Finnish police have confiscated the Finnish passport of Rimma Salonen, the Russian mother of a child illegally taken out of Russia by his Finnish father in spring 2009. The woman now cannot enter the country where her ex-husband keeps her son.
Rimma Salonen, who also has Russian citizenship, was detained and deprived of the document while trying to cross the Finnish border on Monday. "The border guards took away her Finnish passport, which was still in force, without any explanation, which means she won’t be able to return to Finland again,” Johan Beckman, Rimma Salonen’s representative in Finland, told Interfax news agency. Rimma Salonen came to Russia to get acquainted with new materials in the criminal case of her son’s abduction.Five-year-old Anton Salonen was taken to Finland by his Finnish father Paavo Salonen on May 9, 2009, and since then his mother has been fighting to bring her child back. According to Beckman, in order to get home, where her son, house and belongings are, the woman needs to contact the General Consulate of Finland in St. Petersburg and get a temporary passport. "She would have to apply at the same consulate which at one time assisted in the abduction of her son Anton," Beckman pointed out.On June 23, Rimma Salonen appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming the Finnish government had violated her rights and demanding compensation for both her son and herself.In the summer of 2009, the woman was invited to Finland in order to meet her son, but was arrested instead and sentenced to one and a half years’ probation for the kidnapping of her own son as well as having to pay compensation of €25 thousand. The same court appointed Paavo Salonen guardian of the child. Rimma was allowed to see her son just twice a week and then only in the presence of police officers. During these meetings, the mother and son were forbidden from speaking in the boy’s native Russian language.