Dubai: Imagine being a desperate refugee, fleeing violence in Syria, who has actually managed to make it all the way to Denmark with your children and a bag of worldly possessions.
But instead of a welcome mat at the refugee centre, officials there take away your possessions, search your bags, and take anything valuable you might still have.
But worse is to come. You might not see your children again for three years.
The search and seizure policy and keeping children apart could soon become mandatory after an initial vote Wednesday on a bill being presented before the parliament in Copenhagen. And could be law by January 26.
The United Nations is condemning the Danish proposals.
In a statement provided to Gulf News yesterday from the UNHCR in Stockholm, the proposed Danish moves were blasted for putting refugees’ lives at risk and promoting anti-Muslim xenophobia.
“[The message that] Denmark’s introduction of restrictions sends to other countries in the world, including the major refugee hosting countries and European countries that need to strengthen their asylum and integration capacity in order to receive higher numbers of refugees, is worrisome and could fuel fear, xenophobia and similar restrictions that would reduce — rather than expand — the asylum space globally and put refugees in need at life-threatening risks,” Gulf News was told.
Across Europe, right-wing anti-refugee sentiment is rising. Earlier this month, the Danes reintroduced passport checks at their rail and road links to Sweden, just 8km away across the Baltic Sea in an effort to deter refugees.
The minority government says it has no choice but to enforce stricter policies in order to defend its public finances. The administration has already backtracked on a pledge to cut taxes in the first half of the year due to the mounting cost of absorbing refugees.
Wednesday’s parliamentary debate is to be the first of at least three in which lawmakers will discuss the merits of the proposed piece of legislation before a final vote. The current law can keep refugee families apart for a maximum of one year.
“It’s crazy talk,” says Jonas Keiding Lindholm, secretary general of Save the Children in Denmark. “Denmark has an obligation to process family reunification applications in a positive, humane and speedy fashion. But the government wants to do the very opposite.” The country needs to “keep in mind” that it signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, he said.
It’s not just asylum seekers that are having a hard time making it into Denmark.
Shalik Ram Bhattarai, a Nepalese masters’ student in economics at the University of Southern Denmark, was thrown out of the country over the weekend. The reason: he worked too many hours as a chef and translator. His wife and their three-year-old son, who was born in Denmark, will also be forced to leave the country unless Shalik wins a February 7 appeal.
“I paid the tuition fees myself and I thought it was all over after paying a fine,” Bhattarai said. “I am worried and angry, but I still want to come back to Denmark, it’s my second home.”
But despite international outrage and comparisons to Nazi Germany, Integration Minister Inger Stojberg has refused to back down from the bill’s most controversial element: searching migrants’ bags for gold and other valuables.
Only items for personal use such as mobile phones and watches as well as items of sentimental value like wedding rings will be exempted.
The centre-right minority government has defended the bill, arguing that Danish nationals seeking welfare handouts can expect similar treatment.
At the Auderod asylum centre 60km northwest of Copenhagen, refugees said they had little more than the clothes they were wearing and questioned the effects of the bill.
“I owe 7,000 euros (Dh28,000) I borrowed to get here,” said Farhad Moradi, a 22-year-old Kurdish student from Iran, as he shuddered in a t-shirt in near-freezing temperatures. Tarek Eisa, a 25-year-old law student from Hama in Syria said he had read about the Danish proposal on Facebook before travelling to the country to join his family, but said it did not affect his choice of destination.
“We almost paid everything to come here. Like a house, like a restaurant we owned before,” he told AFP. A police search of his bags would turn up “maybe 100 euros,” he laughed.
The new law would make it harder to obtain permanent residency and shorten temporary residence permits.
“You might of course think that this is really bad publicity for Denmark. I do,” said Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, political spokesperson for the leftist Red-Green Alliance party.
“But I think the Danish government... is quite happy, because the main purpose with this proposal is to make refugees afraid of applying for asylum in Denmark,” she added.
Denmark received 21,000 refugees last year, compared to 163,000 in neighbouring Sweden, which until recently had some of Europe’s most generous asylum rules.
The Danish Refugee Council said the move mostly seemed to be “a measure of symbolic character”.
“As far as we know there are not many people carrying valuables like that,” spokesman Sebastian Juel Frandsen said.
Criticism has not just been limited to the centre-left opposition: Two government allies have also said they will not support the migrant searches unless changes are made.
The Conservative People’s Party wants to see a detailed list of things that cannot be confiscated, while the Liberal Alliance only supports seizing large amounts of cash.
The Social Democrats, the main opposition party, wants more guarantees that items of personal value will not be removed.
— With inputs from agencies.