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Category: refugees

  • ‘Under no illusions’ about France, says author of new Rainbow Warrior book

    Pacific Media Watch

    The author of the book Eyes of Fire, one of the countless publications on the Rainbow Warrior bombing almost 40 years ago but the only one by somebody actually on board the bombed ship, says he was under no illusions that France was behind the attack.

    Journalist David Robie was speaking last month at a Greenpeace Aotearoa workship at Mātauri Bay for environmental activists and revealed that he has a forthcoming new book to mark the anniversary of the bombing.

    “I don’t think I had any illusions at the time. For me, I knew it was the French immediately the bombing happened,” he said.

    Eyes of Fire
    Eyes of Fire . . . the earlier 30th anniversary edition in 2015. Image: Little Island Press/DR

    “You know with the horrible things they were doing at the time with their colonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, assassinating independence leaders and so on, and they had a heavy military presence.

    “A sort of clamp down in New Caledonia, so it just fitted in with the pattern — an absolute disregard for the Pacific.”

    He said it was ironic that four decades on, France had trashed the goodwill that had been evolving with the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa accords towards independence with harsh new policies that led to the riots in May last year.

    Dr Robie’s series of books on the Rainbow Warrior focus on the impact of nuclear testing by both the Americans and the French, in particular, on Pacific peoples and especially the humanitarian voyages to relocate the Rongelap Islanders in the Marshall Islands barely two months before the bombing at Marsden wharf in Auckland on 10 July 1985.

    Detained by French military
    He was detained by the French military while on assignment in New Caledonia a year after Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior was first published in New Zealand.

    His reporting won the NZ Media Peace Prize in 1985.


    David Robie’s 2025 talk on the Rainbow Warrior.     Video: Greenpeace Aotearoa

    Dr Robie confirmed that Little island Press was publishing a new book this year with a focus on the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

    Plantu's cartoon on the Rainbow Warrior bombers
    Plantu’s cartoon on the Rainbow Warrior bombers from the slideshow. Image: David Robie/Plantu

    “This edition is the most comprehensive work on the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, but also speaks to the first humanitarian mission undertaken by Greenpeace,” said publisher Tony Murrow.

    “It’s an important work that shows us how we can act in the world and how we must continue to support all life on this unusual planet that is our only home.”

    Little Island Press produced an educational microsite as a resource to accompany Eyes of Fire with print, image and video resources.

    The book will be launched in association with a nuclear-free Pacific exhibition at Ellen Melville Centre in mid-July.

    Find out more at the Eyes of Fire microsite
    Find out more at the microsite: eyes-of-fire.littleisland.co.nz

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Future of Sanctuary

    Sanctuary activists face new challenges under Trump’s second term—but their work has always entailed great personal risk.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  • Schengen Surveillance

    By removing checks on borders between European countries while hardening those on the edges of Europe, the EU has redrawn borders along civilizational lines.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  • Israel faces legal pressure at UN’s top court over Unrwa ban

    Hearings over bar on cooperation with Palestinian aid agency are test of Israel’s defiance of international law

    Israel will come under sustained legal pressure this week at the UN’s top court when lawyers from more than 40 states will claim the country’s ban on all cooperation with the UN’s Palestinian rights agency Unrwa is a breach of the UN charter.

    The five days of hearings at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague have been given a fresh urgency by Israel’s decision on 2 March to block all aid into Gaza, but the hearing will focus on whether Israel – as a signatory to the UN charter – acted unlawfully in overriding the immunities afforded to a UN body. Israel ended all contact and cooperation with Unrwa operations in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem in November, claiming the agency had been infiltrated by Hamas, an allegation that has been contested.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Pope Francis has died, aged 88. These were his greatest reforms – and controversies

    ANALYSIS: By Joel Hodge, Australian Catholic University and Antonia Pizzey, Australian Catholic University

    Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday, aged 88, the Vatican announced. The head of the Catholic Church had recently survived being hospitalised with double pneumonia.

    Cardinal Kevin Farrell’s announcement began:

    “Dear brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.”

    There were many unusual aspects of Pope Francis’ papacy. He was the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas (and the southern hemisphere), the first to choose the name “Francis” and the first to give a TED talk.

    He was also the first pope in more than 600 years to be elected following the resignation, rather than death, of his predecessor.

    From the very start of his papacy, Francis seemed determined to do things differently and present the papacy in a new light. Even in thinking about his burial, he chose the unexpected: to be placed to rest not in the Vatican, but in the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome – the first pope to be buried there in hundreds of years.

    Vatican News reported the late Pope Francis had requested his funeral rites be simplified.

    “The renewed rite,” said Archbishop Diego Ravelli, “seeks to emphasise even more that the funeral of the Roman Pontiff is that of a pastor and disciple of Christ and not of a powerful person of this world.”

    Straddling a line between “progressive” and “conservative”, Francis experienced tension with both sides. In doing so, his papacy shone a spotlight on what it means to be Catholic today.


    The Pope’s Easter Blessing    Video: AP

    The day before his death, Pope Francis made a brief appearance on Easter Sunday to bless the crowds at St Peter’s Square.

    Between a rock and a hard place
    Francis was deemed not progressive enough by some, yet far too progressive by others.

    His apostolic exhortation (an official papal teaching on a particular issue or action) Amoris Laetitia, ignited great controversy for seemingly being (more) open to the question of whether people who have divorced and remarried may receive Eucharist.

    He also disappointed progressive Catholics, many of whom hoped he would make stronger changes on issues such as the roles of women, married clergy, and the broader inclusion of LGBTQIA+ Catholics.

    The reception of his exhortation Querida Amazonia was one such example. In this document, Francis did not endorse marriage for priests, despite bishops’ requests for this. He also did not allow the possibility of women being ordained as deacons to address a shortage of ordained ministers. His discerning spirit saw there was too much division and no clear consensus for change.

    Francis was also openly critical of Germany’s controversial “Synodal Way” – a series of conferences with bishops and lay people — that advocated for positions contrary to Church teachings. Francis expressed concern on multiple occasions that this project was a threat to the unity of the Church.

    At the same time, Francis was no stranger to controversy from the conservative side of the Church, receiving “dubia” or “theological doubts” over his teaching from some of his Cardinals. In 2023, he took the unusual step of responding to some of these doubts.

    Impact on the Catholic Church
    In many ways, the most striking thing about Francis was not his words or theology, but his style. He was a modest man, even foregoing the Apostolic Palace’s grand papal apartments to live in the Vatican’s simpler guest house.

    He may well be remembered most for his simplicity of dress and habits, his welcoming and pastoral style and his wise spirit of discernment.

    He is recognised as giving a clear witness to the life, love and joy of Jesus in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council – a point of major reform in modern Church history. This witness has translated into two major developments in Church teachings and life.

    Pope Francis on respecting and protecting the environment
    Pope Francis on respecting and protecting the environment. Image: Tandag Diocese

    Love for our common home
    The first of these relates to environmental teachings. In 2015, Francis released his ground-breaking encyclical, Laudato si’: On Care for Our Common Home. It expanded Catholic social teaching by giving a comprehensive account of how the environment reflects our God-given “common home”.

    Consistent with recent popes such as Benedict XVI and John Paul II, Francis acknowledged climate change and its destructive impacts and causes. He summarised key scientific research to forcefully argue for an evidence-based approach to addressing humans’ impact on the environment.

    He also made a pivotal and innovative contribution to the climate change debate by identifying the ethical and spiritual causes of environmental destruction.

    Francis argued combating climate change relied on the “ecological conversion” of the human heart, so that people may recognise the God-given nature of our planet and the fundamental call to care for it. Without this conversion, pragmatic and political measures wouldn’t be able to counter the forces of consumerism, exploitation and selfishness.

    Francis argued a new ethic and spirituality was needed. Specifically, he said Jesus’ way of love – for other people and all creation – is the transformative force that could bring sustainable change for the environment and cultivate fraternity among people (and especially with the poor).

    Synodality: moving towards a Church that listens
    Francis’s second major contribution, and one of the most significant aspects of his papacy, was his commitment to “synodality”. While there’s still confusion over what synodality actually means, and its potential for political distortion, it is above all a way of listening and discerning through openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

    It involves hierarchy and lay people transparently and honestly discerning together, in service of the mission of the church. Synodality is as much about the process as the goal. This makes sense as Pope Francis was a Jesuit, an order focused on spreading Catholicism through spiritual formation and discernment.

    Drawing on his rich Jesuit spirituality, Francis introduced a way of conversation centred on listening to the Holy Spirit and others, while seeking to cultivate friendship and wisdom.

    With the conclusion of the second session of the Synod on Synodality in October 2024, it is too soon to assess its results. However, those who have been involved in synodal processes have reported back on their transformative potential.

    Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, explained how participating in the 2015 Synod “was an extraordinary experience [and] in some ways an awakening”.

    Catholicism in the modern age
    Francis’ papacy inspired both great joy and aspirations, as well as boiling anger and rejection. He laid bare the agonising fault lines within the Catholic community and struck at key issues of Catholic identity, triggering debate over what it means to be Catholic in the world today.

    He leaves behind a Church that seems more divided than ever, with arguments, uncertainty and many questions rolling in his wake. But he has also provided a way for the Church to become more converted to Jesus’ way of love, through synodality and dialogue.

    Francis showed us that holding labels such as “progressive” or “conservative” won’t enable the Church to live out Jesus’ mission of love – a mission he emphasised from the very beginning of his papacy.The Conversation

    Dr Joel Hodge is senior lecturer, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University and Dr Antonia Pizzey is postdoctoral researcher, Research Centre for Studies of the Second Vatican Council, Australian Catholic University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

  • ‘I love my country but nobody is safe’: the plight of Cameroon’s exiles, trapped in Nigeria

    English-speaking minority refugees caught up in clashes between the military and separatists are stranded in neighbouring country

    Amid the sound of children excitedly practising a drama for a forthcoming performance, a yam seller calls to passers by with discounts for their wares. Outside a closed graphic design shop overlooking them from a small hill, Solange Ndonga Tibesa tells the story of being uprooted from her homeland in north-west Cameroon.

    In June 2019 she and other travellers were abducted with her three-month-old baby by secessionists, who accused them of supporting the military. Their captors repeatedly hit them with butts of their guns, keeping them in a forest without food or water.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Irregular migrant crossings into Europe fall 30% in first quarter of 2025

    Human rights groups say drop is partly due to EU policies that turn blind eye to rights abuses in countries such as Libya and Tunisia

    Irregular crossings at Europe’s borders have fallen by 30% in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, in a decrease that rights groups partly attributed to EU policies that have emphasised deterrence while seemingly turning a blind eye to the risk of rights abuses.

    The decline was seen across all the major migratory routes into Europe, the EU’s border agency Frontex said in a statement, amounting to nearly 33,600 fewer arrivals in the first three months of the year.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Labour’s hostile environment policies are destroying asylum seekers’ mental health

    A new report has issued a damning assessment of the effect the UK Labour Party government’s hostile environment policies is having on refugees and asylum seekers’ mental health.

