STA, 12 December - The office of President Borut Pahor has asked the relevant ministry to closely examine the case of an Afganistani who is facing deportation from Slovenia, as it believes it stands out from usual cases. This comes as NGOs have again called on the authorities not to deport Noor, who has found a home and has family in the town of Novo Mesto.
The president's office told the STA on Thursday that while it did not have direct jurisdiction in the international protection procedures, the Ministry of the Interior should examine the case in detail.
The call comes after two Slovenian NGOs urged Pahor, Prime Minister Marjan Šarec and Human Rights Ombudsman Peter Svetina last week not to allow the Afganistani, who has lived in Slovenia since 2015, to be deported.
The NGOs have noted that Noor had asked for asylum before finding himself in a deportation procedure, which is taking years. In the meantime, he has integrated himself in the Novo Mesto community, and is living with his Slovenian partner and her son.
According to his partner Dragana, a family reunion procedure has been initiated at the relevant administrative unit, but the police had again taken Noor in October to the centre for foreigners in Postojna, where he is facing deportation.
"His family, home, friends and work are waiting for him. He is an excellent cook and he has been offered a job several times, but no employer can hire him because his status has not been tackled," she told the press recently.
Noor was recently visited by journalists of the public broadcaster TV Slovenija, and spoke with them in Slovenian.
While forwarding the letter from the NGOs to Interior Minister Boštjan Poklukar, the president's office has also sent a request for the case to be examined carefully.
It said that rulings of the European Court of Human Rights place emphasis on family life and family reunion in cases of people who ask for asylum.
The NGOs have noted that before the first interview in Postojna aimed at establishing facts about Noor's family life, the Novo Mesto administrative unit had decided not to give him a residence permit.
This way the foreigner and his Slovenian partner have been left without legal means to prevent deportation. "The treatment is shocking because the police are being so apparently wrong in their interpretation of laws."
The NGOs said that the European Court of Human Rights argued that the right to family life must not be made conditional on how the person in question had entered the country.
You can sign a petition in support of Noor here
