AN IRAQI mother-of-one is appealing to the Government to let her Baghdad-based police officer husband join her in Ireland.
Shahlaa Nassralla, who worked as a solicitor in the Iraqi capital, fled after the murder of her first husband, a journalist, in October 2006. Nassralla came under threat and was accorded refugee status in Ireland the following year.
“From 2003 till now, Iraq has no stabilisation, more killings, more bloodshed,” said Nassralla, who also presented radio news in Baghdad. “Extremists are killing lawyers, doctors, journalists, police... terrorists for al-Qaeda and militias are targeting anyone who works in these fields.”
Nassralla’s current husband – a police officer – had been a friend for many years, and comforted her following her first husband’s death, she explained. The pair married last April in Syria, as Nassralla’s refugee status precludes her from visiting Iraq.
The Iraqi woman, who is rearing a four-year-old son, submitted an application for family reunification in June, but could wait over two years to be reunited with her husband. Current processing times at the Department of Justice stand at 24 months.
“A few days, weeks, months is okay for the Minister for Justice, [but] not for me and my husband – we don’t know what will happen in the next few hours,” said Nassralla, adding that her husband was injured in a bomb blast last year.
She called on Justice Minister Dermot Ahern to take “rapid measures” to speed up family reunification processing, for all applicants.
Speaking to Metro Éireann last Saturday, she commented: “Yesterday in Baghdad, three or four mosques were targeted by terrorists and more than one hundred people killed. Iraq is the most dangerous country in the world, and I am seriously worrying all the day.
“It is very difficult, sometimes I couldn’t sleep at night, thinking, thinking, thinking, about him.”
Meanwhile, a report from a refugee support group had found that the processing time for family reunification is between 24 and 30 months in Ireland, compared to between six and 12 months in Portugal, Germany, Denmark, Malta and the United Kingdom.
It also stated out of the 12 EU countries surveyed, only Ireland grants no right of appeal to refugees when their applications are refused.
Catherine Kenny of the RIS (Refugee Information Service), who authored the report, said that although additional staff at the Department of Justice’s Family Reunification Unit has seen the system improve, the Government must offer more assistance to families separated for long periods.
Other recommendations include that applications be processed to completion within six months, especially when children are involved, and that appeals are granted when refugees have been refused reunification.
Leave to remain recipients should also be entitled to family reunification, and the definition of family needs to be considered in light of the Civil Partnership Bill 2009, the study further suggests.
RIS director Josephine Ahern remarked: “We must work to ensure that Ireland observes its commitments to families as set out in the Irish Constitution and international human rights instruments.”
