The Belarusian athlete claiming asylum

[Hellocatshome]

So I've read a story in the news (typical bad writing that made the situation clear as mud) but seems like an athlete from Belarus has made contact with Japanese police at the airport to help her as Belarusian officials were trying to make her fly back to Belarus. Apparently she wants to claim asylum in Austria. Do you not have to claim asylum in the first safe country so for her it would be Japan? Is Belarus a particularly dangerous country?

Belarus is the country who scrambled jets to escort a Ryanair plane down in order to arrest a journalist and his girlfriend very recently. They appeared bruised and shaking shortly after in”confession” videos from prison and haven’t been heard of since.

www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia/belarus/report-belarus/

Oh doesnt sound great then, I hope it works out for her and she stays safe.

I hope she gets it and stays safe.

Why Austria or Germany? who knows. Maybe she knows people there, knows the language. Could be anything.

You could have just googled this OP.

Could be said for 90% of the content of Mumsnet to be honest.

To answer your question about asylum in first safe country: you are referring to an agreement European countries made amongst themselves to avoid asylum seekers trying their pick amongst EU countries and/or apply in multiple ones. It's not international law or something and wouldn't apply Japan / Austria, for example.

@Zezet ah thank you, that makes sense.