SAFEGUARDING FINLAND’S NATIONAL SECURITY
Finland has been engaged on securing its jap frontier by constructing fences alongside sections of the 1,300km-long border.
In July, Finland’s parliament permitted a controversial legislation granting border guards the ability to dam asylum seekers crossing from Russia.
The Finnish border authority mentioned greater than 1,300 asylum seekers had entered Finland from Russia between August and December final 12 months, 900 of them in November alone.
Compared, the quantity earlier than final August had averaged only one particular person each day.
The present scenario is steady, mentioned Colonel Mikko Lehmus of the Finnish Border Guard.
“However we all know that danger ranges are fairly excessive, and the Russian Federation has the flexibility to conduct that sort of orchestrated immigration operation once more,” he added.
“That’s why we have to keep excessive preparedness and be able to do environment friendly counter-measures on the jap border in addition to sea areas.”
On the jap fringe of the European Union, refugee charities are involved about people now unable to make use of the border to hunt refuge in addition to the legality of the border closure.
“There are folks in actual want of asylum,” mentioned Annu Lehtinen, govt director of the Finnish Refugee Council.
“These folks and their human proper to hunt asylum ought to be at all times assessed on a person foundation, and this sort of legislation – which is a pushback legislation – in follow doesn’t recognise this proper,” she added.
The Finnish authorities mentioned the brand new legislation is about safeguarding Finland’s nationwide safety and sovereignty, and that they’re in search of EU-level options to deal with what it calls instrumentalised migration.
