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AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: KABUL: The Swedish student who livestreamed her efforts to stop an Afghan asylum-seeker from being deported has reportedly been fined, media reported Tuesday.
Elin Ersson, 21, was indicted in October by Swedish prosecutors for breaking aviation laws but was fined 3,000 Swedish krona, which translates to roughly $324 in U.S. currency, for her efforts, the BBC reported.
In July, Ersson, a college student and volunteer with refugee groups, bought a ticket for a flight from Gothenburg to Turkey after finding out an Afghan man on the flight was being deported to Afghanistan.
While aboard the plane, she livestreamed herself refusing to take her seat until the Afghan man was removed from the flight, saying the man would most likely be killed in Afghanistan.
“I am doing what I can to save a person’s life. As long as a person is standing up the pilot cannot take off,” she said. “All I want to do is stop the deportation and then I will comply with the rules here. This is all perfectly legal and I have not committed a crime.”
An annoyed passenger tried to grab the phone from Ersson, saying she was upsetting others — to which the student replied: “It’s not my fault that he’s getting deported. I’m trying to stop this.”
“I’m trying to change my country’s rules. I don’t like them. It’s not right to send people to hell,” she added.
The Afghan man who was being deported, however, had received a prison sentence in Sweden for assault, and his asylum application was rejected. The man was eventually deported to Afghanistan.
