Gunfire, explosions, flames, and death haunted Lee in his internally displaced persons camp almost daily.
“One night, explosions erupted near the camp, along with the sound of fighter jets,” recounted Lee, whose surname is being withheld due to security concerns.
“My parents woke me and we rushed to hide in the ditch outside. When it was over, we learned a bomb had damaged the community center. Worse, someone died that night.”
Lee, 18, became a refugee in his own state of Kayah (Karenni) following Myanmar’s Feb. 1, 2021, military coup that toppled the elected National League for Democracy government, and sparked an ongoing civil war.
A BenarNews photographer was allowed to travel across the border to the camp from Thailand, under an agreement that its location and the date of the visit would not be disclosed to ensure the residents’ safety.
Lee lived in a bamboo hut with a thatched roof built by his father in the camp. The encampment lacks electricity and water and houses more than 100 people in dozens of shelters.
“Every morning, we walk to bathe and collect water from the camp well,” Lee said. “On Friday evenings, we trek four hours to a camp near the Thai border to charge all our devices for the week ahead.”
The camp has a basic clinic and a barebones school sitting on a hillside with bamboo classrooms topped by tin roofs where children can continue their education despite the circumstances. The teachers, refugees themselves, are paid 1,500 baht (US $42) monthly. Most school supplies come from international non-profit organizations.
“I dream of going to university,” Lee said. “I wish for a safe country to welcome my family – any country ready to accept refugees like us.”
Shortly after speaking with BenarNews, Lee’s dream came true. He and his family relocated to a new country where he has a chance to pursue his educational aspirations.
The hut Lee’s father built is occupied by another young man from Kayah state whose mother was killed in the civil war.
He lives there with just his guitar as company.
A Karenni boy plays in the refugee camp near the Thai border in this photo taken in mid-2024. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) Residents walk to and from a well to collect water for their families in the Myanmar refugee camp that has no running water or electricity. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) Students walk to their homes for lunch at the Myanmar refugee camp in mid-2024. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) People are gathered to bathe near the well, the only source of water at the refugee camp in Myanmar near the Thai border in mid-2024. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) A refugee plays the guitar for entertainment at the Myanmar camp for Internally Displaced Persons. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) Some Karenni girls wear traditional skirts as they attend the camp’s only school. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) A woman with a scar on her arm seeks treatment at the camp’s barebones clinic. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) Men play volleyball as they do each evening in the refugee camp. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews) A view of the makeshift homes of Myanmar residents who have become refugees in their own country. They built their houses on a hillside to avoid detection by Burmese junta planes. (Nattaphon Phanphongsanon/BenarNews)
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Nattaphon Phanphongsanon for BenarNews.
Fundamental rights body warns of flawed approach to credible accounts of ill-treatment and loss of life
Authorities in EU member states are not doing enough to investigate credible reports of violations of human rights, including deaths, on their borders, an EU human rights body has said.
The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) said human rights agencies and NGOs were reporting “serious, recurrent and widespread rights violations against migrants and refugees during border management” but despite “credible” reports many were not investigated.
Just hours before Friday’s opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, a series of apparently coordinated arson attacks were reported on France’s high-speed rail network. No one has claimed responsibility yet. Before the games, protests highlighted the displacement of thousands of migrants, unhoused people and other vulnerable communities as “social cleansing.” We go to Paris for an update with…
Keir Starmer’s ‘left-wing’ Labour Party government said on Thursday 25 July it had deported 46 people to Vietnam and East Timor, after ditching the previous Conservative Party administration’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda. As people pointed out on X, the underhandedness and hypocrisy of these Labour deportation flights was clear to see.
Labour: we won’t deport you to Rwanda – but Vietnam is nice this time of year
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper this week said flights initially intended to fly undocumented migrants to the east African nation would instead be used to deport foreign criminals and immigration offenders.
The chartered return flight, which took off on Wednesday and arrived on Thursday, is the first ever to East Timor and the first to Vietnam since 2022, her department said.
“Today’s flight shows the government is taking quick and decisive action to secure our borders and return those with no right to be here,” added Cooper.
Labour has scrapped the Tories’ Rwanda plan. The UK Supreme Court had deemed it illegal under international law. Not that this stopped the Tories – who just changed the law. Nor was it the reason Labour has stopped it.
Cooper this week called the Rwanda scheme, intended to deter migrants making the Channel crossing in small boats from northern France, “the most shocking waste of taxpayers’ money” she had seen. Of course, she failed to mention its illegality and inhumanity.
The Tories had spent £700 million on the scheme but only four migrants had relocated to Rwanda – and they went voluntarily.
She also told parliament Sunak’s government planned to spend more than £10 billion on the scheme in total.
Short shrift to Cooper
However, people gave the news of Labour’s deportations a turning over on X.
One user pointed out that this was hardly a win:
Rwanda scrapped & Bibby Stockholm to close – great news! But really it’s the bare minimum.
At the same time as announcing these wins, the government has launched more immigration raids & a deportation flight to Vietnam.
Someone though Cooper and her cronies could do with a trip themselves to Vietnam:
I propose that we use the flights scheduled for Rwanda to deport the entire Labour front bench to Vietnam instead. They might actually learn something about Socialism over there! https://t.co/mq8ofPB5e5
— Hon. PolProf of Agile Ceremonies (@CeilNoyle) July 23, 2024
Labour’s approach is to prioritise returns of failed asylum seekers to designated safe countries. This is, it claims, to ease a huge backlog in the claims system – and NOT to pander to right-wing racists, obviously.
It also wants closer cooperation with Europe to “smash” the people-smuggling gangs behind the Channel crossings. So far this year nearly 16,000 people have come ashore. Of course, Labour couldn’t possibly make safe and legal routes for migrants, could it?
Vietnamese nationals accounted for 20% of undocumented migrants between January and March this year, Oxford University’s Migration Observatory said.
In March this year, Sunak’s government launched a global social media campaign. It was aimed at Vietnam in particular, to deter people from using the route.
On Wednesday 24 July, a gang of British people-smugglers were jailed. It was after they tried to hide two Vietnamese migrants in a hidden compartment of their campervan. This was as they travelled between France and the UK.
Eleven people have been convicted in the UK in connection with the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants who were found in the back of a lorry in 2019 after being smuggled from northern Europe.
Nothing left wing about Labour deportation flights
Home Office plans to remove dozens of people to Vietnam today, on a plane originally scheduled for Rwanda. This isn't change – it's the same old policy of forcing people out of communities, where they belong. The govt must change course immediately – the time to resist is now!
There’s nothing left wing about ripping people out of a country they now call home. Nor is there anything left wing about stopping people moving to this country for a better life – while allowing your own population to migrate to places like Spain along with your pubs, cafes, and fat, white, tattooed, balding men.
With music now a crime in Afghanistan, Braga has become one of the few places where the practice is being preserved
A stone’s throw from Portugal’s oldest cathedral and buzzing bakeries serving up pastéis de nata, the complex notes of a sitar fill the ground floor of an unassuming building in the northern city of Braga.
The soft strumming belies the radical nature of the mission that has taken root here: to preserve Afghan music and use it as a tool to counter those who want to eradicate it.
Back in the bad old days before the Labour Party government, the Tories were widely criticised for their ‘hostile environment’ policy. The criticism wasn’t just that the Tories were targeting what they called “illegal immigration”; the issue was that they and the media were putting overdue focus on the topic to worsen racial tensions and distract from the problems caused by austerity.
Good job the grown ups are back in charge, eh?
The source in this case is Yvette Cooper herself writing in The Sun. Here is the relevant passage from her article: pic.twitter.com/X9htiQnNtA
The hostile environment was spearheaded by Theresa May – first as home secretary and then as prime minister. The woman herself described it as follows:
The aim is to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants
The Hostile Environment deters people from going to the doctor for fear of racking up a huge bill or being reported, detained and deported. It deters undocumented migrants from reporting crime to the police. It deters undocumented migrants from reporting unsafe working conditions or exploitative employers. It reduces the options for renting a home and pushes people into poor quality or even dangerous accommodation, at the mercy of their landlord.
Hostile Environment policies also make doctors, landlords, teachers and other public sector workers responsible for immigration checks. These policies encourage and incentivise us to be suspicious of each other and undermine trust in our public services.
We are all impacted by the Hostile Environment, which increases racial discrimination and asks us to be suspicious of each other. At JCWI, we believe Britain can do better than this.
Those most affected are people without status in the UK. Most of the undocumented population in the UK is made up of people who came here legally, but subsequently lost their status, very often through no fault of their own. Some make the difficult decision to leave an abusive partner or an exploitative employer, even though it means they will lose their immigration status. Others grow up assuming they’re British, only to be told that they aren’t, even though they’ve never known any other country. And some fall out of regular status because they can’t afford the skyrocketing fees to renew their visa or to challenge an incorrect decision made by the Home Office.
No matter our nationality or immigration status, we all deserve to be treated with dignity and humanity.
Another important point is that the hostile environment led to the Windrush scandal:
The Home Office told the Windrush generation they must prove they had lived in the UK since before 1973. The Home Office demanded at least one official document from every year they had lived here. Attempting to find documents from decades ago created a huge, and in many cases, impossible burden on people who had done nothing wrong.
In 2017 it started to emerge that hundreds of members of the Windrush generation had been wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights. Coverage of these individuals’ stories began to break in several newspapers, and Caribbean leaders took the issue up with then-prime minister, Theresa May.
The Home Office has argued the Windrush scandal was an accident – but an independent report in March 2020, the “Windrush Lessons Learned Review”, makes it clear – this was the inevitable result of policies designed to make life impossible for those without the right papers. The Home Office has promised to learn the lessons of the scandal, but the only way to stop it happening again, is to scrap the Hostile Environment.
New government – same environment
The hostile environment was infamous for its vans. Here’s former footballer and political activist Neville Southall noting that the policy was still alive in spirit in 2023 under Rishi Sunak:
Remember the Go Home vans?
They were driven round diverse parts of London as part of a Government campaign to make life unbearable for migrants who can’t prove their immigration status in the UK.
Britain is a fantastic country – at our best we are respected and admired the world over.
But we cannot pretend everything is OK.
Not when so many young lives are lost to knife crime.
Not when too many neighbourhoods are plagued by anti-social behaviour.
Not when so many high streets are hit by a shoplifting epidemic.
