Denmark forcibly deported a Kurdish woman, who holds Iranian citizenship, and her two children, on 29 March after their application for political asylum was rejected by the Danish government.
Ghadamkheir Haghanizadeh was violently separated from her husband and her one-year-old child after six years in Denmark and was taken to Copenhagen Airport with her two other children.
Haghanizadeh and her two 10-year-old children were first flown to Istanbul for deportation to Iran but were returned to Denmark a few hours later due to her resistance and severe bleeding caused by self-harm.
“More than six police officers arrived at the camp where Ghadamkheir Haghanizadeh and her family resided in Avnstrup, Denmark. They forcibly separated her from her one-year-old child and took her and her twin sons to a deportation centre”, said a relative of the asylum seeker who spoke to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
The relative said that a video recorded by a resident of the camp and posted on social media clearly showed the violence against the asylum-seeking woman.
This source added: “Today, Wednesday, 30 March, Haghanizadeh and her two children, Yousef and Younes, were taken to Istanbul on a public flight. But while in transit, Danish government officials were forced to return her and her children to Denmark due to the woman’s resistance and severe bleeding caused by self-harm, as well as her children’s screams and reactions by passengers.”
Haghanizadeh is currently held by authorities despite her deteriorating physical condition, but her two children have been returned to their father at the refugee camp, the relative said.
Haghanizadeh and her family are Yarsani Kurds from Sarpol-e Zahab in Kermanshah province, western Iran.
They arrived in Denmark in 2015 after a year of uncertainty in Turkey and applied for political asylum.
More than six years later, despite presenting necessary documents and even providing a document from one of the Kurdish opposition parties, their asylum application was rejected.
The Danish government has stated that their deportation to Iran would not pose a threat to them because Haghanizadeh and her two children had officially travelled from Iran to Turkey with passports.
