A Swedish protester has prevented the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker by refusing to sit down on a plane until the man was removed from the flight.
Footage of her successful on-board protest quickly went viral and shined a spotlight on Sweden’s tough asylum regime.
Social work student Elin Ersson purchased a ticket for the flight to Turkey on Tuesday after she and other activists found out a young Afghan was being deported on it.
The activists discovered the man was not on the flight but found out an Afghan man in his 50s being deported was onboard.
After entering the plane, Ersson began live streaming her protest in English.
The livestream had more than four million views.
It shows a steward repeatedly telling Ersson to stop filming.
“All I want to do is stop the deportation and then I will comply with the rules here. This is all perfectly legal and I have not committed a crime,” she says.
An angry passenger then tries to grab her phone.
“What is more important, a life, or your time? … I want him to get off the plane because he is not safe in Afghanistan. I am trying to change my country’s rules, I don’t like them. It is not right to send people to hell,” she says to him.
Authorities decided against removing Ersson from the plane, with the asylum seeker taken off the flight instead, to applause from the passengers.
“I hope that people start questioning how their country treats refugees,” the 21-year-old told the Guardian.
“We need to start seeing the people whose lives our immigration [policies] are destroying.”
The issue is topping the agenda of the Swedish election campaign in which the far right is polling strongly.
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