    In its latest edition, the Mental Health Foundation has spelled out in no uncertain terms how the UK’s gruelling system is destroying the mental health of people.

    Crucially, off the back of the new report, the non-profit is calling for the government to end its senseless rule denying asylum seekers the right to work. This is because the nonsense policy is a central factor driving their deteriorating wellbeing.

    Report reveals dire mental health for asylum seekers in the UK

    The Mental Health Foundation supports asylum seekers and refugees with their mental health through various programmes across the UK.

    In February 2024, the non-profit previously issued a scathing report. This was on the state of asylum seekers’ and refugees mental health in the UK. Notably, it underscored how:

    The social and economic conditions in which they live post-migration can have an equally powerful influence on their mental health. Experiences of poverty, financial insecurity, unemployment, lack of adequate housing, social isolation, loneliness, prejudice, stigma, and discrimination all carry a higher risk of poor mental health [10],​ and asylum seekers and refugees are at higher risk of experiencing all these inequalities. Asylum seekers will also often be dealing with stress about the status of their claim and challenges in accessing healthcare.

    Moreover, it called for:

    a trauma-informed and person-centred approach to asylum claim processes, housing, education, health and care provision experienced by asylum seekers and refugees.

    Now, the foundation has followed this up – and found the situation for refugees and asylum seekers is no less dire. Crucially, its latest report now covers the new UK Labour government’s actions since the 2024 General Election.

    Give asylum seekers the right to work

    In particular, the report paints a damning picture of the detrimental impacts on asylum seekers of not allowing them to work. This includes a loss of self-esteem, loneliness, and an increased risk of depression. This results in a greater likelihood of people having to use already oversubscribed NHS mental health services in the future.

    So, the foundation is urging the Labour Party government to redress this. Specifically, it is demanding the right to work for asylum seekers waiting longer than six months for the government to process their claim.

    Currently, the government only grants asylum seekers the right to work after 12 months in specific circumstances. And, even then, it limits this to jobs on the Immigration Salary List. In reality, this rarely gives them the ability to work.

    Given the appalling state of people’s mental health, the foundation highlights this as an unconscionable situation to maintain. Moreover, it put the context of this in terms the fiscally conservative Labour government would understand. Notably, it laid out how this would be a no-brainer for the chancellor’s budget savings agenda.

    Changing these rules to allow working after six months, with no restriction on the type of jobs, would bring £4.4bn in government savings. It would generate this by reducing the number of asylum seekers who rely on the state. In addition, this would deliver an estimated £1bn in growth to GDP, and raise £880m in new tax revenue.

    Destroying physical and mental health

    Ishmail Yambasu is a refugee who was a social worker in Sierra Leone before he had to flee the country. He told the Mental Health Foundation about his experiences of the UK’s system. In particular, the UK Home Office denied him permission to work while he was an asylum seeker. Ishmail said:

    I came here with over 10 years’ experience as a social worker. When I arrived, I wanted to work and to contribute, I wanted to help and give back. But instead, I was forced to rely on just £49.18 a week. My hands were tied because I wasn’t allowed to work.

    I struggled for food when I wasn’t working, I had to rely on charities and food banks. I wasn’t able to eat healthily – the doctors told me I wasn’t eating well enough, and my anxiety was getting worse.

    The right to work is not just the right to work. It’s the right to freedom for asylum seekers. It builds community – a social network – and allows asylum seekers to give back to society, so we can contribute to taxes and give back to the country. Everyone in my community wants to contribute.

    While I was an asylum seeker, my dream was to give back to the community as a social worker. Now I’ve been given refugee status, I’m doing my masters in Social Work and Welfare at Strathclyde University, and hope to get involved in the UK social work system in the future.

    A no-brainer to remove the ‘harmful and expensive’ restriction

    Alongside the right to work, the charity is also calling for asylum seekers who are not in work to be given free access to bus travel.

    This is essential to allow them to build and maintain better connections with their communities.  On top of this, it will increase the chance they will be able to find employment. Asylum seekers and refugees also must be supported with improved English language lessons. Doing so will facilitate them to better integrate into society, achieve work, and help them support their wellbeing.

    Chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation Mark Rowland said:

    There is a clear-cut moral, economic, and public health case for giving asylum seekers the right to work after six months on the waiting list. As our latest report into the mental health of asylum seekers and refugees lays out, such a move would bring billions of pounds of economic benefits to the UK, reduce the strain on asylum seekers’ mental health, and build connections between asylum seekers and their new communities. Many of the arguments given in opposition to this change are based on myths and misunderstandings, most notably a non-existent ‘pull-factor’, while the benefits seem to be under appreciated.

    Giving asylum seekers the right to work is a no-brainer. Everyone – from asylum seekers, to businesses, to the government, to the NHS, to our communities – benefits when asylum seekers are given the ability to support themselves. The current system, which is both harmful and expensive, cannot continue as it is.

    Give asylum seekers ‘roots’ in their communities and they will flourish

    Refugees & Asylum Seeker Programme development officer at the Mental Health Foundation Mahdi Saki experienced the system himself after fleeing Iran. He said:

    As someone who waited four years for my asylum claim to be processed without permission to work, I now work alongside incredible asylum seekers and refugees who volunteer their time and effort in civic forums to make Scotland a better place.

    Every day I see the value asylum seekers want to add to our country, and the benefits that their work brings us all. It gives asylum seekers roots in the community and positively impacts their mental health. I’m also keenly aware of how damaging it can be for asylum seekers’ mental health when they’re denied the opportunity to contribute, and how their difficult financial situations can impact them. Giving asylum seekers the right to work after six months would be revolutionary.

    The latest edition of The mental health of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK also contains further recommendations. It set out a roadmap of reforms to the system for the betterment of everyone, including changes to avoid re-traumatisation of people, improving accommodation arrangements, and creating a more inclusive environment.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Sudan in ‘world’s largest humanitarian crisis’ after two years of civil war

    NGOs and UN say country is ‘worse off than ever before’ with wide-scale displacement, hunger and attacks on refugee camps

    Sudan is suffering from the largest humanitarian crisis globally and its civilians are continuing to pay the price for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the UN have said, as the country’s civil war enters its third year.

    Two years to the day since fighting erupted in Khartoum between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, hundreds of people were feared to have died in RSF attacks on refugee camps in the western Darfur region in the latest apparent atrocity of a war marked by its brutality and wide-scale humanitarian impact.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Trump Axes Temporary Protected Status for Afghan and Cameroonian Immigrants

    The Trump administration announced on Friday that it was revoking the Temporary Protected Status — or TPS — for thousands of immigrants from Cameroon and Afghanistan who are currently living and working in the United States. The move, the latest attempt by the administration to roll back protections for migrants in the U.S. who cannot safely return to their home countries due to conflict or…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • There’s a two-tier system when it comes to travel visas in the UK – and foreign-born nationals are last in line

    UK citizens making holiday plans for this summer and beyond simply need to look up and book up their destination of choice. However, around 10 million people living and working in the UK aren’t afforded that same freedom. The key difference? A British passport when it comes to travel visas.

    Travel visas: a two-tier system

    Foreign nationals living and working in the UK face severe travel constraints. Beyond the time to wait for a travel visa, they have to prepare extensive paperwork, make application fees, and deal with uncertain approval timelines that often lead to missed holidays and professional opportunities.

    Spotlighting this pain point and calling out the two tier system, travel tech company Atlys moved around London hotspots with large-scale “heavy passport” reflecting on the burden it can place on foreign passport holders living and working in the UK.

    The giant passport was carried through iconic London locations—Oxford Circus, St Paul’s Cathedral, and the London Eye—underscoring the weight of unequal travel visa access:

    travel visas

    The activation served as a reminder that for many, planning travel isn’t nearly as straightforward as it might appear:

    Mohak Nahta, CEO and founder of Atlys, commented:

    Imagine deciding to go for a European city break, for many UK residents, it’s as simple as booking a ticket and packing a bag. But if you’re among the 10 million people in the UK with a non-British passport, that same spontaneous plan can turn into a weeks-long process of visa admin. In fact, obtaining a Schengen Visa can take an average of 15 days after waiting to get an appointment —even if you work, pay taxes, and live permanently in the UK.

    This isn’t just about inconvenience; it’s about fairness over accessibility around a travel visa. Millions of people who have made the UK their home still carry the burden of a weak passport, limiting their freedom in ways that others never have to think about. It’s a silent struggle, one that often goes unnoticed, but affects lives in profound ways. The travel visa system is exacerbating this.

    Unfair

    For those who have proven their merit and commitment to the UK through years of residence, employment, and tax contributions, the right to move freely across borders represents more than convenience—it’s about dignity, equality, and recognition of their place in British society.

    travel visas

    Atlys aims to ease this burden by streamlining travel visa applications, providing clear guidance through complex requirements, and reducing processing times. While policy changes may be slow, tech can help level the playing field, ensuring that the freedom to travel isn’t determined solely by place of birth.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • US border force reported to the UN for human rights abuse at migrant detention centres

    A legal non-profit in the US has sent damning evidence of US border force officials appalling persisting record of human rights abuses at open air detention sites, to the United Nations.

    US border force reported to the UN for human rights abuse

    On Monday 7 April, the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL) and the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) on US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)’s continued human rights abuses at open air detention sites.

    The CHRCL is a legal non-profit that protects and advances the rights of migrants. SBCC is a coalition of organisations from San Diego, California, to Brownsville, Texas that seeks to hold US border force accountable and ensure they respect migrants’ human rights.

    Every five years, members of the UN HRC review all member countries’ human rights records in a unique process known as Universal Periodic Review. Therefore, SBCC and CHRCL submitted a joint report to the UN as part of this process. It’s to urge the council to hold the US accountable for CBP’s continued human rights abuses, including open air detention along the southern border.

    As part of this process, SBCC and CHRCL also joined a coalition of two dozen migrants’ rights groups urging action on the deteriorating human rights situation for migrants in the US.

    Trump expanding human rights violating detention

    On March 19 2025, media announced that the Trump administration may expand open air detention along the border in New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

    Reportedly, the government would do so by having the military:

    take control of a buffer zone along a sprawling stretch of the southern border and empower[ing] active-duty U.S. troops to temporarily hold migrants who cross into the United States

    This would be alongside the Roosevelt Reservation, a narrow 60-foot stretch of land that the federal government controls. Historically, the Department of the Interior has managed it.

    Since 2023, SBCC has documented, and members have provided aid at, and advocated against open air detention sites at the US-Mexico border.

    In 2024, CHRCL conducted multiple monitoring visits to the sites in its capacity as co-counsel in the Flores Settlement Agreement.  This governs conditions for children in US government custody.

    The visits led Flores Counsel to successfully file for enforcement of the Agreement with respect to open air detention sites in February of 2024.

    Migrants subjected to ‘inhumane conditions’ by US border force

    Border Policy Counsel for the Southern Border Communities Coalition Ricky Garza said:

    We reject military occupation and the Administration’s attempts to normalize open air detention.

    Human rights law is clear that all people must be treated with dignity and respect regardless of immigration status.

    Executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Sergio Perez echoed this:

    The cruelty of forcing asylum-seekers – many of whom have fled unimaginable horrors – into squalid, virtually unsheltered sites along the border is self-evident.

    No human being, least of all pregnant persons and vulnerable children, should be subjected to these inhumane conditions. There is no possible justification for such deplorable treatment, and we call on the United Nations to hold the U.S. accountable for violating its human rights treaty obligations and failing to properly care for people seeking a better life.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour wants to reopen a controversial refugee detention centre – but people are fighting back

    After 25 years of local and national protests, Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, finally closed its doors in December 2018.

    Opposition to it had been strong, and from the day the detention centre opened in 1993, a monthly demo took place outside its main gates, attracting all types of people, including Jeremy Corbyn and Anneliese Dodds.

    Run for the Home Office by a private company called Mitie, Campsfield was mired in controversy and its closure was a huge victory not only for campaigners, but also for human rights.

    Its closure was hastened by the publication of a report into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons, known as the Shaw Review, which not only exposed the inhumane treatment taking place in the UK’s immigration system, but also found that detention in itself was harmful.

    The review recommended that immigration detention should be used as a last resort, and the government promised to reduce the number of people held in these centres by up to 40% from 2015 numbers.

    Campsfield House: first the Tories, then Labour make plans to re-open it

    So campaigners, who had spent years fighting alongside Campsfield detainees and witnessed the human cost of the place, were understandably heartbroken when Boris Johnson announced plans, less than four years later, to reopen the immigration detention centre.

    At the time, Campsfield House was very much linked to the Rwanda scheme, so when Labour took office and dropped the scheme, it was hoped the plans to reopen Campsfield would be scrapped. But instead, in August last year, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, announced Labour was not only pressing ahead with reopening the centre, but also had plans to expand it.

    In response to this shocking news, the campaign group Oxford Against Immigration Detention, and Asylum Welcome, also based in Oxford, got together and founded the Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed:

    Campsfield House

    Asylum Welcome’s Emma Jones said:

    We are trying, through a variety of means – Freedom of Information requests and Parliamentary questions, to find out more, because we are very conscious that they’ve gone very quiet. News isn’t being shared, despite the fact that initially they said there’d be public consultations.

    No planning permission has been submitted- as far as we can see, despite the fact that its been said they’d need it for phase 1 (to refurbish and reopen Campsfield) and phase 2 (to expand its capacity to around 400), but a contract has been awarded to Galliford Try, and work is in progress at the site, so we suspect they’ve found a way to get around the planning.

    Although Galliford Try’s website says it “makes a real difference to people’s lives”, this is obviously not in a positive way, as a large part of the company’s money comes from construction in the custodial and defence sector.

    In addition to the £70m contract to carry out both refurbishment and new-build at the Campsfield site, its other contracts include refurbishing Haslar Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) near Portsmouth, which closed in 2015 after reports of mistreatment and inhumane conditions, but is now set to reopen and expand. Galliford Try has also been awarded a contract to expand RAF Wyton – a top-secret base that plays a critical role in intelligence gathering for UK armed forces on global operations.

    Immigration detention centres: a hotbed of harm and abuse

    The Home Office held almost 19,000 people in immigration detention centres across the UK in the year to March 2024, many of whom had experienced torture, oppression, and trauma, and are extremely vulnerable.

    Research has shown asylum seekers and refugees are at particular risk of mental health problems, compared to the general population, and this is not only linked to their pre-migration experiences, but also those during and post-detention.

    Those who are already experiencing problems with their mental health are likely to see a significant deterioration as a result of being detained, but the necessary care provisions in these detention facilities are much less readily available than in the general community.

    For those who have risked everything hoping to find safety and security in our country, their loss of liberty and the threat of forced return to their country of origin make immigration detention a particularly harrowing experience.

    There is no automatic judicial oversight on decisions to detain, while a lack of knowledge about release dates causes huge amounts of depression and anxiety, because of the inability to think of any kind of future.

    Britain is one of only a handful of countries, and the only one in Europe, to have no upper limit on the time a person can be detained. Research has found all detention to be inherently harmful to people’s physical and mental health, but indefinite detention to be even more so, and these problems are compounded if detainees are threatened with deportation at the same time.

    The ‘ideological infrastructure’ that decides people are ‘illegal’

    Centres like Campsfield House operate with a lack of safeguards and accountability, and detainees do not have an automatic entitlement to legal advice or allocation of legal representation.

    It is extremely difficult for these people to access their rights, especially if they are being moved around the detention system, so when Campsfield was open, Asylum Welcome helped detainees access badly needed legal and medical support.

    Jones explained that:

    There’s a mental health crisis inside detention centres, and self-harm is happening on a daily basis. It’s not remotely surprising really, given that people are detained indefinitely- which is such a shocking abuse in itself. But indefinite detention is permitted in this country, for people who have committed no criminal offence but are just there because of their lack of papers.

    If you don’t have status, meaning your immigration status is not resolved, you are liable to detention at any point in the process, which is very scary and open to all sorts of abuses. And that’s how something like the Windrush Scandal was able to happen…

    The physical infrastructure of places like Campsfield, and also the ideological infrastructure, which says some humans are illegal, or these people are immigration ‘offenders’, leads people to believe some offence has been committed rather than an irregularity in someone’s status, or the fact that someone is going through the process of seeking asylum.

    These places are synonymous with cruelty and, over the years, protests and disturbances were not only limited to outside the gates of Campsfield House. Detainees took part in rooftop protests and hunger strikes, demanding better treatment and trying to draw attention to the inhumane conditions and treatment inside the centre. Tragically, there were also two suicides.

    Many of us are left wondering why immigration detention centres are allowed to continue causing so much misery and harm, indefinitely and for administrative purposes when, in response to the Shaw Review, the government at the time agreed detention should be reduced.

    These centres are also extremely expensive to run, with almost £145 of tax-payer money spent daily on detaining each person, and annual costs of running these facilities rising each year, to more than £117m in 2024.

    Immigration detention is little more than ‘performative cruelty’

    Serious questions are also raised, as to the justification of immigrant detention, as statistics over the last decade show there has been a long-term fall in the numbers of people leaving immigration detention to be returned to their country of nationality or habitual residence.

    According to government figures, in the year ending June 2023, of the more than 20,500 individuals who left immigration detention, 75% were granted bail and therefore re-entered the community. This highlights the fact that many people are unnecessarily enduring the distress of being detained.

    Jones said that:

    Often people are released because there is nowhere else to go. People might be from countries where no one is currently able to return. They might be stateless people. These people need support to regularise their status, and to live their lives and contribute like they wish to do.

    Very often there is no realistic prospect of deportation, even though these people are detained and shopped between detention centres and sometimes kept there for years. It seems very illogical, as well as expensive, and therefore you think ‘Oh, OK, it’s the performative cruelty element. They’re doing this to get favour from certain kinds of voters!

    Several community based alternatives to detention have been piloted by the Home Office, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and independent charities, with caseworkers providing one to one support, including legal counselling.

    UNHCR lauded the pilots as very successful, saying they enhanced the well-being and self-esteem of the participants, while being cheaper and offering better value for money for the taxpayer compared with the costs of detaining asylum seekers, and showing no evidence of a reduction in compliance with UK Home Office directives.

    Jones argued that:

    Although the studies seemed to conclude these alternatives had been very successful, we were very confused as the Home Office dismissed them in a single sentence, when Yvette Cooper announced, last year, that Campsfield would go ahead. We want to know on what basis these pilots are being dismissed.

    Close Campsfield House, close them all

    Asylum Welcome, along with other charities and campaigners, had hoped the election might herald a change in direction, particularly given that the Rwanda scheme has been scrapped, and the Labour-led Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council, and also local MP Calum Miller are all opposed to Campsfield reopening.

    But Jones says they are not going to give up:

    In 2015, plans to expand Campsfield House were halted, so campaigners feel a win is still possible.

    Jones said:

    We hope democracy counts for something, and we remain committed not only to keep Campsfield closed, but to close them all.

    Actions you can take to make a difference:

    • Sign and share the petition to keep Campsfield Closed here. Started by Allan, who was a former Campsfield detainee, in 2015.
    • Go to keepcampsfieldclosed.uk to find out more information.
    • Sign up and join the mailing list here.
    • The Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed has a monthly online meeting and is interested in hearing people’s ideas and experiences, particularly people with lived experience of detention, and those involved in other campaigns in other localities to shut these places down.

    Featured image and additional images via Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Uzra Zeya new President of Human Rights First

    Human Rights First, a leading international human rights organization, announced on 1 April 2025 the selection of foreign policy leader and lifelong human rights advocate Uzra Zeya as its next President and CEO. With decades of leadership acumen in international peace, security, and human rights, Zeya brings unparalleled expertise, superb strategic vision, and an unwavering commitment to the protection of vulnerable populations, democracy, and fundamental freedoms. She will take office on April 21st, succeeding Susan Hendrickson who will continue to serve on Human Rights First’s Board of Directors.

    “We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Uzra as the next President and CEO of Human Rights First,” said Board Co-Chair Lynda Clarizio. “Uzra’s impressive track record of championing human rights both inside and outside of government makes her the ideal leader for this moment. At a time when democracy is under siege, authoritarianism is on the rise, and human rights are at risk both at home and abroad, Uzra brings the experience and perspective needed to further the ongoing pursuit of freedom, justice and accountability.”

    Zeya has devoted her career to protecting vulnerable communities, advancing democracy and upholding human rights for all. From 2021 to 2025, she served as Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, and led U.S. efforts to support refugees, expand humanitarian partnerships, defend democracy, and counter human rights abuses globally. Her accomplishments include launching the first-ever private sponsorship plan for refugees in the United States, rebuilding the U.S. refugee resettlement program and enabling it to welcome more refugees than it had in the previous 30 years, expanding global partnerships to combat gender-based violence and increase disability and LGBTQI+ inclusion, helping secure the release of hundreds of political prisoners, and introducing new accountability tools to curb transnational repression and the misuse of commercial spyware. She served concurrently as the U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan issues, rallying international solidarity in support of the human rights of the Tibetan people and safeguarding their cultural, religious and linguistic identity.

    Outside of government, Zeya led the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a global network of over 200 organizations working for peace in more than 180 countries. While there, she co-led an NGO coalition that succeeded in securing the bipartisan passage of the Global Fragility Act, landmark legislation that prioritizes preventive diplomacy over more costly, military interventions.

    Michael Posner, Director, Center for Business and Human Rights at the NYU Stern School of Business, who served as the founding Executive Director of Human Rights First, added, “Uzra is a dynamic leader who throughout her career has demonstrated integrity, vision and courage. I had the privilege of working with her at the State Department where she was widely respected and admired. Uzra is an ideal leader for HRF at this moment. She will challenge the U.S. government when it does not live up to its historic ideals. She also will enhance HRF’s support for and partnership with local human rights activists around the world.”

