ASSOCIATED PRESS: VIENNA, Austria — Human rights experts on Tuesday expressed concern about a special facility holding suspected criminal asylum seekers in the mountains of southern Austria.
Joerg Haider, right-wing governor of Carinthia province, said Monday that the facility in a former childrens' home was a security measure to protect the people of Carinthia.
The building houses five men, but has a capacity of 50 and has been in use for about a week, his office said.
Conviction was not a "mandatory prerequisite" for being sent to the facility, Haider's spokesman Stefan Petzner said. The inmates would be "under constant observation so that no criminal acts can be committed," he added.
But he said no one's rights were being violated.
He would not provide specific details on the five in the facility, but confirmed a media report that the men are asylum seekers from Georgia, Kazakhstan and Gambia. He did say some in the group had been convicted, but did not say of what.
"With this security precaution, we are protecting the Carinthian population," Haider said at a news conference Monday. He added that the number of criminal asylum seekers was on the rise. Carinthia currently has about 900 asylum seekers.
The building is in a secluded pasture at an altitude of about 3,900 feet (1,200 meters).
"It's a perfectly normal establishment far away from civilization in a secluded area so they can't get up to anything," said Petzner. "You shouldn't think of this as a prison surrounded by barbed wire."
Human rights experts are not convinced. Austria: Asylum Seekers’ Facility under Scrutiny >>> Veronika Oleksyn | October 8, 2008
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Far-right Austria Governor Isolates Asylum Seekers: ASSOCIATED PRESS: VIENNA, Austria — Powerful far-right politician Joerg Haider has set up a holding facility in the remote mountains of southern Austria for asylum seekers suspected as criminals, saying they need to be isolated to protect the people in the area.
Haider gained international prominence in 1999 when the Freedom Party, which he then headed, took 27 percent of the vote in Austria's parliamentary elections. The party's subsequent inclusion in the government led to months of European Union sanctions over Haider's statements, which were seen as anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and sympathetic to Adolf Hitler's labor policies.
Haider is now governor of Carinthia province and his regional government set up the facility for asylum seekers, which sits in a secluded pasture in the mountains of southern Austria at an altitude of about 3,900 feet.
"With this security precaution, we are protecting the Carinthian population," Haider told a news conference Monday. He said the number of criminal asylum seekers was on the rise. >>> Veronika Oleksyn | October 8, 2008
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