European court approves deportation of Sikh families to Afghanistan

Deportation

Paris, Feb. 25, 2020 (dpa/NAN) The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ruled that the Netherlands would not be violating the rights of two families from the Sikh minority by deporting them to Afghanistan.

The Strasbourg-based court accepted that the religious minority suffered discrimination and that there were reports of violence, abuse by police, and failures by Afghan authorities to protect them.

However, it said, there were also reports of members of the minority being protected by police while holding funerals and of other forms of facilitation by the authorities.

The court therefore held that Sikhs in Afghanistan could not be said to be systematically exposed to ill-treatment, and asylum claims such as those lodged by the two families should be considered on their individual merits.

The court said that Dutch authorities had properly considered the applications from the two families, which were rejected as not credible.

In particular, Dutch authorities did not find the families’ claims to have only recently left Afghanistan credible.

However, the court extended an interim order preventing deportation of the two families in case they wished to lodge an appeal. (dpa/NAN)

HS/YEE

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Edited by Halima ShejI/Emmanuel Yashim