18 year-old student Taibeh Abbasi, alongside her mother and two brothers, is at risk of being deported from Norway to Afghanistan at any moment following the Supreme Court’s decision on 30 November 2017 to reject the family’s appeal of the decision to revoke their refugee status. While their lawyer has lodged a petition for reversal before the Immigration Appeals Board (UNE) if the petition is rejected, which can be done at any moment, Taibeh Abbasi and her family will be immediately deported to Afghanistan, putting them in imminent danger.
Taibeh Abbasi was born in Iran to Afghan parents belonging to the Hazara minority ethnic group. The family fled Afghanistan in 1998, during the Taliban’s regime. Due to discrimination in Iran, Taibeh Abbasi’s family left for Norway in the summer of 2012. They have since lived in Trondheim, central Norway, where Taibeh Abbasi and her brothers attend school and have fully integrated. Taibeh Abbasi and her family were granted refugee status in Norway in September 2012. However on 25 March 2014 the Immigration Director revoked the family’s status, stating that there was insufficient proof of a well-founded fear of persecution in Afghanistan and that Kabul was deemed a safe place for return. The family’s appeal before the Immigration Appeals Board on 14 October 2017 was rejected, as were subsequent appeals before Norway’s courts. The Norwegian migration authorities maintain that Kabul constitutes an internal flight alternative for Taibeh Abbasi and her family. In terms of civilian casualties, however, Kabul is currently the most dangerous province in Afghanistan. The security situation in the country is deteriorating and no area can be considered safe, as a range of armed groups are fighting for the control of territory. If deported, Taibeh Abbasi and her family would be exposed to a risk of serious harm.
“In Kabul there is no future for me and my brothers’, says Taibeh Abbasi. ‘We will be exposed to discrimination and physically feel what it is like to be an exposed minority. I as a girl am particularly exposed. My dreams of an education and a career will be broken”.
Many Afghans in Norway are at risk of return to war-ravaged Afghanistan despite these returns being unlawful under international law. The binding international legal principle of non-refoulement means that European countries cannot transfer anyone to a place where they are at a real risk of serious human rights violations. Sending people to harm and persecution in Afghanistan, as violence escalates, is a violation of international law.