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Category: refugees

  • Djokovic Is Obnoxious, But His Story Highlights Cruelty of Australian Detention

    Novak Djokovic exclaims while holding a tennis racket

    Tennis player Novak Djokovic’s refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19 — and his subsequent efforts to manipulate Australia’s medical exemption system so as to be allowed a visa to enter the country and compete in the first Grand Slam of the year — is one of the most surreal developments in tennis history.

    As of this writing, the stubbornly unvaccinated Djokovic is still in Australia, and still slated to play in the championships starting on Monday. Yet, for days now, he’s been hanging on by a thread. On Friday evening, Australian time, Alex Hawke, the country’s immigration minister, decided, for the second time in nine days, to expel him from the country for breaking quarantine rules while infected with COVID, for misleading immigration authorities about his travels prior to entering the country earlier this month, and for becoming a focal point of anti-vaccine sentiment in the country.

    Djokovic’s team is appealing, but he is quickly running out of options. It is more than probable that the world’s best tennis player will, just before the Australian Open begins, be unceremoniously dumped onto a plane and told not to return to Australia for at least three years.

    The course of events that have unfolded since Djokovic was first detained by immigration authorities on January 5 is an extraordinary example of self-sabotage from one of the sporting world’s most famous figures, who, in recent years, acquired the media nickname “No-Vax Djokovic” for his controversial opinions regarding vaccines.

    But, by accident rather than design, Djokovic’s surreal and self-inflicted drama has also served the important purpose of turning global public attention toward the cruel treatment that Australia routinely metes out to undocumented immigrants seeking asylum in the country.

    To summarize events to date: Australia — which implemented one of the world’s strictest and longest lockdowns in an effort to emulate China’s zero-COVID stance — has a policy of only letting vaccinated travelers enter the country. Medical exemptions are allowed, but the criteria for these exemptions is narrow. A couple weeks ago, however, Djokovic, a nine-time winner of the Australian Open, boarded a plane to Australia unvaccinated, having been granted an exemption to allow him in.

    After a hullabaloo about this, the country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, went on a very public warpath against the world’s top tennis player. As a result, when the Serbian player arrived, he was promptly detained by immigration authorities, who noted that the type of visa he had applied for didn’t allow for medical exemptions. After a night of arguing with authorities, Djokovic — who is tied with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal for the most Grand Slam wins of any male player in history, and who was predicted by many to win the Australian Open and break the tie — was unceremoniously carted off to a detention center and locked up in a room with several other detainees.

    The hotel-cum-jail that Djokovic ended up in housed several dozen would-be refugees and asylum seekers caught up in Australia’s notoriously harsh immigration detention system. Nine years ago, the current Liberal-National governing coalition got elected on a “stopping the boats” anti-immigration policy, implementing Operation Sovereign Borders to repel boatloads of refugees. Soon afterwards, it began locking up would-be immigrants in off-shore detention sites on the islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, and only reluctantly let some onto mainland Australian soil when they were too sick to be kept in the island detention fortresses any longer. Once in Australia, they were housed in overcrowded and under-resourced privately run “hotels” for years at a stretch. Some of those with whom Djokovic was detained have been held for up to nine years, since the earliest days of Operation Sovereign Borders.

    Djokovic spent the weekend in the Park Hotel detention center, in a suburb of Melbourne. Those incarcerated in the detention center have to ask permission to use the bathroom, and are shackled before being moved from one part of the facility to another. They are provided with such low caloric intake that human rights activists say the food regimen amounts to near-starvation conditions — and what food there is, critics say, is sometimes filled with maggots. Sick people incarcerated at the Park Hotel continue to be provided with deeply substandard medical care despite a series of lawsuits against the agencies responsible for maintaining services in the detention sites. Djokovic’s parents, in a series of broadsides, accused the authorities of torturing him.

    On Monday, a judge ordered his release, and, in a scathing rebuke of the government, announced that Djokovic had abided by all the requirements to secure an exemption — including providing proof that he had recently tested positive for COVID — and that he should, therefore, be allowed to stay in the country.

    Despite it being late at night, the tennis player, famed for his focus and will to win, immediately headed to the practice courts.

    But, in the days since, a barrage of revelations has shattered Djokovic’s reputation and given Australia’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, an opening to once more seek to deport the sports megastar. The German daily newspaper Der Spiegel published an investigation casting doubt on the authenticity and date of Djokovic’s supposed positive COVID test on December 16. The investigation suggested that the data had been manipulated in order to give Djokovic cover for claiming a medical exemption, open to people recently infected with, and recovered from, COVID that he otherwise would not have had access to. In quick succession, it also turned out that Djokovic had attended several indoor, unmasked events shortly after supposedly testing positive, and that he had also given an interview to a French sports journalist without letting the journalist know that he had an active case of COVID.

    Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Djokovic either conjured up a fake-positive test result to game the Australian immigration system, or he genuinely tested positive and didn’t care enough to abide by basic quarantine restrictions that have been in place the world over for the past two years.

    Making matters worse, it then turned out that Djokovic’s immigration forms contained a bald-faced lie. Someone on his team had ticked that he hadn’t traveled anywhere other than Spain in the 14 days prior to boarding a flight from Spain, via Dubai, to Melbourne. In fact, numerous photos soon circulated showing that the tennis superstar had also been in Serbia during this time, where he had attended a series of high-profile ceremonies in his honor. Djokovic put out a perfunctory apology on Instagram, saying his team member had simply made an honest mistake in filling out the form wrong. But the damage was done: Lying on immigration paperwork is grounds both for deportation and also imprisonment.

    As I write this, on Friday morning California time, with less than three days left before play begins at the Australian Open, Hawke has once more revoked Djokovic’s visa, and the tennis star, seeded number one in the upcoming championships, has agreed to surrender for further questioning on Saturday morning. Barring another extraordinary twist in the legal saga, Djokovic will be unable to play in the event.

    If and when “No-Vax” Djokovic is expelled from Australia, he will have no one to blame but himself. It’s a tennis tragedy with more than an absurdist tinge to it.

    Meanwhile, thousands of would-be refugees and asylum seekers continue to be held in appalling conditions in Nauru, in Papua New Guinea and in Australia itself in hotels such as the Park. Their stories are the true stories of injustice, and the conditions they are held in for years at a stretch, as a result of the Australian government’s embrace of harsh anti-immigration measures, are a human rights violation that deserves the world’s attention.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • First planeload of Afghan human rights defenders has landed in Ottawa

    Immigration Minister Sean Fraser rises during Question Period, in Ottawa, Dec. 10, 2021. Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press

    Six months after the federal government promised to help thousands of Afghan women leaders, human- rights activists and journalists flee to Canada, the first planeload has landed.

    Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced the arrival of 252 Afghan refugees on Tuesday, including the first 170 admitted through a special program for people the government deems to be human-rights defenders.

    “It is a privilege to welcome today this cohort of Afghan refugees, who face persecution as a result of their work to protect the human rights of others,” Mr. Fraser said in a statement.

    “I am grateful for their work to document and prevent human rights abuses and proud that they now call our country home.”

    The Liberal government launched the special program in July after weeks of criticism from angry Canadian veterans upset Ottawa wasn’t doing more to help Afghans facing possible Taliban reprisals for having worked with Canada in the past.

    Mr. Fraser’s office said the 170 who arrived through the special program had been referred to Canada by the Ireland-based human-rights organization Front Line Defenders, which has been working to identify those most at risk.

    The Liberals have promised to resettle 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada, but nearly all of those are expected to be people living in UN camps in Pakistan and other neighbouring countries.

    With Monday’s arrivals, the government says it has so far resettled about 6,750 Afghan refugees in Canada. Fraser suggested last month that it could take up to two years for the government to meet its promise of bringing in 40,000 Afghans.

    Veterans and refugee groups aren’t the only ones who have lamented the pace of the government’s efforts when it comes to helping Afghans escape to Canada, with opposition parties also joining the chorus of criticism in recent months.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-first-afghan-human-rights-activists-arrive-six-months-after-ottawas/

    https://pajhwok.com/2022/01/12/over-250-afghans-including-rights-defenders-arrive-in-canada/

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

  • Australia’s stances on climate crisis and asylum seekers ‘backwards’, Human Rights Watch says

    Human rights report slams Australian treatment of refugees as in previous years, and addresses climate for the first time

    Australia’s “backwards” positions on global heating and asylum seekers are becoming increasingly unacceptable to the world, a leading human rights group says.

    Human Rights Watch launched its annual world report on Thursday, again finding “serious human rights issues” in Australia, despite its overall record as a strong, multicultural democracy.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Coming This 2022: Refugees, Democracy and Human Rights

    Although 2021 is now behind us, there are many issues that will linger for a while, or much longer, and will certainly dominate much of the news in 2022, as well. These are but a few of the issues.

    NATO-Russian Brinkmanship 

    Exasperated with NATO expansion and growing ambitions in the Black Sea region, Moscow has decided to challenge the US-led Western alliance in an area of crucial geopolitical importance to Russia.

    Ukraine’s quest for NATO membership, especially following the Crimea conflict in 2014, proved to be a red line for Russia. Starting in late 2021, the US and its European allies began accusing Russia of amassing its forces at the Ukrainian border, suggesting that outright military invasion would soon follow. Russia denied such accusations, insisting that a military solution can be avoided if Russia’s geopolitical interests are respected.

    Some analysts argue that Russia is seeking to “coerce the west to start the new Yalta talks,” a reference to a US, UK and Russia summit at the conclusion of World War II. If Russia achieves its objectives, NATO will no longer be able to exploit Russia’s fault lines throughout its Western borders.

    While NATO members, especially the US, want to send a strong message to Russia – and China – that the defeat in Afghanistan will not affect their global prestige or tarnish their power, Russia is confident that it has enough political, economic, military and strategic cards that would allow it to eventually prevail.

    China’s Unhindered Rise 

    Another global tussle is also underway. For years, the US unleashed an open global war to curb China’s rise as a global economic power. While the 2019 ‘Trade War’, instigated by the Donald Trump administration against China delivered lukewarm results, China’s ability to withstand pressure, control with mathematical precision the spread, within China, of the Covid-19 pandemic, and continue to fuel the global economy has proved that Beijing is not easy prey.

    An example of the above assertion is the anticipated revival of the Chinese tech giant, Huawei. The war on Huawei served as a microcosm of the larger war on China. British writer, Tom Fowdy, described this war as “blocking exports to (Huawei), isolating it from global chipmakers, forcing allies to ban its participation in their 5G networks, imposing criminal charges against it and kidnapping one of its senior executives”.

    However, this is failing, according to Fowdy. 2022 is the year in which Huawei is expected to wage massive global investments that will allow it to overcome many of these obstacles and become self-sustaining in terms of the technologies required to fuel its operations worldwide.

    Aside from Huawei, China plans to escalate its response to American pressures by expanding its manufacturing platforms, creating new markets and fortifying its alliances, especially with Moscow. A Chinese-Russian alliance is particularly important for Beijing as both countries are experiencing strong US-Western pushback.

    2022 is likely to be the year in which Russia and China, in the words of Beijing’s Ambassador to Moscow, Zhang Hanhui, stage a “response to such overt (US) hegemony and power politics”, where both “continue to deepen back-to-back strategic cooperation.”

    The World ‘Hanging by a Thread’

    However, other conflicts exist beyond politics and economy. There is also the war unleashed on our planet by those who favor profits over the welfare of future generations. While the Glasgow Climate Pact COP26 began with lofty promises in Scotland in November, it concluded with political compromises that hardly live up to the fact that, per the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “we are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe”.

    True, in 2022 many tragedies will be attributed to climate change. However, it will also be a year in which millions of people around the world will continue to push for a collective, non-political response to the ‘climate catastrophe’. While Planet Earth is “hanging by a thread” – according to Guterres – political compromises that favor the rich become the obstacle, not the solution. Only a global movement of well-integrated civil societies worldwide can compel politicians to heed the wishes of the people.

    Refugees, Democracy and Human Rights

    The adverse effects of climate change can be felt in myriad ways that go beyond the immediate damage inflicted by erratic weather conditions. War, revolutions, endemic socio-economic inequalities, mass migration and refugee crises are a few examples of how climate change has destabilized many parts of the world and wrought pain and suffering to numerous communities worldwide.

    The issue of migration and refugees will continue to pose a threat to global stability in 2022, since none of the root causes that forced millions of people to leave their homes in search of safer and better lives have been addressed. Instead of contending with the roots of the problem – climate change, military interventions, inequality, etc. – quite often the hapless refugees find themselves accused and demonized as agents of instability in Western societies.

    This, in turn, has served as a political and, at times, moral justification for the rise of far-right political movements in Europe and elsewhere, which are spreading falsehoods, championing racism and undermining whatever semblance of democracy that exists in their countries.

