Amnesty campaign targets top Swiss asylum critics

Several of Switzerland’s right-wing politicians in favour of tougher asylum laws failed to see the funny side Monday when Amnesty International gave them a make-over and portrayed them as refugees in a media campaign.

In the campaign, right wing politicians Christoph Blocher and Defence Minister Ueli Maurer — both leading figures in Switzerland’s largest party the Swiss People’s Party — are photoshopped into refugees at a windswept Swiss asylum centre.

Sitting next to an outdoor stove with a pan bubbling away, a shivering “Mustafa” Blocher tells Maurer he is hungry and asks when their meal will be ready.

On closer inspection the pan appears to contain the party’s mascot, a horned goat.

“You need to be creative to get yourself noticed, given the amount of news that happens every day,” campaign organiser Magdalena Urrejola of Amnesty International’s Swiss chapter said in a statement.

The campaign, which features posters, an online video and images on Amnesty’s local website and its Facebook page, aims to raise awareness about “incessant revisions” to Swiss asylum laws which “deprive the right to asylum of its sense,” the organisation said.

Denouncing the campaign as “lacking respect,” politician Oskar Freysinger — renamed “Jussuf” and pictured on the Amnesty website beside a scene of devastation in war-torn Syria — said he was opposed to abuses of the asylum system but not the system itself.

Ruth Humbel of the conservative Christian Democrats, portrayed as Somali refugee “Rusha”, accused Amnesty of mimicking right-wing campaigns in the past, especially a heavily criticised one targeting asylum-seekers with a poster showing a black sheep being kicked out of the country by white ones.

The campaign follows Sunday’s announcement by the Swiss People’s Party that it will try to launch a new referendum on the asylum issue, Amnesty said.

Under the right-wing party’s plans to streamline the process, asylum-seekers would be detained in centres for 30 days and would have only 10 days to appeal rulings on their status.

“The first measure is quite simply at odds with the constitution, and the second one would prevent the right to appeal,” said Amnesty legal representative Denise Graf.