Thanks to the work of the lawyers of the Organization for Aid to Refugees (OPU) and other attorneys, these people persecuted in communist China are getting a new chance to be granted international protection in the Czech Republic.
Presently, we have had a 100% success rate in our more than twenty “Chinese Christians” cases before the courts. This means the Ministry has to re-examine their asylum applications, since the Ministry is bound by the court’s opinions. The courts repeatedly point out the need to examine the risk of persecution based on one’s membership in a prohibited Christian church. In our view, the cases appear legally clear and we think they should be granted asylum. In May of this year, two Chinese applicants were already granted asylum in the Czech Republic; the others are waiting for a new decision. Even so, in some cases, we continue to see unjust delays, and so we sent a complaint to the Interior Minister.
Martin Rozumek, OPU’s director, noted: “Congratulations to our lawyers. I thank them a lot for their thorough and tireless work. Chinese Christians were supposed to get asylum in the Czech Republic a long time ago, and it is a failure of the Ministry of Interior and the Czech state that it has not happened yet. We trust that in the repeated administrative procedures, they will be successful.”
Contact for media:
Head of the legal department
Hana Franková, hana.frankova@opu.cz
+420 730 158 779; +420 730 158 781