Votation about racist or not Switzerland

[sanctus]

In Switzerland we have a direct democracy (it means we vote every couple of months on something) and this weekend it will come out if I'll be ashamed of switzerland (previsions say that it will pass, so I already start not writing my country with an S but only a s) and of being swiss.

 

The votations is about changing the law about asylum and the law about the foreigners.

The worst of the two is the one about the asylum, it changes things so that:

• people who do not present in 48 hours after arrival a valid passport or can prove that they are persecuted by their government are rejected on the spot and sent back. What this doesn't takte into account is that if someone is persecuted by a government they will not give him/her a passport and that peeople who have been tortured and/or violated may not be able to speak about it right away after their perillous trip to Switzerland (because still under shock). This goeas against the convention of refugees.
  
• People who got the negative answer can be put in prison for a duration until 2 years (to break them down and not let them become clandestines but scare them and make them leave) It costs about 100000 Sfr per year per person much more than the "help to return" programs they have now.
  
• The preceeding point is appliable also to people under the age of 18 (reduced to 9 months instead of 2 years), which goes against the convention of both the right of humans and children.
  
• rejected people don't get any social assistance they are just put on the street (the idea is to make them leave), so they will just become clandestines. This again is a procedure aplied to everyone sick people and kids included (the latter ones will so become easy targets for human trafficants). If it passes I see them already wondering why there are more and more drug dealers and illegal prostitutes...
  

 

There are heaps of people against and from a broad spectrum (the socialist party, the green party,NGO's, churches, syndicats and even several people from the center rightish (who usually didn't have ideas I liked, but if even they agree that's its dishuman it means something!!!)).

But the campaign from the people who prpose it is very effective, because it says what people want to hear: "it goes against the people who abuse the system and costs less". Which is not true (the ones who really don't have a passport are rejected because of those who abuse, who just say they don't have it, ergo the ones who need help and do not abuse are rejected with the ones who abuse), but is harder and longer to explain.

 

All I can do is to call my few friends who i know that they usually don't care about politics and tell them that now they have to vote, let's hope...

 

If there is interest I'll write about the other law as well, anyway I'll update with the results on sunday evening.

[Boerseun]

I've always been interested in Swiss politics, and how they insist on and maintain their neutrality in international affairs and politics.

 

But I fail to see how this is 'racist', per se. This seems to be about the status of refugees, and refugees can be of any race, surely?

 

Would a white refugee get different treatment than a black refugee? If it says so clearly in the proposed legislation, then, yes - it will be racist. But this might simply be a human rights issue, not necessarily racist.

[sanctus]

Yes, there is discrimination in the foreigenrs law where people not from the EU are treated much worse; but you're right the asylum law is a human rights issue and could be classified as xenophobe but nor really racist.

[Boerseun]

Interestingly, countries all over the world discriminate with racially-based legislation. For instance, New Zealand will allow only three Polynesian immigrants for every seven European immigrants. They justify this by saying that they want immigration figures to mirror their actual racial composition, to maintain the 'status quo', so to speak. It seems fair enough on the face of it, but this is actually racial discrimination. Is it moral? I dunno...:naughty:

[Tormod]

Sandro, it sounds pretty much like the Norwegian system. It is extremely unfriendly to asylum seekers and does have many racist elements because it mostly causes problems for people from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Although we don't think twice about sending non-EU Europeans back on a whim, either.

 

Norway recently "stated an example" by sending a 13-year-old kid "back" to his country of origin. He had been living in Norway since age 4 and had gone to Norwegian schools since grade 1, spoke perfect Norwegian etc. His entire neighborhood was shocked about this action. I'd say our Government is pretty much completely ignorant as to what "human rights" are, even though they do like to portray Norway as a country where human rights are obeyed.

 

So I hear you - it's a shame what's happening all over Europe.

[sanctus]

 

So I hear you - it's a shame what's happening all over Europe.

 

 

Let's hope that as with the EU switzerland will be the one with another behaviour from the rest of the european countries.

[sanctus]

Interestingly, countries all over the world discriminate with racially-based legislation. For instance, New Zealand will allow only three Polynesian immigrants for every seven European immigrants. They justify this by saying that they want immigration figures to mirror their actual racial composition, to maintain the 'status quo', so to speak. It seems fair enough on the face of it, but this is actually racial discrimination. Is it moral? I dunno...:)

 

 

I wouldn't say it's moral because the Maori are polynesian and so it is more their land than the one of the european immigrants, so it would be "more moral" to let in polynesian to get the "racial" composition back...

Don't get me wrong I don't blame the european immigrants to New Zealand most were born there ergo they belong there now as well...

[sanctus]

It passed, at least it seems so by the "high-counts"... and by 70%...