UN "relieved" at Swiss outcome on tougher asylum laws
GENEVA, (AFP) - The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) welcomed the refusal by Swiss voters last Sunday to support a right-wing referendum proposal to tighten the country's asylum laws.
"Certainly we are relieved," Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN high commissioner for refugees Ruud Lubbers, told AFP.
"The initiatve would have caused enormous problems for genuine refugees and most probably significant difficulties for Switzerland in its relations on this issue with its neighbours," he added.
The initiative by the Swiss People's Party (SVP) was turned down by 50.1 percent of voters, while 49.9 percent voted to support the plan. The final outcome boiled down to just over 3,400 votes.
Under the plan, foreigners arriving at Swiss borders from another country deemed safe would automatically have been prohibited from applying for asylum in Switzerland and sent back over the border.
The SVP said the move was necessary to clamp down on bogus refugees.
But the government which had urged voters to refuse the initiative said it was unworkable and could harm neutral Switzerland's humanitarian tradition.
The overwhelming majority of asylum-seekers arrive in Switzerland overland from neighbouring Austria, France, Italy or Germany, the seven-member government argued.
Under the SVP plan, Swiss authorities would therefore not have been able to consider almost all of the country's asylum requests, it said.
"Now hopefully we can all get on with improving the asylum system in Switzerland, both from the point of view of the Swiss people and for refugees," Colville added.
"It's in everyone's interest to minimise abuse of the system, and we support efforts to do that providing there are sufficient safeguards ensuring that genuine refugees receive the protection they need and deserve," he said.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International also welcomed the result but said the fact that nearly half of the votes had been in favour of the initiative showed a "real uneasiness" among people on asylum matters.
The organisation's Swiss section said campaigners must now work to prevent any proposed changes to Switzerland's asylum laws by the government going as far, or even further than those proposed by the SVP.