Mediaboss Marketing

Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, on Wednesday introduced a new "British Bill of Rights" which he argued would give the UK powers to overrule European judges on migrant policy.

The last time Mr Johnson and the Prince met face-to-face was shortly before the Platinum Jubilee Party at the Palace, when they held a brief meeting before taking their seats in the royal box.

Clarence House sources insist that the Prince enjoys a good relationship with both the Prime Minister and Priti Patel, the Home Secretary overseeing the migrant policy.

A source previously admitted that it was quite awkward to be going to Rwanda for the Commonwealth summit when there was so much debate about the migrant crisis.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will see representatives from all 53 nations of the grouping gather, with Mr Johnson due to arrive on Thursday.

Togo and Gabon are set to join the Commonwealth this week, becoming the latest countries to join despite having no historic ties to Britain.

It is the first time that new nations have joined in over a decade, and the first time since 1995 that two have joined at once.

But a row over allegations that Baroness Scotland suppressed a report that criticises her administration as toxic flared up on Wednesday, generating negative headlines on the eve of the summit.

See the original post here:
PM to tell Prince Charles he is 'proud' of migrant plan which HRH called 'appalling' - The Telegraph

A total of 108 migrants have been rescued from a boat that was found rudderless and leaking water in the Aegean Sea in near gale force winds, Greek authorities have said.

The rescued migrants comprised of 63 men, 24 women and 21 children, who told authorities that four other people are missing.

Late on Saturday, the coastguard received reports of an adrift sailing boat off the uninhabited Greek island of Delos.

It dispatched three rescue vessels and a tugboat in response.

Rescuers managed to tow the boat to an islet off the nearby island of Mykonos early on Sunday, authorities said.

The migrants were then safely transported to Mykonos.

They claimed to authorities that their boat had sailed from Turkey to an unknown destination.

"Once again, the coastguard saved lives that the ruthless trafficking networks have exposed to mortal danger without even the barest protection measures," shipping and island policy minister Ioannis Plakiotakis said.

Meanwhile, in the neighbouring country of North Macedonia, police said they discovered 71 migrants in two separate operations on Saturday night and arrested three men suspected of human trafficking.

Police raided a home in the northern town of Kumanovo and discovered 44 Pakistanis and one person from India.

The homeowner, a 41-year-old identified only by his initials as UF, was also arrested.

The migrants are understood to have entered illegally from Greece and were waiting to be smuggled to Serbia before travelling to unidentified EU countries.

Authorities said they have been transferred to a migrant reception centre on the border with Serbia pending deportation.

Separately, Greek police discovered 26 migrants from Syria hidden in a van during a routine check on a motorway toll station in the southern part of the country.

The van driver and his assistant, both Macedonian nationals, were arrested, officials said on Sunday.

The migrants were transferred to a reception centre near the border with Greece pending deportation to that country.

Story continues

Police say the Balkan route for migrants, through North Macedonia, has become more active again in recent months after many countries lifted travel restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It comes after at least 444 people crossed the Channel on Tuesday, the highest daily figure since the government announced it planned to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Hundreds of people made the dangerous crossing from France as the government fought last-minute legal challenges to stop the first deportation flight leaving on Tuesday.

More than 10,700 people have reached the UK on small boats this year, according to data compiled and analysed by Sky News.

This is double the number who had reached Britain by the same point last year, figures show.

Go here to read the rest:
Migrant crisis: 108 people rescued from leaky rudderless boat in strong winds off Greek island - Yahoo News UK

Its 9 pm in Thessaloniki, Greece, and on the third floor of a beaten-up office block on the outskirts of town, a presentation is taking place. The lights are switched off, and the audience settles in across two sofas and a scattering of plastic stools.

Yes, thats good, the presenter says. Next slide please.

The presenter is Elaine Harrold, an employee of the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) in Greece. She turns to the large dust sheet behind her. Propped up across two clothes rails, the sheet has a shaky projected image cast across its center.

Heres just one report of a pushback we collected in 2021, Harrold says. Pushbacks consist of forcing individuals across national borders without documentation or the provision of basic rights like access to translation. They are illegal, often violent, and stand against every piece of refugee protection legislation in Europe.

Harrold turns, pointing to the pixelated satellite image behind her. On September 12, 2021, the respondent we interviewed described being approached by a group of armed police in the center of Thessaloniki, where he was detained, loaded into a van and transported to a cell on the outskirts of the city.