And not when criminal gangs are making millions out of dangerous small boat crossings that undermine our border security and put lives at risk.
That is the legacy of Tory failure we are dealing with.
It can’t go on. That’s why the newly elected Labour Government is moving so fast to get on with the job.
We know this means hard graft not sticking plasters and it will take time to turn things round.
But Keir Starmer has made clear that politics has to be about serious public service again – whoever you voted for in the election, we want to work with you to renew Britain’s future.
As Home Secretary, I am leading the work on two important Government priorities: boosting our border security and taking back our streets.
Labour had two choices:
Admit certain issues are inevitable in an increasingly unequal country – in an increasingly unequal world – and announce plans to redistribute Britain’s wealth so as to prevent further societal decline.
Carry on blaming the symptoms and not the disease.
Everyone can now see which path Labour has chosen:
Just days into government, Labour are boasting about their new immigration enforcement and deportation push in a tabloid that thrives on dividing our communities.
Instead, they should be building a migration system based on safe routes, care and dignity.https://t.co/yglNX6m6qK
— Peace & Justice Project (@corbyn_project) July 21, 2024
Yvette Cooper desperately trying to think of a word that's not Gestapo: It's gonna be an immigration… blitz. pic.twitter.com/15NHKQMEl4
The Conservatives’ costly Rwanda Migration Partnership has been running for two years, costing hundreds of millions of pounds to send just four volunteers.
Meanwhile the asylum system is in chaos – the backlog has soared with thousands of people in costly hotels, and the number of enforced removals is down by a staggering 50 per cent in the past decade.
The previous government’s preoccupation with Rwanda and headline chasing meant they didn’t do the hard work needed to sort out the basics and the chaos just got worse.
I was shocked to discover the Conservatives had 1,000 civil servants working on the Rwanda Partnership.
Not any more.
We’ve moved staff instead into a new Returns and Enforcement programme to increase returns of those with no right to be here and to make sure rules are respected and enforced, starting with an increase in illegal working raids.
We’ve directed Immigration Enforcement to intensify their operations over the summer, with a focus on employers who are fuelling the trade of criminal gangs by exploiting and facilitating illegal working here in the UK – including in car washes and in the beauty sector.
And we are drawing up new plans for fast track decisions and returns for safe countries.
Most people in this country want to see a properly controlled and managed asylum system, where Britain does its bit to help those fleeing conflict and persecution, but where those who have no right to be in the country are swiftly removed.
For far too long under the Conservatives, we have had just costly chaos – that has to change now.
Labour: yesterday’s mistakes today
The Tories and right-wing media framed boat crossings as the issue of the day, and yet they completely failed to ‘solve it’ by the standards that they themselves had set. How did that work out for the Tories you might be wondering? Those who are old enough to remember the election of 2024 will know that the Tories’ focus on ‘illegal immigration’ massively backfired – supercharging the electability of Reform who promised to finish what the Tories had begun.
Don’t worry, though, because we’re sure the exact same thing won’t happen to Labour at the next election. We’re sure that war and climate breakdown won’t make an increase in boat crossings inevitable. We’re sure that failing to provide safe routes won’t mean more deaths at sea and more misery for everyone.
Why are we sure of that?
Because the grown ups are back in charge – that’s why.
And we’re also certain that ‘the grown ups are back in charge’ isn’t simply the mantra of people who have no actual answers to the very real problems this country is facing.
A new report demonstrated decisively how the UK’s immigration legislation is racist by design – just as the new Labour Party government seeks to amend it. In particular, it explored the reality that UK policies mainly target racialised people from Britain’s former colonies in raids, detention, deportation, and deprivation of citizenship.
The recent ‘illegal’ Migration Bill 2023 and Nationality and Borders Act 2022 are part of a long history of targeting and excluding ‘unwelcome’ and ‘undesirable’ groups of migrants. Crucially, the report illustrated how these bills base this rhetoric on colonial ideas of race and deservingness. In other words: who can be economically ‘useful’ to Britain.
Labour government’s racist immigration legislation
The Migrants’ Rights Network released the fresh report following the announcement of the new Border Security Bill in the King’s Speech. Notably, this set out how the new Labour government would introduce a new piece of immigration legislation to:
modernise the asylum and immigration system, establishing a new Border Security Command and delivering enhanced counter terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime [Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill]
As the Canaryhas previously reported, these punitive, aggressive policies will do little to actually end perilous boat crossings. To do that, the Labour government would instead need to expand safe routes to asylum. However, so far it appears wedded to the rightwing hardline borderisation approach.
Given this, the Migrant Rights Network report sought to put this alarming continuation in the context of its long-term hostile environment history. It examined how racism and colonialism play a central role in immigration policies.
Significantly, the report traced the historic colonial origins of the Home Office. Alongside this, it looked at the role of the 1948 British Nationality Act. Both of these shaped the notion of the “good immigrant” along racial lines.
Since then, governments have deliberately designed immigration legislation to keep non-White, racialised communities from Britain’s former colonies out of the UK. For instance, this included ‘The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962’, and ‘The 1981 British Nationality Act’.
Racism and colonialism has shaped UK immigration policies
Specifically, the report explored the function of racism and colonialism in shaping legislation around citizenship, and visa schemes. Deprivation of citizenship legislation and its amendments have legalised racism in Britain. That is, these have continually deprived racialised people of citizenship.
Of those deprived of citizenship and their nationalities between 2002 and 2022:
85% had or were deemed to have nationalities of countries in Africa, and South or West Asia (the Middle East)
What’s more, 83% were from former British colonies. Of this, 41% were South Asian, all being Pakistani or Bangladeshi.
Of course, the latter findings sit alongside new prime minister Keir Starmer’s recent racist dogwhistle attack on Bangladeshi people living in the UK.
Furthermore, the report unpacked how the “good character” test involved in applications for British citizenship, invokes racist ideals of ‘civility’. In doing so, the analysis identified that these application processes associated racialised migrants with criminality and, for Muslim migrants, extremism.
UK’s long-term ‘racist commodification’
The report also traced the historical continuity between today’s points-based immigration system and the work vouchers of the 1960s. Most notably, it found that governments have based visa schemes, including sponsored worker schemes, on ‘racial commodification’.
In short: the commodification of racialised people and/or people from the Global South for the purposes of economic extraction and exploitation by the Global North.
This has created an increasingly large and insecure class of migrant workers. In particular, the government has turned people into objects for their labour. As such, the report concluded that immigration legislation limits the ability of racialised people to come to the UK. Invariably, this has controlled migrants’ freedom to live their lives.
CEO of the Migrants’ Rights Network Fizza Qureshi said:
For People of Colour and other marginalised groups, this system simply wasn’t designed for us. That is why we are calling for the Hostile Office and immigration system to be dismantled. With a new Government in power, we hope it works with us to dismantle these cruel structures that have made the lives of migrants, and migratised people, a misery and joins us in taking a bold and transformative stance with migrant justice at the heart of policy.
Asylum seekers have held a sit-in demonstration outside the floating asylum accommodation the Bibby Stockholm. They were protesting their quasi-detention limbo on the barge as the new Labour Party-run Home Office puts them through huge waits for their claims to be processed.
Dozens of asylum seekers living on the Bibby Stockholm barge are staging a sit-down protest over delays in processing their asylum claims, overcrowding conditions and trouble accessing medical treatment.
A man this week described the boat in Dorset as the “hell barge”. There are about 400 asylum seekers onboard, one of the highest rates of occupancy since it opened in 2022.
From the start, the Tories de facto floating prison has been riddled with controversy. Days after the Home Office had forced 39 migrants aboard the vessel in August 2023, tests detected the bacteria legionella within its water system. This bacteria can cause a potentially deadly respiratory condition known as Legionnaires’ disease.
As a result, the government had to evacuate the refugees from the barge. In September, freedom of information requests (FOIs) revealed that tests had identified the most deadly strain of legionella on the vessel.
Meanwhile, others have highlighted the huge sums of taxpayer’s money the government has thrown at the abhorrent floating cage. A migrant solidarity group had estimated the cost of the barge at £560k for just four weeks. However, information obtained by investigative group Corporate Watch revealed the Bibby Stockholm’s bill to be much higher in total. It found that the weekly cost amounted to nearly £300k. This means that the government squandered £2.2m to private contractors while the barge remained vacant due to legionella.
Campaigners have also underscored the appalling conditions and treatment on board. For instance, refugees on the barge have described the poor food quality and restricted access to it. Notably, for nearly half the day, they are entirely unable to access food from the on-site canteen.
The traumatic experience of living on the isolated Bibby Stockholm has led to suicide attempts, with one Albanian man, Leonard Farruku, dying by apparent suicide in December 2023.
Legal action has been a feature of the barge’s controversial history from the word go too. First, in August 2023 the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) launched a challenge against the Home Office over fire safety concerns.
Then, local councillor and Portland Mayor Carralyn Parkes embarked on a legal battle over the Bibby Stockholm. In October 2023, the courts quashed her initial judicial review against the Home Office. However, Parkes pursued her legal action, this time against Dorset Council. In May 2024, the courts once again dismissed the case. In both instances, the High Court had ruled that neither the Home Office or Dorset Council had planning authority over the barge.
Bibby “hell barge”
Many on the barge have waited long delays in the Home Office processing their asylum claims. Some on board haven’t received a decision after three years. In fact, an iNews report from December 2023 revealed that the Home Office won’t even approve claims while asylum-seekers are housed on the Bibby Stockholm.
So now, asylum-seekers have launched a first-of-its-kind protest. Carrying placards that read “life not limbo” and others calling for “freedom” from the Bibby Stockholm, they sat together in the outside courtyard:
asylum seekers on the prison “hell barge” Bibby Stockholm are protesting their conditions: overcrowding, infections, lack of access to medical treatment and being held there for months, with no time limit.
Meanwhile, local residents and campaigners from Stand Up to Racism Dorset stood in solidarity with them at the port:
Locals standing with refugees housed on Bibby Stockholm barge demanding that the new government process their asylum claims and close the prison barge pic.twitter.com/jXB404mia3
I’m at Portland Port where locals are holding a peaceful protest in solidarity with the men on the Bibby Stockholm barge.