    2022 must not be allowed to be another year of pessimism.  It can also be a year of hope and promise. But that is only possible if we play our role as active citizens to bring about the coveted change that we would like to see in the world.

    Happy 2022!

    The post Coming This 2022: Refugees, Democracy and Human Rights first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Park Hotel is a hellhole, free the refugees

    While Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic in the detention of the same hotel refugee rights activists have taken to opportunity to protest the detention of refugees brought to Australia under the Medevac law in 2019.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • I Worked for a Refugee Support Organization in Calais. Here’s What I Saw.

    Refugees queue for food distributed by a local NGO on November 7, 2021, in Calais, France.

    There is a hill in Dover, England, that winds down from the main road through housing estates, past schools and to the town center and port. On the hill, somewhere just before Christ Church secondary school, is a section of road characterized by mini-roundabouts, each of them painted with the slightly fading white and red of the St. George cross.

    At the bottom of the hill, inside Dover’s shipping port, a red line on the floor designates the bicycle check-in route. The line weaves between trucking lanes and the port reception building, and approaches the small passport control booth, where five or six armed border officers are busy eating their breakfast.

    The officer at the window checks passports, assesses would-be travelers, and asks the necessary questions. The French city of Calais is a short ferry ride (just 21 miles) across the English Channel. It’s the most popular landing point for British tourists traveling to the continent by boat, but for those planning to spend a night in the area, serious warnings are issued: There are migrants operating in the Calais area. Travelers must be “aware of this, and very careful.”

    Dunkirk

    It’s Tuesday afternoon in Dunkirk, France, and a large van has pulled off the motorway, slowed down to a crawl, and turned a hard left onto the narrow farm service road. The van chugs on for another 100 meters, then pulls into a dusty gravel parking lot, where a number of organizations have gathered to offer services to the refugees who live nearby.

    The services on offer today will include food bags for four people, hot drinks, basic medical attention, hairdressing facilities, phone charging, and games such as Dominoes and Connect 4.

    The scene itself is not an oddity in Calais or Dunkirk. Look out the window of a passing car, and you might just see it. A small collection of vehicles, with plastic-gloved volunteers distributing basic goods to 80 or so refugees out the back.

    There are an estimated 2,000 refugees living like this in the Calais/Dunkirk region. The nationalities and cultures represented are numerous: Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan, Eritrean and Kurdish. Officially, these tent and tarpaulin settlements — often situated in forests, under bridges or on fallow farmland — are illegal. But recognized by the state or not, it’s here that the refugee communities are sleeping and gaining access to basic provisions.

    It’s 2 pm when the van pulls in, and the volunteers climb out. Two of them usher the vehicle into position and others place cones down to encourage spacing. A coordinator jumps out, unlocks the rear door and wrenches it back.

    While the bags begin to be handed down and distribution gathers pace, a huddle of people has formed to one side. This is a familiar practice, some of the community always choosing to wait apart from the others. Today the group consists of two women, a man with a crutch and a lone 10-year-old boy. Servicing this separate group is always a balancing act. Today the weather is good, and there’s plenty of food to go around, but these are desperate living conditions, and there can be complex internal relationships and hierarchies at play.

    After waiting some time, the two women receive a food bag, and the man with the crutch drifts away with another group. But 15 minutes later, when the last bag is distributed and the van door slams shut, the boy is left protesting on his own. His family is asleep at the camps, he says, and he needs the bag to take back and share with them. The story sounds believable enough, but true or not, there is an important precedent in place, and a four-person bag cannot be handed to a single individual.

    Off to the left of the car park scene, a fold-out camping table has been set up along the edges of the trees. Crouched down behind the table, an Afghan refugee and an international volunteer are filling up cups of water from two large tanks, lining them up on the tabletop above.

    “What will happen here in the winter?” the refugee says. “I think it’s getting too cold.”

    The volunteer looks up at him, “You stay here for longer?” she says. The man shakes his head.

    “I don’t know,” he says.

    “And this winter?” the volunteer asks. “What is your plan for this winter?”

    The man laughs, turning his palms over to face the sky.

    “My plan?” he repeats, grinning and shaking his head. “Yes, what is my plan?”

    The man is dehydrated, the skin on his cheeks folding like tissue paper as he smiles. Today the scene in front of them is ordered and calm, but over the next month, there will be regular nightly raids by the French police, looking to leverage the seasonal change to push the refugees from the coastal region. Zooming out further still, we see a chaotic political climate, growing international tensions over border control and the threat of hostile policy changes in 2022.

    “Hospital”

    There is a large hospital that serves the Calais area. Between the hospital building and the distant motorway fly-over, there is a system of roundabouts, fishing lakes and scrub-land, and it’s here, hidden behind the first line of bushes, that we find the largest settlement of refugees in the region. This site, named “Hospital,” is home to a highly transitory, mixed-nationality community. Distributions here are busy. The atmosphere is usually controlled and calm, but living conditions like this must be treated with respect. There are countless unseen factors that can break the balance of stability.

    It is a Friday. Distribution would usually take place at Hospital on Saturday afternoons, but other organizations and community liaisons have reported disturbing news: The previous night, the police went into the settlement with tear gas, dismantled and destroyed the tents and possessions, loaded many of the inhabitants onto buses, and transported them away from the area. According to the coordinator, the exact relocation point of the refugees in question is now unknown. If the raid had been planned, it is possible that they would have been dropped at a police station in Arras (the region’s capital). Often however, the intention of relocations like this is simply to scatter, driving the inhabitants far enough away from the hospital to deter them from returning on foot.

    As the volunteers gather for their lunchtime briefing, heavy rain reverberates off the warehouse roof. There has been a change of plan. For those refugees who avoided transportation from the Hospital settlement, or have managed to make their way back in the early hours, there will be a great need for basic provisions.

    At 7:30 pm, the van pulls into the Hospital site, loaded with 150 tarps and 150 blankets. The refugees are aware that they are coming, and have formed a line to collect the goods. They look tired and stretched in the closing light. After a baseline level of poor health, now their only possessions have been taken away from them, and many have faced long journeys on foot to get back to this location.

    The coordinator pulls on the handbrake and turns to brief the volunteers. The current position of the line is not going to work; it will need to be moved about a hundred meters across the car lot.

    While the van repositions itself, the volunteers try to communicate the message calmly. At first the rearrangement looks achievable, with the majority of community members working to maintain order. But as the van parks and the rear door opens, the line begins to march and bunch up, and a few people from the rear make a break for a better position.

    “We have enough for everyone,” the volunteers repeat. But they have said things like this before, and however hard they try to enforce fairness at distribution, the back of the van will always be closed at some point.

    As the refugees form up again, a few men argue for position. A distribution like this would usually be a place for smiles and a few cheeky jokes. But tonight, the community appears glassy-eyed and exhausted. They take the items, thank the distribution team in hushed tones, and make their way back behind the scrub.

    Old Lidl

    The following evening, at the Hospital distribution site, new signs have been erected. This area serviced the largest number of refugees in the region, but now it’s clearly prohibited to distribute here. For the volunteer coordinators, the signage changes are nothing new. Just another temporary measure, brought in by a policing network structured around short-term measures. A 15-minute walk away from Hospital is another well-used refugee site, and reports suggest that the community has moved there.

    This location used to be home to a Lidl supermarket, but now the building has been demolished, leaving an empty parking lot beside a dusty farming field. When the distribution van comes through at 2 pm, the road between Hospital and the old supermarket is a steady stream of people. The van pulls across a set of train tracks and into the lot. Across the dirt field, perhaps 200 meters away, there is a dense tree line with a string of tarpaulins running along its edge. Despite the great desire for tents, blankets, tarps and jackets, the organizations are unable to be reactive, and today’s drop will be the pre-arranged food bags.

    Forty minutes into the distribution, a heavy rain shower comes in. The charging boards are covered with plastic tarps and everyone hurries beneath the cover of the largest trees.

    A group of boys in their early teens are gathering at the rear of the parking lot. Two of them walk off into the distance, heading toward the shadow of an industrial site on the horizon. The others kick at the dust at their feet, and watch them intently.

    Toward the end of the distribution, one of the boys approaches the van, asking for shelter and winter clothing.

    “The police, they come at night and take everything warm,” he says, pointing a finger toward the road. “From the Hospital, we come here, and last night they follow us. They are OK sometimes. But sometimes they shoot gas or abuse … sometimes very bad abuse.” The boy steps back and mimics someone hitting the ground with a club repeatedly.

    After a short time, the rain stops and the organizations collect the trash and prepare to leave. It’s early evening when they climb up into the van and take their seats.

    The key is placed in the ignition, when a member of the refugee community approaches the passenger-side window. The coordinators greet this man by name.

    There is an emergency situation unfolding. The man points off toward the tree line. Last night someone was seriously injured and needs urgent medical attention. There is a protocol for emergencies like this, and the volunteer coordinator steps out of the van to address the situation.

    Ten minutes later, as the coordinator advocates for the injured man, two French riot police transporters arrive with eight officers inside. The officers approach the volunteers, requesting IDs and insurance documents for the vehicles. One of the volunteers isn’t carrying ID, and is threatened with detainment and a large fine.

    But as police retreat to discuss the matter between themselves, the atmosphere seems to have calmed. The leading officer approaches the coordinator, speaking to him authoritatively. This time the organization will be allowed to leave, he says, but next time the maximum fines will be issued.

    Passing Blame

    Following the dismantling of the Hospital settlement, police continued to increase their hostile activities, and Human Rights Watch issued a report warning of the “daily harassment and humiliation” faced by the refugee groups.

    The autumn season had seen a great surge of refugee sea crossings, and with many found dead in the English Channel, and media coverage growing, both United Kingdom Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson publicly blamed the French government.

    In July 2021, Patel had promised a fresh £54 million for increased fencing and police presence in Calais, but now, following the rise of crossings, there are open threats to withhold the money, and French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin declared that “not one euro” has yet been paid.

    As the weeks roll on, the pressure on the refugees continues to mount. In late November, 27 people were found drowned in the channel in a single day, and while U.K. Home Secretary Patel targets the French government for allowing these crossings, her counterpart, Gérald Darmanin, fires back, citing the U.K.’s illegal labor market as the main incentive for the refugee migration. It’s an international blame game that shows little understanding of the complex motivations of the refugee groups, or the shared responsibility that the U.K. and France have for managing the situation. But for Patel and the U.K. government, there is a longer-term focus here at play.

    Toward the summer of 2022, the U.K. government hopes to pass the “Nationality and Borders Bill,” a complete overhaul of the policy in respect to refugee and asylum seeker treatment. A legal review of the legislation, led by eminent human rights lawyer Raza Husain, has found the document in breach of multiple articles across the European Convention for Human Rights and the United Nations Refugee Convention. Husain’s report depicts the bill as a destructive rollback of previous legislation, reversing “a number of important decisions of the UK courts, including at the House of Lords and court of appeal level.”

    If the proposed legislation does pass, refugees trying to make the crossing will be met with criminalization at the U.K. border, subsequent detainment at purpose-built offshore facilities, and the possibility of relocation back to “safe third countries” if their asylum application to the U.K. should be rejected (safe being a complex and subjective concept).

    “What’s clear from these proposals is that Priti Patel’s anti refugee bill is cruel, inhumane and deeply flawed,” concludes British human rights organization Freedom From Torture, and the effect of the new policy “will actually just lead to a greater number of vulnerable people living in limbo, in constant fear of removal to persecution and enduring unbearable hardship and exclusion.”

    But the proposed policy changes wouldn’t stop there. Along with its hard line on asylum application, the bill includes the highly controversial Clause 9, which would allow the government to strip individuals of their British citizenship without any prior warning, if the action to do so was deemed necessary by the secretary of state as within “public interest” or “the interest of national security.” The inclusion of Clause 9 has sparked a massive reaction from the British public, especially among ethnically marginalized groups, and an online petition calling for a review of Clause 9 has now been signed by over 300,000 people. “We believe these provisions should be removed,” the petition’s organizers state. They are “unacceptable, and inconsistent with international human rights obligations.”

    For critics, these sweeping policy changes look like a power grab from the British government, an attempt to establish a higher level of centralized control, with particular long-term consequences for asylum seekers, protesters, and those non-white British communities who are more likely to have their citizenship threatened and be disproportionately criminalized by increased stop and search powers. Whatever the outcomes of policy change in 2022, we can be sure this year will be a stormy one for politics in the U.K.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

    A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

    Continue reading…

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

  • ‘Everyone asks about Novak’ but Mehdi has languished for nine years in Australian immigration detention

    Iranian was 15 when he arrived by boat in Australia seeking sanctuary. Despite formal recognition as a refugee he hasn’t been free since – he turned 24 on Friday

    Nine. Nine birthdays in detention. Mehdi reels them off : “Sixteen, 17, 18, 19 …”

    “I’m 24 now,” he says in resignation. “I’m still here.”