    “I am honored to lead Human Rights First at this existential crossroads for human rights and democracy worldwide,” said Zeya. “For nearly five decades, this organization has stood on the frontlines of the fight for freedom and justice. Today the threats we face are greater than ever, but so is our resolve. I look forward to building on Sue’s leadership and partnering with the talented and dynamic team at Human Rights First to deploy our collective commitment, expertise and creativity toward making a decisive difference in the fight for rights and freedoms.”

    To speak with Zeya, please contact Press@HumanRightsFirst.org.

    Human Rights First Names Uzra Zeya as President and CEO

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Labour is still spending 20% of the foreign aid budget in the UK – despite all its ‘pledges’

    On Thursday 3 April the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) published its provisional statistics on how UK aid was spent in 2024. It shows that the UK continues to spend 20% of the foreign aid budget on asylum seeker costs in this country – despite the Labour Party government’s planned cuts to the budget.

    Foreign aid budget: still being spent domestically

    This annual publication provides an overview of the provisional UK aid spend in the calendar year 2024 and has revealed that the UK spent £2.8 billion Official Development Assistance (ODA) on costs associated with asylum seekers in the UK in 2024 (20.1% of total ODA), compared with £4.3 billion (27.9% of total ODA) in 2023 and £3.7 billion in 2022.

    The UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) dropped from £15.34bn (0.58% of GNI) in 2023 to £14.07bn (0.5% of GNI) in 2024.

    The statistics also reveal that the Home Office spent £2,384million of the UK aid budget in 2024 (17%), £2,954million in 2023 (19.3%), while in 2022 this was at £2,397million (18.7%). This is a decrease of 19.3%. While this is a decrease from the all-time high of 2023, Home Office spending for 2024 is barely a change compared to 2022.

    Bilateral spending saw an increase of 12.6% from £10bn in 2023 to £11.3bn in 2024 – making up 80.1% of total ODA in 2024. Region-specific spending saw a 35% increase from £2.1bn in 2023 to £2.87bn in 2024. This included:

    • Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Africa in 2024 was at £1.48bn, an increase of 41% from £1.05bn in 2023
    • Regional specific bilateral ODA to Americas was £85million – a 14% decrease from £100million in 2023
    • Regional specific bilateral ODA to Asia was £1.04bn in 2024, a 48% increase from £705million in 2023.
    • Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Europe was £217million in 2024, a 15% decrease from £257million in 2023.
    • Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Pacific was £45million, a 844% increase from £5million in 2023.

    “Unsustainable”

    Meanwhile, Humanitarian Assistance was £1.4bn in 2024, a 60.5% increase from £882million in 2023.

    However, multilateral spending has seen a sharp decrease by 47.5%, from £5.3bn in 2023 to £2.8bn in 2024 – its share of total ODA is only 19.9%. The only time since SID data from 2009 that the UK multilateral spending was less than 30% of total ODA was in 2022 (24.6%).

    Gideon Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development and humanitarian assistance, said:

    We welcome the reduction in the amount of UK aid spent domestically on asylum costs, but this figure remains far too high.

    As the government slashes the UK aid budget, continuing to spend £2.8 billion of UK aid in the UK on escalating asylum accommodation costs is unsustainable, poor value for money and comes at the expense of essential development and humanitarian programmes tackling the root causes of insecurity and displacement. It is vital that we support refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, but this requires its own budget and the ending the use of expensive and inappropriate hotels as accommodation.

    At a time when the world is increasingly unstable, the government is abandoning marginalised communities and damaging its credibility as a reliable global partner. We urge them to rethink the cuts or at the very least ensure that the remaining limited budget is used for its intended purpose, to support communities in lower-income countries who face conflict, climate change, and poverty.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Judge Blocks Trump Admin From Ending Deportation Protections of Venezuelans

    An effort by the Trump administration to unilaterally strip the temporary protected status (TPS) of approximately 350,000 Venezuelan refugees living in the United States was blocked Monday night by a federal court judge who described the order by Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as being “motivated by unconstitutional animus.” In a 78-page ruling, U.S.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Grifting dickheads are finally leaving the UK. We’re looking at YOU, ‘Lord Miles’

    Grifting dickheads are finally deciding to leave the UK – and it’s what we’ve all been waiting for.

    Lord Miles: pure bigotry

    Miles Routledge – who seems to have nicknamed himself ‘Lord Miles’ – is a British adventurer who has previously sparked controversy with his racist comments and ‘war tourism’. He joked about launching nuclear bombs at India. Before that, he was known for being the British student that was stranded in Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover of 2021.

    His X feed is nothing other than pure narrow-minded bigotry. From rants about ‘lgtv perverts, rocket scientists, chavs and stinky tech support workers’ to migrants having a “victim inferiority complex”.

    Imagine being so mad at foreigners invading your country that you decide to get your own back, and invade theirs.

    This says it all:

    The long and short of it is, he doesn’t want to pay tax.

    Hard earned cash? Yeah right…

    Some X users pointed out that millionaires with ‘aluminum hand luggage’ would not be chilling in ‘Spoons before their flight. But maybe their taking a leaf out of the ‘man of the people’ Farage playbook and giving their not-so-hard earned cash to Tim Martin.

    As for the millionaire parasitic landlords with *checks notes* “branded aluminum hand luggage” (we think you’ll find it’s aluminium in your native Brits, Miles) – let me crack out my tiny violin to send them off. Here’s to the ‘foreigners’ not paying rent for their undoubtedly terribly maintained and overpriced properties making sure they missed out on branded gold hand luggage for this one-way trip:

    We don’t put much stock in that racist millionaire couple’s aspersions on their tenants not paying their rent. We do however, have every reason to imagine they weren’t paying their fair share in tax – and that the new pension and inheritance tax rules too might have a small something to do with them making a beeline out of here.

    The country losing its hard-done by hard-working millionaires? More like exploitative wealth hoarders high-tailing out of the UK at the merest mumblings of a wealth tax.

    Today, the UK got just a little bit less shit – and it was all thanks to you Miles – because Lord insufferable of fucking nowhere will be miles away and with any luck, never coming back.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Toxic Labour is considering a RWANDA-STYLE deportation plan for refugees

    While the Labour Party has been terrible in office, it did at least drop the Tories ‘Rwanda plan’. Said plan would have seen us deporting refugees to Rwanda regardless of their country of origin. Now, it turns out Labour is considering a Rwanda-style plan which would potentially see us deporting people to Albania.

    And to think people used to argue when we said Starmer’s Labour were just red Tories!

    Labour: Rwanda revisited

    Sky News host Trevor Phillips asked home secretary Yvette Cooper:

    How close are you to a third country deal with Albania

    Cooper responded:

    Well, we already have return agreements with Albania, and that’s been an important part of the system. We’re also working across the board to increase our returns everywhere. That’s why we’ve got the 20% increase in returns already as a result of what we’re doing.

    Phillips interjected to note:

    But this is a slightly different kind of deal. It’s not just about returns . It’s about processing; it’s about, basically, telling people who… think they’re gonna get here and stay here illegally – ‘no, you’re not. You’re gonna go to Albania’… Let’s forget Rwanda, but somewhere else.

    Phillips was pointing out that this Albania deal seems to be an alternative version of the hated Rwanda plan. Cooper responded:

    So I think you’re what you’re talking about is the the arrangement, obviously, that Italy and Albania have set up, which we’ve always said we will look at. We have talked – I’ve talked to the Italian interior minister about their arrangements.

    For those who don’t know, Italy’s current government has been described as the country’s “most right-wing and Eurosceptic government since 1946”. Famously, the government before then was Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party, which allied with the Nazis in World War II to wage war against an island nation you may have heard of called Great Britain.

    Yvette Cooper is having talks with their interior minister.

    Regarding their “arrangements”.

    Phillips asked Cooper if Labour want the same deal, to which Cooper responded:

    We will always look at what works.

    What does ‘works’ mean in this context?

    Because a hammer ‘works’ whether you use it to strike a nail or a finger.

    What she said next was mostly vague, but it did betray what Labour’s actual problem was with the Tories’ Rwanda plan:

    So we’ve been very clear about that. We will always look at what works. But it has to be practical things that will work, not the the gimmicks. What we saw with Rwanda was £700m be spent on sending four volunteers to Rwanda. We’ll always make sure that our approach is about what works

    Understand now?

    The Rwanda plan was an expensive gimmick that failed to deport lots of people to a foreign country they couldn’t point to on a map; the Albania plan will be a reasonably-priced non-gimmick that will successfully deport many people to a different foreign nation they once again couldn’t point to on a map.

    Jesus Christ.

    How we got here

    This isn’t the first time that Labour has said it may be open to a deal with Albania, with the Telegraph reporting in September 2024:

    Yvette Cooper has said the Government would ‘look at anything that works’ with regard to offshore schemes

    Earlier that year after Labour won the general election, the Canary’s Steve Topple noted that Labour’s objections to the Rwanda plan were far from humane:

    Labour has scrapped the Tories’ Rwanda plan. The UK Supreme Court had deemed it illegal under international law. Not that this stopped the Tories – who just changed the law. Nor was it the reason Labour has stopped it.

    Cooper this week called the Rwanda scheme, intended to deter migrants making the Channel crossing in small boats from northern France, “the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money” she had seen. Of course, she failed to mention its illegality and inhumanity.

    On March 25, SNP MP Pete Wishart questioned whether Labour was planning its own Rwanda plan. Labour was even vaguer then than today:

    Reporting on the Cooper’s latest interview, Sky News added:

    Former Labour home secretary Lord Blunkett has suggested the government should create bespoke agreements with designated “safe” countries to deport foreign criminals and illegal immigrants, as this would override any claims through the Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

    It’s always a good sign when your government is looking for loopholes to escape our commitment to the Convention on Human Rights (especially when they’re working hand in hand with an Italian Fascist tribute act).

    Labour: proving the right is right

    When Labour copies the policies to the Tories and Reform, they tell voters that those parties have got the right idea. And if the Tories and Reform are the ones with the right ideas, why vote for the copycats?

    This is why Reform have unfortunately gone from strength to strength under Keir Starmer:

    The way things are going, if Labour doesn’t throw their leader out before the next election, it’s almost certain that Nigel Farage will.

    Featured image via Sky News

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Is it Possible to Overcome the Demographic Crisis during the War?

    As a result of three years of the war, Ukraine faced a massive demographic crisis. According to various estimates, mass migration, a high rate of premature mortality and a sharp decline in birth rates have led to a huge population decline from 41 to 30 million people. Over 2024 the number of the Ukrainians, who died, exceeded the amount of those, who were born, threefold. Experts from the Institute for Demography and Life Quality Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, has predicted that Ukraine’s population can decrease to 25 million people by 2050.

    Realizing the complexity of the situation, the Ukrainian authorities are taking steps to improve the demographic indicators. At the end of the last year, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted the Demographic Development Strategy until 2040, aimed at creating comfortable conditions for Ukrainian families, providing affordable housing, high-quality public infrastructure, safe environment and inclusive labor market. Simultaneously, the Ministry of National Unity is trying to return the Ukrainians to their homeland. In addition, the government has included free assistance to families in infertility treatment into a number of medical support programs.

