Last month the world celebrated Mandela’s 95th Birthday, a man known for his fight against apartheid in South Africa. As many spent days in hospital praying for the icon’s continued life, Switzerland was busy conniving ways of reintroducing the practice.
The Swiss took part in a referendum last month where they unanimously voted to make the asylum rules stricter than before (Read: Switzerland makes their Asylum laws Stricter).
As part of the new rules, a new asylum camp to be set up in Bremgarten comes with some outragious rules that seek to keep the asylum seekers “out of everyone’s hair”. Some of the silly rules include:
- No asylum seeker
- Should visit the library nor the swimming pool (imagine in this heat)
- Visit the church between Monday and Friday
- Be seen around the playgrounds or school compound
The asylum seekers will also be confined in what they call “exclusive” zones where they should not wander out of, this is a common practice in most EU countries even in Germany where asylum seekers aren’t allowed to move further than a specified safety zone. (Read: Kenyan Fined for Leaving Detention Camp).
According to the mayor these are safety measures to prevent kids from being sexually abused; avoiding the asylum seekers selling drugs to the citizens and from distracting the life of the “normal” residence of the town, who might be shocked to find 50 asylum seekers at the playground or swimming pool (lol….he actually said that…). (Read: Germans complain Refugees Spreading Diseases in their town)
One of the Ministers actually said, “When refugees come to Switzerland, you shouldn’t roll out the red carpet for them.” (Like anybody needs a red carpet, people just want to be treated like human beings. Reminds me of the German minister who said, “You have to differentiate between useful and useless foreigners in Germany”…..lol…..And they wonder why only people interested in “free-money” move to their countries while the “useful” move back to where they came from or to other countries instead.)
The move has been protested by several people and organisations but not enough. The referendum saw 78.5% vote for the stricter rules, that’s a HUGE number.
The new camp that was set up from old barracks in Bremgarten plans to house 150 refugees and the first 23 have already arrived. The first batch includes refugees from Eritrea, Sudan and Tibet.
To add insult to injury, Oprah Winfrey just revealed that she experienced racism in Switzerland during her recent visit there. Seems the “neutral” country Switzerland has tried to portray itself as isn’t really the reality.
