Geneva, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Two people who are political refugees in Renens, Switzerland are reported by 20 Minutes, which interviewed them, to have been turned back at the airport in Marrakesh, Morocco after one of them was searched.
They were headed for Morocco for a week of vacation. The couple says authorities at the airport said they did not have proper documentation. The two were carrying a special travel permit issued by the Swiss government and had taken the precaution of checking with the Moroccan consulate in Geneva before leaving, but to no avail, says 20 Minutes. The couple returned on the airplane they had arrived on.
so what Morocco like swice have the right to accept or not whoever in his territory??
what kind of Refugies are they?
if you want to be a good journalist give more info on names, real purpuse? not just news empty of sources and proovs..
Every country has the right to accept or reject visitors, but international agreements cover some of this and in theory, Morocco should have accepted these people – if their story is accurate. The source for the story is there: we always provide links to the original source. One of the goals of GenevaLunch, a community newspaper, is to encourage English-speakers in our area to read the news in French, by giving them an idea of what the article is about, which makes it easier to understand the original. We rarely carry stories with only one source that cannot be easily verified – for the reason you mention, no proof and we don’t want to encourage rumours. We do carry them, as we’ve done here, when we think there is information that’s important for our readers. There are many political refugees in Switzerland, and they carry travel cards issued by the federal government. They need to be aware that they might still have problems. Names: 20 Minutes gives first names, but we don’t know if these are real, so we are not including them, nor was their nationality included – and it is not part of the story since the card should have given them the same clearance a passport would.
If you read GenevaLunch regularly you’ll notice that we rarely carry stories like this, based on a single source, whose story is essentially from one interview, although 20 Minutes does appear to have checked further. In this case, we decided that the need to alert refugees in Switzerland was important enough for us to carry the story.
Thank you Ellen for your clarifications 🙂
I understand and respect your the point, you should know that Morocco before accepting this people the secret service have lists, and maybe because those people are linked (threat) on some way, to the Moroccan homeland security if they are suspected in thier original country to belong to a terror group or so, be sure that we don’t want them in Morocco, what ever the purpose is, this is the easiest way to protect our country, and I guess ‘la suisse’ do the same in thier airport with some Legal visitors ‘-) believe me i know it.