Czech Internal Ministry extended the list of safe countries by including Ukraine in it, as Ukraine’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic Yevhen Perebyinis reported on Facebook.
This list is used while considering the requests for political asylum.
“From now on, only the requests of the Ukrainians who came from Russia-occupied territories – Crimea and occupied Donbas – will be considered. The requests of the Ukrainians from other regions will be automatically considered baseless,” he wrote.
Jan Hamáček, Czech Internal Minister, explained such decision stating that Ukraine is among the countries, where Constitution provides basic rights and freedoms, including freedom of movement. Therefore, Czech does not see any reason not to include this country into the list of safe ones.
Ian Lipavský, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies, supports this idea.
“Martial law in some Ukrainian regions should not make us think that Ukraine is not a safe country,” he noted.
In addition, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš stated that his country would not host the refugees from Middle East and Africa, as it hosts a lot of Ukrainians.
According to Czech Internal Ministry, the number of the Ukrainians who ask for political asylum, has dramatically increased in 2014. In particular, in 2018, mostly Ukrainians request political asylum in the Czech Republic. In total, from January 1 till June 30, 2018, 774 appeals were files, 205 of which came from the Ukrainians.