A number of the men are holding a sit-in protest outside the barge, calling on the Government to speed up the asylum process#BibbyStockholmpic.twitter.com/jTodv9Mz1c
As refugee and asylum specialist Lou Calvey noted, the right-wing vanity project was always a deliberate decision by a the rancidly racist Tory government. Instead, Labour could now choose to house asylum-seekers in communities, where local people and services can support and welcome them:
Asylum seekers on Bibby Stockholm barge stage sit-down protest. A man held on board describes it as a ‘Hell barge’.
The barge is more expensive than community based accommodation, it’s a choice to punish people that the new gov urgently need to close. https://t.co/mjRAVaamJ2
Labour prioritises right-wing pandering and publicity stunts over people
Indeed, the 18-month contract for the barge is set to expire soon. So, it would present the perfect opportunity for Labour to ditch it.
Despicably however, in the in the final weeks of the election campaign, then shadow and now Home secretary Yvette Cooper said Labour would initially keep the barge. Cooper told LBC that the party would seek to end its use “as fast as possible”, but argued that:
what you have to do first of all, the system is broken, so we need to prevent small boats arriving in the first place and that means smashing the criminal gangs.
Already, Cooper has launched Labour’s game of migrant scapegoating from the outset. First on the agenda, Labour waving its dick around with its rightwing pander-project-come-border security plans. As the World Socialist Web Sitereported:
Within 48 hours of Labour coming to power, British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the creation of a Gestapo-like Border Security Command (BSC).
However, the Canaryhas pointed out before how these plans will do little to actually end dangerous boat crossings. To prevent people making the perilous crossing, Labour needs to expand safe routes to asylum.
Ostensibly, its “stop the boats” chest-beating is not – and never was – about saving lives. If it were, the new Labour government would put a stop to the enormous abhorrent racist prison boat in its own backyard once and for all.
This Thursday – 18 July – will mark one year since the barge arrived in Portland. Labour should end Dorset’s – and the country’s – ship of “shame” for good.
Amnesty Ireland said it was “appalled” at the decision by Helen McEntee to add Egypt, an act it called “deeply reckless”.
On 2 July 2024 Cate McCurry in breakingnews.ie reported that human rights groups have criticised the decision to add countries such as Egypt and Malawi to Ireland’s list of “safe” countries for asylum applications as concerning and “reckless”. The Irish Government made five additions to its list of safe countries on Tuesday: Brazil, Egypt, India, Malawi and Morocco.
Countries added to this list are viewed by the Government as places where “there is generally and consistently no persecution”, no torture, and no armed conflicts. The proposal by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee was approved at Cabinet on Tuesday, meaning protection applications from these countries are to be accelerated from Wednesday following an “extensive review” by the department.
Amnesty Ireland said it was “appalled” at the decision by Ms McEntee to add Egypt, an act it called “deeply reckless”.
“This categorisation is particularly shocking, given the protracted human rights and impunity crisis in Egypt, where thousands are arbitrarily detained, and where Amnesty International has consistently documented the use of torture and other ill-treatment and enforced disappearances.”
“No country is safe for everyone. But, putting Egypt with its abysmal human rights record on such a list is deeply reckless. Under Irish and EU law, the Minister for Justice may do so only if there is generally no persecution, torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment in that state. That absolutely cannot be said of Egypt.” As an illustration only, see https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/egypt/
Egypt Researcher at Amnesty International, Mahmoud Shalaby, said that since 2013 the Egyptian authorities have been “severely repressing” the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
“Dissidents in the country remain at risk of persecution solely for expressing critical views,” he said. “Thousands of arbitrarily detained solely for exercising their human rights or after grossly unfair trials or without legal basis.”
Chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, Nick Henderson, said they were very concerned at the designation of Morocco, Malawi and Egypt as “safe”.
“Frankly, when you look at some of the human rights information from countries such as Egypt, I’m quite staggered and flabbergasted how they could be designated as safe,” he told RTE’s News at One.
The introduction of accelerated processing in November 2022 has had a significant impact on the number of applications from those countries, which have dropped by more than 50 per cent in that time.
Undercover reporters from Channel 4 News have exposed in Clacton the cesspit of bigotry festering inside the Reform Party ahead of the general election. Of course, practically no one was surprised by this.
However, the open bigotry itself from Nigel Farage flunkeys should not be the key take-away. In reality, it speaks to the hate-filled political environment that the two mainstream parties and the corporate media have fomented.
In short, Reform’s racist, homophobic canvassers are the thin end of the violent political landscape that makes up bigoted Britain.
Reform: Clacton canvassers caught out spouting hate
Channel 4 News have sent an undercover reporter on the campaign trail in Clacton, where Farage is standing for election.
In covertly captured footage, it caught out Reform canvassers spouting racist slurs and anti-LGBTQ+ hate. On top of this, the news outlet exposed them advocating disgusting violence against migrants:
BREAKING: Nigel Farage’s Clacton campaign has been exposed to have evidence of racism and homophobia
One canvasser about Rishi Sunak: “That f**king p*** we got in – what good is he?”
People on X were shook and expressed their horror at the entirely unpredictable behaviour of Farage’s cult *ahem* canvassers:
Racists, bigots & homophobes representing Reform? Really? Who would have guessed? #Farage this is on you. As it is on anyone who votes for them #ReformRacistshttps://t.co/NlkLKcmR4y
Someone fetch me my clutching pearls! Bring the collapsing settee and the good smelling salts (not the cheap ones for every day shocks, if you don’t mind).
— The Bear – #GE24 Satirical Fact Checking (@i_iratus) June 27, 2024
Because, knock me over with a feather, Reform riddled with rabid racists? You don’t say! Needless to say, the ‘news’ was entirely unsurprising to everyone. As one person on X expressed, racists in a racist country is pretty par for the course:
Exposed to who? The reason anybody is voting for them is because they already think and talk like this. If nothing, this will recruit more people.
I don’t know why y’all get surprised when a country that is so openly racist does the openly racist thing. https://t.co/XTOfsEs5PH
Bad apples from the Reform tree rotten to its core
As a case in point – the replies were cesspool of revolting bigotry:
Some of the responses to this post are very scary. The deep rooted racism and hatred within these people we live beside. The hate they have for Muslims doesn’t even surprise me. What does surprise me is how they openly and happily agree with views to shoot refugees https://t.co/Ns1ugNBt1s
So what came of Channel 4’s findings in Clacton? Predictably, Reform kicked its public relations face-saving machine into action. Campaign manager for Farage Peter Harris told the outlet that:
Any individuals who have been identified as making unacceptable comments and holding those views are not welcome in our campaign. We are running a campaign to represent all voters in Clacton.
And Farage said that:
I am dismayed by the reported comments of a handful of people associated with my local campaign, particularly those who are volunteers. They will no longer be with the campaign.
In other words, Reform is distancing itself from the bigots the media caught out. Here we go again, a few bad apples is it? One poster on X rubbished this deception:
If Farage ejected everyone with these sorts of views he would have to shut his entire Reform corporation down and pay back all of its profits (membership fees). This worldview is its very core. https://t.co/5n1Jv0BrHI
People also compared this to the reaction of a brown woman using an established critique from Black intellectual thought of how white supremacism manifests through elite Black and brown politicians:
— Fahad Ansari (Stop the Gaza genocide) (@fahadansari) June 27, 2024
Notably, the term coconut satirically criticises the idea that having diverse representation – in this case, in parliament – actually makes a difference for marginalised communities. As the Canary’s Maryam Jameela has articulated before, this is simply not the case, because:
Getting Black and brown faces into positions of power means very little if those same people don’t use their power to make life better for the most vulnerable people in society.
Crucially, she highlighted that their class identity, in other words, the fact they come from rich and privately educated backgrounds, means they don’t typically represent the most vulnerable in society. Instead, they act in the interests of power. That is, they uphold the white power structures in place – and their regressive, scapegoating policies reflect this.
This is what the term ‘coconut’ is all about, because as the Canaryexplained:
calling someone a “coconut” is a casual way to suggest that someone who is brown on the outside, is white on the inside. In other words, whilst being brown they are committed to whiteness above all else.
It’s hardly a new term, and documents a social reality that doesn’t often make it into the mainstream.
It’s a complex articulation of racial dynamics and hierarchies.
In short, it wasn’t a racial slur from Marieha, but actually a valid expression of her view that Sunak and Braverman do not speak for her or her community. Ridiculously then, she’s now in court for an entirely unwarranted public order offence.
On Wednesday 26 June, police also arrested protesters who turned out in support of Marieha – many sporting placards that detailed the satirical nature of the term.
Meanwhile, on shit-hole Island, Reform canvassers utter actual racial slurs on the campaign trail and will face no consequences for this.
Of course, as the Canaryhas consistently pointed out over recent Palestine protests, the cops are servile instruments of the state. Naturally then, they act to protect this power structure – invariably, this means the elite, patriarchal, white supremacist and heteronormative status quo. Unsurprisingly, racism, homophobia, and sexism is therefore deeply embedded in the police too.
Bigotry in ‘bad words’ only
All this is the inevitable end result of an establishment commentariat wedded to the corporate capitalist system. These canvassers are the supporters of a man the BBC and other outlets keep plastering onto our screens:
We need to talk about how #bbcqt is the reason this repugnant creature is now a serious influence on British politics. Entirely to our detriment. https://t.co/V2NGOd8Qge
Far from de-platforming the political symbol of this vile hate, the mainstream media has consistently normalised him.
However, one poster on X articulated how the Clacton Channel 4 News investigation demonstrates another part of this. Specifically, the broadcaster’s piece is illustrative of a broader problem in the mainstream media. That is, how the press only recognises bigotry in its most blatant forms:
I honestly see this as more evidence that our media is more shocked by bad words than bad sentiments. Reform UK, Farage et al have been expressing most of these sentiments on the TV and in the newspapers for years, but the media only sees it as racist when they use ‘bad words’. https://t.co/v2HKlRBxGl
And the poster was right. Bigotry isn’t simply the hate-filled words that people utter towards marginalised communities. This is just the visible and thin end of the wedge. Of course, it needs calling out, but so too do the systems that continue to oppress our communities.
Because the reality is, those words are simply the slurs the architects of discriminatory policies are usually too guarded, too politically savvy to say out loud.
