Meaningful protection of exiled human rights defenders in asylum
People seeking asylum are faced with long and demeaning application processes. In some refugee hosting countries, the first decision on a case can take up to two years to be made, those rejected and try to appeal might have to wait for another two years or more in one of the country’s asylum centers. If rejected again, the asylum seeker could face a lifetime in the camps. Some of these asylum camps are designed to psychologically coerce its inhabitants to leave, either by breaking them down psychologically or pushing them towards criminalization.
In a report by the Freedom of Movements Research Collective, one asylum seeker described his experience of being placed in one of the Asylum centers as “Mental Warfare.” “The centers that the state puts into practice every day . . . do not motivate people to go home,” he goes on. “Instead, they create mental illness and suicidal noncitizens.”
The situation faced by immigrants and asylum seekers in the host countries has worsened as right-wing populism takes on a central role in most western countries’ politics. In addition to the protracted asylum procedures, unhealthy accommodation, alien environments, and poor living conditions, human rights defenders fleeing persecution are met with stinging racism which exacerbates the trauma already experienced. Racism inflicted on those who have already suffered unrelenting trauma will intensely torture their minds and often leaves the victim in a consistent abusive emotional state. Almost nobody will be openly racist in your face here in the West because there are laws against it, but deep on the ground in the society we live in, this is rampant and goes unexplained and unreported.
Temporary safe relocation strategies for human rights defenders at risk are less important to human rights defenders doing actual protection work for society. It appears a hide and seek entity, where a person leaves temporarily, and would remain safe upon return! Those who have received real life persecution and grave torture by pressing hard on dictatorship and thus had to flee for safety into exile need the most support. In 2022, over 400 human rights defenders were murdered worldwide, those who have escaped death and flee into exile are languishing in the complex inhuman asylum system. That is how human rights defenders who flee into exile have often been rewarded.
Giant EU countries are taking a step in keeping people out. They have lobbied for the processing of asylum seekers’ applications outside of the EU — an approach called “externalization.” The policy favored by many anti-immigrant forces and described as one of the Social Democrats’ top priority foreign policies —would mean that human rights defenders who have fled torture and or death and are seeking asylum would be kept outside of the EU during the processing of their cases.
What We Do
The exploitative asylum immigration structures masked under a country’s specific immigration and asylum laws, contradicting the UN’s international proclaimed human rights have been long due to be addressed. GASHDC is calling for a Fasttrack asylum procedural and an enhanced safety strategy, lobbying the UN to nominate a committee to develop a framework on adopting a resolution on the classifying of asylum to achieve a fast-track asylum system for artists, writers and human rights defenders who have survived brutal torture and imprisonment in their respective countries and are vulnerable to spending demeaning duration of time in the inhuman asylum procedural. Similar to how visas are classified in western countries, it is fitting that asylum be accorded the same classification to expedite the process and reduce the sufferings of these brave individuals.
Numerous reputable information sources indicate how western countries are experiencing a continued decline in the rule of law, human rights, and democratic practices which is giving space to intricate espionage to end the lives of critical human rights defenders in exile. GASHDC fosters exiled human rights defenders’ participation in debates and workshops with educational institutions, thinktanks, investigative journalists, policymakers, and civil society activists on the manipulation of asylum, safety of critical human rights defenders in exile, tyrants’ intricate espionage in foreign territories, and strengthens and sustains networking with these institutions and works with investigative journalists to spotlight the decline of the rule of law, human rights, and democratic practices in the asylum procedural.
GASHDC emphasizes the importance of asylum seekers’ voices being included in discussions that concern their communities. The call for inclusion is echoed through the phrase “Nothing about us without us”. True progress can only be made if asylum seekers voices, by asylum seekers are often present at the table.