Finnish lawmakers approve controversial law to turn away migrants at border with Russia

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HELSINKI (AP) — Finnish lawmakers on Friday narrowly approved a controversial bill that will allow border guards to turn away third-country migrants attempting to enter from neighboring Russia and reject their asylum applications because Helsinki says Moscow is orchestrating an influx of migrants to the border.

The government’s bill, meant to introduce temporary measures to curb migrants from entering the Nordic nation, is a response to what Finland sees as “hybrid warfare” by Russia. It believes Moscow is funneling undocumented migrants to the two countries’ border.

The temporary law, valid for one year, was approved by 167 lawmakers — the minimum needed for it to pass in the 200-seat Eduskunta, or Parliament. Lawmakers of the Left Alliance and the Green League were among the 31 who voted against the bill.

Citing national security, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s center-right government had said the law was needed to tackle Russia’s maneuvers of deliberately ushering migrants to the normally heavily guarded Russia-Finland border zone that is also the European Union’s external border to the north.

Opponents, including several academics, legal experts and human rights groups, say it clashes with the Constitution of Finland, international rights commitments set by the United Nations and pledges by the EU and international treaties signed by Finland.

Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, had earlier expressed concern about the draft law and urged against its adoption.

“The Commissioner emphasises that the relationship between national security and human rights is not a zero-sum game,” a Council of Europe statement said in June. “The Commissioner also raises concerns that the (Finnish) draft law, if adopted, would set a worrying precedent for other countries and for the global asylum system.”

Finland closed the 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) land border with Russia last year after more than 1,300 migrants without proper documentation or visas — an unusually high number — entered the country in three months, just months after the nation became a member of NATO.

Most of the migrants that arrived in 2023 and early this year hail from the Middle East and Africa, including from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Under the new law, pending approval from President Alexander Stubb, Finnish border guards can — under certain circumstances — reject migrant asylum applications at the crossing points. They will not, however, refuse entry to children, disabled people and any migrants deemed by border guards to be in a particularly vulnerable position.

Finance Minister Riikka Purra, chair of the nationalist far-right Finns Party that forms the Cabinet's core together with Orpo’s conservative National Coalition Party, said that nothing can take precedence over maintaining national security.

“We cannot allow Russia to exploit weaknesses in our legislation and international agreements,” Purra said.

Pushbacks — the forcible return of people across an international border without an assessment of their rights to apply for asylum or other protection — violate both international and EU law. However, EU members Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have previously resorted to the controversial measure when dealing with migrants attempting to enter from Belarus.

Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have all introduced laws similar to the one proposed in Finland.

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