    Despite all the declared measures, Kyiv will have to do a lot to overcome negative demographics tendencies. But the most important thing is that it is impossible to solve the issue of fertility and to increase life expectancy without stopping the war, the action the Ukrainian authorities are not ready to take under current circumstances in the conflict zone. The war is forcing more and more people to leave Ukraine and, above all, to take their children out of the country. And the prospect for returning refugees is becoming unclear due to the destructions, low level of security, ambiguity about the time the war will come to an end and its results for Ukraine.

    The post Is it Possible to Overcome the Demographic Crisis during the War? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Burmese refugees come together for violin lessons in Thai border town | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The facts on immigration versus the right-wing spin

    According to some social media warriors, Britain’s economic woes are caused not by billionaires, but by immigrants. Although if you believe everything you read on social media, you’ve probably already given your bank details to earn £££s in Bitcoin.

    Still, a lie is halfway round the internet before the truth has even got its boots on, so here are some answers I gave to anti-immigrant posts.

    The facts on immigration versus the right-wing spin

    “Immigrants are overloading the NHS”

    If you meet an immigrant in the NHS, the chances are it’s the person looking after you.

    Facts: Nearly one in five NHS staff are foreign nationals. In England, as of June 2023, 264,822 NHS staff, or 18.7%, reported a non-British nationality.

    “Economic migrants cost the NHS billions and are bankrupting the NHS”

    So-called ‘legal’ immigrants to the UK pay £1,035 a year NHS surcharge, plus a £2,885 immigration fee. They also pay visa fees between £710 and £1,639. In total, it costs from £11,200 to £38,000 to settle in the UK.

    Whereas, for just £13 billion of PFI investment, the NHS has been landed with an £80 billion bill. It’s not immigrants that are the problem, it’s the megarich siphoning money off all of us.

    It’s worth noting that British people get free healthcare in many countries around the world, including Spain, for example.

    Economic migrants make a net contribution to the UK economy. For example, overseas students contributed £41.9 billion in 2021/2022. Without them, our universities would go broke overnight.

    Far from the ‘luxury life on benefits’ the right-wing media and politicians present

    “Illegal immigrants are jumping waiting lists”

    Undocumented migrants do not get free NHS treatment in hospitals. Without proof of residence, they will not be treated. So it is not possible to jump any queues for anything.

    “Immigrants are living in luxury on benefits”

    An asylum seeker gets £8.86 a week if their accommodation provides food. That has to pay for travel, clothes, toiletries, stamps, phone calls and anything else.

    If their accommodation does not pay for food, they get £49.18 a week to pay for everything, including food. This is half the rate of universal credit, which itself is not enough to live on.

    Undocumented migrants receive nothing. They have no recourse to public funds, and can be sent to detention centres. They can claim no benefits of any kind.

    “We are overrun by millions of boat people”

    Between 2010 and 2023, no more than 85,000 people were refused asylum and not recorded as leaving the country. It is likely that some of those people left but their exit was not recorded, as it could not be matched against their arrival. So the actual number is likely to be lower than 85,000.

    Official data show that 166,000 people applied for asylum between 2010 and 2023 but were refused protection, taking into account appeals. Of these, around 82,000 were recorded as having left the UK via enforced or voluntary return by 30 June 2024.

    The majority of undocumented migrants in the UK arrived legally and completed the paperwork. They have likely overstayed after their visa ran out.

    Rights under the Refugee Convention often conveniently glossed over

    “Migrants should stop in the first safe country”

    Under international law, every person in the world has the right to apply for asylum if they are fleeing conflict or persecution. The 1951 Refugee Convention does not impose any requirement as to where asylum seekers must go.

    The European Union implemented the ‘Dublin System’ that said whichever country first an asylum seeker first registered would continue that person’s claim, wherever they were in the EU. Some people confuse this – deliberately or otherwise – with the “first safe country” myth. Britain has left the EU, so this does not apply to the UK anymore.

    Most refugees do seek shelter in neighbouring countries, or even elsewhere with a country. Syrian has 7.4 million internally displaced people. 2.8 million Syrians are in Turkey, 0.8 million in Lebanon, 0.6 million in Jordan, and many more throughout the Middle East. Just 0.02 million Syrians (20,000 people) were resettled in the UK between 2014 and 2020.

    “We can’t afford anything because there are too many immigrants”

    Overseas students contribute a whopping £41.9 billion to the UK economy annually. They cost the public services £4.4 billion. That’s a net economic benefit of £37.4 billion. In context, Britain’s total public expenditure on the entire education system was £99.4 billion for the same year. Without overseas students our universities will go bust. (2021/2 figures, rounded to the nearest 0.1 billion.)

    Of course, a lot of people are not interested in facts. I was actually asked this:

    Would you let an immigrant live in your house?

    I replied asking if he would let a homeless veteran live in his house. He said no, he didn’t have room.

    I added:

    I do not run into burning buildings or perform surgery on people either. I pay my taxes so skilled people with the proper equipment can do that job on my behalf. But my next-door neighbour is an Iraqi refugee, and I like him.

    Tens of thousands of British people did open their homes to Ukrainian refugees. By July 2024, 54% of all refugees in the UK were Ukrainian. The number of Ukrainian refugees who arrived in the UK in 2022 was around the same as the number of people granted refuge in the UK from all countries, in total, between 2014 and 2021.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Jamie Driscoll

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Arrested ARSA leader blamed for violence against Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

    DHAKA, Bangladesh – The leader of a Rohingya insurgent group blamed for instigating attacks that provoked a deadly offensive by the Myanmar military and the forced cross-border exodus of Rohingya in 2017 has not spilled “significant information” since his arrest earlier this week, Bangladesh police said.

    Ataullah Abu Jununi, leader of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, was arrested on Tuesday at an apartment near Dhaka where he had been staying for four months.

    The Rapid Action Battalion, an elite security force, said it took him into custody on suspicion of terrorism and illegal entry. Nine suspected accomplices were also arrested that day from northern Mymensingh district, RAB said.

    Mohammad Shahinur Alom, the officer-in-charge of Siddhirganj police station, said Ataullah and his accomplices were being interrogated for 10 days under a court order.

    “He is behaving in a very modest way. He has yet to give any significant information. Let us see what happens in the next several days,” Shahinur Alom told RFA affiliate BenarNews on Friday.

    Ataullah’s arrest occurred the same day that Southeast Asian NGO Fortify Rights released a 76-page report alleging that ARSA and another group had committed potential war crimes through killing, abducting and torturing Rohingya who were sheltering at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh.

    RELATED STORIES

    Report: Rohingya militant groups kill, torture community’s refugees in Bangladesh

    Who Are the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army?

    Police report: ARSA rebel chief ordered Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah gunned down

    The report also alleges that ARSA under Ataullah’s leadership carried out coordinated attacks on government security outposts in Myanmar in August 2017, prompting the Myanmar military and Buddhist vigilante groups to launch a brutal offensive against the entire Rohingya population in Rakhine state.

    The crackdown forced about 740,000 to flee to the Bangladesh camps, which are home to about 1 million refugees.

    “As the commander-in-chief of ARSA, Ataullah is responsible for ordering and overseeing egregious violations of international law, including targeted killings, abductions, and the torture of Rohingya civilians,” Fortify Rights CEO Matthew Smith said in a news release on Thursday, after Ataullah was arrested.

    “This is a critical moment. Bangladesh has taken the important step of arresting Ataullah and others, and we encourage the ICC prosecutor to seek an arrest warrant for Ataullah to prosecute him in The Hague,” Smith said, referring to the International Criminal Court.

    A man identifying himself as Ataullah Abu Jununi (center), commander of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, delivers a statement to the Myanmar government and ethnic groups in Rakhine state in this image from a social media video, Aug. 28, 2017.
    A man identifying himself as Ataullah Abu Jununi (center), commander of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, delivers a statement to the Myanmar government and ethnic groups in Rakhine state in this image from a social media video, Aug. 28, 2017.
    (ARSA)

    Who is Ataullah?

    Born in a refugee camp in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi in 1977, Attaulah and his parents moved to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where he was enrolled in an Islamic religious school, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

    As a young boy, he worked at a mosque in Saudi Arabia and attended the Rohingya community meetings where his speeches impressed Saudis, who backed his efforts to gain rights for Rohingya Muslims.

    ICG said Ataullah became leader of ARSA in 2016. In 2017, he posted a video vowing to fight for the rights of the persecuted Rohingya in Rakhine, Myanmar.

    In the Aug. 28 video statement, Ataullah stated that ARSA was established in response to Burmese government and paramilitary abuses against the stateless Rohingya community.

    “Our primary objective under ARSA is to liberate our people from dehumanized oppression perpetrated by all successive Burmese regimes,” he said.

    What is ARSA?

    ARSA, a Rohingya insurgent group formerly known as Al-Yaaqin, gained international notoriety after it launched coordinated attacks on government security outposts in Rakhine state in August 2017, leading to the bloody crackdown against the Rohingya people.

    In September 2021, popular Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah, who had visited the White House in Washington as part of his advocacy for Rohingya to be repatriated to Myanmar, was assassinated at his office in a refugee camp.

    After years of denying an ARSA presence in the camps, Bangladesh authorities in June 2022 said Ataullah had ordered ARSA members to kill Muhib.

    In 2023, ARSA joined forces with the Myanmar government, according to the ICG.

    “Despite the Myanmar military junta being responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya, ARSA and the junta have joined forces to fight the Arakan Army, one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed organizations based in Rakhine state,” the ICG said.

    How are Rohingya reacting?

    After hearing the news of the ARSA leader’s arrest, refugee camp resident Mohmmad Amin said he had paid a 300,000 taka (U.S. $2,467) ransom to be released after members of the Rohingya militant group abducted him.

    “Ataullah sold the Rohingya people for his personal gain. We are happy for his arrest. We hope Bangladesh will give him tough punishment,” Amin told BenarNews, adding, “Ataullah was involved in the murder of Muhib Ullah.”

    In the same camp, a group of Rohingya circulated a video asking Bangladesh’s interim government to release Ataullah, terming him a leader fighting for the rights of the Rohingya.

    A Rohingya refugee walks with a child in a market, at the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, March 15, 2025.
    A Rohingya refugee walks with a child in a market, at the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, March 15, 2025.
    (Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

    Meanwhile, Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor of international relations at Dhaka University, questioned the report that Ataullah lived in an apartment near Bangladesh’s capital for months without being arrested, saying it was not believable. Still, the arrest is a significant development in relations with Myanmar, he said.

    “Ataullah Jununi’s arrest is a significant signal from Bangladesh to the Arakan Army and the central government that ARSA is under control,” Ahmed told BenarNews.

    Across the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Rakhine state, the anti-junta Arakan Army rebels have made significant gains in battles with junta troops to gain control of the region.

    “The U.N. secretary-general has stressed that Bangladesh should talk to the Arakan Army. Ataullah’s arrest could create a congenital atmosphere for probable repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, provided that Arakan Army and the central government agree,” he said.

    Abdur Rahman in Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kamran Reza Chowdhury for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Afghan refugees in Pakistan are being deported to Afghanistan where they are at risk of persecution


    This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Video: Burmese refugees come together for violin lessons in Thai border town

    MAE SOT, Thailand — Phoe San was one of thousands of Burmese migrants who fled to the Thai border town of Mae Sot after Myanmar’s military junta seized power from a democratically elected government in 2021.

