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`Safe' countries?

01 January 1991

`Safe' countries?
artdoc July=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.

Statewatch, vol 4 no 3, May-June 1994