What BBC's Asylum Day Should Have Said!

Message from Churches' Commission for Racial Justice

Dear BBC
                     The programmes broadcast in the evening, and Panorama tonight, about asylum in the UK were very much inclined to portray people seeking asylum in a negative light as bogus cheats. Whilst you sought in the Panorama to show the defections in the system - which we all know and have consistently complained to the Home Office about - the facts are still not being told to the general public, which is a crying shame. I would have imagined that this opportunity would have been used to address that problem and help the public to come to terms with the reality based on fact. The BBC website coverage seems a great deal more balanced and helpful than the broadcast coverage.

      'Asylum Day' should have been used to present truth, not distort it by reinforcing popular misinformation about benefits and numbers. It should not totally ignore the impact of Britain's involvement in the arms trade, providing weaponry to repressive regimes to persecute and suppress opposition or to fuel conflict - which produces a flow of people seeking asylum.

      'Asylum Day' should not have ignored the role of international trading agreements, supported by Britain, in creating poverty and desperation, preventing small farmers from competing fairly against subsidised 'First World' agribusiness, forcing people off the land and further contributing to migration flows.

      Neither should 'Asylum Day' have ignored the fact that any human being living with death threats, witnessing the murder of relatives and suffering under the weight of persecution or poverty, often because of the efforts of rich countries to maintain their comfortable way of life, would seek safety and protection wherever they are to be found. This is the instinct of survival.

      Please find below what we as the Churches' Commission for Racial Justice think should now happen, since the Government continues to get policy completely wrong, and refuses to provide clear and accurate information about the enormous contribution the relatively small number of asylum seekers who come to this country (less then 1% of the world's asylum seeking population) make to our economy.

   What 'Asylum Day' should say

        Protect the British people's generosity by clearly promoting a more humanitarian, compassionate and fact-based response to the harsh reality of seeking asylum in the UK.

       Counteract in your presentations the increasing levels of suspicion and vilification directed at asylum applicants as a result of alarm over the threat of 'terrorism'.

       Maintain absolute respect in your presentations for the right of people to seek asylum.

      Help to ensure that Government does all in its power to protect and maintain the effectiveness of the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

     Urge the Government to work with other western industrialized powers and multi-nationals to develop international policies that would address the root causes of forced migration: persecution and western-imposed poverty.

      Take seriously the need to develop coherent and consistent approaches by urging Government to de-politicize asylum policy and practice by creating an accountable multi-agency NGO-led asylum commission.
Impress upon the media, including your own reporters, who have a duty to inform public opinion with facts, to use factual information and employ language which does not encourage abuse of refugees and immigrants by right wing political hate groups and others.

      Help to prevent the dangerous practice of trafficking and remove the motivation for people-smuggling by urging Government in the short term to open up more routes for applicants of all skill levels to enter the UK.

      Uphold the maxim that a person is innocent until proven guilty, and reject the arbitrary use of detention except where there is clear and compelling evidence of a criminal offence or a clear threat to national security.

    Revd Arlington Trotman,
                                                               Commission Secretary,
                                                                                                             Churches' Commission for Racial Justice

Revd Arlington Trotman
Commission Secretary
Churches' Commission for Racial Justice
Inter-Church House
35-41 Lower Marsh
London SE1 7SA
Office: +44 (0) 20 7523 2128
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www.ctbi.org.uk
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