INTRO

This is a very controversial agreement signed this week between the United Kingdom and Rwanda....to deter the large number of illegal arrivals on its shores, London wants to send these asylum seekers to Rwanda, while their applications are examined. The project caused a scandal across the Channel, but as you will see, Switzerland could draw inspiration from such a principle in the case of rejected applicants. The National Council is due to consider this in a few days' time. Clément Burge and Céline Brichet's report

TEXT

00:00 Kigali, Rwanda Rooms are ready at this Kigali hotel,

empty beds just waiting for their occupants to arrive,

men and women who have fled their country to seek asylum in England,
but whom the UK dreams of sending here
to Rwanda

The rooms are all the same from the first to the 4th floor, as you can see. Each person has the same space as the others

This is a source of pride for the hotel manager
and especially  for the country,
which volunteered for the mission,
with an agreement worth more than 100 million francs

00:41 TRAD Ismael Bakina, manager of Hope Hostel  It's not a prison, it's a house like ours. We serve them just like in a hotel. At the hotel, people are free and can do whatever they want. So if they want a hotel, no problem

Rwanda prepares to become a land
of refuge for asylum seekers that Europe no longer wants

01:05 TITLE

01:12 Kigali, December 5, 2023 It was this Tuesday in Kigali,
the capital of Rwanda.
UK Home Secretary and Rwandan Foreign Secretary
sign new agreement

01:24 TRAD James Cleverly, Home Secretary of the United Kingdom Your country has made a clear commitment to the safety of the people who come here

In this treaty,

Rwanda agrees to take charge  of
part of the asylum applications
lodged in the United Kingdom

01:43 TRAD Vincent Biruta, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rwanda There is a critical need to find creative ways to respond to the suffering of migrants who undertake dangerous and desperate journeys

A second chance for the so-called Rwanda Plan, a
project launched more than a year ago
blocked by a British Supreme Court ruling.
This signing aims to relaunch it
and allow
it to start filling the hotels

In London,

we meet a man
who may soon be one of the first boarders.
We'll call him Ars
Kurd from Iraq
He has never set foot in Africa,
and yet last year
While waiting for a decision on his asylum application in Britain,
he received a plane ticket to Kigali

02:30 blur name on letter "Aras Mohammad"

That's it, it's the plane ticket for June 14, 2022

02:34 TRAD Ars, Asylum Seeker in the UK  I was in a detention centre and after 20 days I received a document informing me that I was going to be sent to Rwanda. It was crazy, I lost my mind.  Be careful to blur your face

Plan  Rwanda
wants his claim to be processed in Kigali
If he is granted asylum,

there is no longer any question of returning to the UK.
He will be granted refugee status on the spot
in Rwanda

03:05 Blurring + trad I was in the detention center when they showed me these pictures. They told me it was a very nice hotel. But I've looked on the Internet, on Youtube, you can see directly that there are problems there, every day. What am I going to do there? I'm not crazy. I'd rather go back to my own country to die.

I thought the UK was the best country in the world. For me, it became the worst of them all.

03:16 blurring
03:25 surfing face

Like him,

24,000 people received a one-way ticket to Kigali.
In the long term, it will be all those
who arrived irregularly,
i.e. by boat.

In Britain, the
influx of canoes that continues
by the tens of thousands every year
is creating tensions throughout the country.

Like here, in the small town of Middleton
near Manchester.
On that day, a demonstration
was organized at the foot of a hotel
where migrants were staying

04:02 TRAD John Lawrence, Anti-Immigration Protester Nobody is telling us anything, that's why people are. We don't know anything about the people in the hotels, we don't know where they come from, we don't know anything about their background. People just don't want them here.

The asylum seekers are accused of stabbing two people
in the local pub.

Locals
supported by far-right demonstrators
are demanding the closure  of the hotel
and the departure of its occupants

04:32 TRAD James Costello, Anti-immigration protester They came to our country illegally but instead of being deported as they should, and I'm not just saying in France they should be deported somewhere in Asia, far from Europe, but no. They put them in migrant hotels at the expense of the British taxpayer.

