Stop Deportations - Resistance is Possible!

M., who built a life for himself in Austria, is leading a fight against the authorities, who took away his recently born child. For the last two weeks, he was to be deported to Norway.

Although he only spent a few days there and has his friends and family in Austria, the cops arrested him and booked the flights. M. didn't want this to happen.

He resisted, determined to be with his family and to fight for his child. Already inside the plane, he declared, that he didn't want to fly. Successfully: The pilot decided to fly without M. But this was only the beginning.

The cops didn't stop. They planned another deportation attempt, a week later. They told M, that this time, they would bring him to Norway, no matter what. The time between the first and the second attempt, M. had to spend isolated in detention.

Thanks to the strong support of his friends and family, several lawyers and the media caught on. The tried their best to make this deportations impossible. Time was of the issue, the cops had but a couple of days left until the deadline for the Dublin-deportation would be over.

They tried again. For the second attempt, M. was dragged into the airplane with brute force, in plain sight of the other passengers, who didn't care to intervene. Even inside the plane, M. screamed for his life, but cuffed and surrounded by four cops, who tried to hide him behind a curtain, he stood little chance.

Soon, the crew told the passengers, that they could move to the empty seats further to the front of the plane, in order not to hear the screams. One passenger didn't play along. The person resisted and refused to sit down before M. would leave the plane.

This started a whole show of lies. Both the crew and the cops, who had been talking to each other beforehand, invented stories of a terrible criminal record and of M. being a rapist. In order to break any possible solidarity of other passengers, they also said that he had no family here and that he had asylum in Norway. Although other passengers didn't even dare intervene beforehand, these blatant lies further increased their hostility. They verbally attacked the resistant passenger until the person was dragged out of the plance by the cops. Neither the cops, nor the crew allowed that person to speak to the pilot.

With M. still in the plane, everything seemed lost. But he didn't give up. Likely influenced by the unusual circumstances, the pilot refused to transport him on the flight. A measure that is usually only taken, when a person represents a risk for other passengers, when a person strongly resists.

The cops went furious. They brutally beat M. up and threatened to deport him the same evening, his relatives, whom he was able to contact after the second failed attempt, reported. Friends and family set everything in motion to stop the third attempt. People from all around Vienna confronted the Austrian Airlines with the situation. The airline that conducts countless deportations whilst saying that they are always on the side of humanity. Despite the presence of more than 30 heavily armed cops that tried to hinder every attempt, activists distributed flyers at the airport, asking passengers to resist against this inhuman, violent practice.

With success. The next morning, M. was free. The cops gave up. After an extremely strenuous time of violence, threats, lies and strong acts of resistance, the deportation was stopped. For M., this is just the beginning of a long fight. But it's a beginning that shows: Resistance is possible.