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'Lock up criminal asylum seekers': SVP

Lyssandra Sears
Lyssandra Sears - [email protected]
'Lock up criminal asylum seekers': SVP
123Klick (File)

Swiss People’s Party politician Toni Brunner has caused uproar with his proposal for the establishment of a special centre for asylum seekers who have broken the law.

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Brunner is at the forefront of a heated campaign to place unruly asylum seekers in a secure centre, in a move that would mirror the Greek and Dutch systems, online news site 20 Minuten reported.

“It is important that those who have forfeited the chance to seek asylum in Switzerland, can no longer walk about at their own leisure,” Brunner told newspaper Zentralschweiz am Sonntag.

The Asylum Act is due to be debated in parliament in mid-June. Many politicians are for amendments including those that limit the freedom of criminal asylum seekers, but not necessarily for internment, newspaper Tribune de Genève reported.

“This is ridiculous and excessive,” Free Democratic Party Councillor Kurt Fluri told 20 Minuten.

Martine Brunschwig Graf, president of the Commission Against Racism, does not believe that the camps would be compliant with human rights law, and queried what would happen to those who could not be returned to their countries of origin.

“The idea has not been entirely thought through,” she said. “People that can not be returned would have to remain indefinitely in the camp."

Amnesty International also voiced concern, calling the idea inhumane and dramatic.

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