asylum and immigration" "
“Asylum is a human right”. That’s the motto chosen for 2005 for Refugee Saturday and Sunday, which will be celebrated in Switzerland on 18 and 19 June. It is “a heart-warming motto”, write pastor Thomas Wipf, chairman of the Federation of the Evangelical Churches of Switzerland, Fritz-René Müller, bishop of the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland, Bishop Amédée Grab, president of the Bishops’ Conference of Switzerland, and Alfred Donath of the Federation of Jewish Communities in a joint statement issued to mark the occasion. “Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says the statement specifies that each individual has the right to seek and to enjoy asylum. But the fact that asylum is granted depends on the motives adduced and on a country’s asylum policy”. In Switzerland, explain the signatories of the statement, “recognized refugees and those accepted on a provisional basis represent 62% of all those who request asylum. But what rights have those persons who in their despair ask for admission to Switzerland? Not many. Their right to a fair trial, however, remains unchallenged. In other words, the men and women who ask for asylum in Switzerland have the right to be heard without being condemned in advance as criminals or parasites”. “The Jewish Community and the Christian Churches see man at the centre of the creation. It is therefore our fundamental task to ensure that the men and women who flee to Switzerland be treated with the dignity due to a human being, That does not mean that we are blind to the challenges posed by migratory flows. But we must ensure that the procedures be fair and the accommodation decent. And one of our tasks is to see to it that asylum applications be conscientiously examined and that asylum decisions respect humanitarian principles. The right to asylum they conclude represents an obligation for us: an obligation for us as State, as Churches and as religious Communities, but in particular as men and women. Each person has the right to be treated as a human being, anywhere in the world”.
