutional and appropriate."
But the joint appeal argued that separating two children from their
mother and forcibly expelling them from the country was not necessary
to maintaining the republic's security.
"It's tough to grasp why well-integrated families whose children have
spent most of their lives in Austria and who speak German better than
their mother tongue aren't granted the right to stay for humanitarian
reasons," the appeal stated.
On Thursday a 14-year-old Armenian girl resurfaced after disappearing
the day before to evade police plans to pick her up from school so
she could be deported.
Her mother is currently on suicide watch in hospital.
The interior ministry admitted that 4,152 applicants had been detained
to await deportation during the first eight months of this year and
that that 1,667 people had been deported in that time.
From: A. Papazian