Amnesty slams Swiss asylum legislation

A family refused asylum is accompanied though Zurich airport Keystone

Moves to tighten Swiss asylum law could increase the criminalisation and inhuman treatment of rejected asylum seekers, warns Amnesty International (AI).

In its annual report on global human rights, the organisation also criticised Swiss police treatment of foreigners and the high incidence of domestic violence.

Swiss voters are to have the last say on the amended asylum law in September. The proposals include cutting social welfare payments to rejected applicants and excluding people arriving without valid identity papers from asylum procedures.

In Tuesday’s report, Amnesty repeated its view that the amendment would violate the United Nations refugee convention.

It added that, if approved, the legislation would risk “exacerbating the criminalisation and inhuman treatment of asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected”.

The amendment has also been criticised by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR), as well as by refugee organisations and centre-left parties in Switzerland.

“It’s what we have been working on for about almost two years now – the problem that the new asylum law will not fit with human rights,” Amnesty International Switzerland’s spokesman Jürg Keller told swissinfo.

“One main thing… is this paragraph where asylum seekers have only 48 hours to present valid papers – this is just not possible for those who had to leave their countries because they were in danger.”

Police

Another area where Switzerland came under fire in the report was police treatment of foreigners.

This was listed as “allegations of ill-treatment, use of excessive force and racist abuse”, which Keller says particularly affected people coming from Africa.

However, the report noted that following an international and national outcry, the government had prohibited the use of electroshock weapons, including tasers, during forced deportations of foreign nationals.

Some cantons had also stepped up human rights legislation, it added.

Domestic violence was also an issue for Amnesty. The human rights group said it said remained prevalent in Switzerland despite steps taken by several cantons to improve protection of victims.

The issue was once again highlighted in Switzerland when former skiing star Corinne Rey-Bellet and her brother were shot dead by Rey-Bellet’s husband, Gerold Stadler, earlier this month. Stadler later killed himself.

Domestic violence

Keller said that it was important to raise awareness of domestic violence.

“Almost every week you can read [of cases] in the news and this is why we say ‘be careful… it does not always end in such a tragic way, but [domestic violence] happens every day in Switzerland’,” he told swissinfo.

Amnesty voiced concerns that foreign victims were not getting enough protection as they were subject to strict residency conditions.

The chapter on Switzerland was contained in AI’s international report 2006 on human rights across the world.

It said that, overall, there were signs of hope for human rights, but that this had been undermined by powerful governments.

This particularly applied to their security agenda, which “hijacked the energy and attention of the world from human rights crises elsewhere”.

swissinfo, Isobel Leybold-Johnson

In brief

Parliament last year decided to cut welfare payments to rejected asylum seekers and to exclude from asylum procedures those without valid identity papers.

The decision has been challenged to a nationwide referendum by centre-left parties, church groups and aid organisations, to be held in September.

The government in March decided to drastically reduce the asylum infrastructure, in a bid to cut spending.

But the number of asylum requests has also decreased over the past years.

In 2005 there were 10,061 requests, a drop of 30% from 2004, and the lowest number since 1986.