Afghani nationals from insecure regions now granted stronger protection
The Finnish Immigration Service has updated its policy concerning Afghanistan, reassessing the security situation of the country and Afghani asylum seekers’ needs for international protection.
Asylum seekers from certain provinces in southern and eastern Afghanistan are now granted subsidiary protection because of the poor security situation in those regions. A residence permit on the basis of subsidiary protection is valid for four years. Previously, these asylum seekers have been granted a residence permit on the basis of humanitarian protection for one year.
Granting subsidiary protection or humanitarian protection on the basis that an asylum seeker comes from an insecure region requires reliable evidence of the applicant’s place of residence. Such evidence may be based the applicant’s own account, documentation presented by the applicant and, as decided on a case-by-case basis, linguistic analysis.
Increased number of insecure regions
The Finnish Immigration Service has also added to the list of regions in Afghanistan that are considered insecure. When the country policy was last updated in April 2010, the following provinces in southern and eastern Afghanistan were considered insecure: Kandahar, Helmand, Khost and Kunar, and also the most unstable districts in the province of Ghazni, namely Nawa, Andar, Qarabagh, Giro, Ab Band, Muqur, Waghaz, Gilan, Zana Khan, Rashidan, Wali Muhammadi Shahid, Dih Yak and Ajristan. Three further provinces have now been added to this list: Nangarhar, Uruzgan and Paktika. Violence has escalated to serious proportions in the regions considered insecure, and the security situation there is such that it warrants the granting of subsidiary protection to asylum seekers from those regions.
In the province of Ghazni, certain districts have remained stabler – Ghazni, Malistan, Jaghori, Khauja Omar, Bahrami Shahid and Nawur. However, according to Supreme Administrative Court decision 2011:25, the most commonly used access route to these stabler regions cannot be regarded as secure. Therefore, the Finnish Immigration Service will grant also asylum seekers from these regions subsidiary protection if their applications do not include individual reasons for granting asylum.
Civilians increasingly targeted
The security situation in Afghanistan varies significantly both geographically and over time. Recently there have been no reports of the situation worsening; on the contrary, the number of individual incidents has decreased. On the other hand, civilians and private individuals were targeted in an increasing percentage of rebel attacks reported in 2012. About 70% of all of the violence is concentrated in the southern and eastern provinces on the Pakistani border.
In its new policy decision, the Finnish Immigration Service has taken especially into account the long-term poor security situation in certain parts of southern and eastern Afghanistan. Attention has also been paid to the fact that at the moment most EU Member States are granting subsidiary protection to Afghani nationals from the insecure provinces.
The Finnish Immigration Service monitors the security situation in Afghanistan continuously. For example, there are highly variable estimates as to how the withdrawal of ISAF troops from the country by the end of 2014 will affect the security situation.
Somalia and Iraq policies will be reviewed soon
Also the Somalia policy needs to be reviewed because slight improvements in the security situation in the southern and central parts of the country have raised the question of revising the policy in the other Nordic countries, too. The Finnish Immigration Service closely monitors both the situation in Somalia and the policies of the other Nordic countries and will update its policy if necessary.
Correspondingly, the Finnish Immigration Service will review the Iraq policy at the same time as the Somalia policy. The reason for simultaneous review is that the security situations in Mogadishu and Baghdad are comparable when assessing asylum seekers’ needs for international protection.
Afghanistan review available online in Finnish
The Finnish Immigration Service has reassessed the security situation in Afghanistan on the basis of what has been reported in various sources concerning the number of civilian victims and incidents, the functioning of the judicial system and the general humanitarian conditions. The principal sources of information are the UNHCR and other UN agencies operating in Afghanistan, news services, and civic organisations.
The Afghanistan country review updated in the beginning of the year by the Country Information Service of the Finnish Immigration Service is available in Finnish on our website: http://www.migri.fi/tietoa_virastosta/maatietopalvelu/raportit.
As of the end of March, 50 Afghani nationals have applied for asylum in Finland this year. In 2012, the number of asylum seekers from Afghanistan was 213.
Further information for the media
Esko Repo, Director of the Asylum Unit, tel. +358 71 873 0431, e-mail: firstname.lastname@migri.fi
