Sri Lanka

Since 2016, the Swiss authorities apply more stringent criteria for granting Sri Lankan nationals

- mostly ethnic Tamils - the refugee status, as they believe that the situation in Sri Lanka has improved since the end of the civil war in 2009.

Before the end of the war, the Federal Administrative Court decided in 2008 that failed Tamil asylum seekers may not be repatriated to Sri Lanka after the resurgence of violence between the government and the Tamil Tigers. This decision came after an appeal made by an asylum seeker who was to be sent back to Colombo. The man now got a temporary protection in Switzerland.

AS of today, SEM believes that considerable progress has been made in the area of human rights, for example in the areas of freedom of expression and assembly. That’s why they apply more restrictive conditions for recognizing the refugee status of journalists, human rights ac- tivists and opposition politicians. As the war has ended, they also believe that the need to protect people with a link to the vanquished LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) is de- creasing since the end of the war in 2009 between LTTE and the Sri Lankan army for control of the northern part of the country, which is mostly Tamil dominated. However, there are some gaps remaining, especially in the area of human rights, and as a result, individual circum- stances will be taken into consideration while examining asylum requests.

However, the problem is that anyone from the Tamil community who returns to Sri Lanka risks being treated like an LTTE sympathizer. They can be taken in for questioning at the airport, and most likely, tortured and even imprisoned. Last year in January, the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in X v. Switzerland (no. 16744/14) concerning the depor- tation of a Sri Lankan Tamil man and his subsequent ill-treatment while imprisoned in Sri Lanka. He applied for asylum in Switzerland on the grounds of political persecution, but his asylum application was rejected and the Swiss authorities ordered his deportation to Sri Lanka. The applicant complained that the Swiss authorities had failed to properly assess these sub- missions and had deported him to Sri Lanka where he had been subjected to further ill-treat- ment at the hands of the authorities. The Court found that the Swiss authorities should have been aware of the risk that the applicant might be subjected to ill-treatment if deported, as there had been ample evidence of this at the time. They had therefore failed to properly assess the applicant’s asylum application, in violation of Article 3. After his release in Sri Lanka, the applicant applied for a visa on humanitarian grounds to return to Switzerland and his applica- tion was accepted. This case may have softened the asylum policy of SEM.

Practical advice:

Try to find out how/why the client came to Switzerland: There can be various reasons, such as the fear of the Sri Lankan Government but also being under pressure of the LTTE. Motivate the client to talk about this in detail.

If the client was a member of LTTE, it is important to tell that during the interview and to show them that they fear, in fact, ill-treatments by the Sri Lankan army or even im- prisonment.