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EU: "Safe" countries?

01 May 1994

More and more asylum-seekers are being sent from the country where they claim asylum to a country of transit deemed "safe". A number of those countries turn out not to be so safe. Austria has been condemned as unsafe by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in a recent report which says there is no guarantee that asylum-seekers will be given the right to apply for asylum there. Refugee agencies say that Austria has sent back asylum-seekers to Iran, Iraq and Syria. Switzerland's policies have been condemned by the UN Committee against Torture, which is not satisfied with the criteria governing the inclusion of countries on the "safe" list; Switzerland deems all central European states safe, as well as India and Senegal and, of course, Sri Lanka, where up to 11,000 rejected asylum-seekers are to be returned. The UN Committee fears that asylum-seekers could be sent back to countries where they run the risk of being tortured. Sweden's policy of returning Kosovo Albanians has been criticised by the Swedish Red Cross on the basis of the miserable conditions they have to return to, and additionally, a group of returnees were maltreated at the border with Bulgaria by Serbian police who confiscated their passports when they were returned on 20 April.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands has drawn up a list of "safe" countries to which asylum-seekers can be returned, which is said to follow closely the German list.

Migration Newssheet May 1994; Independent 13.4.94.