Swedish Student Prevents Deportation of Afghan Man Aboard Flight

A young Swedish student is being hailed a hero after she refused to sit down on a flight to protest the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker who was being sent back to Afghanistan. Elin Ersson was on a flight from Gothenburg to Istanbul where she learned that the man behind her would be transferred to another plane to Afghanistan “where she insisted he would probably be killed.”

She then took to Facebook, broadcasting the situation (a video watched by nearly 2 million and shared 34,000 times). While she refused to sit, some passengers whined that they were going to miss their connecting flights, while others cheered her one as the flight crew insisted that she take a seat, "shoved her," and even tried to take her phone away.

The most incredible part of the video is her unwavering commitment to the cause.  “Right now, there is a family outside the airport who thought that their brother or son was [going to come out] but he is being sent to Afghanistan… where he will be killed… If he is deported to Afghanistan, he probably dies.”

When a few more people complained, Ersson asked: “I don’t want a man’s life to be taken away just because you don’t want to miss your flight…I am not going to sit down until the person is off the plane.”

The man was eventually taken off the plane and still faces deportation, while Ersson was also removed and could face up to six months in jail.