Gormless Reform gammons regularly buck this trend, but be under no illusions. The bigot in a nice suit, with slick political gymnastics to justify punching down, is still a bigot. They’re just better at making their violence publicly palatable, and securing the billionaire backers and press to make it happen. In other words, the mainstream political class is actively complicit in this:
There is nothing shocking about any of this.
Why do we pretend these views aren’t totally commonplace?
What’s shocking is denial/tacit encouragement by a complicit political class, fostering these sentiments and appealing directly to them, rather than fighting back against. https://t.co/dJEsdHa2Ts
Reform might be openly, brazenly fascist, but the creeping fascism of the Tory and Labour right is if anything, more insidious. If you’re wondering why Starmer is comfortable sitting in parliament with Farage, this is the reason.
In other words, Farage and Reform’s existence is almost convenient. Its transparent bigotry lays cover for the Tories and Labour, as they push legislation couched in the same violent hate. And the same corporate media that downplays Reform and Farage’s hate-mongering, also does this with the Tories and Labour to devastating effect too:
Another reminder that Reform is *not* far right apparently according to sensible pundits who choose to take Farage at his word rather than the far right discourse and politics of his parties
It’s the Overton window in its finest, most dangerous hour. At the end of this day, a poster on X summed up this political pantomime in one fell swoop:
A few days before the world marked Refugee Week (17 – 23 June), I was at the Good Food Show in Birmingham with a gal pal.
Tasting samples and browsing a range of home-made products, I saw out of the corner of my eye a woman in a headscarf at a cheese stand. And then it clicked…
The Syrian couple in Yorkshire!
Yep, I’d heard about a Syrian couple who’d sought refuge in the UK and set up a cheese business in the UK but not learnt much about it.
And here they were!
Dama Cheese – founded by Razan Alsous and Raghid Sandouk – is not just a cheese business. It’s an award winning one – with a very inspirational story behind it. A story like many others.
Last week was Refugee Week – a time when the world celebrated the achievements of refugees worldwide, and strived to raise critical awareness of the struggles they face – against the wave of misinformation used to demonise refugees (more information at the end of this blog).
So, with that in mind, here are six inspiring stories of six families/people who made the UK their home – making a big mark for the better.
Take a look!
1. Imad Alarnab: Founder of Imad’s Kitchen
Image: Imad’s Kitchen (2024)
Back when I was living in London, I visited Imad’s Kitchen with a good friend of mine. And it didn’t disappoint!
Delicious food and a delightful welcome, I knew the story behind the restaurant before we booked and so, I of course wanted to make sure I made it to this fresh new foodspot in the city.
Founder of Imad’s Kitchen, Imad Alarnab has an inspirational backstory.
Back in Syria, Imad ran three successful restaurants and several juice bars and cafés in Damascus.
However, during the war, he lost his businesses after they were destroyed in the bombings, leaving Imad with no choice but to flee in search of safety.
Leaving Syria, moving from Lebanon to Europe, Imad would share his skills and passion for food, cooking for up to 400 refugees at a time.
Imad put his passion for food aside as he starting working as a car washer and car salesman. But… this was all about to change…
With the support of his friends, he began to make his mark on the London food scene, running a series of charity events. His supper clubs were incredibly popular, selling out within hours.
Then, in 2020, “Imad’s Kitchen” was born – opening in Kingly Court, Soho. Still going strong, you can now even purchase his recipe book.
Eating at Imad’s Kitchen (2022)
What’s more, with his success, Imad hasn’t forgotten his own journey.
Raising over £200,000 for the refugee organisation Choose Love, he’s pledged to donate a pound from every bill at his restaurant to the organisation, which supports refugees and displaced people across Europe.
So, if you’re in the area, why not book a table? You won’t be disappointed!
2. Waheed Arian: Doctor and Founder of Arian Teleheal
I wish all those celebrating a very happy Eid al-Adha. And, Happy Father's Day, too. (late message from a busy ED shift) pic.twitter.com/emNOyjwyn2
A British doctor and radiologist working for the NHS and World Health Organisation (WHO), Arian arrived in the UK – alone – at the age of 15 from Afghanistan. His parents were eager for him to pursue an education.
Speaking little English, Dr Arian worked at shops and universities whilst supporting his family and studying at several colleges in the evening.
Gaining the grades in his A levels to study medicine at Cambridge University, he was to overcome social isolation at one of the world’s most renowned universities.
Gaining qualifications from Cambridge, Harvard and Imperial, he started practising in hospitals in London, before moving to Aintree Hospital in Liverpool. At the same time, Dr Adrian returned to Afghanistan to support medics caring for patients injured during the ongoing conflict.
Realising that many UK-based medics also wanted to help, but could not travel safely to the area, Dr Waheed then set up Arian Teleheal– a UK-based charity which enables local doctors in warzones and low resource countries to consult with expert clinicians worldwide, using everyday technology (such as smartphones, instant messaging and video chat).
Thanks to Dr Arian, volunteer doctors have saved the lives of men, women and children in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Uganda, South Africa and India.
Seeing the effects of Covid-19 on people’s mental health, Dr Arian most recently setup up “Arian Wellbeing”, bringing together psychologists, licensed therapists, personal trainers and nutritionists to offer holistic care – inspired by his own journey of overcoming PTSD.
His motto remains: “Inspire, and we can help millions“. Well, you certainly do inspire Dr Arian!
If you’d like to support the work of Dr Arian, there are plenty of ways to help!
If you’re a medic, you could volunteer your services. If not, why not sponsor an event or donate towards the charity?
In 2012, Anab, Abdul and his brother Zaki founded Sahan Cares, enabling them “to train these highly capable women in social care and provide them with work opportunities.”
Abdul then joined the Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Programme Scale Up in October 2018 and has since grown the business to go on to great success.
With an annual revenue of £1.8 million, the organisation works across three London boroughs, with every employee a former refugee.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised Abdul for his efforts in driving up vaccine uptake in the BAME community – reaching a 100% vaccination rate within his organisation.
“Having gone through my very own experience as a member of a disadvantaged group, I’m committed to empowering people with similar background and providing support to those in need.
“This award is a morale booster for our plans to extend services to people in need of mental health support.”
With the organisation going strong, Abdul is a frequent speaker, current postdoc student and trustee of UK-based NGO Action Aid.
Arriving in the UK aged just 12 from Afghanistan, Gulwali has become a best-selling author, award-winning activist and campaigner, co-founder of My Brite Kite and member of Speakers Collective.
Graduating with a degree in Politics from the University of Manchester and most recently his MPA from Coventry University, Gulwali has used his voice and experiences to advocate for the rights of refugeesand asylum seekers.
"They've been scapegoated, dehumanised and criminalised for coming here seeking protection."
A member of the audience, who came to the UK from Afghanistan aged 12, asks the panel about the UK's asylum system. #C4Debatepic.twitter.com/q3KYwy5x5v
It sheds light on the journey he took as child and his experiences as a child refuge. It has featured on various outlets, including BBC, CNN, Channel 4 News, ITV, The Guardian, Time Magazine and The Independent.
A longstanding activist, Gulwali’s roles include Global Youth Ambassador for global children’s charity Theirworld, Olympics Torch-bearer, and within the NHS Youth Forum.
Winning the Manchester Leadership Gold Award, in 2016, Gulwali was later nominated for the 2016 Nansen Refugee Award by the UNHCR.
5. Razan Alsous and Raghid Sandouk: Founders of Dama Cheese
Image: Dama Cheese
As mentioned, a few weeks ago, I visited the Good Food Show in Birmingham with a friend. And I was delighted to see Dama Cheese!
I’d heard about the couple behind the company but didn’t know much about their story. And so I did some research…
Married coup;e Razan Alsous and Raghid Sandouk arrived in the UK from Syria in 2012 with their three children.
Razan’s background is in microbiology, having graduated from the Medical Institute in Syria. Her husband Raghid is an electronic engineer who ran his own business supplying the pharmaceutical and food industries in Syria with Quality Control labs.
Then war broke out… The family of five later arrived in the UK and faced the challenges of settling into a new life in Yorkshire, including looking for work:
“…despite having a pharmacy degree and a scientific background my lack of references and work history in the UK made it extremely difficult.
“… I have three children and wanted so badly to build a bright future for them. So, I started to think what was around me – the expertise I could tap into, the sources of support and other opportunities available to me.”
Razan Alsous
Given the family’s scientific background, and that their new home of Yorkshire was plentiful with local high-quality milk, an idea came to mind:
“… Syrian cheese (a squeaky semi-hard cheese) that I know and ate every day for breakfast in Syria is very trendy in the UK and British people love eating it!
“As I couldn’t find a great tasting quality squeaky cheese anywhere in the supermarkets or local independent farm shops, I then had a brainwave: why not create a business and make myself Syrian cheese from fresh high-quality British milk!
“And so started our journey – with an idea and a start-up loan of just £2,500 from the Local Enterprise Agency. We had to adapt the equipment we bought and then finally got the approval to start manufacturing cheese in June 2014.”
Just four months after production started, Dama Cheese won the World Cheese Award Bronze prize (2014/15). And, the business has gone from strength to strength!
The couple have since won the World Cheese Award – Gold, along with a host of awards, nominations and taking part in various TV appearances. They’re even stocked in Aldi!
Congratulations guys!
Find out more about Dama Cheese – check out their shopand recipeson their website.
6. Malala Yousafzai: Activist and Campaigner
"I know that if we match girls' determination, fund their work and follow their lead, we will see so much progress in the next ten years."
I’m sure we’ve all heard of Malala. But… did you know she settled in Birmingham (central England) – an hour from my family home?
The youngest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (aged 17 at the time!), Malala Yousafzai is a world-famous activist and campaigner for the rights of women and girls – in particular the right to education.
Born in Pakistan, she spoke out publicly about the right for girls to learn, to go to school and to get an education.
She began blogging for the BBC on the issue and Malala won Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize in 2011. She was then nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize.
Malala sadly became a target for the Taliban and on October 9 2023, was shot on the left side of her head.
She woke up in a hospital in Birmingham (UK) ten days later, where she later underwent surgery and was discharged in January 2013.
Settling in Birmingham, Malala began attending school once again and carry on with her life in safety.
In 2013, she co-founded Malala Fund, which funds and advocates for girls’ education globally.
Her memoir “I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban”, co-written with British journalist Christina Lamb, was also published in the same year.
