Iraqi, Afghan Refugees Find No Welcome In France Or UK

by Julio Godoy and Sanjay Suri

The situation of refugees from Iraq and also from Afghanistan and other countries torn by conflict is precarious. They confront hardening new laws and toughening new attitudes.

Six months after the closing of the refugee camp of Sangatte, in northwestern France, the situation of immigrants trying to cross over to Britain has deteriorated, activists say.

Sangatte, located a few kilometers from the railway station at Calais port was closed last December following an agreement between the French and the British governments to fight illegal immigration.

"If the governments hoped that by closing Sangatte they would get rid of the refugees, they made a big mistake," Jean-Paul Amara, spokesperson of the French human rights group Droits Devant! (Rights first!) told IPS.

"Instead, what they have achieved is to degrade the lives of people who are already the most miserable on earth," added Amara. He visited Calais and the region around Sangatte in early June as part of a fact-finding mission of French human rights groups.

The Sangatte camp was until last December a sanctuary for refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. They made regular attempts to cross the English Channel illegally on trucks and trains. The camp gave them refuge. Now they wander about the streets of Calais.

In a further crackdown on the refugees, the government has passed a new law that makes aid to illegal immigrants a crime. Under this law anyone found helping an illegal immigrant could face 10 years in prison and a fine up to $43,000. Several people are being prosecuted already under the new law.

Jean-Claude Lenoir, a schoolteacher in Calais, has been charged with taking money from refugees to help them. Lenoir, who is a member of a group that helps refugees, says he went to a bank to help a refugee obtain money remitted from abroad.

"I never took money from refugees, nor was I in contact with their guides," Lenoir told IPS.

In support of Lenoir and others, rights groups have issued a collective declaration to say they have helped illegal immigrants in France. "We state that we have helped foreigners living illegally in France," they say in the declaration.

"We state that we have the firm intention of continuing to help the refugees. If solidarity is a crime, we challenge the government to pursue us for having committed this crime."

The grass is hardly greener on the other side of the Channel. The National and Immigration Act 2002, passed by the British parliament, introduces strong new measures against asylum-seekers.

This includes setting down a "white list" of countries from where applications of asylum would almost certainly be turned down. New additions to this list include Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

A requirement under this law also says that asylum- seekers must apply for asylum at the first available opportunity if they are to receive any benefits while they wait for decisions.

"These are draconian measures," Habibur Rehman from the independent Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) told IPS. "An application from someone from a so-called white country can be decided within five days, and we believe that does not allow for due consideration of circumstances," he said.

Ignorance about application procedures means also that many do not know what the first available opportunity to ask for asylum would be, Rehman said. JCWI and the civil rights group Liberty together challenged this provision.

The appeal was partly upheld but the court ruled that support to applicants who are believed not to have applied at the first opportunity could still be denied if they had relatives or other charitable groups helping them.

The legal measures are being backed by military-like security at ports and on stretches of the coastline against refugees trying to come in from France. The moves follow the announcement by Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier this year that the number of asylum applications would be cut to half by the end of the year.

More than 100,000 asylum applications were made in Britain last year, most of them by refugees crossing over from France. Officials expect the total number this year to approach the 50 percent target set by Blair.

Figures from the Home Office show that the measures against asylum-seekers are beginning to work. There were 16,000 applications in the first quarter of this year, 32 percent less than the previous quarter. The number of applications from Iraqis halved over the previous quarter.

The number of applications from Somalis and Afghans were also down. Applications from Zimbabwe fell by 61 percent.

More than 74 percent of the decisions on applications last year led to refusal. Of about 12,600 appeals against the early refusals, 80 percent were dismissed. But some more were given exceptional leave to remain.

In all 2,620 principal applicants were removed in the first quarter of this year, adding to a total of 3,990 including dependents. That was 7 percent higher than the previous quarter, and 37 percent higher than the first quarter of last year.

The number of applications across the European Union, except for Italy, fell 9 percent during the first quarter over the previous quarter, suggesting that the measures are beginning to work across Europe. Tougher steps were proposed at a meeting of EU leaders in Thessaloniki in Greece Thursday.