Stanley Van Tha

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Stanley Van Tha (* 1967 or 1968 in Myanmar ) is a Myanmar from the Chin ethnic minority who entered Switzerland in 2003 and applied for asylum there because of political persecution in his home country. After his asylum application was rejected, he was deported to Myanmar in 2004 and imprisoned there. His case caused a stir in Swiss asylum policy ; While advocates of tightening the asylum system see this as an unfortunate individual case, opponents of such tightening see it as one example among many. Stanley Van Tha was released in November 2007 and was able to re-enter Switzerland in early 2008.

Entry and asylum route in Switzerland

In May 2003, Stanley Van Tha entered Switzerland legally with his passport - for which he had bribed an official in Myanmar to obtain it. He applied for asylum because he was being persecuted in his home country for political activities (supporting anti-government militants from the Chin ethnic minority and collecting money for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi ). Myanmar is called a military dictatorship by human rights organizations , where torture , forced labor , political persecution and other human rights violations by the state are widespread. However, Stanley Van Tha did not succeed in convincing the Swiss Federal Office for Refugees (BFF) of his persecution. In particular, it was used as an indication against him that he was carrying valid papers, since a prosecuting state rarely issues travel documents to those who want to flee. In other cases, asylum seekers in Switzerland are turned away if they do not have identity papers because they are suspected of deliberately destroying them in order to prevent their deportation.

Stanley Van Tha asylum application was rejected in October 2003, while he appeals lodged. On December 2 of the same year, the Swiss Asylum Appeal Commission (ARK) rejected him, too, and Stanley Van Tha was given a deadline for voluntary departure. He let this pass unused. As a result, coercive measures were ordered and in early March 2004 Stanley Van Tha was taken into deportation custody. On April 14th, he was handcuffed and gagged to a wheelchair and then forcibly evacuated to Myanmar with three police officers.

Deportation and detention in Myanmar

After arriving in the capital, Rangoon , Stanley Van Tha was handed over to the Myanmar authorities, who took him straight from the international airport to the Insein prison in Rangoon, which is "feared" according to human rights organizations. At the end of August 2004 he was sentenced to 19 years in prison - seven years for his political activities in Myanmar, seven years for the forged passport and the remaining five years for illegally leaving the country. According to his own statements, he was tortured.

Reactions in Switzerland

In Switzerland, the Stanley Van Tha case caused criticism of the asylum policy when further events in Myanmar became known. SVP - Federal Councilor Christoph Blocher , who is in favor of a restrictive asylum practice, suspected in a television interview about the conviction of Stanley Van Tha that he had "perhaps done something, such as a theft" and was convicted for it (at this point it was not yet official known, but foreseeable, that it was a conviction for political reasons). This earned him severe criticism. Blocher later admitted in the context of the referendum campaign to further tighten the asylum legislation in 2006 that there was “a case in which we would not have deported someone if we had known everything,” referring to Stanley Van Tha. However, while advocates of tightening the asylum system see the case as an unfortunate individual case, those who oppose such tightening see it as one example among many.

The Swiss filmmaker and Myanmar expert Irene Marty documented the fate of Stanley Van Tha in her film Done - The Unbelievable Story of Stanley Van Tha (2005).

The Swiss authorities (FDFA Foreign Department) campaigned for the Myanmar government to release the prisoner. Van Tha's wife and son were able to enter Switzerland and were granted asylum.

Release and return to Switzerland

On November 15, 2007, Stanley Van Tha was released along with other prisoners; it is unclear whether the influence from Switzerland or the overcrowding of the prison was the reason for this step. Van Tha arrived in Kloten on January 5, 2008 . The Federal Office for Migration also invited him to another interview in order to reassess his application for asylum.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Le matin online: Torturé sur ereur de la Suisse
  2. ^ Swiss Radio DRS daily talk of January 8, 2008
  3. ↑ tagesanzeiger.ch: I knew exactly what to expect in Burma ( Memento from January 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Van Tha, Stanley
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Asylum seekers in Switzerland
DATE OF BIRTH 1967 or 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Myanmar