Later graduating from the University of Oxford, she became the youngest ever Honorary Fellow at Lincare College, Oxford in 2023. To date, she is the second Pakistani and only Pashtun to receive a noble prize.
Inspiring change across the globe, she continues to fight for the rights of girls worldwide to a pursue an education and independent future: “I tell my story not because it is unique, but because it is the story of many girls”.
Thank you Malala for all your incredible work!
Take action:
If you’ve been inspired by the stories of resilience, commitment and success in this blog, then please do take action as we move past the hub and buzz of Refugee Week.
Here’s how you can help build change.
1.Support employment opportunities and social entrepreneurship for refugees
Offer CV workshops, volunteering opportunities and training opportunities in your community and/or workplace to refugees in your local area.
Refugee Action (who actively look to employ people with lived experience of displacement)
Don’t forget to also look into local support organisations and community centres offering 1-2-1 casework support for refugees and asylum seekers in your area.
You can help by donating towards their work, promoting them within your networks, volunteering you time and skills and/or sponsoring their work.
It’s also worth taking a look at organisations supporting refugees and displaced people internationally.
Safe Passage have long been campaigning to reunite child refugees with their families – including here in the UK. To date, they’ve helped over 2,500 child refugees reach safety.
Find out more about their work and how you can help here
5. Share this blog!
Spread the word: refugees are welcome here!
Don’t forget, there’s a person behind each statistic – and a context!
Don’t let the media fool you and others. Push against the xenophobic and anti-refugee rhetoric – with facts, real lived experiences and positivity!
And lastly: a massive thank you to all of the featured individuals in this blog for your resilience, commitment and positivity.
A group of nearly 70 Democrats is calling on the Biden administration to move to accept Palestinians fleeing Israel’s genocide in Gaza as refugees if they have family living in the U.S., an action praised by advocates who say that it is a small but crucial step toward saving Palestinian lives. In a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas…
The new film Green Border, from acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland, dramatizes the humanitarian crisis facing millions of migrants seeking refuge in Europe. It tells the true story of how refugees from the Middle East and Africa became trapped in 2021 at the so-called green border between Poland and Belarus, through the perspectives of refugees, border guards and refugee rights activists. “Fear and the hate are so easy to be spread when our borders or our comfort is attacked by the challenge of newcomers,” warns Holland, who connects the crisis depicted in the film to Europe’s growing anti-migration political atmosphere. “Frankly, it is an incredible mess right now. And it’s going in a very dangerous direction,” she says. Green Border opens today in New York and nationwide next Friday.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
More than 3 million people in Myanmar have been uprooted from their homes, most of them due to intensifying conflict in the country’s three-year civil war, according to the United Nations.
They are among the 120 million people globally who have been forcibly displaced by conflict or persecution on this World Refugee Day, marked annually on June 20 – refugees who have crossed borders and internally displaced people who have fled homes but remain within their country’s borders.
RFA Burmese asked several displaced people to share their stories.
Khin Yadana Soe and three families from the Bago region in the south fled to the Thai border town of Mae Sot three months ago when the junta forces entered their village.
“The fighter jets dropped bombs on the nearby villages, suspecting they were sheltering rebel militia members, and they hit the houses,” she said. “As we lived in a large compound, we feel depressed living here in this narrow space. We are used to living on farms. We also have no jobs here. Only one family member has been able to secure a job but this family has five family members – my mother, my daughter, my husband, my sister and me.”
Rohingya refugees look through the debris of their houses charred by a fire at the Ukhia camp in Cox’s Bazar on June 1, 2024. (AFP)
Khin Maung said he feels sad whenever World Refugee Day comes around. He is one of 750,000 Rohingya who fled violent crackdowns in Rakhine state in 2017 and now lives in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
“We always feel sad on this significant day. We have no future, with no access to education or a job. The United Nations also needs to consider this matter,” he said. “I wish Bangladesh would help us go back to our own country.”
Aung Myint, who lives in a camp in the western state of Rakhine, said his family had fled their home six years ago.
“We want to go back to our hometowns, but we don’t even have the money it would take to return home,” he said. “We also no longer have our own houses in our hometown. Additionally, we are dependent on the land for our livelihood, and there is no way to access our land. So it will be difficult for us to go back home. If we stay here, though, we have no access to food and drinking water.”
A newly arrived Rohingya refugee draws water with a bucket at the former Red Cross Indonesia office building in Meulaboh, West Aceh, on March 22, 2024. (Zahlul Akbar/AFP)
A woman in Kachin state, in the north, who had been displaced since 2011 said she “was really hoping to return home, but it seems that the likelihood is even worse. Fighting is taking place everywhere,” she said. “As more people have fled the war, we understand now that we have no realistic hope to return home.”
Min Min, who has been living in Thailand’s Noh Poe refugee camp for 17 years, said he desperately wants to go to a third country.
“We are living in a very tight camp on World Refugee Day. We have been living here for 17 years, but the situation has not improved at all,” he said. “The project has not worked. We are living at the camp as it is not possible to go back home. So I want to go to a third country.”
A woman from the northern Sagaing region, where some of the worst righting has happened, said that his family is living in the forest.
“When I came here to escape the fighting, my children couldn’t go to school here because they previously attended junta schools. All the displaced people have suffered a lot. We have to work odd jobs on farms. We are facing difficulties getting food.”
A man who fled from Kayah state in eastern Myanmar, said he just wants to go home.
“We had to leave our house, and we could not carry anything. Our property and belongings were stolen. We fled with just the clothes we were wearing, and it was a struggle just to eat. We want to go back home, and hope for an end to ongoing tragedies immediately.”
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
Chinese nationals are seeking political asylum in ever larger numbers, but face transnational repression from China and lack of understanding from foreign authorities as they flee persecution, refugees and those who help them told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews.
A Chinese activist who supported an online free speech campaign that saw its leader arrested in Laos and is “terrified” of being sent back to China is now facing deportation from Denmark after her asylum application was rejected by authorities there.
Liu Dongling fled China in 2018 when her son was refused an education by authorities after she helped victims of forced evictions to apply for compensation through legal channels, she told RFA Mandarin in an interview recorded two days before World Refugee Day, June 20.
She said the authorities claimed they couldn’t be sure from the evidence she submitted that she was at risk if she went back to China.
But Liu says she knows otherwise, citing repeated phone calls from a state prosecutor from her home city of Zhengzhou.
“I gradually realized that this Gaoxin District People’s Procuratorate official called Li Hongbin had been put in charge of my case, relating to when I was helping others with their [forced eviction complaint] cases,” Liu said. “I realized that the fact that he kept calling me put me in danger.”
Who is a refugee?
The United Nations defines a refugee as someone who legitimately fears persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, belonging to a social group or having a certain political opinion, and is unwilling to return to the country for those reasons.
Protesters gather outside a Chinese “police service station” in New York’s Chinatown district on Feb. 25, 2023, to demand an end to spying on the Chinese community in New York. (Image from RFA video)
China also actively works to force its overseas dissidents to return home, sparking international concern over the Chinese Communist Party’s “long-arm” law enforcement operations, which have included running secret police “service stations” in dozens of countries, according to the Spain-based rights group Safeguard Defenders.
Liu, who started writing for the overseas Chinese-language website Boxun after leaving China, also cites the forced repatriation of rights activists Dong Guangping and Jiang Yefei by authorities in Thailand around the time she left China.
“I was told by a colleague at Boxun … that a lot of Boxun journalists had been detained in China, and that some had even been detained in Thailand,” Liu said. “So I got more and more terrified.”
Captured in Laos
Liu had also been a vocal supporter via X of an anti-censorship movement started by Lao-based activist Qiao Xinxin, who was later detained and forcibly repatriated.
Qiao, whose birth name is Yang Zewei, went missing, believed detained on or around May 31, 2023 in Vientiane, after launching an online campaign to end internet censorship in China, known as the BanGFW Movement, a reference to the Great Firewall, according to fellow activists.
His family were later informed that he is being held in a juvenile detention center in Hunan’s Hengyang city in another example of China’s cross-border law enforcement activities.
Qiao Xinxin. who launched a campaign to end internet censorship in China, known as the BanGFW Movement, is seen April 20, 2023. (Ban_GFW via X)
Qiao had lived in Laos for several years before launching the BanGFW Movement, yet was believed to have been detained by Chinese police in Vientiane.
Radio Free Asia contacted the Danish Refugee Council by email about Liu’s case, but had received no reply by June 19. Danish Repatriation Council official Tina Fjorside confirmed on Tuesday that Liu had now entered a process that will result in her forced repatriation.
Immigration jails are ‘hell on earth’
Thailand-based political dissident Li Nanfei told RFA Mandarin that he’s now basically stuck in the country, playing an ongoing game of cat-and-mouse with Thai immigration authorities, and trying to stay out of their detention centers.
“Immigration detention centers are like hell on earth,” Li said. “Human rights violations are very common, inmates are packed in very densely, and there is frequent violence.”
Li spent his savings on bailing himself out of his last spell in detention, where he ran into plenty of other refugees on the run from China.
“The immigration prisons would hold onto them for a long time,” he said. “Some people were held there for more than 10 years. Some even died in there.”
Figures released by the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR in June 2022 showed that while around 12,000 Chinese nationals sought asylum overseas in 2012, the year that Xi took office as Communist Party general secretary, that number had risen to nearly 120,000 by 2021.
Chinese rights activist Xiang Li speaks in an interview following her July 27, 2018 arrival in the United States. (RFA)
The U.S. remains the most popular destination, accepting 88,722 applicants from mainland China last year. Australia took 15,774 asylum-seekers in the same year, figures showed.
New York-based current affairs commentator Ma Ju, who runs a refugee relief station offering two weeks of free food and accommodation to Chinese asylum-seekers in the city, said the refugees just keep on coming, despite the hazards of overland travel to the border with Mexico, known in Chinese as “walking the line.”
“A very high proportion, about 80%, are here because of political, religious or ethnic [persecution],” Ma said. “A lot of ethnic minorities like Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Hui Muslims, Mongolians and Tibetans are there because of their religion or ethnic identity.”
The vast majority can’t live a life of any dignity back home in China, Ma said.
“They were in pain and misery every day — there’s nothing there for them, no dignity,” he said, adding that only a small minority of refugees are basically there for what he termed “economic reasons.”
In San Francisco, artist and rights activist Xiang Li has formed a group to help refugee women through art. Most of them are Chinese women.
