Asylum seekers peak in Switzerland

SWITZERLAND, which prides itself on its humanitarian principles, is facing a barrage of criticism over its treatment of asylum seekers.

The controversy broke last week when federal migration authorities said the small northern town of Bremgarten, with 6,500 residents, had been permitted to deny residents of a new asylum centre access to certain public spaces.

Initial reports that the asylum seekers would be barred from the public pool, gyms and even the town library and churches sparked outrage and charges of segregation and discrimination from rights activists.

Swiss migration authorities maintain the reports were based on a misunderstanding, insisting the asylum seekers will only have restricted access to so-called "sensitive areas" where access is also restricted to the Swiss public, like schools and sports facilities during school hours.

The rules were merely aimed to help "organise the cohabitation between the asylum seekers and the town population", Federal Migration Office spokeswoman Gaby Szoelloesy told AFP.

Denise Graf of Amnesty International's Swiss section is unconvinced, maintaining that the rules, which require asylum seekers to among other things request permission from the town before accessing the pool, "are clearly discriminatory".

She says residents in one centre near the central city of Lucerne have been barred from taking the shortest route to the train station, while other centres impose strict curfews.

Police meanwhile moved in this week to remove 10 asylum seekers who had been camped out for days at the Solothurn train station in northwestern Switzerland to protest their living conditions in a subterranean bunker they described as "unworthy of a human being".

Switzerland is one of the countries in Europe that welcomes the most asylum seekers in proportion to its population, with some 48,000 people currently in the process of applying for asylum, including 28,631 who arrived in 2012 - the highest number since 1999.

But the Swiss public in June overwhelmingly voted to tighten the country's asylum laws.

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