Paper short abstract:

The monitoring of forced returns from Switzerland provided a unique access to the so-called black box of forced returns on special flights. The paper is going to give an insight into these very powerful state processes. Starting point of the analysis are a NGO and a governmental perspective.

Paper long abstract:

During the last ten years, the forced deportation regime in Switzerland was continually evolving. Different levels of forced deportation were established: On level I, the police accompanies migrants, who accepted their return to their home country, to the airport. They take independently a regular passenger flight. On level II, the deportees are accompanied by police officers during the whole regular flight. Level III doesn't exist anymore. Finally level IV are deportations on special (charter) flights. In the Swiss terminology, the so-called frontex charter flights are level IV deportations.

Because of different incidents in the course of the last years, the European Commission established the EU Return Directive: EU-memberstates and Dublin-Schengen members have to establish an effective and independent monitoring system during forced returns. According to this EU Return Directive, the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches - in collaboration with the Swiss Refugee Aid - received a mandate for a period of six month in 2011 to establish a monitoring system. This mandate gave excellent access to an up to now nearly unknown field. The author was one of the project managers.

The proposed paper is going to present the experiences made during this six-month period. Mainly two perspectives will be analyzed: A non-governmental and a state perspective on forced returns and monitoring. Beside these different points of views the existing tensions between "quality control of forced deportations" and "respecting human rights standards" or "being part of the deportation process and to become therefore a justification for deportations" and "to be a independent human rights observer" will be discussed.