After two days spent in the cell, a time in which the respondent reports multiple accounts of physical and mental abuse, he was loaded into a police bus with around 30 others, and driven four hours east to Feres. Feres is a border town on the Evros river. The surrounding region is somewhat of a dark zone for media access, but reports speak of warehouse style asylum-seeker holding facilities, where basic welfare standards and human rights protections are completely disregarded.

Here the respondent was collected with around 90 others and driven to the border. At the edge of the river, the groups were forced onto dinghies and ordered to cross to Turkey. The authorities selected individuals from the detainee population themselves to drive the boats, promising the drivers reentry into Europe if they agreed.

Harrold tracks her finger across the border to Turkey, The river crossing here is very dangerous and the site of countless asylum-seeker disappearances. The crossing is highly weather dependent, and the detainees are sometimes forced onto the islands in-between the two nations and guarded from accessing either side of the riverbank.

Sadly, events like this one are just a routine occurrence at the southern borders to the European Union, and since 2016, BVMN has collected 1,353 reports of illegal pushbacks across the Balkan entry points. But violent methods of immigration control are no surprise when put into the wider context here.

In the hierarchy of political and geographical privilege, less powerful states like Greece and Turkey are offered massive incentives to limit asylum seekers entering the EU. The issue of harboring and managing the migrating populations is outsourced to these countries, and with the geographical distance and complexities of shared responsibility, the EU politicians who fuel the subsequent human rights abuses rarely have to answer for them directly.

The following afternoon in Thessaloniki, at the headquarters of the citys largest refugee support organization, a mother in a giant puffer jacket shields her daughter from the wind. Beside her stand two young men, one of them leaning up against a wall with a crutch in his hand.

These individuals are part of the community of People on the Move (POTM) in Thessaloniki. People on the Move is the most recent descriptor for the complex population of migrants on European soil, encompassing both refugees and asylum seekers. Many of these individuals lack documentation, and, unable to gain access to the labor market or health care system, they often rely on volunteer organizations for help.

But today this small group will be turned away. Its mid-afternoon and theyve missed their chance to be treated. The volunteer organization space is dual-use, and in the afternoon the makeshift hospital becomes a distribution center, packed with donated clothes and vegetables. There is a great requirement for such services in the city. The community of POTM here are mostly homeless or living in temporary government housing. They exist in various states of engagement with the Greek asylum system, many of them deterred from interaction with the police by the threat of long-term detainment.

On November 16, 2021, Oxfam released Detention as default, a briefing on the asylum situation in Greece. Across this 31-page document, Oxfam paints a damning picture of the Greek asylum system, suggesting that Greece and the EU are colluding against asylum seekers, creating an inhumane and hostile environment, and using detainment centers to undermine any real attempt to form a productive asylum system.

Referencing figures from June 2021, Oxfam cites the 3,000 migrants in administrative detention, meaning detention without criminal charges, arguing that, although detention used to be considered a final resort for migrants in Greece, recent shifts in the law have moved it to the center of the asylum process.

The line of waiting POTM is long that afternoon, and during food distribution, an old saloon car pulls up with a plain clothes police officer in it. They usually dont bother us too much anymore, says Bill OLeary, a retired teacher from the United Kingdom, and the coordinator for that afternoons distribution, They just come here to count the POTM, trying to track the numbers in the city.

Its Friday evening in Thessaloniki, and the waterfront promenade is busy with shoppers, bar-hoppers and teenage couples walking hand in hand. Here is a city organized around the sea, and to the east of the promenade, a wooden pier, dotted with benches and groups of teenagers, stretches out into the Mediterranean.

When I was in Turkey, we worked every day, says Robin, one of the community volunteers. I was a tailor, working in a T-shirt factory. Its not very complex work you understand, very basic and hard.

Robin is Afghani. Hes in his mid-20s with a boyish face and impeccable English. You take one piece of fabric, he says, mimicking the action with his hands. You attach it to another. It is good to have work, but the conditions are very bad and the migrants have no security.

Behind Robins head, the lights of a pirate-themed tourist ship sail peacefully across the bay. You work all month, and at the end of the month, the boss decides to pay you or not. It is unfair, but the migrant has no power or protection. The group around him nod solemnly.

Ever since the Syrian civil war in 2014, the context of migration in Turkey has been increasingly problematic. Following the breakdown of government in Syria, huge waves of displaced people crossed the border into Turkey, or fled onward toward Greece and Italy.

