3 September 2015
Green chair Martin Deane said today:
“The papers are covered in tragic pictures of 'migrants' today.
“But it's not a migrant crisis. It’s a refugee crisis!”
"And every time the media calls them migrants – and they’re from Syria, like the boy’s body rescued form the Turkish beach, or Iraq or Libya – then they abuse the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
“If they’re from Syria, they’re *refugees* fleeing war! Not migrants. This is really important. It’s suddenly a huge propaganda meme across all the papers, and, if you call them migrants, nobody will think to hold you to the 1951 Refugee Convention! Countries already have agreed treaty responsibilities for a generation!
“Instead we’re going to get whatever Cameron deigns to do presented as UK largesse - instead of the proper humanitarian treaty response.
“Listen up Tories, Lib Dems and Labour Lite - the more we actually create the disparity that leads people to leave their home countries, including by creating wars and destabilising areas, the more refugees, let alone migrants, will we create.
“A country concerned with peace would know this.”
Martin Deane
Chair, Hull and East Riding Green Party
Secretary, Hull Stop the War coalition, 2002-12.
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