    Continue reading…

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

  • Britain helped create the refugees it now wants to keep out

    The deaths of at least 27 people who drowned as they tried to cross the Channel in an inflatable dinghy in search of asylum have quickly been overshadowed by a diplomatic row engulfing Britain and France.

    As European states struggle to shut their borders to refugees, the two countries are in a war of words over who is responsible for stopping the growing number of small boats trying to reach British shores. Britain has demanded the right to patrol French waters and station border police on French territory, suggesting that France is not up to the job. The French government, meanwhile, has blamed the UK for serving as a magnet for illegal workers by failing to regulate its labour market.

    European leaders are desperate for quick answers. French President Emmanuel Macron called an emergency meeting of regional leaders a week ago to address the “migration” crisis, though Britain’s home secretary, Priti Patel, was disinvited.

    Britain’s post-Brexit government is readier to act unilaterally. It has been intensifying its “hostile environment” policy towards asylum seekers. That includes plans to drive back small boats crossing the Channel, in violation of maritime and international law, and to “offshore” refugees in remote detention camps in places such as Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic. UK legislation is also being drafted to help deport refugees and prosecute those who aid them, in breach of its commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

    Not surprisingly, anti-immigration parties are on the rise across Europe, as governments question the legitimacy of most of those arriving in the region, calling them variously “illegal immigrants”, “invaders” and “economic migrants”.

    The terminology is not only meant to dehumanise those seeking refuge. It is also designed to obscure the West’s responsibility for creating the very conditions that have driven these people from their homes and on to a perilous journey towards a new life.

    Power projection

    In recent years, more than 20,000 refugees are estimated to have died crossing the Mediterranean in small boats to reach Europe, including at least 1,300 so far this year. Only a few of these deaths have been given a face – most notably Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian toddler whose body washed up on the Turkish coast in 2015 after he and others in his family drowned on a small boat trying to get to Europe.

    The numbers trying to reach the UK across the Channel, though smaller, are rising too – as are the deaths. The 27 people who drowned two weeks ago were the single largest loss of life from a Channel crossing since agencies began keeping records seven years ago. Barely noted by the media was the fact that the only two survivors separately said British and French coastguards ignored their phone calls for help as their boat began to sink.

    But no European leader appears ready to address the deeper reasons for the waves of refugees arriving on Europe’s shores – or the West’s role in causing the “migration crisis”.

    The 17 men, seven women, including one who was pregnant, and three children who died were reportedly mostly from Iraq. Others trying to reach Europe are predominantly from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen and parts of North Africa.

    That is not accidental. There is probably nowhere the legacy of western meddling – directly and indirectly – has been felt more acutely than the resource-rich Middle East.

    The roots of this can be traced back more than a century, when Britain, France and other European powers carved up, ruled and plundered the region as part of a colonial project to enrich themselves, especially through the control of oil.

    They pursued strategies of divide and rule to accentuate ethnic tensions and delay local pressure for nation-building and independence. The colonisers also intentionally starved Middle Eastern states of the institutions needed to govern after independence.

    The truth is, however, that Europe never really left the region, and was soon joined by the United States, the new global superpower, to keep rivals such as the Soviet Union and China at bay. They propped up corrupt dictators and intervened to make sure favoured allies stayed put. Oil was too rich a prize to be abandoned to local control.

    Brutal policies

    After the fall of the Soviet Union three decades ago, the Middle East was once again torn apart by western interference – this time masquerading as “humanitarianism”.

    The US has led sanctions regimes, “shock and awe” air strikes, invasions and occupations that devastated states independent of western control, such as Iraq, Libya and Syria. They may have been held together by dictators, but these states – until they were broken apart – provided some of the best education, healthcare and welfare services in the region.

    The brutality of western policies, even before the region’s strongmen were toppled, was trumpeted by figures such as Madeleine Albright, former US President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state. In 1996, when asked about economic sanctions that by then were estimated to have killed half a million Iraqi children in a failed bid to remove Saddam Hussein, she responded: “We think the price is worth it.”

    Groups such as al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State quickly moved in to fill the void that was left after the West laid waste to the economic and social infrastructure associated with these authoritarian governments. They brought their own kind of occupation, fragmenting, oppressing and weakening these societies, and providing additional pretexts for meddling, either directly by the West or through local clients, such as Saudi Arabia.

    States in the region that so far have managed to withstand this western “slash and burn” policy, or have ousted their occupiers – such as Iran and Afghanistan – continue to suffer from crippling, punitive sanctions imposed by the US and Europe. Notably, Afghanistan has emerged from its two-decade, US-led occupation in even poorer shape than when it was invaded.

    Elsewhere, Britain and others have aided Saudi Arabia in its prolonged, near-genocidal bombing campaigns and blockade against Yemen. Recent reports have suggested that as many as 300 Yemeni children are dying each day as a result. And yet, after decades of waging economic warfare on these Middle Eastern countries, western states have the gall to decry those fleeing the collapse of their societies as “economic migrants”.

    Climate crisis

    The fallout from western interference has turned millions across the region into refugees, forced from their homes by escalating ethnic discord, continued fighting, the loss of vital infrastructure, and lands contaminated with ordnance. Today, most are languishing in tent encampments in the region, subsisting on food handouts and little else. The West’s goal is local reintegration: settling these refugees back into a life close to where they formerly lived.

    But the destabilisation caused by western actions throughout the Middle East is being compounded by a second blow, for which the West must also take the lion’s share of the blame.

    Societies destroyed and divided by western-fuelled wars and economic sanctions have been in no position to withstand rising temperatures and ever-longer droughts, which are afflicting the Middle East as the climate crisis takes hold. Chronic water shortages and repeated crop failures – compounded by weak governments unable to assist – are driving people off their lands, in search of better lives elsewhere.

    In recent years, some 1.2 million Afghans were reportedly forced from their homes by a mix of droughts and floods. In August, aid groups warned that more than 12 million Syrians and Iraqis had lost access to water, food and electricity. “The total collapse of water and food production for millions of Syrians and Iraqis is imminent,” said Carsten Hansen, the regional director for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

    According to recent research, “Iran is experiencing unprecedented climate-related problems such as drying of lakes and rivers, dust storms, record-breaking temperatures, droughts, and floods.” In October, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies noted that climate change was wreaking havoc in Yemen too, with extreme flooding and an increased risk of waterborne diseases.

    Western states cannot evade their responsibility for this. Those same countries that asset-stripped the Middle East over the past century also exploited the resulting fossil-fuel bonanza to intensify the industrialisation and modernisation of their own economies. The US and Australia had the highest rates of fossil fuel consumption per capita in 2019, followed by Germany and the UK. China also ranks high, but much of its oil consumption is expended on producing cheap goods for western markets.

    The planet is heating up because of oil-hungry western lifestyles. And now, the early victims of the climate crisis – those in the Middle East whose lands provided that oil – are being denied access to Europe by the very same states that caused their lands to become increasingly uninhabitable.

    Impregnable borders

    Europe is preparing to make its borders impregnable to the victims of its colonial interference, its wars and the climate crisis that its consumption-driven economies have generated. Countries such as Britain are not just worried about the tens of thousands of applications they receive each year for asylum from those who have risked everything for a new life.

    They are looking to the future. Refugee camps are already under severe strain across the Middle East, testing the capacities of their host countries – Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq – to cope.

    Western states know the effects of climate change are only going to worsen, even as they pay lip service to tackling the crisis with a Green New Deal. Millions, rather than the current thousands, will be hammering on Europe’s doors in decades to come.

    Rather than aiding those seeking asylum in the West, the 1951 Refugee Convention may prove to be one of the biggest obstacles they face. It excludes those displaced by climate change, and western states are in no hurry to broaden its provisions. It serves instead as their insurance policy.

    Last month, immediately after the 27 refugees drowned in the Channel, Patel told fellow legislators that it was time “to send a clear message that crossing the Channel in this lethal way, in a small boat, is not the way to come to our country.”

    But the truth is that, if the British government and other European states get their way, there will be no legitimate route to enter for those from the Middle East whose lives and homelands have been destroyed by the West.

    • First published in Middle East Eye

    The post Britain helped create the refugees it now wants to keep out first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A Year in, Biden Hasn’t Fulfilled Promise to Repair Refugee Resettlement Program

    A migrant man holds a baby at the Rio Grande near the Del Rio Port of Entry in Del Rio, Texas, on September 18, 2021.

    On June 20, 2020, World Refugee Day, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden made his most sweeping statement to date on how his administration would differ from his predecessor’s on the rights of migrants. Gone would be the “xenophobia and racism” that were “the unabashed tenets of Trump’s refugee and immigration policy.” Biden pledged to increase the cap on refugees allowed into the United States to 125,000 in his first year in office, and to restore “America’s historic role as leader in resettlement and defending the rights of refugees everywhere.”

    His first year did not go as promised.

    In the fiscal year ending in October 2021, the United States only resettled 11,411 refugees through regular channels. That’s 400 fewer than the previous fiscal year — which itself saw historically low resettlement — and far short of the 62,500 that Biden eventually ordered to be allowed to resettle in the United States in his first year in office. The U.S. has only released data for the first month of the new fiscal year, which shows 401 refugees have been resettled. Biden did finally raise the cap to 125,000, which, if met by the end of September 2022, would represent a massive turnaround not just over previous years, but of the last two decades: The last time the U.S. resettled more than 100,000 refugees was in 1994.

    An additional 40,000 Afghans were temporarily allowed into the United States under a program called humanitarian parole, though they have not been issued green cards, and in most cases, their status expires in a year or two. Roughly 30,000 Afghans still housed on military bases are waiting to be allowed into the United States.

    Sunil Varghese, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Program, told Truthout that Biden’s low numbers have a lot to do with Donald Trump’s successful dismantling of the resettlement infrastructure, but plenty of blame rests with the current administration as well. Biden’s “rhetoric of a human rights-centric approach to migration and foreign policy may not be an overarching, guiding principle, but one of many competing considerations,” Varghese said.

    Other refugee advocates echo the degree to which Trump dismantled the refugee screening and support apparatuses. “The process of facilitating the resettlement of displaced persons into the U.S. is not like a light switch that can be turned on and off,” said Danielle Grigsby, director of external affairs at the Community Sponsorship Hub, which connects refugees with local sponsors and advocates. “The damage inflicted on the resettlement infrastructure will take significant time to repair.”

    Biden’s immigration, asylum and refugee policies in general have been a decidedly mixed bag. His administration has followed through on some long-held progressive priorities, but many others have fallen to the side. In mid-December, the administration ended the longstanding U.S. policy of holding immigrant families in prison-like detention centers, according to Axios. “This is truly a good development, even though the treatment of migrant families writ large continues to be poor,” American Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick tweeted in response to the news. Families can still be subject to confusing and arbitrary seeming court hearings and procedures, and many face significant economic hardships.

    Even this development is tempered, as the Department of Homeland Security will continue to rely at least partially on using GPS-enabled ankle bracelets to surveil migrants. Advocates have long criticized the use of bracelets, saying they lead to stigma and are unnecessary to compel migrants to appear in court.

    In other areas, the Biden administration is acting with near-total continuity to Trump. Biden continues to invoke a 1944 public health act called Title 42, which allows border agents to turn away asylum seekers without providing them an opportunity to make their case before a judge. Trump used the pandemic as an excuse to implement the rule, which many saw as a flimsy pretext to pursue his openly bigoted policies at the southern border. Biden has also reimplemented Trump’s so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy, which denies asylum seekers the right to live in the United States while their case is pending. Legal scholars say this practice is illegal and in violation of U.S. treaty obligation and international law.

    “It took a couple years for the Trump administration to figure out the nuances of the various immigration programs,” Varghese said. By the time Trump left office, though, he and his team had been very successful in jamming up almost every refugee and asylum assistance program in the executive branch. He and his top adviser, Stephen Miller, took an “all of the above” approach to limiting refugees and immigrants into the country. “That could be changing internal policies, it could be writing new regulations, it could be creating new policies and bureaucracies,” Varghese continued. “It could be by bankrupting [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services], it could be closing offices.”

    The plight of refugees is no longer in the corporate headlines, but in 2016, the subject was a major political issue. Then-candidate Donald Trump demonized refugees and asylum seekers constantly, especially Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war. Following his lead, nearly every other Republican candidate promised restricted refugee resettlement to the United States.

    Trump and Miller attempted to ban people from Muslim-majority countries from entering the country in the administration’s first week in office. After initially striking the policy down, the Supreme Court ultimately gave the ban its blessing once North Korea and Venezuela were added. The outrage over the “Muslim ban” was perhaps only matched by the administration’s family separation policy at the southern border.

    For all the criticism Trump deserves for dismantling the existing refugee apparatus, the Biden administration has not made rebuilding it a top priority, despite early promising signs. In February 2021, Biden issued Executive Order 14013, which called for the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program to be “rebuilt and expanded, commensurate with global need.” The order also revoked the discriminatory restrictions Trump had imposed, and called for additional reporting from the responsible executive agencies to determine what other changes could be made to address the refugee backlog.

