A bill will be introduced in Alþingi, the Icelandic parliament, this week proposing Icelandic citizenship be granted to two girls, Haniye and Mary, and their families who have been denied asylum in Iceland, Kjarninn reports.
Logi Einarsson, chairman of Samfylkingin (the Social Democratic Alliance Party), which plans to introduce the bill, stated yesterday on Facebook that members of parliament from various parties had confirmed their support of the bill.
Pawel Bartoszek, member of parliament for Viðreisn, in a Facebook post about the issue, denounced the perspective that “laws are laws” and pointed to the responsibility of conforming with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.
MPs of three opposition parties Samfylkingin, Píratar, and Vinstri Græn, released a joint statement on the weekend protesting the decision to deport the girls and two members of parliament have publicly criticized the decision. A public meeting was held in the parliament square on Saturday to protest the deportation.
Haniye, 11, is from Afghanistan and is in the care of her father Abrahim. Mary, 8 years old and from Nigeria, is accompanied in Iceland by her father Sunday and mother Joy. Both families have been denied asylum by the Directorate of Immigration on the basis of the Dublin Regulation. The decision was appealed but denied a second time. Minister of Justice Sigríður Andersen stated over the weekend that the decision to deny the girls asylum would not be reviewed.
The governing parties currently hold a majority in the parliament by only one seat, making the outcome of a vote on the bill uncertain.