“Some have psychological trauma and need treatment,” Xiang said. “We haven’t gotten to the point of offering counseling yet, but there is a kind of mutual support we can offer, which is sometimes even more effective.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Wang Yun for RFA Mandarin.
Back in November 2018, a federal judge blocked President Trump’s asylum ban, saying at the time that it was an overreach of executive authority and that the president is “not a monarch.” A few months later, Joe Biden tweeted that Trump was “fighting tooth & nail to deny those fleeing dangerous situations their right to seek asylum in our nation” and that “we should uphold our moral responsibility &
The Conservatives have let immigration get out of control… This prime minister for all his tough talk is the most liberal prime minister when it comes to immigration
But the Labour Party leader’s approach is a stark change from his comments in 2020, when he was vying to be Labour leader. He said at an event in London in January 2020:
We need to make the wider case on immigration… We welcome migrants, we don’t scapegoat them. Low wages, poor housing, poor public services, are not the fault of people who come here: they’re political failure. So we have to make the case for the benefits of migration; for the benefits of free movement.
— Frank Owen’s Legendary Paintbrush (@OwenPaintbrush) June 4, 2024
Starmer doubled down on his stance on immigration in 2020:
London is an amazingly diverse and fantastic place for it and the whole of the UK is better because of immigration, and I think if I’m honest the Labour Party’s been a bit scared of making the positive case for immigration for quite a number of years and I think we need to turn that around.
He then did a complete reversal, speaking in November 2023 about net migration figures for 2022 standing at 745,000:
That figure is shockingly high. And it represents a failure not just of immigration but asylum
The Office for National Statistics estimates that net migration to the UK in the year ending December 2023 was 685,000.
Lies?
In his leadership campaign, Starmer committed to restoring EU freedom of movement. But after he won the leadership, he ordered his MPs to back Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal in December 2020.
And in November 2022 Starmer confirmed he would not bring back freedom of movement, calling it a “red line”.
More broadly, he went back on every pledge he made to become Labour leader.
Instead of lying his way through politics, Starmer could have engaged with grassroots supporters to build a new settlement. But from foreign to domestic policy, he has little to offer.
Group who crossed from Belarus included sister of one of the accused in case highlighting Latvia’s harsh migration laws
Two Dutch people are facing prison sentences of up to eight years in Latvia over what they say was an act of compassion to help a group of refugees reach safety, including the sister of one of the pair.
The case has put Latvia’s harsh laws on migration under the spotlight and comes as a local rights activist also faces jail time, for helping refugees who crossed into Latvia via the country’s border with neighbouring Belarus.
International rights groups and leaders who for months have demanded a cease-fire in Gaza expressed renewed horror as images emerged from Israel’s Sunday bombing of a tent camp that had been set up by forcibly displaced Palestinians in Rafah, with women and children making up the majority of the 45 people who were reportedly killed in the attack. Emergency workers told NBC News that the death toll…
Myanmar refugees who fled civil war and sought refuge in border villages in neighboring India’s Manipur state said they are are being deported by local authorities and a paramilitary group.
Manipur state Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh said in a May 8 Facebook post that the deportation of nearly 5,500 “illegal immigrants” was underway, though he did not specifically refer to the Myanmar refugees. Of that number, authorities had collected the biometric data of almost 5,200 of them, he said.
The Indian government has a policy to collect fingerprints of all foreigners residing in India, including refugees deemed “illegal immigrants,” for security purposes.
The thousands of civilians from Chin state and Sagaing region poured over the Indian border and into Manipur state to escape armed conflict between junta troops and rebel forces that followed the military’s seizure of power in a February 2021 coup d’état.
Another 60,000 Myanmar civilians from Chin state have crossed the border and sought shelter in Mizoram state, south of Manipur, according to Chin civil society groups in Myanmar and aid workers.
The Mizoram government, however, has decided not to repatriate any of the Chin refugees until the situation there stabilizes. Many ethnic Mizos in Mizoram believe that they and the Chins belong to the same ethnic group.
A screenshot of a post on X about the deportation of Myanmar refugees by N. Biren Singh, chief minister of northeastern India’s Manipur state, May 2, 2024. (@NBirenSingh via X)
Singh’s announcement contradicted an earlier statement by Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah that the government would not repatriate the refugees until peace had been restored in Myanmar.
India is not a signatory of the U.N. refugee convention, which states that refugees should not be returned to countries where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.
‘A disregard of lives’
Soon after Singh’s comment, village administrators and soldiers from the Assam Rifles, a paramilitary force that protects India ‘s northeastern border, began removing 30 refugee households, forcing them into a forest near border post 74, said a Myanmar refugee who declined to be named for safety reasons.
“We were forced to remove our shelters and leave there,” said the refugee who fled Htan Ta Bin village in Myanmar after it was burned down. “Now we have to live in a yard.”
An official from the Burma Refugees Committee–Kabaw Valley, an organization that helps people fleeing to Manipur from war-torn Myanmar, objected to the refugees being deported and said they have not received humanitarian aid.
“They crossed the border because of the conflicts with junta troops who threatened their lives,” said the aid worker who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety.
“They were arrested and handed over to the Myanmar junta,” he said. “It is a disregard of the lives of displaced persons, and we object to it.”
Salai Dokhar, a New Delhi-based activist who runs India for Myanmar, a group that raises awareness of the rights of refugees, said it would not be safe for the refugees to return if biometric data collected by the Manipur government is handed over to the Myanmar junta.
Before repatriating Myanmar citizens, the Indian government sends immigration documents or background information to the ruling junta based on refugee testimonies or documents they possess.
A screenshot of a post on X about the deportation of Myanmar refugees by N. Biren Singh, chief minister of northeastern India’s Manipur state, May 2, 2024. (@NBirenSingh via X)
“If they are handed over [to the junta] along with the biometric information, then the security of the deported persons would be worrisome,” he said.
Dokhar also said he would question officials about the contradictory statements on Myanmar refugee deportation made by Singh and Shah.
Neither the Myanmar Embassy in New Delhi nor the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees responded to RFA’s emailed requests for comments by the time of publishing.
Call to stop deportations
The International Commission of Jurists, a human rights NGO based in Geneva, Switzerland, called on the Manipur government to immediately stop the forced deportations and reconsider treatment of the refugees.
On May 2, Singh announced on social media the deportation of 77 detained “illegal immigrants” from Myanmar, calling it the “first phase.”
Of these, 38 women and children were handed over to Myanmar’s junta. However, the Manipur government has not yet released the remaining 39 from prison.
More than 60 Myanmar refugees arrested by Indian authorities at the border are still being held in prisons, according to volunteer aid workers concerned about the refugees being deported.
Translated by Aung Naing for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
As Israel drives the Palestinians deeper into another Nakba in Gaza with its assault on Rafah, the Palestine Youth Aotearoa (PYA) and solidarity supporters in Aotearoa New Zealand tonight commemorated the original Nakba — “the Catastrophe” — of 1948.
The 1948 Nakba . . . more than 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and become exiles in neighbouring states. Many dream of their UN-recognised right to return. Image: Wikipedia
This was when Israeli militias slaughtered more than 15,000 people, perpetrated more than 70 massacres and occupied more than three quarters of Palestine, with 750,000 of the Palestinian population forced into becoming refugees from their own land.
The Nakba was a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing followed by the destruction of hundreds of villages, to prevent the return of the refugees — similar to what is being wrought now in Gaza.
The Nakba lies at the heart of 76 years of injustice for the Palestinians — and for the latest injustice, the seven-month long war on Gaza.
Participants told through their stories, poetry and songs by candlelight, they would not forget 1948 — “and we will not forget the genocide under way in Gaza.”
Photographs: David Robie
Nakba Day vigil in Tāmaki Makaurau in Aotearoa 2024
1 of 12
Nakba 1: Recalling the original Nakba in Palestine in 1948. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 2: Photos of the original 1948 Nakba and the atrocities that followed. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 3: A photographic timeline from 1948 until 2024. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 4: Blindfolded Palestinian captive. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 5: “Generation after generation until total liberation.” Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 6: Palestinian Kiwi children with miniature watermelons. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 7: Palestinian keys – symbolic of the Right To Return. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 10: A montage of Israeli settler colonial cruelty. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 11: Palestinian children sing about their homeland during the Nakba rally in Auckland’s Aotea Square on Sunday, 12 May 2024. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Nakba 12: A giant “key of return” during the Queen Street Nakba march on Sunday, 12 May 2024. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The EU has ramped up its assault on refugee rights with its latest sweep of borderisation policies. On Tuesday 14 May, the bloc gave the final greenlight for a broad overhaul of its migration and asylum policies. However, the new EU ‘Migration Pact’ is simply another extension of its racist “fortress Europe” project. Crucially, its colonial undertones were unmistakable amidst platitudes to “help people fleeing persecution”.
EU Migration Pact
Across a suite of ten legislative acts, the EU has reformed its framework for asylum and migration. A majority of EU countries backed these, ensuring its passage despite opposition from Hungary and Poland. The overhaul comes into effect from 2026.
It establishes new border centres that will detain migrants while their asylum requests are vetted. Notably, the new policies will effectively accelerate deportations. Partly, it will do so through new border procedures that categorise asylum seekers. Border officials will use this new system to make quick assessments on applications.
European politician clamoured to hail the new policies. In one breath German interior minister Nancy Faeser said the reform will help people fleeing persecution, while in the other she said that it will make:
clear that those who do not need this protection cannot come to Germany or must leave Germany much more quickly
Unsurprisingly then, migrant and human rights organisations have consistently slammed the EU’s new slapdash approach to asylum applications and migration in general.
Amnesty EU called the new EU Migration Pact out on X:
The #EUMigrationPact will imply: More people detained at #EU borders Low quality procedures for asylum seekers Emergency measures that restrict asylum Limited support for border states Shifting responsibilities to countries outside Europe
In other words, the new policies will sure up Europe’s racist borders. Meanwhile, more borderisation will put migrant lives at risk. As Amnesty previously highlighted in April:
For people escaping conflict, persecution, or economic insecurity, these reforms will mean less protection and a greater risk of facing human rights violations across Europe – including illegal and violent pushbacks, arbitrary detention, and discriminatory policing.