    Then, somewhat inexplicably to outside observers, in April, Biden refused to raise the resettlement cap from Trump’s historically low 15,000. He reversed course two weeks later, bowing to pressure from progressives and refugee advocates. His administration’s new policy to resettle 125,000 refugees by September signals, on paper at least, a renewed commitment to expanding the assistance program. Whether the executive branch will actually devote the resources, time and political efforts to achieve those goals remains to be seen.

    The issue of refugee resettlement in the United States, and migrant humanitarian concerns throughout Europe and the rest of the world, will likely become more pressing with every year. The collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, along with continuing conflicts throughout the Middle East and Africa, all but ensure migration levels will stay at near-record highs for the foreseeable future.

    Deeply intertwined with migration from conflict zones is migration driven by climate change. The United Nations predicts that 200 million people could be forced from their homes by 2050 due to rising temperatures, drought, flooding, extreme weather and conflict over resources.

    The treatment of refugees has largely taken a backseat to other liberal priorities under Biden. The administration has prioritized its COVID response and push for a bipartisan infrastructure bill, two of Biden’s few major legislative accomplishments to date, all while trying to balance demands for increased attention to voting rights, gun control, health care costs, and other headline issues. The record-low number of refugees admitted barely made a blip in the mainstream media ecosystem. The State Department refused to comment on the record.

    Varghese and other refugee advocates would like to see Biden take a holistic approach to migrant rights and assistance, and to redouble his administration’s efforts. “What we’ve seen is basically a political calculation” from Biden to treat refugee issues as “just one factor among many,” Varghese said. “The Trump administration was so singularly focused on paring down humanitarian immigration programs” that Biden’s measured approach “is not enough to combat four years of a whole-of-government approach to tear down refugee resettlement.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘ALL IN THIS TOGETHER’: SIMILARITY, DIFFERENCE OR NONE OF THE ABOVE?

    By Karin M. Frodé

    Today marks what the United Nations calls ‘International Human Solidarity Day’. The idea of solidarity across borders is appealing, particularly in light of the many global crises that challenge the enjoyment of human rights. But can we conceptualise solidarity in a manner which enables it to go beyond mere rhetoric? Does it (or can it) have work to do, in the realisation of human rights?

    How we conceive of solidarity has become a pressing issue in the 21st century, not least since the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic has made it abundantly clear that we simply cannot defeat global challenges along national lines. In response, the international community has made frequent calls for solidarity, often incorporated into mantras such as ‘we are all in this together’. In practice, such calls often go unanswered, particularly by states. Continued vaccine hoarding by wealthier countries and insufficient progress in combating climate change are just two examples which paint a bleak picture.

    STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES

    The lack of solidarity is particularly detrimental for already marginalised individuals, peoples and states. Structural inequalities within and between countries have, for example, been uncovered and exacerbated during the pandemic. To use the metaphor of the UN Secretary-General, “[w]hile we are all floating on the same sea, it’s clear that some are on superyachts while others are clinging to the drifting debris”. The sea metaphor is not just a figure of speech.  Migrants regularly drown at sea. Last month, over two dozen migrants lost their lives when attempting to cross the English Channel. The current UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity, Professor Obiora Chinedu Okafor, has described refugee protection as “a crisis of international solidarity par excellence”.

    The actions by the US and its allies in Afghanistan, culminating in the disastrous response to the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021 is another example of the detrimental impacts of the lack of solidarity. The withdrawal of foreign forces from the country was not just a withdrawal of troops but the withdrawal of solidarity. Countless numbers of Afghans are still at risk of summary execution by the Taliban due to their support of foreign forces, organisations and liberal values.

    BEYOND STATE (IN)ACTION

    Non-state actors often step in to fill the solidarity gaps generated by state inaction. Indeed, the UN’s focus on international ‘human’ solidarity suggests that we all, as humans, have a role to play. Yet, in doing so, individuals and other non-state actors may face significant barriers, including exposure to criminal liability for so-called ‘crimes of solidarity’. This was the case for Cédric Herrou, a French farmer, who was charged and convicted for assisting the free movement of ‘illegal immigrants’. Interestingly, the French Constitutional Council found that the relevant provisions infringed the principle of ‘fraternité (fraternity) which the Council confirmed to be a principle of constitutional value. Herrou has since been acquitted.

    A HUMAN RIGHT TO INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY?

    The Independent Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity has referred to the Herrou case to counter criticism that solidarity is too vague to be useful. In addition to a fundamental principle, the UN mandate on international solidarity has also conceived of international solidarity as a human right:

    “…by which individuals and peoples are entitled, on the basis of equality and non-discrimination, to participate meaningfully in, contribute to and enjoy a social and international order in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.”

    This proposed right is reminiscent of other so-called ‘solidarity rights’, such as the rights to self-determination, peace, development and a healthy environment. These rights are often distinguished from ‘traditional’ human rights in that they belong not just to individuals but also to peoples and require collective action for their realisation.

    The Independent Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity has found that there is no automatic bar on conceiving solidarity as a human right if we accept that human rights are contingent upon historical and social factors rather than a fixed list derived from a higher order.  

    It may be useful to take a step back and consider why it is that scholars debate over whether solidarity is or could be a human right. Solidarity rights depart from the ‘traditional’ understanding of human rights based upon individual rights against the state in which the person resides, and which concern narrow, concrete and justiciable claims. The criticism of claims being too vague and broad to be human rights has been powerfully opposed in theory and practice with regards to economic, social and cultural rights. Solidarity raises additional tensions, however. For example, by pointing towards a social, rather than individualistic ontology of rights.  Further, while states may still play a key role in the fulfilment of solidarity rights, correlative duties of solidarity also appear to fall upon non-state actors, including other individuals.

    In addition to tensions within the human rights framework as traditionally understood, solidarity raises various philosophical conundrums. For example, who are we in solidarity with and for what purpose/aim? The UN celebrates ‘human’ solidarity day. Can we really be in solidarity with the whole world? Is solidarity concerned with the recognition of similarities, acceptance of difference or perhaps something else entirely?

    WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

    If the international community continues to proclaim solidarity as the key to solving the world’s most pressing challenges, it is imperative that more efforts are made to engage with the tensions and challenges which solidarity poses to traditional understandings of the international human rights law framework, as well as the international system of which it forms part. Given the elusive nature of a concept like solidarity, this exercise may raise more questions than answers. But perhaps it is precisely the questions which solidarity evokes that may be the key to its potential usefulness in the realisation of human rights.  

    Karin M. Frodé is PhD Candidate and Raydon Scholar at the Faculty of Law, Monash University. She is also a PhD Affiliate at the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law and engages in teaching and research in human rights within the Faculty. Her doctoral research considers the role of solidarity in international law, specifically international human rights law. Outside of her studies, she co-founded the Ham Diley Campaign, an initiative to support Afghans at risk together with other human rights lawyers and the Capital Punishment Justice Project (formerly Reprieve Australia).

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    This post was originally published on Castan Centre for Human Rights Law.

  • Ministers warn Priti Patel over her ‘barbaric’ Nationality and Borders Bill

    Ministers in Scotland and Wales have jointly condemned as “barbaric” measures in the UK government’s Nationality and Borders Bill – as well as warning the legislation may need approval from the parliaments in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

    Scottish social justice secretary Shona Robison and her Welsh counterpart Jane Hutt have written a joint letter to home secretary Priti Patel to demand the UK reconsiders its “hostile environment strategy” and develops “sufficient safe and legal routes” for asylum seekers.

    And they are calling for Patel to have talks with them before the end of the year, as there have been “no ministerial meetings in relation to these matters”.

    The Scottish and Welsh governments want a meeting with Home Secretary Priti Patel before the end of this year (Aaron Chown/PA)

    Ministers have “far-reaching concerns”

    The letter comes after 27 people lost their lives trying to cross the English Channel in November – a journey which has resulted in 166 people being recorded as either dead or missing since 2014. The Nationality and Borders Bill – which cleared the Commons on Monday – seeks to curb these crossings and also change how asylum claims are processed.

    Both the Scottish and Welsh governments have “far-reaching concerns about the impact of the provisions” in the Bill, the home secretary was told.

    Robison and Hutt stated:

    This legislation contains measures that will prevent migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, including the barbaric suggestions for ‘push-back’ exercises involving enforcement officials seeking to repel small boats.

    Rather than help matters, these measures will delay rescues and endanger lives.

    PA Graphics

    Patel’s Bill contradicts the UK’s obligations

    The Scottish and Welsh politicians told Patel this contradicts the UK’s “obligation under maritime laws and conventions to guarantee people’s safety”. Robison and Hutt make clear their governments “do not believe that increased marine or beach patrols, diversion, criminalisation, changes to legal status or reduced support to those who arrive in the UK” will deter people from seeking to enter the UK.

    They also told the home secretary:

    Scotland and Wales have always played their part in providing sanctuary to those fleeing conflict and persecution and we stand ready to do so again.

    Meanwhile, Welsh ministers have now decided that a Legislative Consent Memorandum is required at the Senedd in relation to some clauses in the Bill. Under the devolution settlement, such consent is needed where UK legislation touches on areas which the devolved administrations are responsible for – although Westminster in the past has pushed ahead with new laws without such approval,

    The letter adds that Scottish ministers:

    still require urgent clarity from the Home Office to ascertain whether similar legislative competence issues need to be addressed in Scotland

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Women asylum seekers to ‘counter the widespread lies’ about people fleeing for safety

    On 8 December, Priti Patel’s controversial Nationality and Borders Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons. Some MPs and campaigners were outraged and labelled the legislation racist and inhumane. Labour MP Zarah Sultana said it was:

    an attack on refugee rights, criminalising boats rescuing people at sea and violating our 70-year commitment to the Refugee Convention.

    Refugees were already under attack in the UK. In addition to this proposed racist legislation, there’s been a lot of lies spread about refugees arriving here. Moreover, earlier this month, a white supremacist group displayed racist, anti-refugee banners from a road bridge in London. And, as reported by The Canary, those that do make the journey through Europe do so in desperate conditions.

    Set the record straight

    On 14 December, between 12:30 and 2pm, the All African Women’s Group and Global Women Against Deportations are hosting an event. Gloria, chair of the All African Women’s Group, said that members want to:

    counter the widespread lies put out about people arriving in the UK to find refuge and spell out for others in the community how the Nationality and Borders Bill will, if enacted, cause even greater suffering and injustice.

    A combination of women who’ve recently arrived in the UK and those who have been here for decades will answer questions at this live event. The organisers added:

    Women who travelled overland, others who have family left in Greece, France, and in other European and African countries, some who fled homophobia, rape and other violence and mothers separated from their children, will all be speaking.

    Prior to tomorrow’s lunchtime webinar, some of those women spoke about their experiences. They also expressed their opinions on Patel’s racist legislation.

    “You can’t just tell people don’t come by boat”

    A woman called Lara, who was detained in her home country for organising against the government, is applying for asylum. She believes the UK government wants to stop refugees telling their story:

    I think the key thing about this Bill is that the government want to prevent us from ever setting foot in the country. In the justice system in the UK, you’re arrested; go to the court and you say everything out in public. And people decide, and then the judge [decides] based on the evidence. But now with this bill they want to decide outside the court, they want to prevent as many people as possible, from reaching a point where they can openly say what has happened to them.

    She believes it’s important refugees get this chance because:

    Just being there in person in court makes a big difference so that somebody can sit down and have time to listen, give a proper fair hearing. Where you feel safe enough to say everything that has happened to you and to show your evidence, because sometimes you don’t even realise what is evidence? They want to decide your asylum case outside of the asylum system.

    Another woman called Kundi added:

    I came here to escape life-threatening domestic violence.  When I started my case they didn’t believe me. They kept on rejecting me.  It wasn’t until they took me to detention, where a GP saw all the scars and they wrote to the Home Office to say they should believe me.

    Patel wants to play off “two groups against each other”

    In March this year, Patel claimed she was defending women who were “elbowed out of the way by young men” jumping the asylum queue. Chika warned people about this saying:

    please don’t fall for that as there is actually no place for women either

    They went on to say:

    Priti Patel is just playing off two groups against each other. There are no pathways for women to claim asylum. We can’t be fighting over something that doesn’t exist.

    But it’s still harder on women

    Others added that while it was hard for men, in their view it was still harder for women claiming asylum. Natu remembered the terrible time she had when she was pregnant.

    I had my baby in the hospital and immediately the midwives took me out into another room and immigration officers were there to question me. They said we need to know your status. My mind was going everywhere. They’re gonna take me back? They’re gonna take my baby? I was shivering and shaking. Those are the things that women go through because we are the mothers and the children depend on us.

    Visola added.