To react to the necessary demand for refugee registration, Turkey created Temporary Protection (TP), a new status of legal registration for migrants. In its original conception, the TP status would be a short-term crisis measure, offering speedy and basic protections while avoiding the complexities and international guarantees around the status of asylum seekers. But with the wider economic and political situation at play, this short-term plan for TP registration was to come under pressure.

With the signing of the EU Turkey agreement in March 2016, 6 billion euros in financial aid was promised to Turkey, to support and harbor refugees, and to limit the number coming to Europe. This was the groundwork for a huge refugee outsourcing economy, and with Turkey now operating as an active asylum-seeker barrier, the role of temporary protection status would be instrumental in managing the additional population.

One of the fundamental rights under the TP status was the migrants ability to access the labor market. Under TP, an individual could be granted a work permit, offering a minimum wage and basic standards of welfare. Importantly however, the responsibility to apply for these documents lay in the hands of the employer, and the incentive was often to bypass government formalities and pursue casual agreements instead.

You have not worked hard enough, Robin says dramatically, lifting the blade of his hand into the air. You are not worth your full salary. I pay you only half. He drops the act and smiles, It is very bad treatment we know. But the migrant has no documents, so they cannot argue.

***

Eight years after the Syrian migrant crisis began, the country now holds the largest population of refugees in the world, the majority of whom are registered under temporary protection. With the breakdown of democracy in Afghanistan, a new wave of refugees is now moving into Turkey. But along with this great increase of displaced people at the border, there are other, more insidious growth factors at play.

In June 2021, following consistent pressure from the EU, Greece designated Turkey as a safe third country for asylum seeker deportation. As a premise, the use of such safe third countries is simple. If a prospective asylum applicant has passed through, or has a sufficient connection with a previous country where they could have applied for asylum, then they can be returned to that country to pursue an asylum application there.

In theory, the move to make Turkey a safe third country cut Greeces responsibility for asylum-seeker protection by two-thirds. But for many critics, this was an explicitly cynical play from Greece and the EU.

The concept of a safe third country presupposes the provision of a level of protection in accordance with the Geneva Convention on Refugees by the third country, stated Vasilios Papadopoulos, president of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and member of the Greek Council for Refugees. It also suggests the existence of an essential link between the asylum seeker and that country and the consent of the third country. In the case of Turkey, none of the above is the case.

According to its critics, adding Turkey to the safe-third-country list had not only endangered the human rights of the asylum seekers but further extended the means for asylum-seeker outsourcing. With the safe-third-country principle in play, a dangerous legal framework had been extended, and the EU now had greater freedoms to use financial and political incentives to pressure Turkey into harboring asylum seekers.

As the spring months roll on through Thessaloniki, the Balkan migratory routes become more easily passable again, and the foot traffic increases. But where the mountains and borders of the European landscape remain unchanged, the advent of war in Ukraine has created a vastly different geopolitical climate.

Make no mistake, Russias aggressive invasion has catalyzed both an acute European refugee crisis and a very long tail of humanitarian support required across the region. To put the numbers into perspective, in 2015, at the peak of the Syrian migrant crisis, 1.3 million refugees crossed the borders into Europe. Flash forward to 2022, and the last three months have seen more than four times that number crossing the Ukrainian border, an estimated 7.2 million people in need of immediate refuge and long-term support.

So how will this new crisis affect the already-strained context for migrants on the continent? Stepping back to view our present moment in history, it seems the next five years could bring a final pinch point in the story of immigration policy in Europe.

With this huge growth in POTM on the continent and an already unstable economic climate, governments will now face unavoidable questions, and the dangerous practice of outsourcing refugee support to less-stable nations will be forced into the public conversation.

As to the results of those discussions, it is perhaps too early to tell. But in the face of increasing crisis and hardship, the morality of European citizens will be truly tested: Are they ready to open up to the realities of human displacement and war on their border, or are they prepared to close their eyes, close their borders, and use their financial, political and geographic privileges to remain insulated?

Read the original:
The EU Is Outsourcing Border Control to So-Called Safe Third Countries - Truthout

A Rohingya refugee girl looks next to newly arrived refugees who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in Ukhiya in September 2017. Agence France-Presse/KM Asad

WORLD Refugee Day is observed internationally on June 20 every year to honour refugees across the globe. First known as Africa Refugee Day, it was renamed by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2000. It was first observed on June 20, 2001, and since then, it commemorates the plight of refugees worldwide and honours the strength and courage of people forced to flee their home country due to conflict or persecution.

