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1st December 2006
Letter
to the Daily Express
Re: “We spend £60m on failed refugees as biggest detention centre smoulders” (1/12/06)
Dear Mr Whitehead,
Having read your article "We spend £60 million on failed refugees as biggest detention centre smoulder", I am once again troubled by the use of terminology in relation to refugees and asylum seekers.
Unsuccessful asylum claimants cannot be called “failed refugees” no more than jobless persons can be termed “failed workers.”
A refugee is defined in the 1951 Refugee Convention as a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution. Here in the United Kingdom, it is the Secretary of State which accepts or denies a claim for asylum and it is only by that grant of asylum that a person is officially recognised as a refugee. If a person’s asylum claim is denied, they are simply a unsuccessful asylum seeker. Hostile media coverage of asylum issues and refugees undermines the lives of those who have had to flee persecution, rather than inform any legitimate public debate.
We also wish to note that the detention facility at Harmondsworth shelters a broad category of detainees, most of whom are foreign nationals released from correctional institutions awaiting deportation. That facility is not mainly populated by asylum claimants.
We have appreciated The Daily Express’ frank dialogue with UNHCR regarding our concerns about your article of 20 April, “One in 8 of all asylum seekers lands in Britain” (20/04/06) which resulted in the publication of a clarification. As in this previous case, the UN Refugee Agency requests that The Daily Express consider rectifying its misuse of terminology and its suggestion that asylum claimants were behind the regretful loss of government property at Harmondsworth by publishing a clarification at its earliest convenience.
Yours Sincerely,
Peter Kessler
Senior External Affairs Officer
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