Concern over deportation of young Afghan
The lawyer of a 21-year-old Afghan man threatened with deportation has denied claims that Navid Sharifi is on the run from a court case against him. Last Saturday, Sharifi was due to board a plane to Afghanistan after his application for asylum was turned down
Twenty-one-year-old was due to board plane to Afghanistan after application for asylum was turned down
Sharifi was born in Afghanistan but left as a toddler and has not returned since, he says. He has been in Belgium since 2008 and now lives in Waregem, West Flanders, where he is employed as a plumber.
Flemish newspapers provide conflicting reports, with Het Laatste News writing that Sharifi fled Iran in 2008 after being involved in a vendetta between two families, in which he seriously injured another man. Het Nieuwsblad, meanwhile, reported that an official at the asylum department claims that Sharifi has visited Afghanistan more recently than he claims and does have family with whom he can stay.
Political pressure mounted on federal migration minister Maggie De Block (pictured) to use her discretionary power to grant Sharifi a kinderpardon – an exception to the rules based on asylum seekers being in the country since they were minors. Socialist party SP.A and Groen have both pressed De Block to use the measure, while N-VA has called for a discussion on kinderpardon in general.
Speaking on Sunday on the VRT, De Block said when she took the post, she was requested to introduce a “coherent” policy; now, the same people are asking her to “make a special case” for one applicant.
Elsewhere, about 60 people were arrested after clashes at a demonstration in Brussels by Afghan asylum-seekers protesting at being deported back to their country. Also in Brussels, about 150 Afghans were ejected by police from an office building they were occupying in Troonstraat. They later moved to the Holy Cross church in Elsene.
