BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Migration Office’s current backlog of some 3,000 applications must be completed and applications brought up to date by 2013, former Swiss Federal Judge Michel Féraud concluded as part of his final report on applications for asylum in Switzerland.
But the most damning part of his report covers applications from Iraqis at the Swiss embassies in Egypt and Syria, from 2006 to 2008: the judge writes that a Swiss Justice and Police Department decision in November 2006 to not handle the applications was not in line with procedures defined by law, and it violated constitutional guarantees.
Rigid system contributed to decision to ignore applications, backlog
His report implies that the blame lies with the rigidity of the legal situation, according to a Federal Council statement issued 11 January: all Swiss embassies are required to accept and handle asylum applications, although they are not equipped, in terms of staffing, to do so. The applicants, had they been turned down by Switzerland, would not have been obliged to return to Iraq, since they had been accepted by Egypt and Syria.
One of the debates that was taking place at the time was how to better distinguish between legitimate asylum seekers and migrants. The number of asylum seekers grew steadily from the 1970s, federal statistics show, and the resident asylum population peaked at some 105,000 in 1999. The number of applicants has been in the range of about 10-15,000 annually for the past decade just under 11,000 in 2007, with 15,567 applicants in 2011.
UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) figures published in November show that the decline in applications for asylum occurred worldwide, not just in Switzerland, from 2000 to 2010.
Judge not suggesting legal pursuit
Féraud notes that, given the lapse of time and the Federal Council’s stated desire in 2010 to make the regulations less rigid, thus giving embassies more discretion in handling cases, he is not recommending disciplinary action. His investigation did not turn up any acts of wrongdoing such as overstepping the bounds of their authority on the part of government employees.
Blocher headed department in 2005, successors unaware of decision
Christoph Blocher was the federal councilor with responsibility for the Justice and Police Department at the time; his right-wing UDC People’s Party came in for heavy criticism inside and outside Switzerland in 2006 for posters seen to be racist, as the party campaigned to reduce the number of immigrants.
Blocher was succeeded as head of the department by Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf after he lost his seat on the council in December 2007, but neither Widmer-Schlumpf nor her successor as minister with responsibility for the federal office, Simonetta Sommaruga, were informed of the Iraqi applications and the decision to ignore them.
The report was requested by the Federal Council in August 2011 when it was made aware that the applications had not been dealt with for a number of years.
Féraud filed it 22 December and the Federal Council 11 January acknowledged publicly that it had received and is considering the report.
Paleo Concert-goers alert: 1-16 December you can buy six-day passes for next summer’s shows.
Aurélian Farina shows his typographical design that features on the 2012 Paleo Music Festival poster
NYON, SWITZERLAND – The Paleo music festival in Nyon has unveiled its 2012 poster, a colourful visual game that is a twin to musical fun.
This year’s poster is by 27-year-old Aurélien Farina from Geneva’s University of Applied Science – Art & Design (HEAD, HES-SO), who won the poster contest sponsored by the school with Paleo.
The festival, one of Europe’s largest open-air music festivals, runs from 22 to 26 July 2012.
It runs for six days and nighs and pulls in 230,000 people for 210 concerts, with folk music at the centre of it.
Farina, who is French, earlier studied political science.
He says of his inspiration: “Music is at the heart of his inspiration, and is an essential component for Aurélien Farina.
“Music is the basis of my work. To get tangled up, to move through different levels, to be organised, in harmony, this is all about music. Each layer of the poster could be seen as a musical component, a frequency or an instrument. The Paléo red rounds it all off, it’s a bit like the melody.”
He is keen to pull the viewer in, to make the poster an active rather than passive visual experience.
Paleo Music Festival 2012 poster released 24 November in Nyon
“I like conceiving complex, intriguing and playful projects, ones that rely on the intelligence of the public. It’s a sort of game of ping-pong between the eye and the mind and this dimension is very important to me: the poster is conceived in its relationship with the viewer, and invites those who look at it to participate.”
The geometric, systematic design solutoin he was seeking came “fairly naturally by playing around with pencils and a sheet of squared paper,” he says.
