Prague, Feb 21 (CTK) – The Czech Interior Ministry started delivering decisions to Chinese Christian applicants on whether they will be granted asylum, lawyer Hana Frankova has told CTK, adding that the first decision she has studied is negative, with the application being rejected.
Frankova, who works for the Organisation for Aid to Refugees (OPU) that represents the applicants, said she has received three letters of decision from the ministry so far.
The rejection of another application has been confirmed by lawyer Marie Ludvova, who represents some of the applicants.
The Chinese say they seek Czech asylum because they have been persecuted in their homeland over their Christian religion.
Originally, 60 Chinese Christians lodged their applications but a part of them gave up the long waiting, and the current decision will apply to about 40 people.
The ministry will deliver its decisions gradually this and the next two weeks, Frankova said.
She said she would thoroughly study the first application that has been turned down. Nevertheless, she will recommend that the client concerned challenge the decision by a lawsuit.
“In the same way, if other applicants’ requests were rejected, we would recommend that they file lawsuits… We consider the cases justified,” Frankova said.
Ludvova said she has obtained a negative decision on one of her clients. She finds it very generally formulated.
“The Interior Ministry actually states that the persecution [in China] was not that serious,” Ludvova told CTK.
She said the ministry called it suspicious that the Chinese started working in the Czech Republic as early as six months following their arrival from China, and that their arrival had been organised.
“I expect the further decisions to be the same,” Ludvova said.
As usual in such cases, the ministry would not comment on the procedure.
Statistics indicate that most Chinese applicants fail to be granted asylum.
Only 17 Chinese citizens were granted it from 1990 to 2016, last time six persons in 2014, while the number of applicants was far higher. In 2003, for example, the Czech authorities received 854 such requests.
Christians rank among persecuted communities in China, where the Catholic and Protestant churches are supervised by the secret police, while other Christian churches are viewed as illegal and suppressed by the Chinese regime.
The Czech authorities’ decision making in this case was extremely long.
In parliament, lawmakers questioned former PM Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) as well as his successor, current PM Andrej Babis (ANO), over suspected sluggishness of the state.
In 2016, Sobotka ruled out that political pressures or Czech interests in China being behind the protractions of the Chinese asylum procedure.
Information appeared that Czech intelligence services were checking the asylum seekers to see whether they include spies.
The Chinese press wrote that the applicants only pretend being Christians, but are in fact illegal migrants.
According to statistics, 4,370 Chinese with a permanent stay permit legally lived in the Czech Republic, and 2,472 with a temporary stay permit.
