Elin Ersson: Swedish student fined for trying to prevent deportation of Afghan man

Millions watched activist's protest online

A Swedish student has been fined 3,000 krona (£251) for attempting to stop the deportation of an Afghan man in July 2018.

Elin Ersson tried to stop the man's deportation by refusing to sit down on a plane he was travelling on, despite flight attendants demanding that she sit for departure.

She was eventually joined by other passengers - including members of a football team - and the asylum seeker was removed from the plane.

Ms Ersson bought a ticket for the flight from Gothenburg to Istanbul after she and other activists found out that an Afghan national was going to be deported on the plane.

The group had intended to stop the deportation of a boy who was not on the flight in question, according to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

But another Afghan man, a 52-year-old who was reportedly being deported after serving a prison sentence, was on Ms Ersson's plane.

The student livestreamed her protest from the aircraft on Facebook, where the video was viewed millions of times.

In the footage the student could be seen walking down the centre of the plane, as she demanded that the pilot exercised his right to refuse to take off while a deportee is on board.

Shouts of “sit down, we want to go” could be heard and a person believed to be a flight attendant made a first attempt to snatch away her phone.

The man was eventually allowed to disembark the fight, along with Ms Ersson, but has since been deported from Sweden.

The student was later charged of on suspicion of violating Sweden's aviation laws.

Gothenburg District Court found that Ms Ersson had violated aviation laws by not immediately following the captain's orders to sit down on the flight.

Although the penalty for such a violation is often imprisonment, the court decided that the crime was not serious enough to warrant the penalty, according to The Local.