Wed December, 2020, Age: 3 years
A secretive five-year “readmission agreement”, which was signed in 2015 and expired on Monday, lay out terms for Chinese agents to travel to Switzerland and interview suspected Chinese nationals that Swiss authorities wished to deport. Readmission deals are a regular part of international law, but the human rights group Safeguard Defenders said the 2015 arrangement with Beijing, which was not reciprocal, was of “an entirely different character” from others signed by Switzerland.
The agreement triggered outrage in Switzerland when its existence was first reported by a local news outlet in August, at a time of growing international concern about China’s targeting of dissidents and opposition figures. Until then, the deal had been kept so secret that even the Swiss parliament and foreign affairs committee did not know of its existence. The committee has since voted to demand consultation before its renewal.