The purpose of World Refugee Day is to bring attention to refugees rights, needs, and aspirations and to mobilise political will and financial resources to help them flourish. Every day is a good day to protect and enhance the lives of refugees, but special days like this help us draw attention to the situation of people escaping war or persecution.

To understand the depth of our current refugee crisis, let us have a glance at some overwhelming numbers. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, about 82.4 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced. More than 26.4 million of these people are refugees, and millions are in statelessness, while 42,500 people flee their homes every day in search of safety either within the borders or outside and more than 20 people leave their country every minute to avoid terror and war. The developing countries alone host 86 per cent of the worlds refugees. As per statistics, about half of the refugees are under the age of 18. This is the highest number of child refugees documented since the end of World War II.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the differences between the terms migrant and refugee. Migrants are people who leave their country for reasons other than persecution, such as seeking better economic opportunities or abandoning drought-stricken areas in search of better conditions. Here, it is important to remember that the responsible authority for deciding whether someone is a refugee will, once again, depend on the circumstances in which the decision is made.

In reaction to the massive persecutions and displacements during World War II, the UNs 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees defined the current concept of refugee. It states that a refugee is someone who is outside their country of origin and cannot return due to valid fear of persecution in their home country. Persecution can be driven by an individuals ethnicity, religion, race, social group membership, or political ideas, and it is frequently associated with conflict and bloodshed.

Today, as mentioned earlier, over half of the worlds refugees are children. Many of them are fleeing their homes without the company of an adult, making them more vulnerable to being exploited and exposed to sexual or physical labour. Refugees experiences vary; many are forced to embark on dangerous trips with uncertain consequences. Many people have been relocated around the world due to natural catastrophes, food insecurity, and other difficulties, but international law, rightfully or wrongfully, only recognises individuals fleeing war and violence as refugees.

What happens when a person leaves their own country? Most refugee trips are lengthy and dangerous, with little shelter, water, or food. Due to the unexpected nature of the flight, belongings are often left behind, and people fleeing violence often lack the necessary documentation, such as visas, to board aircraft and enter other countries. Financial and political factors may prevent them from taking conventional routes. This means they can usually only travel by land or water and may rely on smugglers to cross borders. Some seek safety with their families, while others depart alone, hoping to be reunited later. This separation is extremely stressful and painful.

While cities shelter more than half of the worlds refugees, a UN refugee agency or local government-run camp is occasionally the first destination for people trying to escape violence. Refugee camps are temporary shelters until residents may return home, integrate into the host nation, or move to another country. Relocation and long-term integration options are limited. Many refugees are stuck in camps for years, if not decades.

According to statistics, long-term displacement is the new normal. In the absence of answers to their exile, people are trapped in persistent temporariness for years or decades in the case of Somalis, Afghans, and Palestinians. Only a few hundred thousand refugees return home each year, few states in the global South are willing to let them stay permanently, and less than 1 per cent of refugees are allowed to settle in a third nation.

Extensive exile is the outcome of containment measures that have made the international refugee situation and its durable solutions obsolete. States generally agree that refugees require protection albeit basic survival protection rather than a dignified existence but they also believe such protection should be provided in the refugees home country rather than in the global North. The desire to keep refugees in the global South has resulted in the deployment of measures to prevent individuals from crossing borders and claiming asylum, or, where this is not possible, to deter people from claiming asylum, or, when they do manage to cross borders, to keep them in camps in marginal regions.

Such exclusionary policies and practices have been legitimised by being presented as critical to national security. Refugees who fled for their own safety are cast as a security threat that must be contained. The exiled ones are othered in such depictions and are hardly seen as fellow humans. They have been turned into potentially threatening beneficiaries rather than political and right-bearing subjects. This observation resonates with Hannah Arendts views on refugees exclusion from the human race, reduction to bare life, and ensuing marginalisation from the political realm. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres rightly reminded us that the problems are violence and hatred, not individuals fleeing.

Asylum is a refugees first legal step in a new country. They are asylum seekers and wont be recognised as refugees until their case is granted. While most nations agree on a uniform definition of a refugee, each host country is responsible for reviewing all asylum claims and determining whether applicants qualify for refugee status. Guidelines vary by country. Host nations owe various obligations to those they have recognised as refugees, including providing basic care and non-discrimination. The most fundamental commitment to refugees is non-refoulment, which prohibits a government from relocating a person to a risky region. In practice, refugees are constantly subjected to inconsistency and discrimination.

