UNHCR

(source: http://www.unhcr.se/News/pdf/October_04.pdf)

Aminatu Bello may stay

Aminato Bello from Nigeria may stay in Sweden until further notice. The European Court has decided not to allow the Aliens Appeal Board to carry out their decision on deportation before the court has decided whether Sweden has gone against the European convention on human rights. It takes the court several years to make such a decision. In her application for asylum Bello says she was abused by her husband when he found out that she was pregnant with another man, and that she now risks being stoned according to the Muslim law used in her home village. Attached to the application is an article published in the Nigerian Observer, saying that she is wanted by Muslim priests. According to the Swedish authorities it is not probable that the law is used in this region of Nigeria and the Board also doubts the credibility of the personal information given by Bello. Madeleine Seidlitz at Amnesty International, says that a single mother is always vulnerable in every part of the country and it is therefore doubtful whether it is possible to deport a woman with a child. Bello’s lawyer, Ylva Orrenius, will now demand a review of the case at the Migration Board. “She can not live several years with this uncertainty”, she says.

(Dagens Nyheter, 4 October 2004, p. 6)