IN December 2012 a group of some 45, mostly Pakistani, refugees took shelter in one of Vienna’s biggest churches. Because they feared immediate deportation the church seemed a safe place after their demonstrations against harsh migration policies and bad living conditions in their designated camps where asylum-seekers await the processing of their cases.

Officials from the Catholic church offered the protesters protection. For more than 10 weeks no police force entered the church. While they endured cold nights on improvised sleeping berths, public perception, sympathetic at the beginning, turned against the protesters. On Sunday, March 3, they decided to leave the church and settle in an empty monastery nearby. Migration authorities have granted them a review of their application but for most it is only a matter of time before they are deported.

Austrian migration laws in general distinguish between two groups of foreigners seeking legal status in the country: people who are leaving their country for humanitarian reasons, for instance those coming from a war zone; and highly educated people the domestic economy needs.

For the first group, the definition of what constitutes a war zone makes all the difference. The statistics are revealing: almost 40 per cent of Afghan asylum-seekers in Austria received a positive verdict in 2012. In the same year only one per cent of Pakistani asylum- seekers got legal status. And the absolute numbers are rising rapidly — 276 Pakistani applied in 2010, 949 in 2011 and 1,603 in 2012.

Different answers were given to questions about why the refugees in the church left their countries. Some were involved in local conflicts. Their land was taken away, family members were killed. Some were involved in political parties and some claim that they felt threatened by terrorists. Forty-seven-year-old Adalat Khan left his home outside Mingora in 2005. He says life was not safe anymore. “Most protesters in the church were living in the Pak-Afghan border region. The people are desperate. There is no secure place in Pakistan, not in Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad. And here in Europe nobody understands the real situation.”

While the Austrian government acknowledges that the condition in some parts of Pakistan is war-like, refugees from these regions have a hard time arguing they left for humanitarian reasons. Austrian migration authorities are generally suspicious that people from Pakistan have left for economic reasons, which is not a legally acknowledged reason to seek asylum in Austria.

Afghanistan on the other hand is acknowledged as a war zone and Austria even closed its embassy in Kabul for security reasons. Still, only 40 per cent of Afghan asylum-seekers get a positive verdict. In February 2013, Austria’s foreign minister paid his first visit to Afghanistan, the first visit an Austrian official has made since the 1950s, to negotiate with President Hamid Karzai to take back his citizens as soon as possible.

On their first contact with authorities in any EU state the fingerprints of people with no legal status are taken and stored in a data bank. This data bank makes it impossible for asylum-seekers to move to another country upon receiving a negative asylum verdict in one country.

During the application review process which can take months the refugees get permits only for seasonal work. The accommodation provided is often in very bad condition and has been criticised by human rights groups. The refugees are allowed to leave the camps but have to check in once a day. They also get a monthly allowance of 40 euros (approx. £35), a meagre amount in a country where the average per head spending is nearly 2,000 euros (approx. £1,726) per month.

Among other things, the refugees demand an improvement in their living standard and, crucially, better translators. Many refugees claim the translators have insufficiently translated their testimony or deliberately made it biased. They also demand that their fingerprints be erased from the data bank once they get a negative verdict so they have the chance to try in another country. But their utmost demand is for human rights.

“We only want a peaceful life. We want to have a small business and to travel freely,” Adalat Khan points out. He is hoping help may come from his own people. The former supporter of the Awami National Party has put his hopes in the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf. “These people want real change. They can bring peace to the region and help the refugees return home.”

A political solution in Austria seems as far out of reach as back home. An unfazed government watched two hunger strikes go by. It did not agree to meet the protesters. The government points to the law and states that exceptions would set a precedent for the future. Before the protesters left the church, voices calling for their forceful eviction from the premises and for stronger action grew louder.

In September a general election is due in Austria and in an election year nobody wants to appear weak. But even as one by one members of the group taking refuge in the monastery are deported, the larger problem remains. How does a modern society deal with people in need? How does it decide who to help and who not to help? Is it simply a matter of better, more exact definitions of a person in need? Has society the right to draw that line? These questions are important to answer. Respect and compassion should guide us.

The writer lived in Pakistan in 2006/07. He is studying political science at the University of Vienna.