Detention of refugees headed elsewhere “big show”, says lawyer Hana Franková
Refugees have been in the spotlight in the Czech Republic in recent months, with news broadcasts regularly reporting on the number of migrants detained, issues surrounding asylum facilities and the sometimes unsympathetic pronouncements of politicians. But how well are the Czech authorities handling the situation? And what are the legal challenges faced by migrants detained by the police? I discussed those questions and more with lawyer Hana Franková, head of the legal department of the NGO Organizace pro Pomoc Uprchlíkům (Organisation for Aid to Refugees).
“This is because of a special procedure called the Dublin Procedure, which sets criteria on the basis of which your country of asylum is assigned.
“For example, we have many refugees coming from Ukraine and they oftentimes travel through Poland. Or they come with a Polish visa. And based on this Dublin Procedure they have to be transferred back to Poland.”
So the Dublin Procedure basically means people have to be processed where they entered, where they set foot in the European Union?
“It’s one of the criteria. It’s one of the criteria that’s most often used in the Czech Republic, given the geographic location of the Czech Republic.”
Does that mean that asylum seekers would essentially have to arrive at Prague Airport to have any chance of being heard here?
“In theory that would be there highest chance. The problem at Prague Airport currently is that we have monitored severe obstacles in the transit zone.
“We have had some information from relatives of refugees who tried to apply for asylum at Prague Airport.
“They told us that their family members contacted immigration police in the transit zone of the airport but it had been very difficult for them to express their asylum intent.
“So in theory they would have a chance to come through Prague Airport, but the practical situation looks like there is no-one currently in the reception centre at Prague Airport. It’s empty currently.”
So the main problem facing asylum seekers here is that they have come through other countries?
“A different problem is the excessive use of detention. It is closely connected to the Dublin Procedure because if we look at the detention centres in the Czech Republic they are pretty much prisons. We call them detention centres but they are prisons.
“If we look at them they are filled by refugees who came by train from Austria or Hungary, travelling through the Czech Republic and trying to apply for asylum elsewhere, not in the Czech Republic. For example in Germany or Sweden.
“But given the fact they entered [the EU] through Hungary what the Czech immigration police does is they go on these trains, they specifically catch these people, oftentimes families with children, and try to transfer them back to Hungary, for instance.
“It is very difficult, because Hungary has so many asylum seekers already that they are currently incapable of receiving more asylum seekers, more transferees.
“So what happens is that the Czech immigration police imprisons these people caught on trains in these detention centres. And they are stuck there, even though they have no intention of staying in the Czech Republic. They were on their way to Germany or Sweden, for instance.”
When they are in these detention centres are they applying for asylum? Are they just waiting? What are they doing?
“Many of these refugees who are caught on trains do not wish to apply for asylum in the Czech Republic. They want to go to other countries, where oftentimes they have families.
“And they are just stuck, because according to the Dublin Procedure they have to be returned to Hungary, where they applied for asylum.
“They are imprisoned in these detention centres for six weeks. If during these six weeks the transfer back to Hungary doesn’t happen then they are released and they are free to do what they want.”
“Yes. They travel to where they were originally intending to go.”
So why do the Czech police bother detaining these people? They’re basically putting them up for six weeks and then letting them go.
“I think this specific situation is just a big show, a big theatre, to demonstrate that the Czech police are protecting all of us from some fake danger.
“It is important to emphasise that these people are refugees. They are not criminals. They did not commit a crime. They don’t have any criminal history. They are fleeing very difficult situations.
“They are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. They are often families with small children travelling on public transportation.
“So it’s really very problematic that they are being detained and even more so that it’s being presented to the Czech audience as is if were something desirable or something that has any purpose whatsoever.”
Why would you say the police are making this “show”?
“I think it might resonate well with people, to present some source of potential danger and to make a scapegoat. Currently the scapegoat is refugees.”
Has the Dublin Procedure become essentially unworkable? I was reading that something like 100,000 refugees have passed through Hungary this year alone – how could they all go back to Hungary?
“Yes. It is very much not working at the moment. Hungary even tried to sort of suspend the Dublin Procedure but it was not possible. You cannot suspend it unilaterally.
“They just made this proposal of not receiving asylum seekers back but it was not possible. Now they are sort of pressured to say, Yes, we will take those transferees back.
“But they don’t manage within the time limit set in the Dublin Procedure, which is six weeks. Everyone knows that, that they don’t manage within six weeks.
What kinds of numbers of people are actually applying for asylum in the Czech Republic?
“The number for 2015, until now, is somewhere around 800 people.”
What chance do those people have of actually attaining asylum?
“Their chances are very low. I think for the same period, from January to now, around 30 people got asylum.
“There is a slightly higher chance of getting subsidiary protection, which is a temporary protection for people who are fleeing war conflicts and are expected to return after the conflict is over. Subsidiary protection is granted typically for one or two years.”
As for the people who are in these asylum facilities in this country, are there any difficulties in providing them with legal advice?
“Yes. It has been very difficult for them to get legal advice. Because many of them are in these prisons. Many of them are in closed reception centres for refugees.
“In these centres there mobile phones are taken away from them, their money is taken away from them, so they can’t really seek legal advice actively. They are fully dependent on legal help provided by NGOs that go there.
“It’s difficult not only for the closed centres. The same difficulties are in open accommodation centres, which are for refugees who have been in this country for some time already and are waiting for decisions in their cases.”
Many people were angry when the Czech government said they would take in mainly Christian people from Syria, saying that it was prejudiced. Others might say that perhaps that makes some sense, because they could be closer culturally to Czech society. What do you say to that?
“It is very problematic because international protection should not make any such distinction and it should be granted to a person who qualifies as a refugee.”
You were saying that so far this year something like 800 people have applied for asylum in the Czech Republic have applied for asylum. But now the country is being required by the European Union to take in, what is it, 1,500 people?
“Yes. But it should be emphasised that the Czech Republic already integrated much higher numbers of refugees without any problems. The were refugee groups from Bosnia, from Chechnya, we had a group from Burma, and it all ran very smoothly.”
If people were successfully integrated in the past, if the numbers are not so high, especially compared to in other EU countries, why is there such attention being given to this issue in the Czech Republic, in the Czech media, on social media? It’s everywhere at the moment.
“I think a big role in it is played by the media, which sometimes confuse the issues. Sometimes they present refugees as criminals.
“It’s also fueled by the fact that they are imprisoned in these detention centres, which to a regular person might seem like, There must be a reason – if they are in prison they must be criminals, and therefore they are dangerous.
“It’s the unfortunate presentation of the topic that contributes to the fear.”
Why do you think it is that many Czech people seem unsympathetic to these refugees? Especially considering that in the past many Czechs also had to leave their country.
“I think there has not been enough information about the refugees. For example the office that’s in charge of the immigration police, the Ministry of the Interior, has a very unfortunate strategy of informing the public exactly about these prisons and presenting it as a security issue.
This leads me to my next question, which is how do you think the government has handled this issue so far?
“I think the Ministry of the Interior, which is the authority in charge of immigration policy, has failed very much in communicating with the public efficiently.
“They’ve failed in emphasising that refugees are people fleeing very difficult situations and that it’s our obligation to assist them. They’ve failed to emphasise that the figures are really very low in the Czech Republic.
“Instead of that they are presenting the issue as a security threat, which is very unfortunate.”
