By NNN-KUNA,
Brussels : An international human rights group has criticised a plan by Germany to take in 10,000 of the Christian Iraqi refugees.
“We are against it. There should be no discrimination on religious basis,” Secretary-General of Amnesty International Irene Khan said here Tuesday.
Speaking on EU asylum policy at the European Policy Centre think-tank, she noted that there were only about 40,000 Iraqi refugees in Europe from a total of about 2 million living around the world.
Reffering to differences in EU asylum policies, Khan said Germany and Sweden accepted 80 per cent of Iraqi asylum seekers while Britain only 12 per cent.
“This is unfair and like a lottery system,” said Khan, who hails from Bangladesh.
German Interior Ministry spokesman Markus Beyer said in Berlin Monday that Germany is to seek the support from the EU for the plan to take in large numbers of the hundreds of thousands of Christians who have fled Iraq to refugee camps in Jordan.
Earlier, Khan met EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering and expressed concerns over the implementation of human rights commitments in EU policies and institutions.