Top Court Suspends Grandmother's Deportation

Eveline Fadayel has had her application for a residence permit rejected by both the Finnish Immigration Service and a court in Helsinki. She is applying for a permit because her three sons live in Vantaa, and she has very few relatives in Egypt. She has lived with one of her sons for the past two years.

Finnish law does not consider grandparents to be part of the immediate family, and therefore they do not have the same right of residence as parents of minors, for example.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, Evangelical Lutheran Archbishop Jukka Paarma and Finnish Orthodox Archbishop Leo have all urged the government and the courts to let the grandmother stay.