This practice can potentially threaten the asylum seekers in their home country, CP added. Hejc, first secretary and consular section head at the Czech Embassy in Ottawa, said in an interview for CP that while working at the Czech embassy he had received several fax messages from the Canadian border police, including the Czech asylum applicants' first names, surnames and dates of birth. He criticised the Canadian government's procedure as incorrect. Hejc also Few Czechs satisfied with democracy - poll ...
Hockey: US beat Germany 6-4 ... said the Czech Republic does not discriminate against its citizens seeking asylum abroad, but the Canadian authorities probably send the data on asylum applicants to other embassies as well, and some of these countries might persecute the asylum applicants. However the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Ministry dismissed the information, saying it does not release such data to embassies unless an asylum seeker alone asks for it. Canada lifted the visa requirements for Czech citizens who stay in this country for no more than 90 days last October. Canada once re-introduced visas for Czechs in 1997 after lifting them for a short period, in reaction to a high number of asylum seekers from the the Czech Republic, primarily Romanies. However, since last November the number of Czech citizens, mostly Romanies, who applied for asylum in Canada has been rising. At the end of December 2008, the Canadian authorities registered 83 such asylum applicants from the Czech Republic, while no Czech citizen of Romany origin sought asylum in Canada the year before. Hejc told CP that he thinks the embassy should not receive personal data about people from the Czech Republic seeking asylum, according to the convention on refugees. He noted that the Czech embassy would definitely neither use the data nor send them to Prague or elsewhere. Hejc said he had contacted the Canadian authorities several times, asking them not to send these data to the Czech embassy, but in vain. The Czech embassy officials allegedly met representatives of the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Ministry in Ottawa over this practice on Thursday. CP wrote that diplomatic missions of other countries had also reported similar incidents, but no other diplomats were willing to openly speak about the personal data transfer with the agency. Karen Shadd, spokeswoman for the Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Ministry, told CP that the office is assessing the cases of asylum applicants in Canada individually.
She at the same time dismissed transferring personal data to foreign embassies. Canada provides these data only exceptionally if the respective asylum seeker wants to get in touch with his country's embassy, Shadd added. However, Hejc pointed out that even in such a case there is a risk of these data being abused.
(Ceske Noviny)
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