Government relies on confidentiality to avoid answering about Sahrawi asylum seekers

Eduardo González The Government has relied on “confidentiality” to avoid the questions presented by the PP and by the leftist and nationalist groups in the Congress on the reasons of the Ministry of the Interior for denying the right of asylum to a group of Sahrawi asylum seekers detained at Madrid-Barajas airport. On September 23, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, announced that ten asylum seekers who were being held at the airport and who claimed to be persecuted Sahrawis would be “deported” if the law does not protect them “as creditors of international protection”, in accordance with “national and international law” and “always with judicial ratification in this regard”. Following these statements by the minister, the Popular, Sumar (minority partner in Pedro Sánchez's coalition government), Basque (PNV), Republican (ERC) and Mixed (BNG and Podemos, in this case the former minister Ione Belarra) Parliamentary Groups sent written parliamentary questions to inquire about the Ministry's reasons for rejecting the requests for asylum and international protection presented by the Sahrawis and some of them even asked the Government to clarify whether this decision had any relation to Spain's change of position regarding Western Sahara. In its written response to all groups, issued between November 5 and 7 and published by the Official Gazette of Congress this past Monday, the Executive assures that “this Government and the General Administration of the State act, as it cannot be otherwise, in accordance with the current legislation regarding international protection and respect for human rights.” It also affirms that “each and every one” of the applications for international protection that are formalized follow the provisions established in the 2009 Law regulating the right to asylum and subsidiary protection, which is in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1951 and its Protocol of 1967 on the status of refugees “as the cornerstone of the international legal regime for the protection of refugees.” For this reason, it continues, “all applications for international protection submitted at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport are handled in strict compliance with the above and in accordance with the provisions” of the aforementioned Law, “regardless of the nationality of the applicant and without establishing a distinction based on the reasons stated in their declaration.” It also adds, “each request for international protection is handled and managed individually.” In addition, the Government recalls, the aforementioned Law provides that, “against those resolutions of inadmissibility to processing or denial of the application, a request for re-examination may be submitted within two days from its notification, which will suspend the effects of the former.” In any case, the Executive has responded to all parliamentary questions by stating that, in accordance with the 2009 Act, “all information relating to the asylum procedure, including the fact of the submission of the application, shall be confidential”, and that it is therefore “not possible to provide information regarding the persons” in whom the parliamentary groups are interested.

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