Action Alert: e-mail to Sweden's Government on Stockholm’s migration court's ruling about Iraqi asylum seeker

Dear friends,

Stockholm’s migration court has ruled authorities are legally entitled to return an asylum seeker to Baghdad, arguing the situation there does not constitue armed conflict. The 51 year-old man is to appeal the ruling to Sweden’s highest migration court.

Please, find below an email I sent to the Prime Minister of Sweden and the Sweden's Minister for Justice, Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy, Minister for EU Affairs and Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Please, click here to find the contact forms to send an e-mail to the above Sweden's Government's officials.

Thank you

Best wishes,
Gabriele Zamparini

***

Dear Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden
Dear Beatrice Ask, Minister for Justice
Dear Tobias Billström, Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy
Dear Cecilia Malmström, Minister for EU Affairs
Dear Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs

I have read on SR International – Radio Sweden’s website the following news:

Stockholm’s migration court has ruled authorities are legally entitled to return an asylum seeker to Baghdad, arguing the situation there does not constitue armed conflict. (...) Explaining the court’s line, officials said while militias, terrorist groups and criminality were common, there was no organised resistance movement, and as such, there was no legally defined war in the Iraqi capital.

Assuming this incredible Stockholm’s migration court’s ruling did really happened and it’s not a bad joke, with all the due respect, as an European citizen and a human being, I want to protest in the strongest possible way against it.

The Iraq war, that war that according to the Stockholm’s migration court would not constitue armed conflict, has already resulted in the deaths of 1.2 million of human beings, 4.2 million refugees and the complete annihilation of Iraq.

According to Uppsala University (Sweden), Department of Peace and Conflict Research, this is the Definition of Armed Conflict:

An armed conflict is a contested incompatibility which concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths.

The definition has been published in Appendix 2 in our articles in Journal of Peace Research 1993–2001, for instance, in Wallensteen, Peter & Margareta Sollenberg, 2001. ’Armed Conflict 1989–2000’, Journal of Peace Research 38(5): 629–644.

The separate elements of the definition are operationalized as follows:

(1) Use of armed force: use of arms in order to promote the parties’ general position in the conflict, resulting in deaths.
Arms: any material means, e.g. manufactured weapons but also sticks, stones, fire, water, etc.

(2)25 deaths: a minimum of 25 battle-related deaths per year and per incompatibility.

(3) Party: a government of a state or any opposition organization or alliance of opposition organizations.

(3.1)
Government: the party controlling the capital of the state.

(3.2)
Opposition organization: any non-governmental group of people having announced a name for their group and using armed force.

(4) State: a state is
(4.1) an internationally recognized sovereign government controlling a specified territory,
or
(4.2) an internationally unrecognized government controlling a specified territory whose sovereignty is not disputed by another internationally recognized sovereign government previously controlling the same territory.

(5) Incompatibility concerning government and/or territory the incompatibility, as stated by the parties, must concern government and/or territory.
(5.1) Incompatibility: the stated generally incompatible positions.
(5.2) Incompatibility concerning government: incompatibility concerning type of political system, the replacement of the central government or the change of its composition.
(5.3) Incompatibility concerning territory: incompatibility concerning the status of a territory, e.g. the change of the state in control of a certain territory (interstate conflict), secession or autonomy (intrastate conflict).

According to the SR International – Radio Sweden’s website’s article, “the 51 year-old man is to appeal the ruling to Sweden’s highest migration court.”

I hope the Sweden’s highest migration court will rule according to justice, common sense and that high respect for human rights Sweden is so rightly well known in the world.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,
Gabriele Zamparini
London