There are around a dozen Finnish women and more than 30 children stranded at al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria, where Kurdish militias have a de facto autonomous administration. The Finnish government is working to repatriate the children, but the Kurds don't want to see the women separated from their kids.
Finland's finance minister has apologised fpr an Instagram poll in which she asked citizens whether captured women associated with Daesh* should be brought back from Syria.
There are at least 11 Finnish women, who travelled to Syria to join the jihadists, and over 30 of their children being held at the Kurdish-run al-Hol displacement camp in northeastern Syria.
Katri Kulmuni, the Centre Party leader who took over as minister just this week, posted an informal poll on Friday asking whether the government should allow those women to return, or just their children.
She deleted the poll and issued an apology later that day after criticism from a member of international watchdog Human Rights Watch.
Andrew Stroehlein, the group's European media director, tweeted: “Seriously, Finland? This is awful, if true.”
“A state should respect the rights of its citizens in all cases, not put life-and-death decisions about those citizens to a public referendum on social media.”
“My aim to have a discussion on social media about a complicated topic failed. I apologise for the poll,” Kulmuni tweeted later that…
