Inter­pel­la­ti­on Glätt­li (17.3889): Fiching of public events by the Sta­te Secu­ri­ty of Basel-Stadt

Sub­mit­ted text

Despi­te the ban on intel­li­gence obser­va­ti­on of elec­tion events in Basel, which has been in place sin­ce 2008, at least one dos­sier has been com­pi­led on a public elec­tion event.
Alt­hough the Kur­dish orga­nizati­on PKK is not ban­ned in Switz­er­land and is not clas­si­fi­ed as dan­ge­rous in the situa­ti­on report of the NDB, it was in Basel, an elec­tion event at the Kur­dish Cul­tu­ral Cen­ter in Sep­tem­ber 2015 was obser­ved by the Cri­mi­nal Inve­sti­ga­ti­on Department’s Spe­cia­list Group 9 (FG9). This is despi­te the fact that sin­ce a simi­lar fiche scan­dal 10 years ago, it has been cle­ar­ly sta­ted that public (elec­tion) events may not be fiched.

1. Were fiches crea­ted about other elec­tion events or events of the Kur­dish popu­la­ti­on in Switzerland?
2. What is the justi­fi­ca­ti­on for the inter­ro­ga­ti­on of the Kur­dish popu­la­ti­on or parts of it?
3. What is the Fede­ral Council’s posi­ti­on on the atti­tu­de of the Basel-Stadt govern­ment, which places the Kur­dish popu­la­ti­on in Switz­er­land under gene­ral sus­pi­ci­on of sup­port­ing terrorism?
4. Were the data coll­ec­ted in Basel-Stadt for­ward­ed to the NDB?
5. What hap­pen­ed or is hap­pe­ning to the data coll­ec­ted in con­nec­tion with elec­tion events or events orga­ni­zed by Kur­dish groups? Has it been destroy­ed in the meantime?
6. Under what cir­cum­stances is data deli­ver­ed abroad? Or can it be ruled out that the data went abroad?
7. Are the data sub­jects infor­med about crea­ted data?
8. How is it ensu­red that affec­ted per­sons, in the cur­rent case spe­ci­fi­cal­ly from the Kur­dish popu­la­ti­on, do not face repres­si­on from abroad?
9. How will it be ensu­red that no public elec­tion events are fiched in the future?
10. How will the intel­li­gence ser­vice be pre­ven­ted in the future from trea­ting the Kur­dish popu­la­ti­on in Switz­er­land or parts of it as a ter­ro­rist orga­nizati­on con­tra­ry to its own situa­ti­on report and from fiching public events?
11. Will other migra­ti­on orga­nizati­ons also be fiched?

State­ment of the Fede­ral Coun­cil of 22.11.2017

The Fede­ral Coun­cil does not com­ment on indi­vi­du­al cases hand­led by the Fede­ral Intel­li­gence Ser­vice. The Fede­ral Data Pro­tec­tion Com­mis­sio­ner and the par­lia­men­ta­ry and inde­pen­dent body ensu­re the neces­sa­ry control.
Against this back­ground, the Fede­ral Coun­cil ans­wers the que­sti­ons as follows:

1. The Intel­li­gence Ser­vices Act (ISA; SR 121) sti­pu­la­tes that the Fede­ral Intel­li­gence Ser­vice (FIS) does not obtain and pro­cess infor­ma­ti­on on poli­ti­cal acti­vi­ty or on the exer­cise of free­dom of expres­si­on, assem­bly or asso­cia­ti­on in Switz­er­land. The only excep­ti­on is if the FIS has con­cre­te indi­ca­ti­ons that an orga­nizati­on or per­son is exer­cis­ing its rights to prepa­re or car­ry out ter­ro­rist acti­vi­ties, or if an orga­nizati­on is on the watch list and the infor­ma­ti­on gathe­ring can be used to assess the thre­ats posed by this orga­nizati­on to the secu­ri­ty of Switz­er­land and its population.
2. The acqui­si­ti­on of infor­ma­ti­on on indi­vi­du­als or groups is car­ri­ed out within the strict frame­work of the NDA (name­ly Artic­les 5, 44 – 46 and 59 – 67).
3. In the view of the Fede­ral Coun­cil, it can­not be said in prin­ci­ple that the Kur­dish popu­la­ti­on in Switz­er­land sup­ports ter­ro­rism. On the other hand, the PKK could use its resour­ces in Western Euro­pe again at any time to quick­ly mobi­li­ze sym­pa­thi­zers and take advan­ta­ge of their poten­ti­al for violence.
4. Infor­ma­ti­on gathe­ring by the can­to­nal law enforce­ment aut­ho­ri­ties and the pos­si­ble for­war­ding of infor­ma­ti­on to the FIS is gover­ned by the NDA (Arts. 9, 19, 46).
5. The pro­ce­s­sing of per­so­nal data and its archi­ving is strict­ly regu­la­ted by the NDA (Art. 45).
6. The prin­ci­ples of data dis­clo­sure abroad are also pre­cis­e­ly regu­la­ted in the NDA (Art. 61).
7. Any per­son may at any time request infor­ma­ti­on as to whe­ther his or her per­so­nal data is being pro­ce­s­sed by the FIS.
8. The mis­si­on of the FIS con­tri­bu­tes to gua­ran­te­e­ing the secu­ri­ty of Switz­er­land and its popu­la­ti­on. This man­da­te inclu­des the pre­ven­ti­on of pro­hi­bi­ted intel­li­gence by sta­tes. The FIS and the can­to­nal poli­ce report such cases to the law enforce­ment aut­ho­ri­ties as soon as they beco­me awa­re of them. In addi­ti­on, the Fede­ral Coun­cil has repea­ted­ly rei­te­ra­ted in no uncer­tain terms its adherence to Switzerland’s neu­tra­li­ty and inde­pen­dence, and it takes care to ensu­re that the­se prin­ci­ples are respected.
9. See ans­wer to que­sti­ons 1 and 2.
10. See ans­wer to que­sti­ons 1, 2 and 3.
11. See ans­wer to que­sti­ons 1 and 2.