G.K.H.Z., an Iranian Kurdish refugee woman and mother of three children v. Denmark for violation of her rights as a refugee.
In April 2022, G.K.H.Z. was fell to the ground and was expelled from a refugee camp in Denmark, was beaten by four police officers with a hard use of physical force towards woman whose asylum claims were rejected.
G.K.H.Z. was to be deported from Denmark with her two children, while her other one-year-old has stayed in Denmark with her father. The mother’s separation from her one-year-old child is a violation of human rights law.
Splitting the family was violating the European Court of Human Rights’ right to family life. According to the Council of Europe website, the right to respect for family life includes “the rights of parents to have custody and contact with their children, and the rights of children to be with their parents.”
Danish law allows the use of physical force during deportations, provided a person without legal residence status in Denmark does not comply with their deportation travel. Under the country’s Aliens Act, such enforced deportation must be “with respect for the individual and without unnecessary use of force”.
G.K.H.Z. and her two sons were brought to Istanbul, from where they were scheduled to fly to Tehran, but the three were sent back to Denmark as G.K.H.Z. resisted boarding the plane. G.K.H.Z. returned to the country after sustaining an injury during the journey.
G.K.H.Z. left home in 2014, traveling to Turkey and then to Denmark after claiming that her life was in danger in Iran.
The submission has been presented to the CCPR. The State party had granted the author and her children residence permits, then the CCPR decided to discontinue the consideration of communication No. 4144/2022