BAGHDAD — Iraqi Ivan Sahda Moshi has been hiding at a friend’s house in Gothenburg, Sweden, since Dec. 1, 2017, as a decree has been issued by Sweden to forcibly return him to Iraq. “I hope that my case is looked over again this year,” Moshi told Al-Monitor. Moshi, who fled Iraq in 2007 seeking asylum in Sweden, belongs to a Christian family, all of whom have fled Iraq to different countries. He fears going back, as militias threatened to kill him due to his work with US forces, not to mention that Christians are a threatened minority in Iraq.

On Jan. 10, Abdul Bari Zebari, the head of parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, indicated that the European Union is intending to forcibly return Iraqi immigrants whose asylum requests have been rejected back to Iraq. He called upon the Iraqi government to not accept any negotiations with the European Union concerning forcibly returning Iraqi immigrants, as he suggests that returning them should be voluntary, not compulsory.

In a similar case to Moshi’s, Hassan Amer, whose asylum request has been rejected by Austrian authorities, had to submit an appeal against his rejection before Vienna courts to obtain a new hearing session where he will talk about the circumstances on which he submitted his request for asylum.

Amer, which is a pseudonym as he is afraid that it would affect his asylum request, left Iraq in July 2015 using a fraudulent visa. The recent reports circulating throughout Iraqi media about the European Commission’s intention to forcibly return Iraqi immigrants has turned Amer’s life into a nightmare. “I’m not the only one whose asylum request was rejected by Austria. There are dozens like me, maybe more. I hope the reports are not accurate, and if it truly was, I’d hope these decisions are not taken into force,” he said.