(not satire – it’s the UK gutter press)
The Daily Express – like most of the UK press – doesn’t like to be criticised.
And – like most of the UK press – it doesn’t like to give a right of reply to anyone, not even to respected organisations such as the British Red Cross.
That’s why the newspaper is refusing to publish a joint letter from the British Red Cross, Refugee Action and the Refugee Council which is critical of it.
This is the letter the Daily Express doesn’t want you to see. So please share it as widely as possible.
Dear Sir,
The stream of aggressive stories about asylum seekers appearing in this paper in recent days is of serious concern to all of us who work with and support people fleeing persecution.
Your readers would be forgiven for thinking the UK is being flooded by asylum seekers. This couldn’t be further from the truth, with asylum applications around the 23,000 mark a year the UK is home to less than 1 per cent of the world’s refugees and takes proportionately below the EU average.
To characterise the people housed in Folkestone as having a ‘lovely break’ by the sea that Brits would be envious of is hugely misleading and dangerous.
Asylum seekers are people who have often fled horrifying experiences in their home countries. Some have been raped. Some have been tortured. Many have witnessed the death of a loved one. Be assured, people who have suffered extreme trauma and whose lives are hanging in the balance will not be focusing on the sea view of temporary room.
There are no refugee visas available for people fleeing persecution. The fact that people are forced to travel clandestinely is recognised within the Refugee Convention and British Law. Entering Britain illegally can be a necessity; it is not an indication of the validity of someone’s asylum claim.
Additionally, appealing a refusal does not indicate someone cheating the system. Decisions on asylum claims can be life or death and the appeal overturn rate shows the Government frequently gets it wrong the first time.
Stirring up hostility against asylum seekers is as unwelcome as it is unsavoury in a country with a proud tradition of protecting refugees.
Maurice Wren, Chief Executive, Refugee Council
Mike Adamson, Acting Chief Executive, British Red Cross
Dave Garratt, Chief Executive, Refugee Action
.
Related articles by Tom Pride:
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The Daily Mail timeline of shame – updated
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Tories pledge to pull out of human race after next election
How Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre’s father avoided the front-line in WW2
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Daily Mail apologises to its readers after admitting publishing something true
Please feel free to comment. And share. Thanks:
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The Establishment-privileged think the least fortunate in our society don’t deserve help
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With the emphasis on ‘OUR’, but are happy to let in wealthy immigrants as opposed to those fleeing persecution.
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The “Express” often makes even the “Mail” and the “Sun” look like a bunch of ‘wooly liberals; one of the reasons why my colleagues/mates at “Private Eye” refer to the “Express” as Richard ‘Dirty’ Desmond. He’s very right-wing but as long as you subscribe to some of his so-called adult cable chanels he really couldn’t care.
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Reblogged this on gingerblokeblog and commented:
Shame on the UK’s Daily Express “newspaper” for printing such things about asylum seekers coming to the UK.
There is good reason that many people in the UK equate asylum seekers with economic migrants – people the gutter press like to call scroungers.
Anyone in the situations that many asylum seekers often find themselves in would want other countries to take them in.
Let us all shame the Daily Express along with the rest of the hack filled rags that spread such inhumane half-truths.
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What exactly is the point of the Daily Mail ultralight – otherwise known as the Daily Express. Rehashing pointless Princess Di stories and grasping to speak to a world that couldn’t give a flying elephant in the room.
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If a British woman had been raped, was worried the same thing might happen again if she remained in her home town, so packed her bags and went to Heathrow Airport, what chance would she have of being given leave to remain in London, and a nice Council flat there?
Whenever people are given them advantages that others quite reasonably perceive as unfair, they risk stoking fury and envy. The asylum system has inbuilt middle class bias both in the type of person accepted as an asylum seeker (far more likely to be a rich person who has “lost everything” than someone poor in the first place) and the level of help and support offered, better than what is given to poor people born in Britain. This is intrinsically unfair.
A fireman once told me that to burn a fire needed three things, heat, oxygen and fuel. And if we assume that the basic level of deprivation in this country is the “heat”, the Express “aggressive articles” are the oxygen then the fuel is the nature of the asylum system itself. Anyone who thinks that having been raped, imprisoned or tortured should entitle people to BETTER treatment than others needs to ask themselves why they think it.
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Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
About time someone spoke up for the asylum seekers!
Please share and spread round!
x
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The British Establishment systematically create the conditions, through waging WAR, to unsettle and set the scene for refugee’s to flee persecution. Yet they deny them asylum?
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