Instability and rising living costs have caused significant growth in refugee and other migrant numbers globally. The opportunity to exploit the crisis will not be missed by other countries, most notably Russia. Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 7 million Ukrainian refugees have left the country till mid-June. While some 1.5 million ended up in Russia, the rest have mostly[Read More…]
This month, the government of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined an ignominious collective in announcing a refugee deal with Rwanda, seedily entitled the UK-Rwanda Migration Partnership. The fact that such terms are used – a partnership or deal connotes contract and transaction – suggests how inhumane policies towards those seeking sanctuary and a better life have become. In no[Read More…]
Refugee crises are often manufactured by governments. They can be done at the source: war, famine, rapacious institutions. They can also be manufactured by the refusal of governments to accept those seeking asylum, sanctuary and refuge. The latter is very much in evidence in Europe: governments of the European Union are staring down desperate humans keen to travel into the[Read More…]
Written by Thomas Klikauer and Catherine Link At the end May 2021, Australian media reported on a multinational company receiving a $121 million contract to keep asylum seekers locked away on a remote island of Papua New Guinea (PNG) for good. Ever since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and even more so since Karl Marx’s Value, Price and Profits (1865),[Read More…]
On June 19th, Statistica headlined “Number of forcibly displaced people reaches new high”, and when one looks at the data, one finds an even bigger story which stands behind those numbers: This new report from the United Nations documents Statistica’s headline, and it proves that America’s regime-change operations have actually created around half of the world’s refugees. It proves that[Read More…]
The modern UN Refugee Convention is now so flea-bitten it’s been put out to the garbage tip of history. At least the enthusiastic fleas think so, given their conduct as political representatives across a range of parliaments keen on barbed wired borders and impenetrable defences. Across Europe, the issue of refugees arriving by sea – in this case, the Mediterranean[Read More…]
On 12 July 2018, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to the text of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration after more than a year of discussions among Member States, non-governmental organizations, academic specialists on migration issues as well as interviews with migrants and refugees. imm01_400The discussion had gained visibility in September 2016 at the U.N. General[Read More…]
A recent European Council summit in Brussels was meant to articulate a united policy on the burgeoning refugees and migrant crisis. Instead, it served to highlight the bitter divisions among various European countries. Considering the gravity of the matter, Europe’s self-serving policies are set to worsen an already tragic situation. True, several European leaders, including Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, went home[Read More…]
In June 2018 alone, more than 500 refugees drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Their boatswere refused access to land in either Malta, or Italy. They were force-driven back by gun-boats to the North African shores they came from, mostly Libya, but many boats capsized and countless refugees didn’t make it. These are de facto murders, high crimes against humanity, committed[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe & Anastasia Glazova The roots of the refugee problem Europe currently facing has derived from aged long socio political disparities of people and its present condition is an offshoot of the same serious of problems. Nevertheless the current hullabaloo in European Union on the influx of large number of asylum seekers was mainly emerged after the[Read More…]
“The only responsible and humane thing for our government to do is immediately evacuate every single man on Manus, every single family and child on Nauru to safety on Australia.” Daniel Webb, Human Rights Law Centre, Aug 7, 2017 Murder comes in various forms. It can be directly inflicted. It can be willed and directed from afar. It can also[Read More…]
An Apache gunship opened fire on a boat carrying Somali refugees off the coast of Yemen early Friday morning killing at least 42 people and wounding dozens of others. The boat, which came under attack 30 miles off the Yemeni coast, was reportedly ferrying more than 100 men, women and children from Sudan. Bullets from the attack helicopter riddled the[Read More…]
Large numbers of persons fleeing war and famine in sub-Saharan Africa are transiting through Libya in a desperate effort to reach Europe, UNICEF reported last week. An estimated 80,000 refugees, including 25,000 children, left Libyan ports in an effort to cross the Mediterranean Sea and enter southern Europe last year, with 4,000 of them dying during the crossing. Another 320[Read More…]
The plight of immigrant families in the United States facing threat of deportation has provoked a massive compassionate response, with cities, churches, and colleges offering sanctuary and legal assistance to those under threat. It is an inspiring expression of our human response to others in need that evokes hope for the human future. At the same time, we need to[Read More…]
Thousands of Nigerians have been displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it was “very concerned” after 517 Nigerians were expelled, including 313 who had requested asylum. As of February 17, more than 61,000 Nigerian refugees were at the Minawao camp in northeast Cameroon, but there are many others outside the site. Boko Haram, a militant[Read More…]
An anti-foreigner mob of about 1,000 people rampaged across South Africa’s capital city on Friday, assaulting and looting, in the latest dangerous escalation of tensions over immigration. The march nearly turned disastrous when the mob entered a Pretoria neighbourhood dominated by Somali and Nigerian migrants. Hundreds of foreigners confronted the mob, the two sides separated by only a few metres, wielding[Read More…]