    Like most Burmese migrants, he worried about earning a steady income and finding a safe place to live in the neighboring country.

    Phoe San plays the violin in a community center in Mae Sot, Thailand.
    Phoe San plays the violin in a community center in Mae Sot, Thailand.
    (Kiana Duncan/RFA)

    But Phoe San also had a dream to teach music, and his violin classes at a local community center have attracted dozens of students who pay low fees and can borrow instruments for free.

    The classes have helped people connect with one another as they build new lives.

    “On the first day, I saw many, many students. I felt like I remembered my old life in Yangon,” he said.

    “We came here as refugees,” he said. “But we try to contribute what we can do to the Thai community.”


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Report: Rohingya militant groups kill, torture community’s refugees in Bangladesh

    WASHINGTON and DHAKA – On New Year’s day last year, a Rohingya community leader, Mohammad Faisal, shared a poem he wrote about fear and violence in Bangladesh refugee camps and shared it on social media.

    Three days later, suspected militants from his own community abducted him under the cover of darkness and shot him dead for doing so, Southeast Asian NGO Fortify Rights said in a report released Tuesday.

    “Rohingya rebel members in Bangladesh are killing, abducting, torturing, and threatening Rohingya refugees arriving from Myanmar, which may amount to war crimes,” Fortify Rights said in a press statement accompanying the report.

    Its 78-page report, “I May Be Killed Any Moment,” noted that three key elements must be present to establish a war crime – an armed conflict, a prohibited act committed against a protected person and a nexus between the conflict and the act committed.

    “[F]ortify Rights has reasonable grounds to believe that all such elements are satisfied.”

    The new report documents killings, abductions, torture, and other violations against Rohingya refugees committed, Fortify Rights says, by mainly two rival militant groups, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, or ARSA, and Rohingya Solidarity Organization, or RSO.

    The report draws on interviews with 116 people, including Rohingya survivors and eyewitnesses, Rohingya militants, U.N. officials, humanitarian aid workers, and others, about the ongoing violence in the camps.

    It said that killings of Rohingya refugees by Rohingya militant groups in Bangladesh’s refugee camps had doubled year-on-year since 2021, with a total of at least 219 from then until last year.

    However, the more than 90 people killed in 2023 included dozens of reported members of the two rival militant groups killed in clashes between them, Fortify Rights said.

    Muhib Ullah, a Rohingya Muslim leader who was killed by suspected militants in the refugee camps in September 2021, helps a computer operator at his office in the Kutupalong camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, April 21, 2018.
    Muhib Ullah, a Rohingya Muslim leader who was killed by suspected militants in the refugee camps in September 2021, helps a computer operator at his office in the Kutupalong camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, April 21, 2018.
    (MOHAMMAD PONIR HOSSAIN/Reuters)

    Why would Rohingya militants strike fear among their own community of refugees who fled decades of persecution and terror in their homeland in Myanmar?

    “[The] militant groups intimidate, threaten, and harass Rohingya refugees to forcibly recruit new members, prevent them from reporting abuses to the authorities, and gain political control of the camps,” the report said.

    “Militants have also abducted Rohingya refugees for refusing to join or collaborate with them and for opposing militant groups in the camps,” Fortify Rights said, noting that the militants use abductions and torture to extort money for their activities.

    In 2022, refugees told Radio Free Asia affiliate BenarNews that ARSA was also against the repatriation of the Rohingya to Myanmar, but they did not elaborate on the reason.

    ARSA and RSO both have said they are fighting to liberate the Rohingya people in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State from junta-aligned military forces and the Arakan Army, an armed separatist group.

    Rakhine is where most of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority community lives.

    RELATED STORIES

    Police report: ARSA rebel chief ordered Rohingya leader Muhib Ullah gunned down

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    Bangladesh police arrest ‘most wanted’ ARSA member at Rohingya camp

    However, Fortify Rights said, RSO had been collaborating since last year with the Burmese junta against the Arakan Army rebels.

    The junta comprises the same security forces whose brutal 2017 crackdown led to some 740,000 Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh and now staying in camps in Cox’s Bazar in the southeastern part of the country. The junta launched the offensive in response to coordinated attacks by ARSA rebels in Rakhine.

    “While barely mentioning the Myanmar military junta,” ARSA’s leader, in a May 2024 video, focused on combatting the Arakan Army, which wants to “liberate” the state of Rakhine from the army, Fortify Rights said.

    Comprising mainly Rakhine Buddhists, the Arakan Army claimed it respects the rights of Rohingya, but experts say they carried out mass arson attacks on Rohingya villages last year.

    After the military toppled an elected government in Myanmar in 2021, the country descended into a civil war with junta security forces battling a variety of armed ethnic groups.

    ARSA chief arrested

    ARSA and RSO, though, continue to publicly deny responsibility for any wrongdoing, said the report.

    Attaullah Abu Ammar Jununi, then commander-in-chief of ARSA, said in 2017 that “atrocity, violence, and injustice against any innocent civilians is not in [our] principles or policy,” the NGO said.

    ARSA had also denied responsibility for specific incidents of violence in the Bangladesh refugee camps, including the killings of camp leaders and a prominent community leader, Muhib Ullah, whose assassination in September 2021 caused outrage outside Bangladesh as well.

    But Bangladesh authorities, who after years of denying ARSA’s presence in the camps finally admitted in June 2022 that Muhib Ullah’s killing had been ordered by ARSA’s Ataullah.

    And Bangladesh police on Tuesday said that he and other accomplices had been arrested the previous evening in a town near Dhaka. They had been conducting secret meetings to plan “sabotage and criminal activities,” police said.

    The arrested were found in possession of around US$175,000 and some steel weapons.

    Of 29 people accused of links to Muhib Ullah’s killing, 18 accused have been arrested so far, while 11 others are absconding, police told BenarNews on Tuesday.

    A view of the Balukhali camp for Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh Dec. 20, 2017.
    A view of the Balukhali camp for Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh Dec. 20, 2017.
    (Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

    Murder and a slew of other criminal activities were common occurrences in the camps where nearly 1 million refugees are sheltering, some Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar told BenarNews.

    Muhammed Jubair, acting president of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, said several armed groups were involved in the crimes.

    “Various crimes, including murder, are being committed in the camps,” he said.

    “It is difficult to say whether the crimes that occur are war crimes or not.”

    A former ARSA member told Fortify Rights in November 2023 that the group didn’t work “according to humanitarian principles” for the community.

    One especially brutal incident is detailed in the report.

    A 23-year-old Rohingya man was abducted, tortured, dismembered, and left to die in the refugee camps – but he survived. He spoke to Fortify Rights about what happened to him.

    “[T]hey cut off my leg first. I was able to hear the sound that they were cutting off the bones of my leg with a big knife,” he told Fortify Rights.

    [‘They] took half an hour to cut me. My arm was cut just above my elbows.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Shailaja Neelakantan and Zia Chowdhury for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Marshall Islands: How the Rongelap evacuation changed the course of history

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and RNZ Pacific correspondent in Majuro

    The late Member of Parliament Jeton Anjain and the people of the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll changed the course of the history of the Marshall Islands by using Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship to evacuate their radioactive home islands 40 years ago.

    They did this by taking control of their own destiny after decades of being at the mercy of the United States nuclear testing programme and its aftermath.

    In 1954, the US tested the Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll, spewing high-level radioactive fallout on unsuspecting Rongelap Islanders nearby.

    For years after the Bravo test, decisions by US government doctors and scientists caused Rongelap Islanders to be continuously exposed to additional radiation.

    Marshall Islands traditional and government leaders joined Greenpeace representatives in Majuro
    Marshall Islands traditional and government leaders joined Greenpeace representatives in showing off tapa banners with the words “Justice for Marshall Islands” during the dockside welcome ceremony earlier this week in Majuro. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    The 40th anniversary of the dramatic evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior — a few weeks before French secret agents bombed the ship in Auckland harbour — was spotlighted this week in Majuro with the arrival of Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior III to a warm welcome combining top national government leaders, the Rongelap Atoll Local Government and the Rongelap community.

    “We were displaced, our lives were disrupted, and our voices ignored,” said MP Hilton Kendall, who represents Rongelap in the Marshall Islands Parliament, at the welcome ceremony in Majuro earlier in the week.

    “In our darkest time, Greenpeace stood with us.”

    ‘Evacuated people to safety’
    He said the Rainbow Warrior “evacuated the people to safety” in 1985.

    Greenpeace would “forever be remembered by the people of Rongelap,” he added.

    In 1984, Jeton Anjain — like most Rongelap people who were living on the nuclear test-affected atoll — knew that Rongelap was unsafe for continued habitation.

    The Able U.S. nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, pictured July 1, 1946. [U.S. National Archives]
    The Able US nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 1 July 1946. Image: US National Archives

    There was not a single scientist or medical doctor among their community although Jeton was a trained dentist, and they mainly depended on US Department of Energy-provided doctors and scientists for health care and environmental advice.

    They were always told not to worry and that everything was fine.

    But it wasn’t, as the countless thyroid tumors, cancers, miscarriages and surgeries confirmed.

    Crew of the Rainbow Warrior and other Greenpeace officials were welcomed to the Marshall Islands during a dockside ceremony in Majuro to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll. Photo: Giff Johnson.
    Crew of the Rainbow Warrior and other Greenpeace officials — including two crew members from the original Rainbow Warrior, Bunny McDiarmid and Henk Hazen, from Aotearoa New Zealand – were welcomed to the Marshall Islands during a dockside ceremony in Majuro to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    As the desire of Rongelap people to evacuate their homeland intensified in 1984, unbeknown to them Greenpeace was hatching a plan to dispatch the Rainbow Warrior on a Pacific voyage the following year to turn a spotlight on the nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands and the ongoing French nuclear testing at Moruroa in French Polynesia.

    A Rainbow Warrior question
    As I had friends in the Greenpeace organisation, I was contacted early on in its planning process with the question: How could a visit by the Rainbow Warrior be of use to the Marshall Islands?

    Jeton and I were good friends by 1984, and had worked together on advocacy for Rongelap since the late 1970s. I informed him that Greenpeace was planning a visit and without hesitation he asked me if the ship could facilitate the evacuation of Rongelap.

    At this time, Jeton had already initiated discussions with Kwajalein traditional leaders to locate an island that they could settle in that atoll.

    I conveyed Jeton’s interest in the visit to Greenpeace, and a Greenpeace International board member, the late Steve Sawyer, who coordinated the Pacific voyage of the Rainbow Warrior, arranged a meeting for the three of us in Seattle to discuss ideas.

    Jeton and I flew to Seattle and met Steve. After the usual preliminaries, Jeton asked Steve if the Rainbow Warrior could assist Rongelap to evacuate their community to Mejatto Island in Kwajalein Atoll, a distance of about 250 km.

