elin ersson afghan deportation protest

Elin Ersson/Facebook

Student halts Afghani man’s deportation by refusing to take her plane seat

'I’m doing what I can to save a person’s life.'

 

Alex Dalbey

IRL

Posted on Jul 25, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 10:15 am CDT

 “Pro tip: it is fully legal to refuse to sit down on a flight to avoid deportation,” Elin Ersson wrote on Facebook on Monday. In a livestream that followed, the Swedish student activist documented her act of civil disobedience before her flight from Gothenburg to Istanbul took off; she was attempting to prevent the deportation of a fellow passenger, a 52-year-old man, to Afghanistan.

Ersson’s 14-minute-long livestream shows the intense emotions she and other passengers went through as she refused to take a seat for the sake of a man she didn’t know but wanted to save. “In Afghanistan, there is a big war going on, and if he goes there he will most likely be killed, so I am trying to save his life,” she explains at one point to another passenger. “As long as I am standing up, and hopefully other people stand up, then the pilot can’t take off.”

Deportation from Gothenburg to Afghanistan

Posted by Elin Ersson on Monday, July 23, 2018

Throughout the livestream, both flight attendants and other passengers confront Errson, attempting to get her to stop. “I am very sorry that a man is going to die, and that you are more worried about missing your flight,” she says to one perturbed passenger. Halfway into the livestream, Errson notes that other passengers are beginning to stand, including a full soccer team. As the Afghan man is finally taken from the plane, passengers applaud. “There was only one person on this flight today, but there will be more,” Errson says, wiping tears from her eyes, before she exits the plane to be met by Swedish authorities.

Errson’s livestream has been viewed over 2.6 million times on Facebook, and people are calling her a hero for single-handedly disrupting the deportation.

Although Errson stated several times that she was doing nothing illegal, Deutsche Welle has reported otherwise. According to Swedish authorities, refusal to obey a pilot’s orders may result in fines, or up to six months jail time. They have also stated that the Afghan man who Errson was attempting to save will still be deported.

H/T BuzzFeed News

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*First Published: Jul 25, 2018, 10:14 am CDT