It was an odd sight for residents of Zaandam, a quaint Dutch town 15 minutes by train from Amsterdam. A public park in a village known for 18th-century windmills and wooden clogs had suddenly filled with rows of white tents. Five hundred refugees, mainly from Syria and Iraq, mostly men, had arrived by bus in October 2015. Most left behind[Read More…]
US President Donald Trump declared in an extended interview with ABC News broadcast Wednesday that he will sign an executive order directing authorities to implement US controlled “safe zones” in Syria. The order would also block the entry of refugees and immigrants from a number of majority Muslim countries, including Syria. During the presidential campaign, Trump called for a complete[Read More…]
The hard-nosed neo-cons were certainly showing little interest in linking arguments, examining evidence, or even considering elementary logic in the aftermath of the Berlin truck attack near the Gedächtniskirche. With the bodies fresh in the morgue, former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, peered into the mind of the everyday German, and found teeth chattering fear. “Many Germans[Read More…]
There is no greater single human rights dilemma facing the Australian parliament at the moment: refugees, declining, mouldering, decaying in detention centres in carceral conditions, being shifted, carted, moved from one base to another, from one nation state to another. Camps funded with Australian tax payer dollars. Camps run by privatised security firms and brutal local police forces. The message[Read More…]
It all has a hurried sense to it. With the offshore detention system running into troubles, the Australian government has had to find ways to get rid of the human residents it has promised never to settle in the country. This highly dubious policy, far more than anything Donald Trump could ever wish for, entrenches a further wall of imperviousness[Read More…]
In July 1941, Albert Einstein, ten months a US citizen, wrote Eleanor Roosevelt asking her, as First Lady, to raise with the president the matter of lifting bureaucratic hurdles so that Jewish refugees threatened by Hitler’s final solution could be granted entry into the U.S. “I know of no-one else to whom to turn for help,” he wrote. But the U.S. government[Read More…]
Sabia Rigby reports from Calais as police are dismantling a camp where refugees wait to cross into Britain. Most of those aiming to claim asylum are from Afghanistan and Syria. The camp has become an impromptu village of sorts, where residents take care of each other. Despite the independent nature of the camp and its non-interference with most of French[Read More…]
Following the first ever United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants last week, many civil society organisations and concerned citizens are taking stock of our government’s collective response to this unprecedented global crisis. The UN Summit was two years in the making, and gave a rare opportunity for world leaders to step up their commitments to help refugees, as well[Read More…]
On 19 September 2016, the UN General Assembly held a one-day Summit on « Addressing Large Movements o Refugees and Migrants » – a complex of issues which have become important and emotional issues in many countries. Restrictive migration policies deny many migrants the possibility of acquiring a regular migrant status, and as a result, the migrants end up being[Read More…]
“We will also participate in a US-led program to re-settle Central American refugees currently in a resettlement centre in Costa Rica.” Malcolm Turnbull, Australian PM, Sep 21, 2016 It used to be claimed that you could not let the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, go anywhere with any degree of freedom. The mouth would open, the madness would come out. His[Read More…]
Island mentalities do not travel well. When their sellers hawk the agenda before world forums, these start looking ludicrous. Coming close to this ludicrous display is Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who has done what other Australian prime ministers have in previous years: sell the great discovery, the great hit of life on how best to protect borders in the[Read More…]
(Based on interviews with Palestinian refugees from Syria.) The refugee camp of Yarmouk was ever present in his being, pulling him in and out of an abyss of persistent fears that urged him to never return. But what was this refugee without Yarmouk, his first haven, his last earth? How could any other spot in this unwelcoming universe ever be[Read More…]
A friend in Frankfurt emailed me on July 19th: It is sheer madness what is happening here… The noose is tightening and yet—it is still only the beginning… What took place in some dull regional express close to Würzburg, a town in Franconia in the middle of Germany, was—in some respect—like a watershed event—just like the mass sexual assaults in[Read More…]
This paper examines the historical events related to asylum for Muslim refugees in the formative years of Islam and its impact upon the development of the first Muslim community in Medina. This paper is also part of an ongoing historical study to identify socio-political and humanitarian responses to refugee populations in Muslim civilizations. The research aims to analyze the[Read More…]
The number of people around the globe displaced by war, armed conflict and persecution at the end of 2015 was higher than ever before. A report titled Global Trends, published on World Refugee Day by the UNHCR, counted 65.3 million displaced persons, the first time it has surpassed 60 million since the collection of figures began in 1951. Compared to[Read More…]
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From the Contemporary History of the Balkans: Greece and Slavo-Macedonians (1913-1993) 
The Ethnic Violence in Manipur, India, Explained 
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Solitude: A Source of Empowerment 
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The Unholy Origins of Castes in India 
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The United States in the World: Making Sense of the Past Forty Years (1981-2023) 
Canadian Youth At Risk and the Discrimination of Marginalized Demographics 
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Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