    It’s quite hard for women to be able to claim asylum and to speak out, because most of the time we are victims. Some men go through rape as well, but women are the [ones] who goes through it more. And they feel the pain because there is no woman that will want to leave her own country to go to another place if it wasn’t to find somewhere to be safe.

    Getting on those boats is a way of escape, whether we make it or not, to just find a place and settle with the children. That’s why we say to people that we must oppose this Bill so that women at least get a listening ear.

    Listen to the women “who have made the dangerous journey”

    The event organisers want people to listen to the women “who have made the dangerous journey”. They can:

    counter the lies put out about people fleeing for safety, including those arriving by boat on UK shores.

    They point out there are:

    no safe and legal ways to get to the UK. Twenty-seven people have now tragically died in the Channel. This adds to the horrendous toll of nearly 40,000 known to have died in the Mediterranean, and those who perished at the Belarus border, in the backs of lorries and in the many other dangerous ways that desperate people have been forced to travel. Without wars, famine and environmental devastation, much of which the UK is guilty of, people wouldn’t have to flee their homes.

    Anybody wishing to attend this event can register for free at this link.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons – DFID – UK Department for International Development

    By Peadar O'Cearnaigh

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Fresh evidence on UK’s botched Afghan withdrawal backs whistleblower’s story

    MPs’ inquiry given further details of Britain’s mismanagement of Afghanistan exit with ‘people left to die at the hands of the Taliban’

    Further evidence alleging that the government seriously mishandled the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been handed to a parliamentary inquiry examining the operation, the Observer has been told.

    Details from several government departments and agencies are understood to back damning testimony from a Foreign Office whistleblower, who has claimed that bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, and a lack of planning and resources led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.

    Continue reading…

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

  • While we were distracted by No 10’s Christmas party, the government rubber-stamped its racist immigration bill

    While UK headlines were concerned with prime minister Boris Johnson’s 2020 Christmas party, home secretary Priti Patel’s controversial nationality and borders bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons on 8 December. International and human rights lawyers have called the legality of the draconian legislation into question. MPs and campaigners took to Twitter to speak out against the bill, labelling it racist and inhumane.

    A Tory majority in parliament

    Announcing the results of the Commons vote, Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana tweeted:

    Indeed, 298 MPs voted in support of the controversial bill, while only 231 voted against it. This gave the government a 67 vote majority. Sharing the devastating news, Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsana Begum – who had tabled an amendment to the draconian bill – said:

    Sending solidarity to those impacted by the bill, writer Ilyas Nagdee shared:

    A racist immigration bill
    The bill will allow the home secretary to remove a person’s citizenship without warning. Analysis by the New Statesman found that under the new legislation, two in five racially minoritised Britons could become eligible to be deprived of their citizen status without warning. This is compared to just one in 20 people from a white background. According to Institute of Race Relations vice-chair Francis Weber: 
    People with ethnic minority heritage become, effectively, sort of second-class citizens.

    Linking this to the government’s longstanding ‘hostile environment’, Black Lives Matter UK tweeted:

    Lamenting the limited coverage of the legislation which could impact the lives of countless racially minoritised Britons, Mish Rahman tweeted:

    The bill will also empower the home secretary to remove the citizenship of anyone who also has citizenship in another country. This has the potential to continue rendering them stateless. Highlighting the unprecedented case of Shamima Begum, journalist Ash Sarkar said:

    Inhumane legislation

    Ahead of the Commons vote, a Lords committee questioned the legality of the home secretary’s bill. Peers raised particular concerns about Patel’s plan to make border force officials push boats crossing the Channel back into French waters. The inhumane bill will grant immunity to border force staff if people die in these dangerous operations, while criminalising anyone trying to help drowning refugees and asylum seekers.

    The Insider news fellow Bethany Dawson tweeted:

    The United Nations Refugee Agency warns that the bill “would penalise most refugees seeking asylum in the country”. And said it could create a model that “undermines established international refugee protection rules and practices”. Due to its multiple breaches of international and human rights law, Patel’s bill will likely come up against further legal challenges.

    Take a stand against the bill

    Calling on opponents of the overtly racist bill to “resist by any means necessary“, campaign group Movement for Justice shared:

    Highlighting the need for broad-based collective action against the draconian bill and the encroaching carceral state, Garden Court Law barrister Zehrah Hasan shared:

    Additionally, media campaign group, Media Diversified is pushing for people to mobilise against the bill and sign the its petition:

    Indeed, from the racist immigration bill to the anti-protest policing bill, the Tories are trying to push through the most oppressive legislation we have seen in recent history. We must unite to fight the government’s populist, authoritarian, ultra-nationalistic agenda before it’s too late.

    Featured image via UK Parliament/YouTube

    By Sophia Purdy-Moore

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A Christmas Tale: The Downing Street Party, Laughter And Bigger State Crimes

    Huge media coverage has been devoted to allegations, and now serious evidence, that a Christmas party was held at 10 Downing Street on 18 December 2020. London was then in a strict lockdown with social events banned, including parties.

    In leaked footage obtained by ITV News, senior Downing Street staff are shown four days later, laughing and joking about the party being a ‘business meeting’ with ‘cheese and wine’. Allegra Stratton, then Boris Johnson’s press secretary, was leading a mock televised press briefing and, through laughter, said there had been ‘definitely no social distancing.’

    The original story was broken on 30 November by Pippa Crerar, the Daily Mirror political editor.  When pressed at Prime Minister’s Questions, Johnson refused to deny three times that a ‘boozy party’ had taken place at 10 Downing Street when such events were banned.

    One source who was aware of the party in Downing Street told ITV News:

    ‘We all know someone who died from Covid and after seeing this all in the papers I couldn’t not say anything. I’m so angry about it all, the way it is being denied.’

    Understandably, there is much public anger, though perhaps little surprise, that the Tory government under Johnson has once again been found to have broken rules and then attempted to deceive the public about it. That anger is felt most keenly by those who suffered the unimaginable pain and grief of not being allowed to be with loved ones who were dying of Covid.

    Even BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, who has spent much of her latter career shielding Johnson, began her BBC News website piece on the latest revelations with condemnations from Tory MPs: ‘Indefensible’, ‘catastrophic’ and ‘astonishing’.

    She added:

    ‘Expect to hear plenty of the charge of “one rule for us, one rule for them” in the next few days.

    ‘On the back of Downing Street’s attempt to change the rules on MPs’ behaviour after former minister Owen Paterson broke them, even some senior Conservatives are making that claim tonight.’

    It is possible that this is yet another nail in the coffin for Johnson’s leadership of the Tory party. There will surely come a time, if it has not already, when the Conservatives will assess that he has become an electoral liability and that he must be replaced to ‘steady the ship’ in order to continue promoting elite interests. After all, financial capital and the establishment require a ‘respectable’ figure at the helm.

    While public anger is justified and entirely understandable, with the ‘mainstream’ media judging that the scandal deserves laser-like focus and intensity, the bigger picture is that the government has committed much greater crimes that have not received the same level of scrutiny.

    A Surreptitious Parade Of Parliamentary Bills

    Just one example is the Health and Care Bill that was being passed while the furore over the Downing Street Christmas party was erupting. As John Pilger observed:

    ‘The US assault on the National Health Service, legislated by the Johnson govt, is now relentless – but always by “stealth”, as Thatcher planned.’

    Pilger, whose 2019 documentary, The Dirty War on the NHS, is a must-watch, urged everyone to read ‘a rare explanatory piece’ on this assault, largely ignored by corporate media including the BBC. The article, by policy analyst Stewart Player and GP Bob Gill, warned that the ‘Health and Care Bill making its way through official channels simply reinforces’ the ‘penetration of the healthcare system’ by private interests; in particular, the giant U.S. insurer UnitedHealth.

    Player and Gill explained that the bill’s centrepiece is a national scheme of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) across all 42 health regions of England. This network of ICSs ‘is being effectively designed and fast-tracked by the private UnitedHealth’.

    They continued:

    ‘The Health and Care Bill will essentially provide legislative lock-in for the changes already embedded throughout the NHS. Patients will be denied care to generate profits for the ICS, over which their family physician or hospital specialist will have no influence, while the growing unmet patient need will have to be serviced either through out-of-pocket payments, top-up private insurance, or not at all.’

    Player and Gill warned:

    ‘The NHS will, in the immediate future, resemble “Medicare Advantage” or “Medicaid Managed Care”, a basic, publicly funded, privately controlled and delivered corporate cash cow repurposed to make profit, though in time the full range of the organizational options found in the U.S. will follow.

    ‘All this will increase the total cost of healthcare, deliver less, harm thousands, enrich foreign corporations and destroy what was once Britain’s national pride.’

    Where is the in-depth scrutiny and across-the-board coverage of this scandal?

    Likewise, where is the large-scale, non-stop ‘mainstream’ media outrage over the Tory government’s Nationality and Border Bill to be voted on this week? Home Secretary Priti Patel said the Bill would tackle ‘illegal’ immigration and the ‘underlying pull factors into the UK’s asylum system’.

    However, as Labour activist Mish Rahman noted via Twitter:

    ‘While ppl are focused on the video of the govt laughing at us a year ago and a Downing Street Party – the government, with the minimum of media coverage are getting the Nationality & Borders bill passed which will allow them to strip ppl like me of my citizenship without notice’

    A report by the New Statesman found that almost six million people from ethnic minority backgrounds in England and Wales could have their British citizenship in jeopardy. Al Jazeera noted that:

    ‘The bill also aims to rule as inadmissible asylum claims made by undocumented people as well as criminalise them and anyone taking part in refugee rescue missions in the English Channel.’

    But, as Jonathan Cook, pointed out: ‘Britain helped create the refugees it now wants to keep out’, adding:

    ‘Those making perilous journeys for asylum in Europe have been displaced by wars and droughts, for which the West is largely to blame.’

    The bill is being pushed through shortly after the appalling tragedy of 27 people losing their lives at sea while attempting a Channel crossing from France to England. Compounding the tragedy:

    ‘Barely noted by the media was the fact that the only two survivors separately said British and French coastguards ignored their phone calls for help as their boat began to sink.’

    Cook summarised his analysis:

    ‘Europe is preparing to make its borders impregnable to the victims of its colonial interference, its wars and the climate crisis that its consumption-driven economies have generated.’

    Meanwhile, yet another bill endangering life and liberty is being pushed by the government. Patel has just added an extra 18-page amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. George Monbiot warned:

    ‘It looks like a deliberate ploy to avoid effective parliamentary scrutiny. Yet in most of the media there’s a resounding silence.’

    The bill seeks to add to the existing plethora of legislation, together with sinister undercover police and surveillance operations, that obstruct and criminalise protest and dissent. Monbiot noted that, if the bill passes, it will become:

    ‘a criminal offence to obstruct in any way major transport works from being carried out, again with a maximum sentence of 51 weeks. This looks like an attempt to end meaningful protest against road-building and airport expansion. Other amendments would greatly expand police stop and search powers.’

    He added:

    ‘Protest is an essential corrective to the mistakes of government. Had it not been for the tactics Patel now seeks to ban, the pointless and destructive road-building programme the government began in the early 1990s would have continued: eventually John Major’s government conceded it was a mistake, and dropped it. Now governments are making the greatest mistake in human history – driving us towards systemic environmental collapse – and Boris Johnson’s administration is seeking to ensure that there is nothing we can do to stop it.’

    Unscrutinised UK Foreign Policy

    While corporate news coverage continues to delve into the 2020 Downing Street Christmas party, the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, fuelled in significant part by UK foreign policy, barely gets a mention. Cook rightly observed:

    ‘Britain and others have aided Saudi Arabia in its prolonged, near-genocidal bombing campaigns and blockade against Yemen. Recent reports have suggested that as many as 300 Yemeni children are dying each day as a result. And yet, after decades of waging economic warfare on these Middle Eastern countries, western states have the gall to decry those fleeing the collapse of their societies as “economic migrants”.’

    We wrote in a recent media alert that Matt Kennard and Phil Miller of Declassified UK had investigated the largely-hidden role of a factory owned by arms exporter BAE Systems in the Lancashire village of Warton. The factory supplies military equipment to the Saudi Arabian regime, enabling it to continue its devastating attacks on Yemen.

    Kennard and Miller reported that:

    ‘Boris Johnson recently visited Warton and claimed the BAE site was part of his “levelling up agenda”. No journalist covering the visit seems to have reported the factory’s role in a war.’