People forced to evacuate, no matter who they are, should be treated decently. Anyone can seek protection regardless of who they are or what they think. It is a human right to seek safety. Anyone compelled to leave should be welcomed. Refugees arrive from all over the world. They could fly, sail, or walk to safety. The right to seek safety remains universal. If forced to evacuate, people should be safeguarded. Everyone needs protection from war, violence, or persecution. All those forced to flee should have free borders. Border closures and access limitations may put refugees at risk. Forced repatriation is unconstitutional when it endangers lives or liberties.

In other words, governments should not force someone back until they have weighed the threats the person might face. Those who cross international boundaries should not face prejudice. Refugees asylum claims should be treated equally, regardless of ethnicity or religion. People forced to escape should be treated with decency and respect. Like any other human, they have the right to respect and safety. This includes preventing arbitrary imprisonment, keeping families together, and safeguarding individuals from human traffickers, among other things. Imagine tracing your family tree. In that situation, chances are there that your ancestors were compelled to leave their homes, either escaping air or fleeing discrimination and persecution. We must remember their tales when we hear about refugees who are currently displaced and searching for a new home.

World Refugee Day aims to draw attention to the issue at hand and show refugees that their predicament may be alleviated if we all work together to aid displaced people in finding homes where they would be safe and content. Human rights are the fundamental rights a person enjoys as a part of the human family. The significance of human rights in the current refugee scenario must be recognised. As the international community has repeatedly stated over the last five decades, they embody the ideas and ideals that serve as the foundation for global freedom, justice, and peace.

Human Rights in the refugee situation helps improve and develop refugee legislation by responding compassionately and practically to human and social needs. They also ensure that the refugee crisis is viewed as primarily a human issue and addressed thoroughly and rationally. It would be insufficient just to state that respect for human rights demands national and international social and economic growth. In a society where tyranny, injustice, and violence are prevalent and chronic, human rights cannot thrive. Today, freedom, justice, and peace should all be considered as part of a drive for peace and progress and as we go on thriving for changing the sites of refugees for betterment, we must consciously consider everything from a more human ground.

Md Rakibul Alam is a lecturer in English in the Bangladesh Army University of Engineering and Technology in Natore.

Continued here:
Human dignities in zones of exception - newagebd.net

Refugees and Migrants aboard fishing boat driven by smugglers reach the coast of Europe after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey (Photo: Jim Forest)

On World Refugee Day, June 17 in Naples and June 18 in Caserta, the migrant and refugee movement of Naples and Caserta, together with organizations struggling for dignity and rights for migrants, will take to the streets demanding peace, social justice and the regularization of undocumented people.

We will present concrete proposals to the immigration offices of Naples and Caserta, to the regional government and to the Ministry of the Interior, the organizers state. Its about improving the lives of both migrants who have lived in these territories for years, and those who have just arrived.

Organizations building the two-day mobilization arranged assemblies and meetings in the fields where migrants are exploited in the agricultural industry, and in the Extraordinary Reception Centers, which are collective shelters in which refugees are forced to live.

Growing poverty, widespread precariousness, increasing layoffs and the institutional racism to which migrant people are exposed, are demanding for a popular and determined response, declare the organizers of the mobilization.

World Refugee Day has special significance this year. The escalation of the war in Ukraine has introduced the possibility of a new World War. The militarization of the conflict is producing even more deaths and refugees. Since the beginning of the conflict, more than 6.6 million have fled. Meanwhile, refugees from other conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia are treated far worse by Western media than Ukrainian refugees, in a hypocritical and racist double standard.

The pandemic has created an economic crisis which has worsened living conditions. The most affected are migrants, who continue to work and run the economy in the midst of the lockdowns. At the same time, migrants were the last to have access to the vaccine and are now the first to lose their jobs and residence permits.

Institutional racism has a concrete effect in the everyday lives of migrants and refugees. Long waiting times at immigration offices, the impossibility of renewing documents often due to illegitimate requests by institutions create the perfect conditions for blackmail and labor exploitation.

In August 2020, the governments regularization program was introduced supposedly to solve these problems, but according to the organizers, two years after its introduction, the program has ended up as an empty promise. In summer 2020, over 200,000 requests were passed in to the immigration offices, two years later, over 110,000 migrants are still waiting for their papers, organizers explain. Only an urgent administrative intervention can guarantee that they can emerge from irregularity and restore dignity and justice to those who live and work in Italy. That is the reason why we will take to the streets for World Refugee Day.

Sign the call: We want peace because we have known war!

Follow this link:
In Italy, migrants and refugees take to the streets for peace and social justice - Peoples Dispatch