    Steve responded in classic Greenpeace campaign thinking, which is what Greenpeace has proved effective in doing over many decades. He said words to the effect that the Rainbow Warrior could aid a “symbolic evacuation” by taking a small group of islanders from Rongelap to Majuro or Ebeye and holding a media conference publicising their plight with ongoing radiation exposure.

    “No,” said Jeton firmly. He wasn’t talking about a “symbolic” evacuation. He told Steve: “We want to evacuate Rongelap, the entire community and the housing, too.”

    Steve Sawyer taken aback
    Steve was taken aback by what Jeton wanted. Steve simply hadn’t considered the idea of evacuating the entire community.

    But we could see him mulling over this new idea and within minutes, as his mind clicked through the significant logistics hurdles for evacuation of the community — including that it would take three-to-four trips by the Rainbow Warrior between Rongelap and Mejatto to accomplish it — Steve said it was possible.

    And from that meeting, planning for the 1985 Marshall Islands visit began in earnest.

    I offer this background because when the evacuation began in early May 1985, various officials from the United States government sharply criticised Rongelap people for evacuating their atoll, saying there was no radiological hazard to justify the move and that they were being manipulated by Greenpeace for its own anti-nuclear agenda.

    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior
    Women from the nuclear test-affected Rongelap Atoll greeted the Rainbow Warrior and its crew with songs and dances this week as part of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll in 1985 by the Rainbow Warrior. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    This condescending American government response suggested Rongelap people did not have the brain power to make important decisions for themselves.

    But it also showed the US government’s lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation in which Rongelap Islanders lived day in and day out in a highly radioactive environment.

    The Bravo hydrogen bomb test blasted Rongelap and nearby islands with snow-like radioactive fallout on 1 March 1954. The 82 Rongelap people were first evacuated to the US Navy base at Kwajalein for emergency medical treatment and the start of long-term studies by US government doctors.

    No radiological cleanup
    A few months later, they were resettled on Ejit Island in Majuro, the capital atoll, until 1957 when, with no radiological cleanup conducted, the US government said it was safe to return to Rongelap and moved the people back.

    “Even though the radioactive contamination of Rongelap Island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world,” said a Brookhaven National Laboratory report commenting on the return of Rongelap Islanders to their contaminated islands in 1957.

    It then stated plainly why the people were moved back: “The habitation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings.”

    And for 28 years, Rongelap people lived in one of the world’s most radioactive environments, consuming radioactivity through the food chain and by living an island life.

    Proving the US narrative of safety to be false, the 1985 evacuation forced the US Congress to respond by funding new radiological studies of Rongelap.

    Thanks to the determination of the soft-spoken but persistent leadership of Jeton, he ensured that a scientist chosen by Rongelap would be included in the study. And the new study did indeed identify health hazards, particularly for children, of living on Rongelap.

    The US Congress responded by appropriating US$45 million to a Rongelap Resettlement Trust Fund.

    Subsistence atoll life
    All of this was important — it both showed that islanders with a PhD in subsistence atoll life understood more about their situation than the US government’s university educated PhDs and medical doctors who showed up from time-to-time to study them, provide medical treatment, and tell them everything was fine on their atoll, and it produced a $45 million fund from the US government.

    However, this is only a fraction of the story about why the Rongelap evacuation in 1985 forever changed the US narrative and control of its nuclear test legacy in this country.

    On arrival in Majuro March 11, the crew of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior III vessel were serenaded by the Rongelap community to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Islanders from their nuclear test-affected islands. Photo: Giff Johnson.
    The crew of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior III vessel were serenaded by the Rongelap community to mark the 40th anniversary of the evacuation of Rongelap Islanders from their nuclear test-affected islands this week in Majuro. Image: Giff Johnson/RNZ Pacific

    Rongelap is the most affected population from the US hydrogen bomb testing programme in the 1950s.

    By living on Rongelap, the community confirmed the US government’s narrative that all was good and the nuclear test legacy was largely a relic of the past.

    The 1985 evacuation was a demonstration of the Rongelap community exerting control over their life after 31 years of dictates by US government doctors, scientists and officials.

    It was difficult building a new community on Mejatto Island, which was uninhabited and barren in 1985. Make no mistake, Rongelap people living on Mejatto suffered hardship and privation, especially in the first years after the 1985 resettlement.

    Nuclear legacy history
    Their perseverance, however, defined the larger ramification of the move to Mejatto: It changed the course of nuclear legacy history by people taking control of their future that forced a response from the US government to the benefit of the Rongelap community.

    Forty years later, the displacement of Rongelap Islanders on Mejatto and in other locations, unable to return to nuclear test contaminated Rongelap Atoll demonstrates clearly that the US nuclear testing legacy remains unresolved — unfinished business that is in need of a long-term, fair and just response from the US government.

    The Rainbow Warrior will be in Majuro until next week when it will depart for Mejatto Island to mark the 40th anniversary of the resettlement, and then voyage to other nuclear test-affected atolls around the Marshall Islands.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Nowhere to Belong: The Refugee’s Dilemma

    Political gains and dominance are some of the most notable captivating culpable twin objectives cum baits behind waging war. But on the other hand, the hardships and struggle of being a refugee is one of the most dreadful tumultuous aftermaths a war can shave out in the hands of an ordinary man. Fear, uncertainty, and arguably the most dominant element, finding oneself amongst many more displaced lost like a grain of sand, are excruciating and provocative to one’s stimuli.

    For refugees, life straddles between a lovely lost homeland and an unwelcoming new land, leaving them suspended in a fragile existence. This is what the enigmatic life of a refugee straddles incessantly. It constantly seeks and combats plausible answers via scraping out a layer of heavy dust over the infinite, eternal truth of WHO, WHEN, AND HOW. A refugee’s FUTURE, PRESENT, AND PAST seem somewhat blurry and uncertain, longing for a golden ray of hope. Thereby losing a sense of identity are some inexorable shiny traits that a refugee’s life mirrors.

    The Burden of Alienation

    Refugees perpetually experience a dilemma itching back in their heads of an unwanted weed relentlessly. They strive to trace out a sense of desirable congruence commonality, attempting both to absorb a fruitful and futile mental cum psychological satisfaction in a place that never was, never is, and never would be, at least in near future generation presently to be fondly labeled as your MOTHERLAND drenched in utmost pride without any grudges. Earlier NOWHERE but now NOW HERE, suddenly appearing from SOMEWHERE out of the blue behind the bush. At first sight, bridging this deep, endless gap to equilibrium via killing the buoyancy of a persistent enigma behind the curtain between the WORLD and THEIR WORLD filled with dubious contradictory beliefs stuffed with qualms, problems, and hesitation ought to become the sole self-motto and essence of both their straddled life and inner conscience.

    Psychological Meaningless Toll of War on Refugee Life

    That outsider alienated feeling lingering in their soul both haunts and hunts them on a regular note induced with a bittersweet chorus from inside on a heartfelt rhythmic tune. War leaves deep wounds, bleeding, stitches, and scars on the heart, marching them towards a slow, numb emotional breakdown. Parallel to this, it pulls them inside an escape room, rooting them to an eventual smothering and choking state in all possible “ideal” manners, i.e., culturally, environmentally, psychologically, socially, physically, lingual, mentally, aesthetically, spiritually, morally, and an array of other ways, alas! Regrettably.

    But as the legendary 20th-century French Nobel prize-winning philosopher Albert Camus’s theory circling his core philosophical principle theme and beliefs in his writings gets beautifully sculpted in his magnum opus 1942 novel The Stranger, the inherent nature of MEANINGLESSNESS is brightly evident even here! These factors appearing in a diabolical dystopia distantly have a significant disparity and impact, ultimately leading to an utter sense of both nonsensical AMBIGUITY AND ABSURDITY, later bearing quite nearly zero output and value except driving a dark fruit of sadism or even masochism in both overall view and perception after summing it all thoroughly.

    The Historical Cycle of Refugee Crises

    Dissolution of empires, independence, freedom struggle, war, partition, and many others are the grounds where refugees are born, being a victim and paying the ridiculously hefty price of someone else’s crime. It is traumatically complex and challenging to commute like an innocent culprit under the wires across the borders, moving from one place to another, lying unnoticed in a concentration camp, nearly like a lifeless being, and that too forcefully! Being ‘transported’ over millennia, again and again, innumerable times.

    In the 19th century, the world witnessed the first mass displacement, later during the Balkan Wars and both World Wars I and II, with more than 100 million ordinary civilians officially tagged as refugees (UNHCR History). These relentless incidents have marked mass population and demographic disruptions around the globe, leaving a lasting impression for centuries to come.

    Widely acknowledged as one of the most influential and greatest philosophers of all time (even by meticulous critics), the German genius Karl Marx rightly quoted, “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce”. True to his words, another such eye-opening illustration is seen in the advent of the 21st century, dated on February 20, 2014, when the world oversaw yet another refugee emergency amidst the war between Russia and Ukraine. The crisis has “manufactured” more than 5 million war refugees globally, and the count continues to rise.

    Global Refugee Statistics

    According to UNHCR reports, around 100 million people have been displaced in the past decade. Approximately 72% of refugees come from just five countries: Venezuela, Turkey, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Approximately 36% of refugee-hosting countries are only five countries: Pakistan, Turkey, Uganda, Colombia, and Germany. Children alone constitute 36.5 million of the refugee population, with 1.5 million children born yearly carrying the refugee ‘birthmark.’

    Examining the Indian refugee scenario, the country houses more than 400,000 refugees belonging to the Muslim and Sikh communities, with the Afghan Rohingya genocide group as an eminent example (World Data on India). Conversely, countries like the UK, the USA, and Canada also have Indian refugees. Meanwhile, nations like Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia accept the least number of refugees, as per the Migrant Acceptance Index (US News Report).

    Economic Burden and Surveillance

    Around 85% of the funds spent on refugees under UNHCR come from the European Union (EU), with another 25% from miscellaneous sources. In 2015 alone, host countries shouldered an enormous financial aid burden of $131.6 billion (OECD Report). This expense could soon fracture many world economies.

    The canvas of living such a discriminatory, xenophobic, painful life gets painted in shades of grey, gripping one’s actions and deeds under a watchful radar—sometimes both intentionally and unintentionally. The biggest irony is the battle with both external and internal suffocation. One seeks solace and peace, striving to explore the inner self in a new, colorful manner.

    The Bitter Irony of Homeland

    Observing the volatile nature of world politics makes one quickly realize the high value of safety, freedom, political stability, and peace that a native country provides! It is a striking and thought-provoking contrast. However, drawing lessons from a refugee’s dilemma, one sees the bitter irony: those fortunate enough to have a homeland often take it for granted, complaining about trivial matters instead of appreciating their privilege. The refugee’s dilemma is not just a burden- it is a global responsibility. In this crisis, millions will be stranded between worlds, searching for a place they belong. Their struggle is not just one of survival but of reclaiming dignity in a world that too often sees them as burdens rather than victims of circumstances beyond their control.

    The post Nowhere to Belong: The Refugee’s Dilemma first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The world cannot ignore Trump’s death threat to the people of Gaza

    COMMENTARY: By Ahmed Najar

    ‘To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!’

