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Comment by anfilt | Hacker News Reader

RISC-V moved to Switzerland as well a while ago. I think it's a shame to see stuff like this happening. Regardless, of where one stands currently in the current environment making standards bodies want to move or move events to other countries is not a good.

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Regardless of the political situation, the EU is probably a more friendly environment for a standards body taking their stance in interoperability into account.

Not all EU countries are the same. I would avoid Hungary, Slovakia, and former Eastern Germany (except Berlin).

Why?

They're one of the best places in Europe right now, actually.

Hungary probably due to Orban, while Slovakia has ultra-nationalistic party in coalition.

I would evade Germany, Austria and also Italy in general, due to common racism against slavic people.

Politically motivated xenophobia.

As far a I know, all of the listed countries are reasonably safe to travel to. I’ve not heard any stories of arbitrary detention from any of them, which is what this article is (mostly) about.

Trans people might not enjoy Slovakia or Hungary right now, but I’m not sure they are unsafe to visit for them (yet)? Someone local might fill me in here…

Hungary just criminalized pride. Their political leadership seems more aligned with Putin than the EU at this time.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/20/hungary-bans-lgbt-pride-...

Yeah, I've seen that. It's been well documented that they are slipping into authoritarianism, nationalism and even a dictatorship. Free speech is not really in place anymore. I was just not very well informed about how civil liberies for trans people look, specifically. Whether the country is safe to travel to for conferences being the issue at hand. I see on Wikipedia that Orban has ended "legal recognition of transgender Hungarians", which I guess is probably significative of the trend, if nothing else.

It’s not unsafe for anyone to visit the US either. Unless you’re violating the law in some way, like presenting false documents or overstaying a visa - in which case there would be consequences like in any other country. Sure mistakes can happen on rare occasions, like in any country, but “arbitrary” detention isn’t a thing. That’s just sensationalism from a biased news media that has no idea why anyone was denied or detained, since that isn’t public information.

Overstaying a visa in any other (developed) country does not result in this kind of detention. These people are not even being given due process. I’m sure each of them is detained for some mistake in their paperwork, but some of these stories are really not flattering to the ICE.

> Overstaying a visa in any other (developed) country does not result in this kind of detention.

The US doesn't have a monopoly on immigration horror stories: Australian immigration illegally detained an Australian citizen for 10 months. [0] They illegally deported another Australian citizen to the Philippines, and when they discovered their mistake, their initial response was to cover it up rather than try to rectify it. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Rau

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Solon

I don’t know if you’ve read about it but apparently if a trans woman has “F” in her passport and a border agent determines that she was previously a man, that’s now considered fraudulent and grounds for detention and deportation.

It depends on your citizenship. Some European countries reject 50% Indian Schengen visa applicantions.

https://www.cntraveller.in/story/these-3-countries-rejected-...

At least they don’t issue you a visa and then arbitrarily detain you at the border.

Obtaining a work visa in a particular country is not a human right, and their issuance are up to the hosting country’s policies.

> work visa

I would guess that 90% of the applications were for travel, not work.

> their issuance are up to the hosting country’s policies

These countries don't even bother to apply their policies. Some cases I heard about indicate that they randomly reject applications, without reviewing them.

Ah, you’re right. The linked article doesn’t say, but apparently a Schengen Visa is “for short-term purposes, such as tourism or business trips. Work permits are apparently not counted in these numbers, then.

As to whether they are conforming tot heir own policies or not, I can’t find any evidence either way in the linked article. They’re just stating the numbers.

Schengen is different from EU.

More importantly, and according to your link, only Estonia rejected 50+% Indian applications, everyone else rejected less than 50%, with only 2 others anywhere near 50% (Malta and Slovenia).

So out of 29 countries in the Schengen area only 3 were anywhere near the 50% mark and all 3 are tiny countries as far as both area and populations are concerned (those 3 combined account for only 4 million people in total).

