AYS Weekend Digest 05–06.06.2021—Denmark’s Cruel Policies Expose European-Wide Failure
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Digest, Denmark, Asylum Policy, Migrants, Refugees

AYS Weekend Digest 05–06.06.2021—Denmark’s Cruel Policies Expose European-Wide Failure

Photos from No Name Kitchen and SOS Refugiados’ distribution campaign. Photo credit: No Name Kitchen

FEATURE

Criticisms of Denmark’s recent cruel laws expose European-wide flaws in the system

Denmark has been in the news recently because of its recent laws making its notoriously cruel asylum system even harsher. However, Denmark should not be treated as an outlier in Europe. Rather, its policies are just a more extreme version of Europe’s existing cruelties.

Some are pointing out that the Danish government’s decision that Syria is a safe place to return for some sets a worrying precedent that protection for people with refugee status is something temporary. On average, people need protection for 17 years, because conflicts do not end overnight and countries do not rebuild like magic. Even once someone may not need refugee status anymore, it is still cruel to rip them away from a family and life they have built in their new home.

Another Danish law that is under fire is the recent one passed by parliament that would send people to third-party countries while their asylum claims were processed. The UNHCR came out with a statement saying it “strongly opposed” this measure to externalize asylum.

The details of the law are not completely clear yet. For example, Denmark would have to create individual agreements with the countries it would outsource people on the move to, and there are no definite countries as of yet (although there is speculation an agreement with Rwanda is in the works). The Danish government justified this decision by saying it will save lives on the Mediterranean, through the questionable logic that people will learn they will be processed outside of Europe and not come. If the myriad other cruel ways Europe treats people on the move has not been enough proof that “deterrence” does not work, it is hardly likely this law will “work” either.

Denmark is not alone in its careless violations of human rights in the name of deterrence and eliminating pull factors. The same logic is also behind the EU’s new sea operation, replacing Operation Sophia, that will be based in eastern Libya where there have been no crossings since 2017. The EU claims that it will stop the mission immediately once it proves it’s becoming a pull factor, but it’s impossible to prove that — because those factors rarely, if ever, matter. That logic decimated Operation Sophia, led to the criminalization of sea rescues, and is now being used by Denmark to justify shipping asylum seekers to a third country to be forgotten.

If you want to learn more about the usage of deterrence in Europe as a whole, check out this helpful webinar from the European Society of International Law, happening this Thursday.

Denmark’s recent asylum decisions can be looked at in tandem with the situation on the Greek border. Greek border guards are using a sound cannon at the Greek-Turkish border in Evros. The device, mounted on an armoured car, is portable and emits sounds at the volume of a fighter jet along the border. Greek officials argued that they need the latest technology to prevent crossings at the border. However, human rights advocates are saying that the sound cannon is an example of torture. The equipment received lukewarm criticism from European officials late last week — criticism that is even more lukewarm when one considers how much the EU funds the Greek border.

However, the sound cannons should not be looked at in isolation, nor should Greece be the “enfant terrible” of European politics. This is just the latest tactic in persecution of people on the move, which is just as vile when done with high-tech torture as it is when it is couched in the rhetoric of law. The sound cannons are not just a loud machine but another part of the European apparatus to keep people on the move out, such as the Danish laws to send asylum seekers to a third country.

While physical brutality continues to be part of European border policy, the recent turn towards detached technocratic human rights violations is no less cruel. While individual countries have become the testing grounds for these policies, European policies as a whole have enabled this turn.