Switzerland suspends expulsions of Iranian citizens

SEM suspends expulsions of Iranian citizens Keystone-SDA

Iranian citizens are currently not being expelled from Switzerland due to the regime's brutal repression of demonstrations in Iran, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) said on Sunday night.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The measure also applies to rejected asylum-seekers.

The decision was taken on January 13, a spokesman for the SEM confirmed to the Swiss News Agency Keystone-ATS, quoting information from Swiss public broadcaster SRF. The negative decisions are accompanied by a provisional admission, he said.

The situation in Iran is uncertain and difficult to assess since the demonstrations began in December, the spokesman added.

+ Switzerland summons Iran ambassador to protest violence

However, asylum-seekers who have committed crimes or who pose a threat to Switzerland’s internal or external security are excluded from this change in practice, the spokesman emphasised.

Join the debate:

Adapted from Italian by AI/ts

How we work 

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]