Subj : Priti Patel's `anti-refugee' bill would criminalise queer Afghans flee
To : All
From : Major Queen
Date : Fri Oct 22 2021 03:40 am
EMMA COOKE OCTOBER 21, 2021
New "anti-refugee" legislation will make it even harder for LGBT+ Afghans to
escape the Taliban, activists have warned.
The Taliban's new regime in Afghanistan forced many queer and transgender
people into hiding, under fear of being imprisoned, tortured or killed.
It is feared that some members of the community may have already died of
starvation or suicide while in hiding, or have already been discovered and
executed by Taliban forces.
Despite the urgency, a new immigration bill looks set to hinder efforts to
help.
The Conservative Party's Nationality and Borders Bill has already received
widespread criticism for threatening to create a two-tier asylum system.
Leila Zadeh is the executive director of Rainbow Migration, a campaign group
that helps LGBT+ Afghans flee. Zedah warned of the impact it would have on
vulnerable LGBT+ peoples in Afghanistan, telling the Morning Star that the
bill "will criminalise people for trying to seek safety and make it much
harder for them to secure refugee status and rebuild their lives in the UK".
Protests are taking place up and down the country this week against the bill.
SNP MP Alison Thewliss shared footage from a Westminster protest and called
the legislation "despicable and cruel".
In Stroud, protesters called it an "anti-refugee bill", with one organiser
telling local media: "It is a kind of violence against refugee".
At an event in Glasgow, Becky Macfarlen of the Glasgow Asylum Destitution
Action Network (GLADAN) said the bill is the result of "racist attitudes
which diminish us as -individuals and as a nation", according the The
National.
The Nationality and Borders Bill is a potential breach of international
refugee law
Proposed by Priti Patel, the supposed purpose of the Nationality and Borders
Bill is to "make the asylum system fairer", "deter illegal entry to the UK"
and to "remove people with no right to be in the country".
It also aims to "introduce new and tougher criminal offences for those
attempting to enter the UK illegally".
However, a report commissioned by human rights group Freedom From Torture
found that the bill breaches international and domestic law in at least 10
different ways.
Under the new bill, anyone who arrives in the UK by an illegal route - which
includes small boats across the Channel - could have their claim ruled as
inadmissible, be barred from accessing public funds, and even receive a jail
sentence of up to four years.
This is potentially in breach of articles 31 and 33 of the UN refugee
convention and articles 2, 3 and 4 of the European convention on human rights
(ECHR).
The 95 pages of legal opinion from leading immigration lawyers concluded:
"This bill represents the biggest legal assault on international refugee law
ever seen in the UK.
"The principle at the heart of the bill is the penalisation, both criminally
and administratively, of those who arrive by irregular means in the UK to
claim asylum and the bill seeks to reverse a number of important decisions of
the UK courts, including at the House of Lords and court of appeal level,
given over the last 20 years.
"The basis for the attack on irregular arrival is that refugees should use
safe legal routes. But there are no such safe legal routes. There is no such
thing as a refugee visa."
