The REFUGEE PROJECT:
How UK foreign policies and investment creates refugees and asylum seekers
4-5.30pm Clement House: Room D209

Chair: Rachel Bird - The Refugee Project
Speakers
Awura Adwoa Adu - ROV
Liz Fekete - Institute of Race Relations
Nick Hildyard - The Corner House
Anders Lustgarten - Baku-Ceyhan Campaign
Pardeep Singh - Defenders of the Environment and Ecology of Panjab
Cengiz Gunes - Kurdish Federation

  Asylum and immigration are now at the top of the political agenda. But most of the debate centres either on how to keep asylum seekers out of Britain or on denying them benefits when they arrive. Many asylum seekers thus face a double insult: not only have they been forced to flee their countries but when they arrive in Britain, they are vilified as "welfare scroungers", "economic migrants" and even "criminals". Meanwhile, the current US and UK-led "War on Terrorism" is marginalising refugee communities still further, branding numerous legitimate political movements as "terrorists".

  Little or no attention has been focused on the reasons why migrants and asylum seekers leave their homes. Few do so willingly. Most are forced to flee, either through repression or through poverty. In many cases, British companies, taxpayers and the government are directly or indirectly responsible. Millions have been forced to move as a result of UK-backed infrastructure projects, such as dams and oil pipelines, or through the support that the UK government and UK companies provide to repressive regimes through the arms trade.

  The Refugee Project - a UK coalition of environmental, human rights and development groups - has been working for the past two years to document such links and to provide a platform where refugees can voice their own histories. This work has now been brought together in a book, Listen to The Refugee's Story - How UK Foreign Investment Creates Refugees and Asylum Seekers, which highlights the broad links between enforced migration and global economic processes.

  This meeting is essential in continuing to get these issues into the open and onto the political agenda.

Contact: Refugee Project, Rachel Bird on 020 7250 1315
www.therefugeeproject.org
knklondon@gn.apc.org and info@therefugeeproject.org

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