    These were not the words of some far-right provocateur lurking in a dark corner of the internet. They were not shouted by an unhinged warlord seeking vengeance.

    No, these were the words of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world. A man who with a signature, a speech or a single phrase can shape the fate of entire nations.

    And yet, with all this power, all this influence, his words to the people of Gaza were not of peace, not of diplomacy, not of relief — but of death.

    I read them and I feel sick.

    Because I know exactly who he is speaking to. He is speaking to my family. To my parents, who lost relatives and their home.

    To my siblings, who no longer have a place to return to. To the starving children in Gaza, who have done nothing but be born to a people the world has deemed unworthy of existence.

    To the grieving mothers who have buried their children. To the fathers who can do nothing but watch their babies die in their arms.

    To the people who have lost everything and yet are still expected to endure more.

    No future left
    Trump speaks of a “beautiful future” for the people of Gaza. But there is no future left where homes are gone, where whole families have been erased, where children have been massacred.

    I read these words and I ask: What kind of a world do we live in?

    President-elect Donald Trump
    President Trump’s “words are criminal. They are a direct endorsement of genocide. The people of Gaza are not responsible for what is happening. They are not holding hostages.” Image: NYT screenshot/APR/X@@xandrerodriguez

    A world where the leader of the so-called “free world” can issue a blanket death sentence to an entire population — two million people, most of whom are displaced, starving and barely clinging to life.

    A world where a man who commands the most powerful military can sit in his office, insulated from the screams, the blood, the unbearable stench of death, and declare that if the people of Gaza do not comply with his demand — if they do not somehow magically find and free hostages they have no control over — then they are simply “dead”.

    A world where genocide survivors are given an ultimatum of mass death by a man who claims to stand for peace.

    This is not just absurd. It is evil.

    Trump’s words are criminal. They are a direct endorsement of genocide. The people of Gaza are not responsible for what is happening. They are not holding hostages.

    Trapped by an Israeli war machine
    They are the hostages – trapped by an Israeli war machine that has stolen everything from them. Hostages to a brutal siege that has starved them, bombed them, displaced them, left them with nowhere to go.

    And now, they have become hostages to the most powerful man on Earth, who threatens them with more suffering, more death, unless they meet a demand they are incapable of fulfilling.

    Most cynically, Trump knows his words will not be met with any meaningful pushback. Who in the American political establishment will hold him accountable for threatening genocide?

    The Democratic Party, which enabled Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza? Congress, which overwhelmingly supports sending US military aid to Israel with no conditions? The mainstream media, which have systematically erased Palestinian suffering?

    There is no political cost for Trump to make such statements. If anything, they bolster his position.

    This is the world we live in. A world where Palestinian lives are so disposable that the President of the United States can threaten mass death without fear of any consequences.

    I write this because I refuse to let this be just another outrageous Trump statement that people laugh off, that the media turns into a spectacle, that the world forgets.

    My heart. My everything
    I write this because Gaza is not a talking point. It is not a headline. It is my home. My family. My history. My heart. My everything.

    And I refuse to accept that the President of the United States can issue death threats to my people with impunity.

    The people of Gaza do not control their own fate. They have never had that luxury. Their fate has always been dictated by the bombs that fall on them, by the siege that starves them, by the governments that abandon them.

    And now, their fate is being dictated by a man in Washington, DC, who sees no issue with threatening the annihilation of an entire population.

    So I ask again: What kind of world do we live in?

    And how long will we allow it to remain this way?

    Ahmed Najar is a Palestinian political analyst and a playwright. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Four decades after Rongelap evacuation, Greenpeace makes new plea for nuclear justice by US

    Asia Pacific Report

    In the year marking 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents and 71 years since the most powerful nuclear weapons tested by the United States, Greenpeace is calling on Washington to comply with demands by the Marshall Islands for nuclear justice.

    “The Marshall Islands bears the deepest scars of a dark legacy — nuclear contamination, forced displacement, and premeditated human experimentation at the hands of the US government,” said Greenpeace spokesperson Shiva Gounden.

    To mark the Marshall Islands’ Remembrance Day today, the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior is flying the republic’s flag at halfmast in solidarity with those who lost their lives and are suffering ongoing trauma as a result of US nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.

    On 1 March 1954, the Castle Bravo nuclear bomb was detonated on Bikini Atoll with a blast 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

    On Rongelap Atoll, 150 km away, radioactive fallout rained onto the inhabited island, with children mistaking it as snow.

    The Rainbow Warrior is sailing to the Marshall Islands where a mission led by Greenpeace will conduct independent scientific research across the country, the results of which will eventually be given to the National Nuclear Commission to support the Marshall Islands government’s ongoing legal proceedings with the US and at the UN.

    The voyage also marks 40 years since Greenpeace’s original Rainbow Warrior evacuated the people of Rongelap after toxic nuclear fallout rendered their ancestral land uninhabitable.

    Still enduring fallout
    Marshall Islands communities still endure the physical, economic, and cultural fallout of the nuclear tests — compensation from the US has fallen far short of expectations of the islanders who are yet to receive an apology.

    And the accelerating impacts of the climate crisis threaten further displacement of communities.


    Former Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum’s “nuclear justice” speech as Right Livelihood Award Winner in 2009. Video: Voices Rising

    “To this day, Marshall Islanders continue to grapple with this injustice while standing on the frontlines of the climate crisis — facing yet another wave of displacement and devastation for a catastrophe they did not create,” Gounden said.

    “But the Marshallese people and their government are not just survivors — they are warriors for justice, among the most powerful voices demanding bold action, accountability, and reparations on the global stage.

    “Those who have inflicted unimaginable harm on the Marshallese must be held to account and made to pay for the devastation they caused.

    “Greenpeace stands unwaveringly beside Marshallese communities in their fight for justice. Jimwe im Maron.”

    The Rainbow Warrior crew members hold the Marshall Islands flag
    Rainbow Warrior crew members holding the Marshall Islands flag . . . remembering the anniversary of the devastating Castle Bravo nuclear test – 1000 times more powerful than Hiroshima – on 1 March 1954. Image: Greenpeace International
    Chair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission Ariana Tibon-Kilma
    Chair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission Ariana Tibon-Kilma . . . “the trauma of Bravo continues for the remaining survivors and their descendents.” Image: UN Human Rights Council

    Ariana Tibon Kilma, chair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission, said that the immediate effects of the Bravo bomb on March 1 were “harrowing”.

    “Hours after exposure, many people fell ill — skin peeling off, burning sensation in their eyes, their stomachs were churning in pain. Mothers watched as their children’s hair fell to the ground and blisters devoured their bodies overnight,” she said.

    “Without their consent, the United States government enrolled them as ‘test subjects’ in a top secret medical study on the effects of radiation on human beings — a study that continued for 40 years.

    “Today on Remembrance Day the trauma of Bravo continues for the remaining survivors and their descendents — this is a legacy not only of suffering, loss, and frustration, but also of strength, unity, and unwavering commitment to justice, truth and accountability.”

    The new Rainbow Warrior will arrive in the Marshall Islands early this month.

    Alongside the government of the Marshall Islands, Greenpeace will lead an independent scientific mission into the ongoing impacts of the US weapons testing programme.

    Travelling across the country, Greenpeace will reaffirm its solidarity with the Marshallese people — now facing further harm and displacement from the climate crisis, and the emerging threat of deep sea mining in the Pacific.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Labour just announced spending CUTS deeper than the Tories EVER did

    On Tuesday 25 February, Keir Starmer announced a significant policy shift: increasing defence spending to 2.5% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2027. Yet this boost in military expenditure is to be financed by spending cuts to the foreign aid budget – from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP. Starmer emphasised that this move represents the most substantial rise in defence funding since the end of the Cold War. However, he has also out in place a bigger cut to foreign aid than the Conservative Party ever did.

    The decision has sparked considerable outrage. Aid organisations have expressed deep concern, labeling the cuts to overseas development assistance as “truly catastrophic” for vulnerable populations worldwide.

    Hannah Bond, CEO of ActionAid UK, criticised the government for “raiding the already diminished ODA budget,” highlighting the severe impact on marginalised communities, especially women and girls in conflict zones.

    Similarly, Rose Caldwell, chief executive of Plan International UK, warned that the reduction comes at a time of unprecedented humanitarian need, potentially exacerbating crises in regions like Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan. ​

    Spending cuts to foreign aid: ‘appalling’

    In reaction to the announcement, Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development and humanitarian assistance said:

    This is a short-sighted and appalling move by both the PM and Treasury. Slashing the already diminished UK aid budget to fund an uplift in defence is a reckless decision that will have devastating consequences for millions of marginalised people worldwide.

    Following in the US’s footsteps will not only undermine the UK’s global commitments and credibility, but also weaken our own national security interests. Instead of stepping up, the UK is turning its back on communities facing poverty, conflict and insecurity, further damaging its credibility on the global stage.

    Tragically, this cut is even deeper than the last Conservative government’s and will destroy this Labour government’s reputation, tearing to shreds their previous manifesto commitments to rebuild the UK’s international reputation as a reliable global partner.

    Within the political sphere, reactions are mixed. Labour Party MP Sarah Champion, chair of the Commons International Development Committee, urged Starmer to reconsider, arguing that diverting funds from aid to defence is a “false economy” that could undermine global security and stability.

    Economists from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have weighed in, suggesting that even with the proposed cuts to foreign aid, achieving the 2.5% GDP target for defence spending will necessitate additional financial measures. These could include either raising taxes or implementing cuts in other government sectors to accommodate the increased military budget. ​

    Campaign groups have also hit back.

    Making the threat of war more likely

    After Starmer also said the goal was to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP, Stop the War convenor Lindsey German said:

    The prime minister’s announcement of a rapid increase in ‘defence’ spending to 2.6% by 2027 and to 3% in the next parliament was designed to appease Donald Trump and the right wing in Britain. It will take the money from overseas development budgets, consigning some of the poorest people in the world to become even poorer. But no worry – Britain will develop more arms and more weapons to facilitate the increasing wars taking place throughout the world.

    There is something grotesquely awful about a Labour government denying the WASPI women around £10 billion in one off compensation but then immediately committing to £13 billion a year for this increased spending. Starmer lauded the previous generations who have fought in wars but is prepared for them to be cold and hungry to promote his imperial ambitions.

    She continued:

    This decision will make the threat of war more likely. It will tie the ailing British economy even more to military production (and indeed to US arms companies) with the consequent threats to public spending in other areas. The claim that it will help British jobs is one that no one should be fooled by. Any big increase in spending – on housing and health for example – would have the same effect. Many of the jobs in ‘defence’ are in the US and elsewhere. As number of studies have shown, defence expenditure is one of the least efficient ways of creating jobs.

    The trade unions who welcome this are deluding themselves: it will do little for their members in those industries and will worsen the social security of housing, health and education that millions of workers in this country desperately need.

    The beneficiaries will be the warmongers and the arms companies, whose profits are assured. They want wars to continue. It is not in any of our interests to do anything but oppose them.

    Featured image via the House of Commons

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.