The Equality Ombudsman has asked the Home Office for information on its efforts to develop refugee quotas for 2025.
The request relates to a report published by Helsingin Sanomat last Wednesday. According to the report, Minister of the Interior Mari Rantanen (PS) and Minister of Interior, Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne (PS) sought ways to reduce the proportion of Muslims and increase the proportion of Christians in the quota.
Mr. Ranne and Mr. Rantanen, who are on leave until the end of the year, have urged ministry officials to devise next year’s quotas to reduce the number of refugee admissions from countries such as Afghanistan to zero and accept more refugees from countries such as Venezuela. He is said to have given instructions.
Lannes told the newspaper that she did not want to comment on ongoing legislative projects.
The Equality Ombudsman on Friday announced a decision to investigate instructions given to department officials on setting intake quota targets, pointing to the possibility of reducing intakes from certain countries for religious reasons. Finland’s constitution warns that no one should be treated differently because of their religion, country or place of origin unless there is an acceptable reason to do so.
The Ministry of the Interior must also provide the Ombudsman with information on all parties involved and copies of all documents related to the legislative project. The law also gives the ombudsman the right to access and request confidential documents.
“In order to determine whether there are grounds to suspect that the legislative process involved discriminatory practices in violation of the Equality Act, the Ombudsman will, in addition to the above information, review the preparatory work to achieve the 2025 refugee quota target. “We are requesting a detailed report on the situation,” the request said, according to Helsingin Sanomat.
The Finnish government is expected to finalize next year’s refugee quotas later this month. Congress is expected to make a decision on allocations by the end of the year.
During cabinet negotiations, the government decided to reduce the annual quota by more than half, from 1,050 to 500. The Finnish Party would have preferred to eliminate quotas completely, while the Swedish People’s Party would have preferred to increase them.
In 2024, Finland will host Afghan, Congolese, Syrian and Venezuelan refugees, as well as refugees transferred to Rwanda from Libya. The quota also allows for the admission of refugees in response to emergencies without restrictions based on geography or nationality.
Opposition parties expressed regret over the reported plan to reduce admissions of Muslims.
“I can’t think of a clearer recent example of discrimination and racism than this kind of effort to limit the proportion of Muslims in refugee quotas,” Fatim Diarra (Green Party) said in the October 9 press release. stated in the release.
“This is completely heartless considering the situation of women in Afghanistan,” said Nasima Razmyar, deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party. “This is about using people’s plight as a tool to advance domestic policies and racist policies.”
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
