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Right to asylum

In the event of persecution, everyone has the right to ask for asylum and receive it, in any country. (Article 14, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

The Right to Asylum is a human right appearing in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 and the Geneva Convention from 1951. This makes up the fundamental text of the international regime to protect refugees, adopted within the United Nations framework to alleviate the consequence of the two world wars. Its two most important contributions are: defining a refugee and the non return principle.

According to the Convention, a refugee is someone who has well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, national, belonging to a determined social group or holding certain political opinions, currently outside their country of nationality and cannot or - due to these fears – does not want to ask for protection from their own country.

The non-return principle is the prohibition imposed on States by the International Right to expel or return a person to the territory of any country where their life or freedom is threatened, or they might suffer torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or other serious infringements of their fundamental human rights.

In their determination to stop people crossing borders, Governments throw up more and more obstacles, even in terms of being able to access the right to asylum procedure. Consequently, an increasingly small number of people manage to get to a country which is safer than their own and the vast majority therefore see their human rights abused.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refuges (UNHCR) is the organisation in charge of protecting refugees and people who have been displaced by persecutions and conflict and they aim to provide lasting solutions to these problems. Their international protection function requires cooperation both from the country involved and other countries in the international community. The Agency, which has been working for more than half a century, has provided support for more than 60 million people.

According to UNHCR, at the end of 2007 there were 67 million refugees and internally displaced people (remaining within their country’s borders) in the world. The countries who took in the most refugees in 2007 were Pakistan (2 million), Syria (1.5 million), Iran (963,000), Germany (578,000), Jordan (500,000), Tanzania (435,000), China (300,000), United Kingdom (299,000), Chad (294,000) and United States (281,000).

The Spanish Commission to Help Refugees (CEAR) is a non governmental organisation founded in 1979 to defend and promote human rights and integral development of refugees, displaced and stateless people and migrants requiring international protection and/or at risk from exclusion.

According to their data, a total of 4516 people requested asylum in Spain in 2008, compared to 7664 requests in 2007. From them, only 151 people were recognised as refugees, whilst 5.24% (126 people) were given complementary protection. This covers requests involving causes for fleeing their homes which do not appear in the 1951 Convention, but where the Government considers that their life is in danger if they return to their native country. Nigeria is the country providing the most asylum requests in Spain (808), followed by Colombia (752) and Ivory Coast (500).

When a person arrives in Spain asking for asylum, they must present their request to the administration and fill in the relevant form giving details of the reasons for the persecution they have suffered, and provide all possible proof to demonstrate the facts. The Spanish government, as CEAR reports, obliges them to demonstrate their persecution with full or almost full proof, in contrary to what is established in the Geneva Convention. In all cases, the requester has the right to be informed on the procedure to follow and be provided with an interpreter, legal aid and medical care, if necessary.

In Spain there are several Temporary Immigrant Holding Centres (CETI) set up by the Public Administration. Designed as primary reception devices, they offer services and basic social provisions to immigrants and asylum seekers arriving from any Autonomous Community. Staying in these centres is considered to be a starting point for people who arrive in the country without any type of resources and so they must leave them after six months. They receive guidance and help in the centres, providing psychological care and training, so that once they leave they can start a new life, inside or outside the country.

In an attempt to regulate and adapt to a common European asylum system, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved the Legal Project regulating the right to asylum and subsidiary protection on 5th December. However, this represents a step back in Spain’s commitment to protecting refugees.

Among other aspects, the document, which has still not being approved by Parliament, rules out the possibility of seeking asylum by diplomatic means, undermines the role of UNHCR and does not meet the imperative mandate within Additional Clause 29 of the Organic Law 3/2007 concerning the effective equality of men and women recognising the right of foreign women fleeing their country of origin to seek asylum if they have well-founded fear of suffering persecution for gender reasons.

This project conditions the possibility of recognising asylum for gender reasons depending on the prevailing circumstances in the country of origin, without recognising gender persecution as a cause in itself. For all these reasons, humanitarian organisations consider that Spain should honour its commitments to refugees and respect their dignity and their rights.

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