Also, just to take one of those 3, Estonia has an overall high rejection rate in comparison to all the others, and that started happening after the pandemic.

Details are important

> Schengen is different from EU.

Schengen isn't "different from EU". It originally was separate from EU, but since 1999 has been an aspect of the EU. Per Wikipedia:

> Originally, the Schengen treaties and the rules adopted under them operated independently from the European Union. However, in 1999 they were incorporated into European Union law by the Amsterdam Treaty, while providing opt-outs for the only two EU member states that had remained outside the Area: Ireland and the United Kingdom (which subsequently withdrew from the EU in 2020). Schengen is now a core part of EU law, and all EU member states without an opt-out which have not already joined the Schengen Area are legally obliged to do so when technical requirements have been met. Several non-EU countries are included in the area through special association agreements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement

please read the text you quoted:

"Several non-EU countries are included in the area through special association agreements."

Yes, but the inclusion of a non-EU country in an EU programme as a special exception (not unique to Schengen) doesn’t thereby make it a non-EU programme, which is a natural interpretation of what you said

I never wrote that Schengen "is not an EU programme", I pointed out succintly that the countries in Schengen and the countries in EU are not the same thing.

In fact there are also EU countries NOT in Schengen. And there are countries in Europe but not in the EU which are not in Schengen either.

>Estonia, Malta and Slovenia rejected the highest percentage of Schengen visa applications from India last year, while Germany, Italy and Hungary were most accommodating.

Sounds like Estonia, Malta, and Slovenia didn't want their countries to become transits for illegal immigration from India to the UK.

Countries like Germany get legitimate Indian immigration for work and higher education so their rejection rate is lower.

Switzerland is not in the EU.

But it is in the Schengen area. I have a 1 year Schengen visa and I have been going there regularly without problem.

You are right!

I could have said Switzerland, but I believe that my point expands to the entirety of the EU, why I expanded a bit.

As some of you sibling commenters also write: Not all parts of the Schengen / EU is equally - just like you probably wouldn't move these things to rural Alaska.

Singapore and Australia might also be on the list.

Unless you make a mistake of bringing cannabis.

If you’re saying that being able to legally bring cannabis into a country is a test for whether the IETF can host their meetings there… I don’t know if that is accurate.

Sure, Singapore has draconian laws when it comes to narcotics. But surely everyone attending will be aware of this? It’s been widely reported over the decades how foreign nationals have gotten life sentences or even the death penalty for drug running. What I’m saying is that Singapore are up front about it and it’s not enforced arbitrarily. Leaving your personal stash at home and abstaining for a few days should hopefully not be too difficult for the attendant engineers.

Or being gay in Singapore.

Wait, holy shit, it was legalized in 2022. Didn't know. Nice!

The law -- a relic from British colonialisation -- criminalising homosexuality between men (not women, by the way) was never enforced anyway.

It's true that since 2007 charges have been laid by the police in a few cases, these have been challenged, and variously overturned or thrown out from court.

So, enforcement was certainly attempted and people were certainly detained for periods of time and forced to defend against charges that were laid.

It's not readily clear how often charges under Section 377 (1860-) or Section 377A (1938-) were laid in Singapore prior to 2007 (or of the charges laid how many cases came to trial and how many convictions occurred).

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_377A_(Singapore)#Const...

I am aware of that, but the fact that it was still on the books matters. For one, it has psychological impact, and for another if some police officer in a bad mood doesn't like your face geometry or number of thumbs, things like this can become 'power trip utilities' even if they're thrown out a few hours later.

Those are very fair points. I too am glad that the law was repealed.

I frequently get the impression that the policymakers in Singapore are more progressive than they reveal, but are extremely cautious about loosening up because they don't want to antagonise certain voter groups (e.g. people of certain religious persuasions). It is quite telling that the law was repealed in its entirety only in 2023, one year before the former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stepped down from his position.

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