“Final nail in the coffin for human rights”
The Europe-wide umbrella organisation the Platform for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) also criticised the EU’s move:
— Platform for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) (@picum_ngo) May 14, 2024
PICUM has previously articulated the multitude of ways the new EU Migration Pact will endanger migrant rights. Alongside pushing up deportations, the policies will exarcerbate racial profiling, limit access to legal representation, and remove vital safeguards.
The UK’s Migrant Rights Network – a member of PICUM – has warned this will:
expand the digital surveillance at Europe’s borders and further embed the mass criminalisation of migrants.
Specifically, it explained that in practice, this will mean:
the use of intrusive technology including surveillance and drones, in addition to the mass collection of people’s data which will be exchanged between police forces across the EU. Notably, this includes changes in the Eurodac Regulation. Eurodac is an EU database that stores the fingerprints of “international protection applicants” and migrants who have arrived irregularly.
This will mandate the systematic collection of migrants’ biometric data including facial images which will be retained in massive databases for up to 10 years. This data can be exchanged at every step of the migration process and made accessible to police forces across the European Union for tracking and identity checks purposes.
This means biometric identification systems will also be used to track people’s movements.
Colonial borders
In parallel with the sweeping reforms, the EU is stepping up its colonial ideology. Specifically, it has been negotiating deals with countries of transit and origin aimed at curbing the number of arrivals. Of course, this entails outsourcing the EU’s borders.
In recent months, it has inked agreements with Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt.
Meanwhile, Italy has also struck its own accord with Albania. This will allow it to send migrants rescued in Italian waters to the country while their asylum requests are processed.
Furthermore, a group of countries spearheaded by Denmark and the Czech Republic are laying the groundwork for a similar approach. They have been coordinating a letter to the European Commission pushing for the bloc to transfer migrants picked up at sea to countries outside the EU.
However, Migration Policy Institute Europe Camille Le Coz said that there were “many questions” about how any such initiatives could work.
Under EU law, immigrants can only be sent to a country outside the bloc where they could have applied for asylum, provided they have a sufficient link with that country.
That rules out – for now – any programmes such as the UK’s abhorrent Rwanda scheme. Therefore, Le Coz said that it still needs “to be clarified” how proposals for any EU outsourcing deals would work.
EU Migration Pact: racist apparatus
Unsurprisingly then, entrenching its hard borders is EU’s answer to people seeking safety and community in Europe. Specifically, the EU originally launched work to reform its migration legislation off the back of the so-called 2015 “refugee crisis”.
Now, this has culminated in a slate of racist legislation that will put migrants at greater risk of harm. Of course, outsourcing borders and criminalising migrants is entirely on brand with the colonial “fortress Europe” rhetoric.
Invariably, this has become the intrinsic racist apparatus of colonial nations dodging responsibility for driving violence and displacement across the globe in pursuit of continued capitalist plunder. To the politicians in the halls of power, migrant lives continue to be expendable.
Rishi Sunak says Belfast judgment will not affect his plans and the Good Friday agreement should not be used to obstruct Westminster policy
Sunak starts with global security threats.
The dangers that threaten our country are real.
There’s an increasing number of authoritarian states like Russia, Iran, North Korea and China working together to undermine us and our values.
People are abusing our liberal democratic values of freedom of speech, the right to protest, to intimidate, threaten and assault others, to sing antisemitic chants on our streets and our university campuses, and to weaponize the evils of antisemitism or anti-Muslim hatred, in a divisive ideological attempt to set Britain against Britain.
And from gender activists hijacking children’s sex education, to cancel culture, vocal and aggressive fringe groups are trying to impose their views on the rest of us.
Not a week seems to go by without the political establishment demonising migrants in ostentatious displays of facile right-wing rhetoric. This time, it was Keir Starmer who launched Labour’s latest racist tirade against people seeking asylum. Specifically, the opposition party has announced its new reactionary scheme to “stop the boats”.
Of course, the new vile plan should come as no surprise from a Labour lurching shamelessly to the right on everything from Gaza to welfare.
Starmer’s ‘stop the boats’ publicity stunt
On Friday 10 May, Starmer unveiled Labour’s new plans to tackle so-called illegal migration. Predictably, the announcement was riddled with racist political posturing. As the Telegraphreported ahead of the announcement:
Keir Starmer will vow on Friday to use terror laws to tackle the small boats crisis, as part of plans to work more closely with Europe to combat people smugglers.
The Labour leader will announce plans to scrap the Rwanda scheme and use the money to create a border security command with new powers to treat people smugglers like terrorists.
Notably, Starmer broke the news during a speech in the Dover constituency of Tory defector Natalie Elphicke. However, Labour’s decision to welcome the right-winger with open arms has prompted backlash from MPs and the public alike. This is because Elphicke has a torrid history of voting for hardline, right-wing policies across the board.
Crucially – as the Canary’s James Wright pointed out however – her racist politics are now almost indistinguishable from Starmer’s Labour:
Elphicke and Starmer both demonise refugees. Elphicke has suggested refugees are terrorists who bring “violent protest” to British streets, while Starmer has spent Prime Minister’s Questions trying to flank Rishi Sunak from the right – pressing him on ‘stopping the boats’.
Labour’s answer to Rwanda is just more racism
Naturally, migrant rights campaigners have been quick to drag the Labour leader over his latest capitulation to the right.
Migration and asylum policy researcher and advocate Zoe Gardner condemned the plan on Sky News:
Neither shipping a few scared & homeless people to Rwanda, nor any police enforcement – “elite” or otherwise – will solve this.
If Labour is offering a true alternative to Tory chaos, they have to take safe routes seriously.@SkyNews this morning pic.twitter.com/AR1XAcx1RO
Moreover, as migrant rights writer and campaigner Minnie Rahman noted, Labour’s new immigration scheme isn’t about making the UK safer for migrants:
Three things to ask yourself during every immigration policy announcement: Will this stop deaths in the channel? Does this create a safety net for vulnerable people? Will this decrease xenophobia?
Ostensibly then, Labour’s answer to Rwanda is simply more racist prevarication:
This announcement is terrifying.
People of Colour from the Global South have been given no alternative to come safely to the UK + many turn to smuggling groups. Labour have demonstrated they are content to continue to push more cruel, racist policieshttps://t.co/N4baPiDKcB
— Migrants' Rights Network (@migrants_rights) May 10, 2024
Fueling right-wing narratives
It also didn’t go amiss to some that Starmer also shared the announcement via his X and linked to an article from the hate-mongering corporate media tabloid the Sun:
Dangerous right-wing rhetoric normalising xenophobia & migrant bashing in the S*n on the same day that Rod Liddle is also spouting dangerous right-wing rhetoric in the S*n https://t.co/odINC5TxTVpic.twitter.com/K2jtodeWhb
Of course it wouldn’t be the first time the Labour leader has dabbled with the toxic shit rag. One X poster pointed out that it’s exactly this rhetoric which is fueling right-wing hatred towards migrants:
This rhetoric – associating refugees with terrorism & existential threat, & framing the answer as ever more coercive measures – feeds far-right narratives & opens the door to Tory calls to abandon international law & our moral duties to refugees.
— Alasdair Mackenzie (@AlasdairMack66) May 10, 2024
Safe routes to asylum
Vitally, people on X highlighted that the terrorism and border force plans will do little to actually stop dangerous boat crossings. Instead, as Labour socialist National Executive Committee Mish Rahman explained, this requires expanding safe routes of asylum:
More than ever, we need a progressive Labour Party which stands up to Tory demonisation of migrants.
That does mean ending dangerous boat crossings – but the way to do that is by expanding safe routes for refugees, not treating them as a threat to be neutralised.
Meanwhile, refugee and asylum specialist Lou Calvey commended Labour’s commitment to scrap the Rwanda scheme. Conversely however, Calvey underscored the announcements lack of substance on ending the UK’s complicity in violating migrant rights:
Labour pledging to end the Rwanda pantomime is welcome.
But Rwanda is just one of the human rights abuses we’re inflicting…
We’ve banned asylum seeking – Refusing to uphold the Refugee Convention. We’ve closed the slavery support mechanisms to migrants.
Of course, others pointed out how Labour isn’t actually interested in ending the hostile environment for migrants and saving lives. Instead, it’s barreling into the next election with its anti-migrant rhetoric on full throttle:
And they're off! The race to vilify migrants for general election votes is in full swing. Refugees need protection, not persecution. Those of us who have moved to the UK are not the problem. We're sick of being your political football. #TheseWallsMustFallhttps://t.co/c6hXiW7BuX
At the end of the day, Labour’s latest dogwhistle blueprint shows that it’s increasingly pointless trying to work out where they end and the Tories begin.
As an election beckons, the two major UK parties have doubled-down on their disgusting anti-migrant racism. Be it Sunak or Starmer, Conservative or Labour, casting your ballot for either party is now meaningless if you care for any of the most marginalised groups in the UK.
If you had any doubts where Labour stand on migrant rights, it’s abhorrent vitriol on channel crossings now makes it clear for all to see. Starmer may as well crack out the notorious Miliband anti-migration mug and be done with it. Of course, that’s the one thing he really should be smashing – and its appalling rhetoric right along with it.
Protests and hunger strikes among asylum seekers held in detention centres in preparation for deportation to Rwanda are increasing, the Guardian has learned.
Approximately 55 detainees, including Afghans, Iranians and Kurds, are believed to have staged a 10-hour peaceful protest in the exercise yard at Brook House immigration removal centre, near Gatwick airport from 6pm Tuesday until 4am Wednesday.
When it comes to border control, there is a crucial difference between us – we want secure borders
Moreover, Starmer gloated about Tory MP Natalie Elphicke defecting to Labour. He sneered at Sunak that “one week a Tory MP who’s also a doctor [Dan Poulter] says the prime minister can’t be trusted with the NHS and joins Labour”. Starmer then noted:
And the next week the Tory MP for Dover on the front line of the small boats crisis says the prime minister cannot be trusted with our borders and joins Labour. What is the point of this failed government staggering on?
However, Elphicke’s record speaks for itself. As SKWAWKBOX noted, she has a record of anti-refugee sentiment as the MP for Dover.
PMQs: both leaders out of step
According to an Ipsos 2023 poll, 56% of British people believe refugees make a “positive contribution” to the country.
And 84% agreed with the statement that “people should be able to take refuge in other countries, to escape from war or persecution”.
