Maria Amelie

Who is Maria Amelie?

Madina Salamova, better known by the pseudonym Maria Amelie, is a Russian-born writer and blogger who lived as an undocumented immigrant in Norway between 2002 and 2011. She was deported from Norway to Russia on 24 January 2011.

She arrived in Finland together with her family in 2000 as asylum seekers. After being turned down for asylum there, they travelled to Norway and filed an application for asylum there in 2002. The application was turned down by Norwegian immigration authorities, and the appeal was turned down by the Norwegian Immigration Appeals Board in 2003. She and her family then filed a lawsuit, but the Oslo District Court found in favor of the decision of March 2004. After the verdict Maria Amelie and her family went into hiding.

After writing the controversial book Ulovlig norsk she was in 2010 named "Norwegian of the year" by the Norwegian news magazine Ny Tid, because of her contributions to the public debate on the political and social rights of undocumented immigrants in Norway.