Recently, six radical imams were released after being detained on the Swedish Security Police’s order because they are considered a real and permanent threat to Sweden’s national security. The reason why they were released is stated to be that they cannot be deported to their home countries because they could be ill-treated there and that this is supported by the UN Refugee Convention.
It is true that the UN Refugee Convention in Article 33 paragraph 1 stipulates that deportation must not be carried out “if the individual’s life or freedom is threatened” but at the same time, paragraph 2 of the same article stipulates that individuals who are considered a threat to the security of the nation or who have committed another serious crime does not have the right to state the reasons listed in paragraph 1!
Thus, it is a shameless lie to say that under no circumstances should it be possible to expel extremists despite the fact that the person “may be ill-treated” in the countries to which they are expelled.
UN Refugee Convention, Article 33:
- No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
- The benefit of the present provision may not, however, be claimed by a refugee whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgement of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country.
It is probably this section (2) that Denmark successfully uses to expel “its” extremists from Danish territory and none other than the usual suspects have complained so far. However, the Swedish Justice Department, the Migration Agency, the judiciary, journalists and parliamentary politicians choose not to see section 2 as it contradicts the “sacred” value base of the “humanitarian great power” and thus does not fit in the image of Sweden as a humanitarian and infinitely tolerant paradise and ideal society.