Prague, Jan 18 (CTK) – The Interior Ministry will soon decide on the request of about 70 Chinese Christians who applied for asylum in the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) told the Chamber of Deputies, answering a question by MP Jan Cizinsky (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) on Thursday.
Cizinsky said the Czech authorities exceeded the maximum deadline for issuing a decision on the case. The ministry should have decided on the asylum application within 18 months, but the applications were submitted two years ago, he said.
It seems that the ministry has been unlawfully protracting the asylum proceedings, Cizinsky said.
The law sets the standard deadline of 90 days for the Interior Ministry to meet or reject a request for asylum. The ministry can extend the deadline by up to six months.
Babis dismissed the view that the deadline has been exceeded. The ministry gathered all the required documents according to law and there is a lot of materials that need to be studied, he said.
However, Babis said he expects a decision to be issued very soon.
In the past years, the Chinese made up only a small fraction of asylum seekers in the Czech Republic. Christians are one of the persecuted communities in China.
Cizinsky asked Babis during questioning of cabinet members that is regularly held on Thursday afternoon during parliamentary sessions.
The group of Chinese Christians said they faced persecution over their faith in China.
The political opposition challenged the asylum proceedings concerning their group already in September 2016 within a parliamentary questioning. Mayors and Independents (STAN) head Petr Gazdik expressed concerns that the postponement may have been caused by President Milos Zeman and Sobotka’s government accommodating the Chinese regime. In reaction, then prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) ruled out that the prolonging of the procedure was caused by political pressure or Czech interests in China.
