Refugee Council report reveals border controls place people in danger
A Refugee Council report, Remote Controls: How UK border controls are endangering the lives of refugees shows external UK border controls are placing people in danger.
A wide ranging series of interviews, coupled with fieldwork in Turkey, one of the common transit countries to the UK, revealed that UK border controls may result in refugees being sent back to the country of persecution. Officials employed by the British government and stationed out in transit countries are briefed to stop people coming to the UK without proper documents, despite the fact that refugees are generally unable to get documents from the governments that persecute them. These officials, and the airline personnel who work with them, have no method of identifying those who desperately need to get to safety.
Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, said: “We have no idea how many people we are sending to their deaths, by stopping them from getting on a plane, or by refusing to let them leave a country without a visa.”
Full Refugee Council press release
Read the report
Politics.co.uk: UK asylum policy ‘sends people to their deaths’
Viewlondon.co.uk: Refugees condemned by UK asylum policy
Refugee Council volunteer wins award
Refugee Council volunteer Yeukai Taruvinga has won the Campaigner of the Year award.
Yeukai, a refused asylum seeker who has been previously detained, has been volunteering with the Refugee Council using a number of her skills particularly in support of work around the issues destitution and permission to work.
Yeukai wrote about her experiences seeking asylum in Britain from Zimbabwe in The Guardian.
Campaigner of the Year announcement
The Guardian: A strange sympathy
Refugee youth theatre success
A youth theatre that grew out of drama workshops for young refugees at a Glasgow high school was profiled in The Herald. The group has experienced huge success over the last three years, recently winning a Phillip Lawrence Award for services to their local community, presented by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
The Herald: Refugees find a home on the stage
Church leaders condemn UK asylum policy in Christmas messages
The Bishop of Bradford and the Archbishop of Wales were among those religious leaders who condemned government policy in Christmas speeches.
Speaking about those families living in destitution, the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan warned: “A country is ultimately judged by what it does with its poorest people.”
Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Right Reverend David James attacks UK border agency
Western Mail: Archbishop of Wales blasts policy towards refugees
Australia opens off-shore detention centre
A detention centre for refugees has been opened on Christmas Island by the Australian government, 1,000 miles off the mainland coast.
Graeme Innes, Australia’s human rights commissioner said he thought the centre was a “very inappropriate way to treat people who, whilst not obeying all the rules of Australia, have come from very traumatic and difficult situations in countries overseas.”
The Telegraph: Australia opens off-shore detention centre for migrants
The Times: Australia opens off-shore detention centre
BBC News: Australia opens detention centre
Kindness Offensive work for refugees
A group of four housemates in London distributed tonnes of toys and food this Christmas. Calling themselves the Kindness Offensive, the friends have previously distributed 25 tonnes of food to destitute refugees, as well as organsing a trip to the Moscow State Circus for someone and persuading Yamaha to donate a guitar to a boy.
One of the group, David Goodfellow, commented: “Meeting asylum-seekers has opened up our eyes to a shocking world. These people are forced to live on handouts because they are not allowed to work. The handouts they do get often lack some of the most basic items that we take for granted like nappies, toothpaste or condoms. And all of this is happening right under our noses or outside our front door.”
The Independent: A random act of Christmas kindness
BBC investigation reveals nearly 140 missing children
Concerns over protection for trafficked children have been raised after a BBC investigation found 138 children, many from abroad, had gone missing from social services in the East of England in 2008.
BBC News: ‘Lost’ foreign children revealed
See also: Leicester Mercury: Young refugees go missing from care
Hundreds feared drowned in Bay of Bengal
About 300 people believed to be migrating from Burma and Bangladesh are feared to have drowned off the coast of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
BBC News: 300 migrants missing off Andamans
The Guardian: Forgotten deaths
Sea crossings to Italy continue over winter
Over the Christmas period, over 1,700 people arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa. According to UNHCR, many are refugees from Eritrea and Somalia, who cross by sea in terrible conditions via Libya and the Mediterranean.
Laura Boldrini from UNHCR told The Independent: “The percentage of asylum seekers among the new arrivals is getting higher and higher.
“Italy received 25,000 asylum seekers in 2008, and many of those came from across the Mediterranean. Libya has no asylum system to guarantee the protection of people in need and has not signed the Geneva accords on asylum.”
The Independent: Hundreds of immigrants land on Italian island
The Guardian: Thousands more migrants reach Italy’s shores
Many refugees are living in unsafe housing, charity warns
The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture has warned that many refugees housed in private accommodation are living in unsafe, insecure and unsanitary conditions.
In one case a mother and her two young sons have been living with an infestation of bedbugs and rats for over six months.
Sonya Sceats, Policy & Advocacy Officer for the Medical Foundation, said: "The Government is not getting value for money from its contracts with private landlords. They set out very high standards and these standards are simply not being met by these providers.
"The UK is party to treaties that include the right to an adequate standard of housing; the sorts of examples we're talking about fall short."
BBC News: UK ‘failing’ victims of torture
Medical Foundation press release
Government report looks at fears on immigration among white working-class
A report for the Department for Communities and Local Government based on interviews with people living on estates in the UK suggested many believed ethnic minorities were given preferential treatment for housing.
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears MP said: “Changes in communities can generate unease and uncertainty. These changes need to be explained and questions need to be answered or the myths that currently surround the treatment of ethnic minorities “jumping the queue” will become increasingly hard to shift.”
The Guardian: White working-class fears on immigration exposed in report
The Telegraph: White working class 'feels ignored on immigration'
Shelter for refugees opens in Calais
Temperatures in Calais have dropped so low that the Calais authorities have given permission for a shelter run by local charities to provide food and warmth to refugees in the area.
Daily Mail: French U-turn as new Calais shelter for UK-bound immigrants opens after temperatures plunge
Local asylum campaigners’ story to be filmed
Two campaigners who organised lookouts and warnings of dawn immigration raids on their Glasgow housing scheme are to have their story brought to the big screen.
Kingsway will be made by Ken Loach’s company Sixteen Films and feature campaigners Jean Donnachie and Noreen Real as its heroes.
Mrs Real said: “I feel very happy about it, but we were only doing for asylum seekers what we would do for any neighbour that was being treated the way they were being treated.”
The Herald: Stardom beckons for high-rise grandmothers
