02/11/2015

Different opinions concerning mass exodus of Eritreans – A call for more commitment to human rights in Eritrea

Dispute over protection for refugees from Eritrea in Europe

© Charles Roffey/Flickr

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) welcomes Switzerland's plan to refrain from deporting rejected asylum seekers from Eritrea back to their home country, due to the fact that their safety cannot be guaranteed. "This is an important signal for Germany and the other states of the European Union in which the calls to cut down on refugee protection for Eritreans are getting louder because of the growing number of refugees," said the STP's Africa-consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Wednesday in Göttingen. "Europe must show more commitment to human rights and democratization in Eritrea to prevent the exodus of more and more young people from the small state. As long as there is no substantial progress, Europe must offer protection for Eritreans who were forced to lee from the worst persecutions and crimes against humanity. "In 2014, refugees from Eritrea made up the third-largest group of asylum-seekers in Germany – with 13,198 applications. With a total number of 9,851, they formed the largest group of asylum-seekers in Switzerland.

Following the visit of a delegation of the Swiss Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice to the state at the Horn of Africa, Switzerland decided to continue its previous asylum practice of not sending asylum-seekers back, as reported by the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" on Tuesday. In the fall of 2014, several political parties in Switzerland had called for a more restrictive refugee policy towards Eritreans and demanded rejected asylum-seekers to be deported. However, when a fact-finding mission initiated by the Swiss Federal Office for Migration visited Eritrea in January 2015, it revealed no sustainable improvement of the human rights situation.

"If Switzerland had cut down on refugee protection for Eritreans, this would have had fatal consequences for tens of thousands of Eritrean refugees in the European Union," said Delius. On November 25, 2014, the Danish Ministry of Justice had stated that Eritreans would no longer automatically be recognized as political refugees, but would have to present individual evidence of being persecuted. Before, the Danish immigration authorities had issued a controversial report concerning the human rights situation in Eritrea, certifying significant progress regarding the human rights situation. Human rights organizations had criticized

the report because of its inconsistence with an initial research report issued by a Commission of Inquiry that – on behalf of the UN Human Rights Council – had investigated human rights violations in Eritrea since June 2014. The Danish report was also sharply criticized by witnesses and experts who had been mentioned in the report. They accused the authorities of misquoting them in the publication.

Most Eritreans decide to flee because of the unlimited military service, because of arbitrary arrests, torture, forced labor – and because there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of expression or religion. In the worldwide press freedom index, Eritrea is on rank 180, the last in the index. Concerning the freedom of religion, the state is always among the lowest-ranking countries. Eritrea is considered as one of the most repressive countries in the world.


Header Photo: Charles Roffey/Flickr