    In fact, you could take just about any article published on the exemplary Declassified UK website and compare its quality journalism with the omission-ridden, power-friendly output of ‘respectable’ media. Here is a recent sample:

    • Anne Cadwallader on the UK government’s attempt to rewrite the history of British policy in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, the UK government is actually ‘censoring numerous files showing British army complicity in the deaths of civilians, depriving bereaved families of access to the truth.’ See also Michael Oswald’s documentary film, ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’, about Colin Wallace, an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland who became a whistleblower and was framed for murder, likely by UK intelligence. Declassified UK published a review of this important film, describing it as ‘essential viewing for anyone who seeks to hold power to account, who seeks to understand the dark links between state intelligence and the media apparatus.’
    • An article by Richard Norton-Taylor, the former Guardian security editor, titled, ‘Manchester bombing: What are the security agencies hiding?’. He wrote: ‘We need to know why MI5 and MI6 appear to have placed their involvement in power struggles in Libya, and Britain’s commercial interests there, above those of the safety of its own citizens.’
    • Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis reported that Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, the judge that will soon decide Julian Assange’s fate, is a close personal friend of Sir Alan Duncan who once described Assange in Parliament as a ‘miserable little worm’. When Duncan was the UK foreign minister, he arranged Assange’s eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy.
    • Israeli historian Ilan Pappé wrote that ‘Britain is ensuring the death of a Palestinian state’. His piece explained that: ‘The UK claims to support a “two-state” solution in Israel-Palestine but the body of a Palestinian state has long been in the morgue, although nobody dares to have a funeral. As long as Britain and other states continue to superficially endorse a two-state solution, Israel will become entrenched as a full-blown apartheid state with international blessing.’

    Any one of these topics, and many more on the Declassified UK website, would be a major item on ‘mainstream’ news if there was a functioning ‘Fourth Estate’ to scrutinise power and hold it to account. In particular, Israel is continually given a free pass by the ‘free press’.

    Israeli journalist Gideon Levy – a rare example of a journalist who regularly reports and comments on Israel’s serious crimes – published a recent piece, ‘A Brief History of Killing Children’. He wrote:

    ‘Soldiers and pilots have killed 2,171 children and teenagers, and not one of these cases shocked anyone here, or sparked a real investigation or led to a trial. More than 2,000 children in 20 years – 100 children, three classrooms a year. And all of them, down to the last, were found guilty of their own death.’

    Needless to say, these facts are hidden, or at best glossed over, by ‘responsible’ news outlets. As we pointed out last month on Twitter after Israel had dropped bombs on Syria’s capital Damascus – the fourth Israeli attack on Syria in three weeks:

    ‘Hello @BBCNews

    ‘Seen this? Of course you have. But most likely you’ll ignore Israel’s latest breaking of international law. Or, at best, you’ll mention it briefly at 3am on  @bbcworldservice

    ‘You are indeed the world’s most refined propaganda service, as @johnpilger says.’

    The ‘mainstream’ media has almost entirely ignored major reports by two human rights groups – B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch – classing Israel as an apartheid state. Cook observed that, despite this, ‘the Labour and Tory parties are now competing to be its best friend’. Commenting on a ‘shameful speech’ by Labour leader Keir Starmer that uncritically supported Israel, Cook added:

    ‘Israel’s apartheid character, its vigorous lobby and support for a boycott are all off the table. But worse, Labour, like the Conservative party, is once again reluctant even to criticise the occupation.’

    Near-silence also greeted human rights groups’ condemnation of the UK government’s announcement of a new 10-year trade and defence deal with Israel. The Morning Star was virtually alone in giving ample space to critical voices, such as Katie Fallon of Campaign Against the Arms Trade:

    ‘The evidence that Israeli spyware has been used against journalists, human rights defenders and lawyers in the UK continues to pile up. This agreement signals that the government prioritises trade deals to the degree that they are willing to jeopardise the security of people in the UK who are most at risk of illegal surveillance — totally at odds with their stated foreign policy priority to protect and support human rights defenders.’

    War on War’s senior campaigner for militarism and security, Chi-Chi Shi said:

    ‘If the UK government observed its duty to uphold human rights and international law, it would end the UK-Israel arms trade.

    ‘Instead, it is actively enabling grave human rights abuses and Israel’s occupation and apartheid regime against the Palestinian people.’

    But full, accurate and critical coverage of anything to do with Israel is essentially out of bounds for ‘mainstream’ news media.

    So, too, is anything that truly exposes the role of corporate and financial power in driving humanity to the point of extinction: a vital point which we have repeatedly emphasised since Media Lens began in 2001.

    Following the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the esteemed climate scientist James Hansen summarised that ‘COP meetings are actually Conferences of the Pretenders’ 1.

    He continued:

    ‘Political leaders make statements that they know – or should know – are blatant nonsense. COPs can produce numerous minor accomplishments, which is sufficient reason to continue with the meetings.’

    In typically blunt fashion, Hansen stated:

    ‘Why is nobody telling young people the truth? “We preserved the chance at COP26 to keep global warming below 1.5°C.” What bullshit! “Solar panels are now cheaper than fossil fuels, so all we are missing is political will.” What horse manure! “If we would just agree to consume less, the climate problem could be solved.” More nonsense!’

    ‘Young people, I am sorry to say that – although the path to a bright future exists and is straightforward – it will not happen without your understanding and involvement in the political process.’

    Noam Chomsky, who recently turned 93, concurs. Asked what is the greatest obstacle to solving the climate crisis, he responded:

    ‘There are two major obstacles. One is, of course, the fossil fuel companies. Second is the governments of the world, including Europe and the United States.’

    Ending the climate crisis, says Chomsky, ‘has to come from mass popular action’, not politicians.

    While corporate news media are content to expose the galling, but comparatively minor crime of holding a Christmas party at 10 Downing Street during lockdown, they remain essentially silent about much bigger state crimes.

    1. ‘A Realistic Path to a Bright Future’, newsletter [pdf], 3 December 2021
    The post A Christmas Tale: The Downing Street Party, Laughter And Bigger State Crimes first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Legality, safety, and rationality of ‘pushing back’ migrant boats questioned by Lords committee

    The legality of Priti Patel’s plans to turn back migrant boats at sea has been called into question by peers including senior lawyers and a former judge.

    “Concerns”

    The Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee has written to the home secretary expressing “concerns” over the legal basis for the so-called ‘pushbacks’. The letter adds to “growing concern both in and outside Parliament” over the policy proposed in a bid to curb Channel crossings, peers said.

    It comes as the Nationality and Borders Bill is being considered by MPs in the Commons. It’s at report stage for a second day before it gets a third reading. Patel insisted the plan has a “legal basis” when questioned by the committee in October. That’s despite concerns being repeatedly raised over its legality and effectiveness which prompted campaigners to threaten her with legal action.

    The Home Office’s permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft previously conceded that only a “small proportion” of boats could be turned back.

    The committee’s Liberal Democrat chairwoman, former solicitor baroness Sally Hamwee, said:

    Statements, including from the Home Secretary, are that there is a legal basis for the policy of so-called ‘turnarounds’. We question that.

    The so-called ‘turnaround’ policy would force fragile small boats crossing the Channel to turn back. It is hard to imagine a situation in which those in them would not be in increased danger or where captains would not be obliged to render assistance.

    Instead, the Home Secretary has set a policy of forcing them to turn around. Even if there is a domestic legal basis, if it were actually implemented, it would almost certainly contravene the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

    Policing borders should be done in full accordance with the principles of national and international law, and we look forward to full engagement with our questions.

    English Channel migrant deaths
    A campaigner wearing a Priti Patel mask tears up an ‘I Welcome Refugees’ placard (Victoria Jones/PA)

    “Not the solution”

    Labour members baroness Shami Chakrabarti, a barrister and former director of human rights group Liberty, and ex-home secretary lord David Blunkett; Conservative member and solicitor baroness Fiona Shackleton, and retired Court of Appeal judge and crossbench peer baroness Heather Hallett also sit on the committee.

    Its letter asks under what powers the tactics could be used as the law stands currently. The letter calls for a response from the Home Office by 5 January. The committee said it “fully” endorses a report published last week by another group of MPs and peers which found the tactic could endanger lives and is likely to breach human rights laws.

    The turnaround tactics are “not the solution” and will “do the opposite of what is required to save lives”, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said.

    It described the proposed Bill as “littered” with measures which are “simply incompatible” with the UK’s international obligations.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Helping refugees starving in Poland’s icy border forests is illegal – but it’s not the real crime | Anna Alboth

    The asylum seekers on the Poland-Belarus border are not aggressors: they are desperate pawns in a disgusting political struggle

    One thought is a constant in my head: “I have kids at home, I cannot go to jail, I cannot go to jail.” The politics are beyond my reach or that of the victims on the Poland-Belarus border. It involves outgoing German chancellor, Angela Merkel, getting through to Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus. It’s ironic that this border has more than 50 media crews gathered, yet Poland is the only place in the EU where journalists cannot freely report.

    Meanwhile, the harsh north European winter is closing in and my fingers are freezing in the dark snowy nights.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Fortress Europe: the millions spent on military-grade tech to deter refugees

    We map out the rising number of high-tech surveillance and deterrent systems facing asylum seekers along EU borders

    From military-grade drones to sensor systems and experimental technology, the EU and its members have spent hundreds of millions of euros over the past decade on technologies to track down and keep at bay the refugees on its borders.

    Poland’s border with Belarus is becoming the latest frontline for this technology, with the country approving last month a €350m (£300m) wall with advanced cameras and motion sensors.

    Continue reading…

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

  • The unreported crisis

    By Ralph Underhill

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • One tweet demolished the Tories’ hypocritical refugee hatred

    As people are dying trying to reach the UK via the English Channel, one tweet sums up the toxic attitude and policies of the Tory government:

    Dying in the Channel

    27 people died on Wednesday 24 November while trying to cross the Channel in a dinghy. As BBC News reported, those who drowned:

    included 17 men, seven women – one of whom was pregnant – and three children

    The UN said it was the largest loss of life in the Channel since it began monitoring the situation in 2014. Yet the Tory government’s toxic narratives surrounding refugees continues.

    For example, the Home Office has refused to rule out using “pushback” techniques to stop people crossing the Channel. This would be where agencies like the UK Border Force would send boats back mid-voyage to France. Charities and a trade union have launched a legal challenge against the government over this policy. PCS Union boss Mark Serwotka told the Guardian:

    The pushback policy being pursued by the home secretary is unlawful, unworkable and above all morally reprehensible.

    The Tories are seemingly indifferent to the suffering – even engaging in a blame-game with France. And one tweet from an independent journalist sums up the situation perfectly.

    “Selective” panic

    As Declassified UK chief reporter Phil Miller tweeted:

    Miller shared a screengrab from a Wall Street Journal article from January 2021. It’s headline was:

    U.K. Opens Its Doors to Five Million Hong Kong Residents

    This is the story that the UK has set up a visa scheme for people from Hong Kong, due to China’s actions in the area. As BBC News noted, the visa scheme will offer them

    and their immediate dependents… a fast track to UK citizenship.

    Technically the Hong Kong residents seeking British citizenship aren’t refugees, because they haven’t left their home nation. Like with actual refugees, though, it’s true they’re leaving because of persecution. Figures on the right argue that migration is acceptable in the case of Hong Kong citizens who follow the government’s preferred procedures, but unacceptable in the case of refugees who do not.

    The Tory government, for example, has repeatedly accused people crossing the Channel of doing so ‘illegally’. The problem with their argument is that under international law, people have the right to enter a country in order to make an asylum claim. This means people from Afghanistan and Syria have as much right to physically seek asylum in the UK as Hong Kong residents have to apply through other means.

    Crunching the numbers

    The Times reported that 88,800 people from Hong Kong had applied for UK settlement by 30 September. For context, according to BBC News over 25,700 people had come to the UK via crossing the Channel in boats.

    So that means the number of people from Hong Kong wanting to live in the UK is 346% higher than those coming via the Channel. Moreover, in the year ending June 2021 there had been a 4% fall in the number of people claiming asylum in the UK. But of course, that’s not how BBC News framed it. Its headline said:

    Migrant crossings: Number reaching UK this year three times 2020’s total

    It took the BBC until the eighth paragraph of the article to say that overall asylum applications had fallen by 4%.

    The ‘right kind’ of “migrants”

    Of course, at the heart of this situation is the Tory notion that asylum-seekers from Hong Kong are acceptable yet those from other countries are not. There’s also the convenience of vilifying China in offering refuge to Hong Kong residents. Home secretary Priti Patel said of people coming to the UK from Hong Kong:

    Safeguarding individuals’ freedoms, liberty and security is absolutely vital for those individuals that go through this process

    Yet she and her government are not affording the same decency to people crossing the Channel to get here. There’s no good reason why both groups of people should not be allowed to easily apply to live in the UK. One group is no more deserving than the other of being free of persecution.

    Featured image via Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe – Wikimedia and Good Morning Britain – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Downing Street protest calls for safe passage across the Channel

    Around 150 people have gathered near 10 Downing Street to protest over the deaths of more than two dozen people who drowned while attempting to cross the English Channel this week.

    The demonstration was organised by anti-racism group Stand Up To Racism. It heard speeches from the general secretary of the UK’s largest teachers union – the National Education Union – and several others including religious groups and volunteer organisations directly involved in helping refugees.

