(MENAFN- Swissinfo) In addition to violent confrontations in Bergen, Norway and Tel Aviv, Israel last weekend, clashes occurred in Giessen, Germany and Stockholm, Sweden earlier this summer. Most of these incidents occurred around Eritrean festivals, with dozens of injuries reported in each case. Such is the risk of violence arising from these events that the Netherlands has banned them.Okbaan Tesfamariam, a spokesperson for the EMBS, told Keystone-SDA that the increase in violence is the result of the growing number of festivals being organised as part of the so-called“propaganda tour”. Tensions between opponents of the regime and those loyal to it have been simmering for decades, he added, and many Eritreans feel pressure to donate money to the regime.
The Eritrean embassy in Geneva did not respond to a SWI swissinfo.ch request for comment on these allegations.
High-level contacts – but no forced returnsFor its part, the Swiss government in 2022 said that it can only“assume that [...] privately organised festivals often represent a source of foreign exchange for the Eritrean government,” but that it had no information on how much money was collected at these events and sent to Eritrea. It also indicated there was no legal basis for stripping asylum from Eritreans who choose to take part in pro-regime events, as one Radical-Liberal parliamentarian had suggested.
Still, Bern has not been immune to criticism. It changed its admission rules for Eritrean asylum-seekers in 2016, by no longer granting asylum to those who'd left Eritrea illegally, a decision that was backed by the Federal Court in 2017 but decried by refugee groups. The court also decided that imminent conscription in Eritrea did not in principle prevent a rejected asylum-seeker from being deported.
The Swiss also received some flak for meeting with Yemane Gebreab, the special adviser to the Eritrean president – and reportedly the second most-powerful man in Eritrea – when he travelled to the Swiss capital in October 2021. There he met with State Secretary Livia Leu and the then-head of the migration secretariat, Mario Gattiker. The foreign ministry told the NZZ the Swiss had“urgently” raised the need for compliance with international humanitarian law in the context of the war in Tigray.
But the Swiss also raised the issue of enforced returns during that meeting. Switzerland has not been able to carry out removals because Eritrea refuses to accept non-voluntary returns from any country, a situation that persists despite Switzerland's high-level interventions.
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