EU wants to reduce protection of refugees
PRO ASYL: Proposals violate international
obligations of the EU member states
EU wants to reduce protection of refugees (en)
see also: Obersavtions of ECRE (en)
Additional ECRE-observations (en)
Strategiepapier des österreichischen Ratsvorsitzes zu Migration und Asylpolitik – ECRE Stellungnahme (de)
Strategy paper on immigration and asylum policy – Note from Presidency (en)
Heftige Kritik an Asyl-Vorschlägen aus Österreich – Frankfurter Rundschau
Europäischer Flüchtlingsrat (ECRE)
European Council on Refugees and Exiles ECRE (en)
ECRE Internetseiten (en)
Translation-Info
This is a machine translation by the IBM-supported PERSONAL TRANSLATOR plus. It is slightly edited by combining its results with the translation of SYSTRAN. But you should not rely on it. If you want to use a translated text append or reference the original text.
With sharp criticism the National Human Rights Organisation for Refugees PRO ASYL reacted to the proposals of the Austrian Presidency of the Council to change the application field of the Geneva Convention by „amendments“ in a way, that one could hardly make the best use of it.
„The implementation of these proposals would lead to the fact that the standards of the protection of asylum seekers and refugees binding by international law will drop further and the EU member states will violate their international obligations“, declared Heiko Kauffmann, spokesman of PRO ASYL. In view of the background of the refugee movements from the former Yugoslavia a recollection is required on the development and history of the Geneva Convention. It must be interpreted and applied according to today’s conditions of flight and expulsion. Refugees had to find protection also from area affected by civil war as well as such, who suffered form gender specific human rights violations or fled of fear of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.
„The Geneva Convention has resulted from the experiences of the barbarism of two World Wars. It hasn’t been formulated from the view of states but from the prospect of the refugee threatened from violence and human rights violations defining him as an individual, who has fled from well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political (article 1 A, no. 2 of the 1951 Geneva Convention)“, said Kauffmann.
Today, the section of those who are in need of protection is always more and more restricted by restrictive legal constructions and measures. „The absolute validity of the Geneva Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights must have the topmost priority with the refugee protection in Germany and Europe“,the PRO ASYL speaker declared…