Indeed, 102,807 Ukrainian people were granted refugee status in the UK in the year 2022-23.
Yet in April 2024, five people including a child died trying to make the crossing to the UK.
So – like with respect to the Ukraine war – the UK could provide safe and legal routes, as well as in cooperation with other countries, to uphold its duty to refugees.
Punching down
Instead of the PMQs rhetoric on asylum seekers, Starmer – as Labour leader – could be focusing on issues of capitalism that have a huge impact.
For instance, the government treats housing as an asset that people should rent or profit from- rather than what’s primarily an essential one should own for cost-price.
Instead, social and private landlords are simply leeching profits from tenants.
Such scams and the demonisation of refugees must end.
What a stinking story of inhumanity. A country intent on sending asylum seekers to one whose residents have actually applied for asylum and sanctuary in other states. But the UK-Rwanda deal, having stalled and stuttered before various courts and found wanting for reasons of human rights, has become law with the passage of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.
The story of this deal has been a long one. On April 14, 2022, the government of Boris Johnson announced the Asylum Partnership Arrangement with Rwanda, which was intended “to contribute to the prevention and combating of illegally facilitated and unlawful cross border migration by establishing a bilateral asylum partnership”. Rwanda, for a princely sum, would receive those whose asylum claims would be otherwise processed in the UK through the “Rwanda domestic asylum system” and have the responsibility for settling and protecting applicants.
This cynical effort of deferring human rights obligations and not guarding asylum seekers and refugees from harm has been made all the more hideous by Kigali’s less than savoury reputation in the field. Refugees have been shot for protesting over reduced food rations (twelve from the Democratic Republic of Congo died in February 2018). Refugees have also been arrested for allegedly spreading misinformation about Rwanda’s less than spotless human rights record. And that’s just a smidgen of a significantly blotted copybook.
Notwithstanding this, UK home secretaries have gushed over Kigali’s seemingly falsified credentials. Suella Braverman, who formerly occupied the post, was jaw dropping in her claim that “Rwanda has a track record of successfully resettling and integrating people who are refugees or asylum seekers”. This is markedly ironic given that the Rwandan government has been accused of creating its own complement of refugees running into the tens of thousands.
The UK government has a patchy legal record in trying to defend the legitimacy of the exchange with Rwanda. The Court of Appeal in June 2023 reversed a lower court decision on the grounds that those asylum seekers sent to Rwanda faced real risks of mistreatment prohibited by Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Rwanda, it was noted, was “intolerant of dissent; that there are restrictions on the right of peaceful assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of speech; and that political opponents have been detained in unofficial detention centres and have been subjected to torture and Article 3 ill-treatment short of torture.”
The government also failed to convince the UK Supreme Court, which similarly found in November 2023 that people removed to Rwanda faced a real risk of being returned to their countries of origin in violation of the principle of non-refoulement. That principle, by which persons are not to be sent to their countries of origin or third countries if they would be placed at risk of harm, is a cardinal rule in several instruments of international law and enshrined in British law.
In what can only be regarded as a legal absurdity, the Safety of Rwanda bill essentially directs the home secretary, immigration officials, courts and tribunals to deem Rwanda a safe country in accordance with UK law and UK obligations to protect asylum seekers. It also bars decision makers from considering the risk of refugees being sent by Rwanda to other countries and disallows UK courts from drawing upon interpretations of international law, including the European Convention of Human Rights. Effectively, a sizeable portion of the UK’s own Human Rights Act 1998 has been rendered inconsequential in these determinations.
A final, nasty feature of the legislation is the grant of power to a Minister of the Crown to decide whether to abide by interim measures made by the European Court of Human Rights regarding any removal to Rwanda. This is astonishing on several levels, not least because it repudiates the binding nature of such interim measures.
Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, could barely believe the passage of such an obnoxious bit of legislation. Not only did it fly in the face of obligations to protect refugees, it constituted a direct interference in the judicial process. “The United Kingdom government should refrain from removing people under the Rwanda policy and reverse the Bill’s effective infringement of judicial independence.”
Shadowing these proceedings is an unmistakable, ghoulish legacy of Australian origin. The former Home Secretary Priti Patel openly acknowledged that elements of the “Australian model” of processing asylum claims in third countries were appealing and something to emulate. The particularly attractive element of the plan was the refusal by Canberra to ever permit those found to be refugees to ever settle on Australian soil. Other countries, including such European states as Denmark, have also chosen Rwanda as an appropriate destination for unwanted asylum seekers.
The entire affair is a stunning example of political entropy, a howl from an administration marching before the firing squad. With each failure, the Tories have tried to claw back respectability in the hope of appearing muscular in the face of irregular migration. They have accordingly cooked up a scheme that is not merely cruel, but one of staggering cost (each asylum seeker of the current cohort promises to cost the British taxpayer £1.8 million) and ineffectualness. Sunak, a laughably weak and unpopular prime minister, is, politically speaking, at death’s door. Despite getting the legislation through, legal struggles from potential deportees are bound to tear into the arrangements. What Britain’s judges do will prove a true test of character.
Once again, the violence of colonial ‘fortress’ Europe is on full display as the UK ramps up its racist refugee policies. Meanwhile, across the Channel, a new report has exposed France’s abusive migrant detention regime.
Rwanda plan: Tories set their immoral scheme in motion
The UK government has begun its appalling assault on migrants living across the country.
On Monday 29 April, the Home Office launched a spate of detentions. As the Guardian reported:
Detainees will be immediately transferred to detention centres, which have already been prepared for the operation, and held until they are put on planes to Rwanda. Some will be put on the first flight due to take off this summer.
Now, the government has confirmed that it has detained a number of these migrants ready for deportation.
A Supreme Court ruling last year that ruled that sending migrants to Rwanda in this way would be illegal because it:
would expose them to a real risk of ill-treatment
Moreover, numerous rights groups, the UN Refugee Agency, and the UN’s human rights office haveslammed the government’s scheme. In February, UN human rights chief Volker Türk issued a scathing statement on the plan, saying that:
It is deeply concerning to carve out one group of people, or people in one particular situation, from the equal protection of the law – this is antithetical to even-handed justice, available and accessible to all, without discrimination.
Immigration tyrannising migrants
Naturally however, this hasn’t stopped the racist Tory government from ramming it through parliament. On 22 April the House of Commons passed the abhorrent new law which greenlights the Tory’s flagship asylum policy.
So, following this, a new Home Office document has now revealed that the government plans to deport 5,700 migrants to Rwanda this year.
Specifically, it detailed that Rwanda has “in principle” agreed to accept 5,700 migrants already in the UK.
Under the government’s new plans, it can deem asylum claims inadmissible for migrants who arrived in the UK between January 2022 and June last year.
So of course, it has already started its foul campaign tyrannising migrants.
Calling it “another major milestone” in the Rwanda plan, the ministry released photographs and a video of immigration enforcement officers detaining several migrants at different residences.
Violence in France’s detention centres
Meanwhile, across the Channel, the violent racist architecture of colonial borderisation has also been in full swing.
A new report by migrant rights groups including SOS Solidarity and France Terre d’Asile (“France Land of Asylum”) has revealed that migrant detention in France is also on the rise. Worse still, the report documented a rise in violence towards migrants inside these detention facilities.
Specifically, it found that France had incarcerated more undocumented migrants in detention centres in 2023 than in 2022.
French authorities held 46,955 migrants in the detention centres across the country and in overseas territories in 2023. This was compared to 43,565 the previous year.
In mainland France, the large majority were men, 5% were women and 87 individuals were children accompanied by their parents. More than 120 said they were under-18 but French authorities had declared them to be adults. Most migrants were Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan, in that order.
On average detention centres held them 28.5 days out of a maximum allowed of 90 days. Notably, this was a week longer than the previous year. Given this, the report noted how the incarceration had impacted the mental health of the detainees. Detention had sometimes led to suicide attempts, self-mutilation, tensions and violent incidents with people working with them.
Crucially, the report noted:
Never have our associations witnessed so many violent acts as in 2023
While some detainees sometimes clashed with others held with them, the report also identified police violence towards migrants.
For example, at one centre in the Paris region, more than 40 migrants officially complained of:
physical violence, threats or insults of racist or homophobic character, (and) sexual assaults
Notably, this violence was specifically from police inside the facility.
Trash ‘deterrent’ and ‘detention’ rhetoric
Predictably, both colonial governments have bandied about bullsh*t about ‘detention’ and ‘deterrent’.
The Tories xenophobia-fueled argument is that the threat of being deported to Rwanda will deter tens of thousands of annual cross-Channel arrivals.
Of course, this isn’t what the official statistics show. Instead, arrivals have increased by more than a quarter in the first third of the year compared to the same period in 2023.
Similarly, France has held up its detention scheme as a major pillar of its deportation plans.
However, the nonprofit report found that of those held in detention centres, it had expelled 15% fewer detainees from the country last year compared to 2022, despite an increase in deportations overall.
Ultimately, it’s all bluster and demonstrates the dangerous end point of scapegoat politics. People seeking safety from persecution, poverty, and violence should be welcomed into our communities. Instead, vile governments continue their immoral, racist colonial project without a shred of conscience.
There is no evidence for the government’s claim that deportations will ‘stop the boats’
The capitulation of the House of Lords over the government’s Rwanda bill was predictable – even if some opponents had hoped against hope that peers might force a climbdown. As of now, UK law states that Rwanda is a “safe country”, making it possible for ministers to send asylum seekers there. The shameful course of action embarked on late last year, after the supreme court ruled the deportation policy unlawful, has thus concluded. Two years after Boris Johnson first announced the plan, Rishi Sunak is set to try again.
From parliament the focus now swings back to the courts, where lawyers will try to have individuals removed from flight lists. The law allows for this if they face “real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious irreversible harm” from being sent to Rwanda – which some undoubtedly will. Mr Sunak’s calculation is that the policy makes political sense despite this and the £1.8m estimated initial cost per deportee. Its appeal is two-pronged, and combines the fuelling of xenophobic sentiment among voters – by ensuring that irregular migration stays in the news – with papering over cracks in the Tory party between hard-right populists and what remains of the liberal centre-right.
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BREAKING: Nigel Farage’s Clacton campaign has been exposed to have evidence of racism and homophobia
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Final nail in the coffin for human rights at the EU's borders and beyond.