    English Channel migrant deaths
    People take part in a protest outside Downing Street (Aaron Chown/PA)

    Safe passage

    Twenty-seven people died during the crossing on 24 November. That has made it one of the deadliest days for refugees crossing the channel. Women and children were among those on board the boat which capsized after leaving Calais. Only two survived.

    Following the tragedy, politicians argued about how to halt the perilous Channel crossings. MPs from Labour, the SNP, and the Green Party called for safe passages that would allow refugees to travel securely in accordance with international law:

    While several Conservatives blamed France, it’s been pointed out that countries like France have taken in considerably more people than Britain over the past decade:

    There’s also the fact that the UK has contributed to the refugee crisis by its involvement in military action in other countries. But it now refuses to take responsibility for the refugees it helped to displace.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • UK-France relations are ‘strong’ says minister, despite all evidence to the contrary

    A Home Office minister has insisted that relations between France and the UK are “strong”. That’s despite Boris Johnson and French president Emmanuel Macron clashing over how to deal with refugees crossing the English Channel in small boats as they flee war, poverty, and persecution.

    Deadliest day of Channel crossings

    Damian Hinds, whose brief covers security and borders, defended the prime minister’s letter to the French leader as “exceptionally supportive and collaborative”. It came after Paris was enraged by Johnson making the letter public on Twitter.

    A full-scale diplomatic row between the two nations erupted as the first of the 27 victims of a capsizing on 24 November was named as a young Kurdish woman from northern Iraq.

    Relatives identified 24-year-old Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, known to her family as Baran, as one of the people who died on 24 November. It was the deadliest day of the Channel migration crisis. The student was said to have been trying to join her fiance who already lives in Britain.

    Tres bien?

    As families mourned the loss of their loved ones, politicians argued about how to stem perilous Channel crossings. Paris withdrew an invitation to home secretary Priti Patel to attend a meeting of ministers from key European allies in Calais on 28 November.

    France was angered by Johnson releasing a letter he sent to Macron setting out his proposals. They included reiterating a call for joint UK-French border patrols along French beaches to stop boats leaving, which Paris has long resisted.

    French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal rejected the proposal as “clearly not what we need to solve this problem”. And he said the prime minister’s letter “doesn’t correspond at all” with discussions Johnson and Macron had when they spoke on 24 November.

    “We are sick of double-speak,” he added. He said Johnson’s decision to post the letter on his Twitter feed suggested he was “not serious”.

    But despite the open derision from French politicians, UK ministers claimed that British-French relations remained intact.

    “Breaching sovereignty”

    Hinds told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

    British and French officials have been working together throughout, in fact we’ve been working together for years, on these really important issues. The partnership is strong.

    Moreover, he insisted “nobody is proposing breaching sovereignty” amid concerns over the request for UK officials to join patrols on French beaches. He added:

    The tone of the letter is exceptionally supportive and collaborative, it absolutely acknowledges everything the French government and authorities have been doing, that it’s a shared challenge, but that now, particularly prompted by this awful tragedy, we have to go further, we have to deepen our partnership, we have to broaden what we do, we have to draw up new creative solutions

    Hinds acknowledged the challenges of policing the French coastline and added:

    There is more that can be done and clearly we can’t just say it’s difficult because it’s hundreds of miles of coastline, we have to do what’s necessary to save human life.

    But some have made suggestions as to how the UK can better help “save human life”:

    Patel left out

    In a statement reported in French media, the interior ministry said the meeting on 28 November would go ahead with interior minister Gerald Darmanin and his counterparts from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, as well as representatives of the European Commission.

    Although the meeting with Patel has been cancelled, the No 10 spokesperson said Home Office officials had travelled to France for talks on 26 November with French counterparts as planned.

    Amid the diplomatic storm, Krmanj Ezzat Dargali identified his cousin among those who died on 24 November. He posted a tribute to Nuri Mohamed Amin on social media and told Sky News:

    The situation is just awful. She was a woman in the prime of her life.

    I understand why so many people are leaving for a better life, but this is not the correct path. It’s the route of death.

    And he said he hoped the British and French governments would “accept us in a better way”, adding:

    Anyone who wants to leave their home and travel to Europe has their own reasons and hopes, so please just help them in a better way and not force them to take this route of death.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • PM creates an international incident by allegedly saying one thing then tweeting something else

    France has reacted with fury after Boris Johnson publicly called on Paris to take back people who succeed in making the perilous Channel crossing to Britain. A French government spokesperson accused the prime minister of “double-speak” as the fallout from the sinking of a refugee boat on Wednesday with the loss of 27 lives erupted into a full-scale diplomatic row.

    “Double-speak”

    Earlier the French Interior Ministry announced it was withdrawing an invitation to home secretary Priti Patel to attend a meeting in Calais on 28 November of ministers from key European countries to discuss the crisis. The French were enraged by Johnson releasing a letter he sent to president Emmanuel Macron setting out his proposals to tackle the issue. They included joint UK-French patrols by border officials along French beaches to stop boats leaving – a move which Johnson said could begin as early as next week but which Paris has long resisted.

     

    Johnson also called for talks to begin on a bilateral returns agreement, saying it could have “an immediate and significant impact” on the flow of people attempting the crossing. However, the proposal was dismissed by French government spokesman Gabriel Attal, who said it was “clearly not what we need to solve this problem”.

    He said the prime minister’s letter “doesn’t correspond at all” with discussions Johnson and Macron had when they spoke on 24 November. He said:

    We are sick of double-speak

    Macron said Johnson’s decision to post his letter on his Twitter feed suggested he was “not serious”. He told a news conference:

    We do not communicate from one leader to another on these issues by tweets and letters that we make public. We are not whistleblowers

    Johnson’s alleged “double-speak” has prompted a new round of criticism following the many other problems he’s recently brought upon himself:

    “Hand in glove”

    Transport secretary Grant Shapps insisted Mr Johnson’s proposals were made in “good faith”, and appealed to the French to reconsider their decision to withdraw the invitation to Patel. He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

    I think it is really important that we work hand-in-glove with the French. I don’t think there is anything inflammatory to ask for close co-operation with our nearest neighbours

    The proposal was made in good faith. I can assure our French friends of that and I hope that they will reconsider meeting up to discuss it.”

    In a statement reported on French media, the Interior Ministry said the meeting on 28 November would go ahead with interior minister Gerald Darmanin and his counterparts from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany and representatives of the European Commission.

    Boris Johnson (left) greets French President Emmanuel Macron
    President Emmanuel Macron (right) said Boris Johnson’s proposals were ‘not serious’ (Alastair Grant/PA)

    In his letter, the prime minister argued a bilateral returns agreement would be in France’s interest by breaking the business model of criminal gangs running the people-smuggling trade from Normandy.

    Under Johnson’s proposals:

    – Joint patrols would prevent more boats from leaving French beaches.

    – Advanced technology such as sensors and radar would be deployed to track migrants and people-trafficking gangs.

    – There would be joint or reciprocal maritime patrols in each other’s territorial waters and airborne surveillance by manned flights and drones.

    – The work of the Joint Intelligence Cell would be improved with better real-time intelligence sharing to deliver more arrests and prosecutions on both sides of the Channel.

    – There would be immediate work on a bilateral returns agreement with France, to allow migrants to be sent back across the Channel, alongside talks to establish a UK-EU returns agreement.

    English Channel migrant deaths
    Migrants in Grand Synthe near Dunkirk (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

    However, as many people argue, a much better way of dealing with the crisis would be to open the borders:

     

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • TODAY: International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women,

    Women and girls everywhere continue to be subjected to multiple forms of gender-based violence, including femicide, online violence and domestic violence, UN and regional experts (for impressive list see below) said today. They call on States to exercise due diligence and to fight pushbacks on gender equality.

    On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, they issue the following statement: [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/11/19/16-days-of-activism-against-gender-based-violence-start-on-25-november-2019/]

    “Although they represent more than half the world’s population, women and girls the world over are still at risk of being killed and subject to violence, intimidation and harassment when they speak out – for the simple fact of being women and girls. Violence against women and girls is the result of intersectional forms of social, political, economic, racial, caste and cultural discrimination perpetrated daily against women and girls in all of their diversity, including in the context of armed conflict, and States and the international community have the obligation mandated by international human rights law and standards to address this violence. Together, these forms of discrimination not only aggravate the intensity and frequency of violence but also sharpen the impunity that exists against it and increase societal and individual readiness to allow it.

    Of particular concern is the fact that not only women and girls continue to be subjected to multiple manifestations of violence but that the spaces where this violence takes place have also multiplied. Nowhere is this more apparent than within online spaces, including social media. Governments, private companies and others may seek to hide their responsibilities behind the seemingly “borderless” nature of the internet. But human rights are universal and, as such, there is one human rights regime that protects the rights of women and girls offline as well as online, and that demands zero tolerance for violence against women and girls in the digital space. Violence against women and girls flourishes because those who seek to silence women and girls and facilitate their exploitation, abuse, maiming and killing are not firmly prevented from and held accountable for their actions.

    It is unacceptable that in today’s world where humanity and life on this planet faces the existential threats of climate change and toxic pollution amidst a proliferation of conflict; the COVID-19 pandemic has killed at least 5 million people and infected at least 250 million worldwide in less than two years, also causing an increase in domestic violence against women, that women and girls are unable to participate fully in responding to these threats or in the search for solutions because they are discriminated, abused and continue to suffer violence, including sexual violence, exploitation and death on the basis of their sex, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. These global crises interact with and further deepen pre-existing inequalities as well as legal, institutional and policy gaps to eliminate gender-based violence against women and girls, which in many cases, worsen them. Indigenous women, internally displaced women, women with disabilities, lesbian and transgender women and women belonging to other vulnerable or marginalized groups are particularly affected by the failure of these policies to prevent such violence, as well as protect and assist survivors.

    While a number of States, non-state actors and other stakeholders have stepped up their interventions and resource allocations to prevent and respond to gender-based violence against women and girls, more effort in terms of both financial and non-financial interventions is needed to make these approaches truly transformative, particularly with regards to prevention, to avoid that policies remain ‘gender blind’, ‘gender exploitative’ or ‘race neutral’. Many of these policies do not disaggregate data based on social and racial constructs which discriminate, marginalize, exclude, and violate women and girls. These policies need to transform the prevailing social, economic and political systems that produce, nurture, and maintain gender inequality and drive violence against women and girls everywhere, through increased investment in their education and skills development, access to information, social services and financial resources, and support for positive representation and images in public discourse and social media. Collectively, they need to do more to challenge the patriarchal social norms and constructs of masculinity, femininity, racism and casteism that are based on extremely harmful stereotypes and which can cause psychological, physical, emotional and economical harm, including for women of colour, including those of African descent. These stereotypes pervade state institutions as evidenced by the lack of accountability for many cases before law enforcement and justice systems. States must also ensure access to comprehensive physical and mental care for survivors of gender-based violence, as part of the full range of quality sexual and reproductive health care that must be available for all.

    Collective effort is required to stop the reversal of progress made in ending violence against women across the world and to counter the backlash against gender equality and the tenets of human rights-based legislation and governance. Those responsible for these regressive steps often begin by attempts to co-opt the justice system, change or issue new legislation and curtail fundamental rights and freedoms for women and girls, such as their freedom of thought, expression and association, their right to peaceful assembly, freedom of association, freedom of thought and, in particular, their sexual and reproductive rights. All human rights are inalienable, interdependent and exist without a hierarchy, despite the efforts of some actors to sacrifice some of these rights at the expense of others, often in the name of their own cultural or religious norms and their particular perception of societal harmony.

    Women and girls around the world need to be heard; their voices should not be silenced nor their experiences go unnoticed. Women will never gain their dignity until their human rights are protected. Women’s rights are human rights. Women and girls’ agency and participation in all processes that affect their rights and lives need to be promoted and protected at all costs. States should ensure and create an enabling environment for women to exercise their fundamental freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly and public participation free from intimidation and attacks. States must exercise their due diligence obligation and protect women human rights defenders, activists and women’s organizations who are regularly harassed, intimidated and subjected to violence for defending their rights and promoting equality. The level and frequency of violence against them should raise alarm bells everywhere. It is, and should be, a public policy and a human rights priority.

    If we want to gauge the underlying health, security and prosperity of a society, we all need to address our duty to play a part in the respect and furtherance of women and girls’ rights. There will be no prosperity without ending violence against women and girls in the public as well as in the private sphere.

