A Mother and father in a Syrian family went to church asylum on Friday in Bremnes church in Bømlo, the same day they were asked to leave Norway.
A Syrian parent couple who were to be deported from Norway have gone into so-called church asylum in Bremnes church in Bømlo. From here, the couple named Jakarian will then wage a legal battle against the authorities, in the hope that they will eventually be allowed to stay anyway.
Along the way, they can count on support from various forces in the local environment and not least from the people of the church.
Now the Jakarian couple are warning that they will take legal action against the state, writes Vårt Land.
It is seven years since the family settled in Bømlo after being granted residency in Norway, NTB reports.
But later the basis for the residence permit was questioned.
The UDI claimed that the family had obtained Armenian citizenship in 2013, and that it was Armenia, and not Norway, which should therefore grant them asylum.
The family did not know they had Armenian citizenship and suspect the smuggler of abusing the Syrian documents to create Armenian passports that could be resold, explains their lawyer, Anela Ferati, to the newspaper Bømlo-nytt.
The family has not been successful in this approach. In the summer of 2021, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) notified that they wanted to revoke the parents’ residence permit and the children’s citizenship, explains lawyer Ferati,
Friday 19 May was the day the authorities set as the deadline for the father and mother in the family to leave the country. Instead, the two therefore went to a church asylum.
Document has previously discussed how precisely this kind of church asylum has previously proved to be a “detour” to permanent residence in Norway (see case below). One is simply betting on exhausting the Norwegian authorities, and appealing to the general Norwegian goodness, etc.
Local support groups would like to work hard to get them to stay, and in the end the authorities are happy to give in.
Vårt Land wants church asylum to continue to be a “refuge for the persecuted”