A Pakistani asylum seeker was deported on Friday from Vienna’s Schwechat airport under the controversial “charter deportation”, Austrian paper Wiener Zeitung reported.
According to information provided by the immigration police, there had been EU-wide organised “charter deportations” – flights chartered solely for the purpose of deportations.
Police officers had on Wednesday led the Pakistani man to immigration who had recently recovered from a surgery.
This is the first case of a Pakistani being deported from Austria via the ‘charter deportation’.
Rights activists have argued that the process of ‘charter deportation’ presents a problem in that it is almost impossible to intervene since refugees are taken via the cargo area.
In the past, there have been reports of ill-treatment of such refugees by police.
“Only a few days ago, hundreds drowned in the Mediterranean. At the same time people are being deported by charter flights to countries where they may face death,” laments Numan, a refugee activist and student from Pakistan.
