The student activist who stood up against a man's deportation is a true hero

Elin Errson, the Swedish student activist who tried to prevent an asylum-seeking Afghan man from being deported, is our new hero. And we're not alone in our admiration.

On Monday, Errson boarded a flight headed from Gothenburg, Sweden, to Istanbul, Turkey. She refused to take her seat until a 52-year-old asylum-seeker, who was ultimately to be sent back to Afghanistan, was removed from the flight, according to the Hill. 

Errson live-streamed her protest aboard the flight on Facebook. Since then, the footage of the protest has been viewed 2.9 million times. 

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“I don’t want a man’s life to be taken away just because you don’t want to miss your flight,” Errson says to other passengers in her video. “I am not going to sit down until the person is off the plane.”

The video also documents Errson struggling with flight attendants, who try to take her phone and prevent her from filming.

“I am doing what I can to save a person’s life," Errson explains to the attendants (off camera). "As long as a person is standing up, the pilot cannot take off. 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.”

The protest staged by Errson caused a 2-hour delay in takeoff, and tension with other passengers is palpable in the 14-minute-long video. 

At one point, a frustrated passenger can be heard telling Errson to sit down, to which she replies: “What is more important, a life, or your time? … I want him to get off the plane because he is not safe in Afghanistan. I am trying to change my country’s rules, I don’t like them. It is not right to send people to hell.”

The asylum-seeker was eventually escorted off the plane by Swedish authorities, according to the Washington Post, and passengers can be heard cheering in the video as he leaves the plane.

Now, many are hailing Errson as a hero.

“I hope that people start questioning how their country treats refugees,” Elin Ersson said in an interview with the Guardian. “We need to start seeing the people whose lives our immigration [policies] are destroying.”

Errson told the Guardian she had been working with refugees for the past year, many of whom are from Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, the activist told the Guardian she believes the asylum seeker was probably taken to Stockholm and deported from there. As for Errson, she may face a significant fine if the airline or passengers decide to press charges, according to a spokesperson for the Swedish police.

Still, Errson's protest is a reminder that we all have the ability to stand up to the injustices we see. We'll be thinking about this story for a long time.

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