04:52 TRAD Katie Elizabeth Fanning, Anti-Immigration Protester These people come here for a variety of reasons, to take advantage of our people, to extort them, because of our government's lax policy that allows this mass invasion. But these people are not refugees, they are not asylum seekers, they are hostile invaders who have no place in our country and should be deported by our military. 

The tone rose
when a group of counter-demonstrators arrived to support the hotel's inhabitants,
and the police had to intervene

05:20 TRAD If you lived here you'd know what it's like

A violence that this lawyer knows well /
specialized in the representation of asylum seekers
it is he who brought before the Supreme Court the case of Ars, this Kurd  threatened with deportation
And for this Jed Pennington
himself was threatened to have his face burned with acid.

Today, his fear
is the treatment his client might receive
if he is taken to Rwanda

05:46 TRAD Jed Pennington, Lawyer There was an example a few years ago, refugees protested against their conditions of detention and there is evidence that they have been shot at and some have been killed. The fear for people like my client is that in addition to not having their asylum claims properly considered, but in addition if they do not behave in accordance with the regime, they would run the risk of having their human rights violated, mistreated, or worse

Whether or not the UK has been successful in outsourcing its asylum claims
is being scrutinised far beyond the country's borders

And even before its implementation
It is in Switzerland
that the Rwanda plan is already inspiring a similar project

The idea comes from the FDP Damian Müller.
Here, it targets only Eritrean nationals who have
been rejected
but who cannot be sent back to their country
Eritrea refuses forced returns.

Never mind, he would like to send them to a third country,
such as Rwanda

06:55 TRAD Damian Müller, Member of the Council of States FDP/LU The first thing is to enforce our asylum law firmly but fairly. This law, which was voted by the people in 2017 by more than 60%, has consequences, for example, that people who have their asylum application refused must be deported. It's just law enforcement. So of course it's going to save money. Of course it will also make Switzerland less attractive, but in the end it's just a matter of enforcing the law as voted by the Swiss population

07:33 Bern, 5 June 2023 Debated in the Council of States last June,
the proposal scandalised the left,
especially Lisa Mazzone, who considered it
totally out of touch with reality

07:44 Lisa Mazzone, Former Councillor of States not re-elected Greens/GE We are talking about 328 people who, for the most part, have been here for several years, have rebuilt their lives in Switzerland and have no connection with Eritrea, and especially not with Rwanda, and who should rather be allowed, by conferring on the status of hardship cases,  to access the world of work and to finally be able to contribute to the smooth running of society. If you are concerned about the welfare situation, allow them to work.

Unsurprisingly, however, the idea has appealed to the right.
The SVP even sees this pilot project as
an opportunity to go further

08:23 Marco Chiesa, Member of the Council of States SVP/TI The motion to launch a pilot project that only applies to Eritreans who are required to leave Switzerland does not go far enough for me. It is, however, a first step that we can fully support, before aiming for a complete relocation of the asylum procedure, along the lines of the United Kingdom.

In the end, the motion to expel the rejected Eritreans was passed.

A few months later,
on the eve of the debate in the National Council,
the fear is still real for the opponents.

They fear that the principle will be extended to other nationalities.

08:51 Carlo Sommaruga, Councillor of States PS/GE  We start with certain communities, this is the case now with the Eritreans, but it can go to others, we will start to create camps without any guarantee of respect for fundamental rights

In Bern, proposals have multiplied in recent years
to set up centres for asylum seekers outside Europe
or to process asylum procedures in transit zones

So far, they have always been refused

But practices are getting tougher

Last year, 148 Eritrean nationals
were denied asylum

Since they cannot be sent back,
they are still in Switzerland.
 

For the Swiss refugee aid organisation,
beyond financial considerations,
deporting them is not an option,
there is a real risk that their rights will not be respected
in a country like Rwanda
 

09:53 Lionel Walter, OSAR Spokesperson We call on the CN to reject the motion, it really shows that models modelled on the British project cannot be implemented in a way that is compatible with human rights

The National Council will decide on the fate of the project on
19 December

In the United Kingdom, Ars still fears his departure.
Authorities hope to get the
first plane off the ground for Kigali  soon

10:24
Céline Brichet
Clément Bürge
François-Michel Schweizer
Henri Michiels
Natasha de Grandi
Gabriel Leon

Gabriela Ackermann

Benoît Mayer