    There will be no ending of violence against women and girls if we don’t recognize and protect the dignity, rights and security of women and girls everywhere and at all times.” ENDS

    *The experts:

    Platform of independent expert mechanisms on the elimination of discrimination and violence against women (EDVAW Platform): Reem Alsalem*, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences; ****Melissa Upreti ****(Chair), **Dorothy Estrada Tanck **(Vice-Chair), Elizabeth Broderick, Ivana Radačić, and **Meskerem Geset Techane, ***Working Group on discrimination against women and girls*; ****Gladys Acosta Vargas, ***Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women;* Margarette May Macaulay******, ****Rapporteur on the Rights of Women of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights**; Iris Luarasi, President of the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence of the Council of Europe; Tatiana Rein Venegas**, President of the* Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention*; Maria Teresa Manuela, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa.*

    Obiora Okafor*, Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity; Javaid Rehman, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran; Fabian Salvioli, Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence; Marcos A. Orellana, Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes; Francisco Cali Tzay, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples; Vitit Muntarbhorn,*Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia*; Mama Fatima Singhateh, Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children; Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; **Victor Madrigal-Borloz, ***Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity*; ****Alioune Tine****, Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Mali; **Sorcha MacLeod (Chair-Rapporteur), Jelena Aparac, Ravindran Daniel, Chris Kwaja, ***Working Group on the use of mercenaries*; Gerard Quinn****, ****Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities*; Livingstone Sewanyana*, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; ****Fionnuala Ní Aoláin****, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism; Cecilia Jimenez-Damary, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons;** Saad Alfarargi, Special Rapporteur on the right to development; **Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences; Fernand de Varennes****, Special Rapporteur on minority issues; Yao Agbetse, Independent Expert on the situation of Human Rights in the Central African Republic; **Nils Melzer, ***Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment*; Felipe González Morales, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants; Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing; Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right to health; Attiya Waris, Independent Expert on debt, other international financial obligations and human rights; Pedro Arrojo Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation;****Elina Steinerte**** (Chair-Rapporteur), ****Ms. Miriam Estrada-Castillo**** (Vice-Chair), ****Ms. Leigh Toomey****, ****Mr. Mumba Malila****, ****Ms. Priya Gopalan****, Working Group on arbitrary detention;** Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food; Ahmed Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; Muluka Anne Miti-Drummond,Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism; Siobhán Mullally, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children; Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association**; **Isha Dyfan, ***Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia* ; ****Luciano Hazan (****Chair-Rapporteur),**** Aua Balde ****(Vice-Chair),**** Gabriella Citroni, Henrikas Mickevicius**** and ****Tae-Ung Baik, ***Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances*; ****Alexandra Xanthaki, ***Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights;* **Morris Tidball-Binz ***Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions*; Anais Marin, Special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus; Surya Deva (Chairperson), Elżbieta Karska (Vice-Chairperson), Githu Muigai, Fernanda Hopenhaym, and Anita Ramasastry, Working Group on Business and Human Rights; David Boyd, Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment; Ms. Dominique Day (Chair), Ms. **Catherine S. Namakula (Vice-Chair), Ms. Miriam Ekiudoko,** Mr. Sushil Raj, Ms. Barbara G. Reynolds Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent; **Irene Khan, ***Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

    https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27851&LangID=E

    See also:

    https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/combating-violence-against-women-in-a-digital-age-utilising-the-istanbul-convention-grevio-general-recommendation-no-1-on-the-digital-dimension-of-vio

    https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2021/11/619e0ae14/refugee-women-lead-combating-gender-based-violence.html

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

  • The government’s approach to refugees slammed as ‘cruel and ineffective’

    Following the deaths of 27 people attempting to cross the English Channel, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, attacked the government’s approach to refugees. According to the Guardian, Solomon said:

    How many tragedies like this must we see before the government fundamentally changes its approach by committing to an ambitious expansion of safe routes for those men, women and children in desperate need of protection?

    Every day, people are forced to flee their homes through no fault of their own. Now is the time to end the cruel and ineffective tactic of seeking to punish or push away those who try and find safety in our country.

    As people die politicians play the blame game

    British and French leaders have reportedly begun to blame each other for this loss of life. Additionally, French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said the loss of 27 lives was an “absolute tragedy” as he blamed human trafficking gangs who promised people the “El Dorado of England” for a large fee.

    Prime minister Boris Johnson called on France to agree to joint police patrols along the French Channel coast, while French politicians pointed the finger at UK authorities for failing to tackle the issue.

    However, while the British and French officials blamed each other and human trafficking gangs for this loss of human life, some people on social media are clear about where the blame lies:

    Some refugees have arrived safely

    However, other refugees forced into making the dangerous trip across the Channel are reported to have been brought safely ashore by the RNLI in Kent.

    A group of people wearing life jackets and wrapped in blankets were seen huddled together on board an RNLI lifeboat before disembarking in Dover on Thursday morning.

    A call for action

    Responding to the deaths of these 27 people, the Refugee Council said:

    We will honour those lost by ensuring we take action today, stand united and call for urgent and immediate change from the UK Government. No one should ever feel their only option for their future is to cross the world’s busiest shipping lane in a dinghy. 98% of those who cross the channel claim asylum. They are men, women and children who have made the heart breaking decision to leave everything they know behind to flee war, persecution and violence. They have experienced untold trauma both in their home countries and on route here to the UK.

    And it calls on the UK government to:

    1. commit and deliver the expansion of existing safe routes including both resettlement and refugee family reunion. The government should commit to an annual resettlement target of at least 10,000 refugees and expand the existing family reunion rules to allow child refugees to be able to sponsor their parents and adult refugees to be able to sponsor their children under the age of 25 or their elderly parents to join them in the UK.
    2. establish a humanitarian visa system to allow people to apply for a visa to enter the UK for the purposes of claiming asylum, thereby reducing the need for people to make dangerous journeys across the Channel. People can only claim asylum in the UK when they are physically here, which is why they make desperate, often fatal journeys to reach the UK. It doesn’t have to be this way – humanitarian visas would enable people in need of protection to travel to the UK in a safe manner.
    3. Recognise that many people seeking asylum will have no other option other than making an irregular journey, as recognised in the 1951 Refugee Convention, and therefore they need to be treated fairly and humanely by being granted a fair hearing on UK soil. The Government need to put in place an efficient and effective asylum decision making system with timely decisions that are of high quality so people do not have to wait for months or years for an outcome on their case

    Featured image via – YouTube – ITV News

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Polish authorities detain, harass journalists covering refugee crossings from Belarus

    Berlin, November 23, 2021 — Polish authorities should allow journalists to cover refugee movements and other events of public interest without interference, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

    Since November 14, Polish police, border guards, and soldiers have detained and obstructed at least seven journalists covering refugee movements near the country’s border with Belarus, according to news reports and journalists who spoke with CPJ.

    Belarus authorities have recently allowed at least 3,000 asylum seekers from the Middle East to pass through the country to the border with Poland, sparking a diplomatic confrontation between the two countries, according to news reports.

    “Polish authorities must allow reporters covering refugee movements to work freely, especially in border areas,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “If police detain, harass, or obstruct journalists, they are depriving the Polish people and the rest of the world of vital information regarding an issue of global importance.”

    On November 14, police and border guards near the northeastern village of Czeremcha stopped reporter Claudia Ciobanu and photojournalist Jaap Arriens, both with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and regional news website Balkan Insight, and held them for about 30 minutes, according to Balkan Insight and Ciobanu, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.

    The officers demanded that the journalists disclose their phones’ serial numbers, and when Ciobanu and Arriens asked why, the officers said they were suspected of having stolen the phones, according to those sources.

    The officers released the journalists without charge, but only after accusing them of illegally entering Poland’s state of emergency area, and saying they could face criminal charges and up to 48 hours of detention for doing so, Ciobanu told CPJ.

    In September, Polish authorities declared a state of emergency covering the border area with Belarus, and barred journalists from entering that zone, as CPJ documented at the time. Ciobanu denied having entered the prohibited area.

    On November 15, police in the village of Usnarz Gorny detained and questioned reporter David Khalifa and camera operator Jordi Demory, both with the Russian government-funded network RT France, as they were documenting refugee movements, according to a report by their employer, news reports, and tweets by Khalifa.

    Authorities held Khalifa and Demory for several hours and took them to a court in the city of Sokolka, where they were fined for allegedly working in the emergency zone, banned from reentering that zone, and then released, according to those sources.

    RT France’s report did not disclose the amount of the fine; CPJ emailed the broadcaster for comment but did not receive any reply.

    On November 16, in the outskirts of the northeastern village of Wiejki, outside of the emergency zone, a group of soldiers stopped a car carrying photojournalists Maciej Nabrdalik, a freelancer; Maciej Moskwa, with the Polish media collective Testigo; and Martin Divíšek, with the European Pressphoto Agency, according to Nabrdalik, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview, and reports by the Polish Press Club professional organization and Press.pl trade website.

    Nabrdalik told CPJ that the three introduced themselves to the soldiers as journalists, said they would take photos, and the soldiers did not protest. However, when he, Moskwa, and Divíšek started to leave the scene, the soldiers abruptly stopped them, Nabrdalik said.

    The soldiers forcibly pulled the three journalists out of their car, handcuffed them, and held them for about an hour while they searched their car and examined their cameras and cellphones, according to Nabrdalik and those reports. The soldiers were not able to unlock the journalists’ phones, but reviewed and took notes on the phone numbers and other information displayed on their locked screens, those reports said.

    The Polish Press Club’s report features photos of bruises on the journalists’ wrists caused by the handcuffs.

    In a statement published on Twitter, the Polish Ministry of Defense alleged that Nabrdalik, Moskwa, and Divíšek did not identify themselves as journalists and attempted to flee the scene, and that the soldiers detained them until police could arrive. However, Press.pl wrote in its report that the outlet had reviewed an audio recording taken during the incident, which confirmed that the journalists identified themselves as members of the press, and the soldiers cursed at them and could be heard demanding to review their photos.

    In a November 20 interview with the Polish radio station RMF, Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak praised the soldiers’ behavior in the encounter, saying, “it is their duty to be firm.”

    CPJ emailed the press departments of the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the police and the border guard, and the Ministry of Defense, for comment, but did not receive any replies.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • UNHCR dismayed by deportation of Cambodian refugees by Thailand

    When the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), feels the need to speak out publicly – as it did on 22 November 2021 – it must be serious: It said that it deplored Thailand’s deportation of a Cambodian refugee, which occurred only ten days after the authorities deported two other Cambodian refugees. This action contravenes the principle of non-refoulement, which obliges States – including Thailand – not to expel or return people to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened.

    On 19 November, the Cambodian refugee was arrested. UNHCR immediately notified the authorities of the individual’s refugee status and urged the Government not to return the individual to Cambodia over serious concerns for the safety of the refugee. The refugee was held in a detention centre in Aranyaprathet overnight and deported to Cambodia the following day, on 20 November.

    “We are extremely alarmed by this trend of forcibly returning refugees to Cambodia, where they face a serious risk of persecution. Given recent developments, we are very concerned about the safety of UNHCR recognised Cambodian refugees in Thailand,” said Gillian Triggs, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection.

    “We urge the Royal Thai Government to refrain from deporting recognized refugees and to abide by its international obligations, particularly the principle of non-refoulement. UNHCR continues to offer its full support to the Government in ensuring the protection of those in need in Thailand,” she added.

    UNHCR is seeking urgent clarification from the Thai authorities regarding the circumstances leading to this most recent deportation and the fate of those returned in Cambodia. UNHCR exhorts Cambodian authorities to uphold international human rights standards and to allow human rights organisations access to the deportees.

    See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/05/11/three-democratic-voice-of-burma-journalists-and-two-activists-risk-refoulement-by-thailand/

    https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2021/11/619ba8da4/unhcr-dismayed-deportation-third-cambodian-refugee-thai-authorities-month.html

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

  • The Observer view on Priti Patel’s fake migrant crisis | Observer editorial

    The home secretary fans rhetorical flames on asylum seekers and refugees, but the numbers disagree

    Home secretaries from both main parties have scapegoated asylum seekers in attempts to endear themselves to voters in recent decades. But none with the fervour of Priti Patel, who in her two-year tenure at the Home Office has announced a series of initiatives to put people off seeking asylum in the UK. Wave machines in the Channel, flying asylum seekers to inhospitable islands thousands of miles away to be processed, criminalising those who rescue people drowning at sea: all are recent measures proposed by the home secretary regardless of their compatibility with international law and Britain’s moral obligations.

    Patel gives the impression that there is an escalating crisis in terms of the numbers of people arriving in the UK and trying to illegitimately claim refuge. This is not true. There is absolutely a crisis for asylum seekers trying to reach British shores by making the treacherous Channel crossing in small boats and dinghies. The British government should be doing all it can to clamp down on the people traffickers making a fortune by charging desperate people to attempt the crossing. But the number of people coming to the UK to claim asylum fell by 4% last year and stands at less than half what it was in the early 2000s. Britain receives a fraction of the asylum applications of Germany and France and fewer per resident than the EU average. Low-income countries host nine out of 10 displaced people worldwide.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Migrant caravan and Qatar’s tarnished World Cup: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

    A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland

    Continue reading…

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