Don't come asylum-seekin' with us.
This government regularly finds itself being strongly criticised for its myriad failings. The right-wing press tend to lap these up, whether they themselves or those they support have any solutions of their own.
It's therefore only when you consider how the tabloids have been so successful in demonising immigrants of all kinds that it becomes apparent why not a single right-wing newspaper seems to have bothered reporting the findings of the Joint Committee of Human Rights on how Home Office legislation has affected asylum seekers over the last 10 years (PDF). One paragraph especially is worth reproducing in full:
In the section on treatment by the media (dealt with in more detail by FCC) the report makes this recommendation:
At the beginning of March, our beloved home secretary made the following statement:
Who needs the BNP when you have John Reid? Not that there is any evidence that "foreigners" are coming here to "steal" our benefits: only 3% of the foreign nationals (662,000) who came here in 2005 were claiming them last year.
Will the report make any difference? When so little of the media seems to have noticed it, or rather bothered to report it (the Independent has a report, the Grauniad bases a leader around it, and the Mirror has a Reuters article although probably nothing in the actual paper; the Mail did earlier in the week report on a Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust paper which covered similar ground) it's hard to be enthusiastic. FCC again probably has it right: asylum seekers are so passé. The new target for irrational hatred is Muslims or east European migrants. When no one cares about you enough to even hate you, you may as well not exist, which seems to be what the government would prefer.
It's therefore only when you consider how the tabloids have been so successful in demonising immigrants of all kinds that it becomes apparent why not a single right-wing newspaper seems to have bothered reporting the findings of the Joint Committee of Human Rights on how Home Office legislation has affected asylum seekers over the last 10 years (PDF). One paragraph especially is worth reproducing in full:
120. We consider that by refusing permission for most asylum seekers to work and operating a system of support which results in widespread destitution, the treatment of asylum seekers in a number of cases reaches the Article 3 ECHR (European Convention of Human Rights) threshold of inhuman and degrading treatment. This applies at all stages of the asylum claim process: when an individual is attempting to claim asylum, during the period of consideration of their claim and during the period after their claim is refused if they are unable to return to their country of origin. Many witnesses have told us that they are convinced that destitution is a deliberate tool in the operation of immigration policy. We have been persuaded by the evidence that the Government has indeed been practising a deliberate policy of destitution of this highly vulnerable group. We believe that the deliberate use of inhumane treatment is unacceptable. We have seen instances in all cases where the Government’s treatment of asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers falls below the requirements of the common law of humanity and of international human rights law.
In the section on treatment by the media (dealt with in more detail by FCC) the report makes this recommendation:
We recommend that Ministers recognise their responsibility to use measured language so as not to give ammunition to those who seek to build up resentment against asylum seekers, nor to give the media the excuse to write inflammatory or misleading articles.
At the beginning of March, our beloved home secretary made the following statement:
"It is unfair that foreigners come to this country illegitimately and steal our benefits, steal our services like the NHS and undermine the minimum wage by working."
Who needs the BNP when you have John Reid? Not that there is any evidence that "foreigners" are coming here to "steal" our benefits: only 3% of the foreign nationals (662,000) who came here in 2005 were claiming them last year.
Will the report make any difference? When so little of the media seems to have noticed it, or rather bothered to report it (the Independent has a report, the Grauniad bases a leader around it, and the Mirror has a Reuters article although probably nothing in the actual paper; the Mail did earlier in the week report on a Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust paper which covered similar ground) it's hard to be enthusiastic. FCC again probably has it right: asylum seekers are so passé. The new target for irrational hatred is Muslims or east European migrants. When no one cares about you enough to even hate you, you may as well not exist, which seems to be what the government would prefer.
Labels: asylum seekers, Joint Committee on Human Rights, media reporting
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