“As for the colours, I didn’t really have much choice in the end. In order for it to work, I was confronted by a number of constraints similar to those that you meet when you’re drawing a map, plans or road signs: the need to easily recognise different levels of information. Either fortuitously or unconsciously, I came up with something that looks a bit like a map of the Tube.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Gabrielle Giffords, US congresswoman who was shot in the head in Arizona in January 2011, met the press in Monday and spoke publicly for the first time since her long road to recovery began. Giffords was shot during an attack on her that took the lives of six other people and injured several more. She is able to speak, but haltingly, and still has a limp, but her recovery after just 10 months is described by many as “miraculous” given that the bullet travelled the entire left side of her brain.
The Los Angeles Times/AP reports that
“The television interview comes as fellow victims of the shooting came to Washington to testify in favor of a gun-control bill. They said that Giffords’ appearance represents a major milestone for them as it helps them cope with the trauma they’ve endured over the past 10 months. About a dozen survivors and family members are in Washington lobbying for legislation that would extend criminal background checks to all gun sales and enhance the quality of the FBI’s criminal background checks.”
ABC News video clips from Diane Sawyer’s interview with Giffords and astronaut husband Mark Kelly.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The official autopsy results have been released for Muammar Qaddafi, former Libyan leader, showing that he died from a bullet to the head, but the chief pathologist who made the information public would not say if the wound was the result of a close shot or crossfire, a key point in calls for investigations into his death. The autopsy was carried out in the presence of a team from the prosecutor’s office but no foreigners were present, CNN reports.
Links to other sites: Al Arabiya, NY Mag
Qaddafi’s body displayed in Libya, CNN video
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The race is on for the top job at the International Monetary Fund, with France’s finance minister, Christine Lagarde, saying Wednesday 25 May that she wants the job. She has strong support in Europe, which traditionally provides the head of the IMF, but Tuesday a group from the IMF’s emerging economies’ board members issued a statement suggesting the time has come for the body to look elsewhere for a leader. Lagarde is quoted by French media as saying that “Being a European is not a handicap, not an advantage; being French is not a handicap, not an advantage.”
The job has been left open by the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn last week after he was charged with raping a hotel maid in New York.
Mad rush for tickets: Tuesday 13 April
Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s largest open-air music festival promises another 5 days of hot music 19-24 July 2011, as it has done every summer for the past 35 years,
The lineup has now been announced and includes: Jack Johnson, James Blunt, The Chemical Brothers, The Strokes, Robert Plant, Portishead, PJ Harvey, Eddy Mitchell, Jamel, Jean-Louis Aubert, Cali, Katerine, Patrice and The National.
The guest of honour this year is the Caribbean for the Village du Monde, so expect some warm beats, with a range of flavours from the region.
The detailed music lineup is now on the Paleo site. Tickets can be purchased online or at outlets listed on the site, but plan ahead to queue for the tickets, which disappear very rapidly every year.
The 2011 poster competition was wone by Kyoungmi Kim, a graphic artist and third-year student at the Geneva High School for Art and Design (Head).
The competition is organized jointly by Paléo and the University of Applied Science of Western Switzerland (HES-SO).
Kim said of her winning design, “I didn’t want to go the way of over-serious abstract graphics. It seemed important to highlight the festive dimension of the event.”
Annecy, France (GenevaLunch) - The killer of a young man, Freddy, murdered near Geneva in September 2007 because his murderer suspected Freddy had stolen €450 from him, was sentenced 3 March to 30 years in prison. The crime drew massive regional media coverage at the time partly because of the gruesome business of finding the victim’s body, which had been chopped into pieces and thrown into or near the Arve river. Two fishermen were the first to find part of his body, the trunk.
First reports are optimistic for two conjoined girls who were separated by a medical team in Melbourne, Australia during 27 hours of surgery. Krishna and Trishna, orphans from Bangladesh who were joined at the head, are doing well, although lead doctor Leo Donnan says they have a long road ahead of them, with risks related to recovering from the surgery but also a 50 percent chance of brain damage and 25 percent chance one of them will die. The girls are 2 years 11 months old. They were living at an orphanage in Bangladesh, where the risk of surgery was considered too great by the organization Children First Foundation, which is helping the girls.
Links to other sites: The Age, Melbourne (video), Times, UK, Royal Children’s Hospital page on the twins’ “incredible journey”
Innsbruck, Austria (GenevaLunch) - One of Switzerland’s top skiers, Daniel Albrecht, has come out of the coma induced by doctors shortly after an accident during training in mid-January left him with head and lung injuries.
