The Swedish Immigration Supreme Court rejected the asylum application of LGBTI activist and Kurdish refugee Ferhat İnam, who requested political asylum in Sweden three years ago, deciding that İnam “should leave the country in two weeks”.

As a spokesperson in the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Youth Council and one of the founders of Çukurova HDP LGBTI Assembly, İnam went to Sweden three years ago due to lawsuits filed against him alleging “membership of an organisation” and “terrorist propaganda”.

According to the Karınca newspaper, İnam, who applied for political asylum, faces the risk of deportation after being in the country for three years. İnam’s lawyer Abdullah Deveci said that Sweden’s decision is clearly contrary to international conventions.

Emphasising that political refugees are not a “threat”, İnam stated that they will fight against this anti-democratic and unlawful decision.

The Swedish Immigration Service has made similar deportation orders against political refugees in recent years. The Swedish High Court for Immigration issued a deportation verdict on the 23-year-old Kurdish political refugee Resul Özdemir, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “membership in a terrorist organisation” in Turkey, and fled to Sweden in 2018. Özdemir was delivered to Turkey on a private plane without notice in April.