Project Date:
May 22. 2009 --> June 10. 2009

For nearly three months, about 60 rejected Iraqi asylum seekers lived in the Brorson Church at Norrebro in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Danish and the Iraqi government had just entered a controversial agreement that the rejected Iraqi asylum seekers could now be sent home by coercion.

Amnesty International, Save the Children, UNHCR and many others criticized the agreement with arguments concerning the security and human rights situation in Iraq and the poor and slow processing of the applications in Denmark. The iraqis in the church have waited in Danish asylum centers for up to ten years and more, while they waited for residence. Psychiatrists found that most of the children in the church suffer from PTSD or other mental disorders because of their unstable lives.

The Iraqis stayed in the church in protest against the agreement on forced repatriation, and to get protection because they hoped that the Danish Government reluctantly would send the police into a church to retrieve them. Thursday 13th August the police vacated the church.