How UNHCR Lies about Eritrean Migrants
Sep 27, 2014
Today UNHCR has released its midyear asylum trend. Predictably, Eritrea is
in the top 5 countries of origin of asylum seekers. But what the report wont
tell you is the labels "asylum seekers" and "refugees" are highly subjective
terms that are strongly influenced by politics.
No where is this point more glaring than in the statistics provided by
European countries on all asylum applications. As the data below shows, when
it comes to asylum cases in the West, Eritreans receive the VIP treatment.
All asylum applications:
* France: "nearly 90 percent being rejected" [1]
* United Kingdom: "the rejection rate is around 62 percent" [1]
* Switzerland: 85% of asylum claims were rejected [2]
* Sweden: "Sweden grants asylum to about a third." (67 percent
rejection rate) [1]
Eritrean asylum applications:
* France: 55% accepted, 45% rejected [3]
* United Kingdom: 81.6% accepted, 18.4 rejected [3]
* Switzerland, 88% accepted, 12% rejected [2]
* Sweden: 100% accepted, 0% rejected [3]
How can the EU justify this preference for Eritreans? Why are Eritreans
special? With so many countries and people facing wars, famine, and even
genocide in Africa, why place Eritrean migrants as a top priority?
The only rational explanation for many EU countries showing preference for
Eritreans is because it's politically motivated. It's intended to weaken
Eritrea by unfairly rewarding Eritrean economic migrants with asylum
statuses. This high rate of acceptance of Eritrean asylum cases induces more
to flee, and makes other African migrants more likely to pretend to be
Eritreans when entering Western countries. Thus, what you end up with is a
grossly exaggerated figure of Eritreans claiming asylum in the West, which
in turn is used by UNHCR to condemn Eritrea for something they themselves
helped create.
It's important to note that these western countries receive most of their
information on Eritrean migrants from UNHCR officials. UNCHR, which makes it
no secret it has an ax to grind against the Eritrean government, shamelessly
says Eritrean migrants will be killed or imprisoned if they were to be sent
back to Eritrea. This obvious lie is intended to force the hand of these
Western countries to baptize Eritrean economic migrants as persecuted
refugees who deserve asylum. However, as Israeli officials have found out,
what UNHCR says isn't always based on facts.
In 2013, 461 Eritrean "refugees" in Israel requested to be sent back to
Eritrea. After returning them to their homeland, Israeli government
organizations regularly checked up on them and found none of them were
arrested, let alone killed.
"Organizations that visited Eritrea to check if the people who returned were
safe reported that these individuals had not been arrested."
<
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Saar-vows-government-will-stand-firm-in-
policy-on-African-migrants-337745> Said Gideon Sa'ar, Israel's Interior
Minister.
UNHCR defends its Eritrean refugee fetish by presenting lots of interviews
of Eritrean migrants telling harrowing stories. The names of these migrants
are always withheld, and to this date, none of the stories have been
independently verified. But as some investigative journalists have found
out, using the stories of migrants isn't very convincing when the incentive
to lie is so great.
In 2012, Danny Adino Ababa, an Israeli journalist who went undercover as a
migrant in Tel Aviv, shed light on a popular false story African migrants
like to sell to UNHCR officials in order to stay in Israel:
My cover story has not been finalized yet, but luckily I run into Jeremiah,
who's been in Israel for three years now. "What do I tell those who ask how
I got into Israel?" I ask him. "Lie,"
<
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4239481,00.html> he says. "Don't
tell the whole story. The Israelis, and mostly the non-profit groups working
with the infiltrators here, like to be lied to."
"Say you were a soldier, and that if you return to Eritrea you'll get a
death sentence. Keep in mind that you must be consistent with your story.
The bottom line is that everyone uses the story I'm telling you here, and
this way they fool everybody," he says. "Almost none of them arrived on foot
from Egypt to Israel. None of us crossed any deserts.it's all nonsense."
Statistically speaking, dozens of African countries have far more migrants
fleeing their country than Eritrea does. But when you hear Eritrea is a top
5 asylum producing country, that gives the illusion that Eritrea is a top 5
country with people fleeing their country, which it is not.
For example, in 2013, around 1,500 Eritreans left their country every month,
according to Human Rights Watch.[4] This figure, which is obviously
exaggerated for political consumption, translates to 18,000 people fleeing
Eritrea every year. In comparison, CCTV reported that Ethiopia had 800,000
of its people flee to Saudi Arabia in 2013 [5] (66,600 Ethiopians per
month). So when you compare Ethiopia's population (93 million) with that of
Eritrea's (6.3 million), you'll learn that Ethiopia had 44x the amount of
people fleeing their country to Saudi Arabia alone than Eritrea did
worldwide, even though it's population is just 14.7x larger. That right
there is more telling than the bogus labels of asylum cases that are
predominantly given to Eritreans over other Africans.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter what labels these migrants are
given. If they leave their country permanently, then that's all that should
matter. Labeling some asylum seekers over other migrants is absurd when you
consider it's just a subjective term based predominantly on politics.
Sources:
1.
<
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-and-treatment-of-r
efugees-in-the-european-union-a-926939.html>
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-and-treatment-of-re
fugees-in-the-european-union-a-926939.html
2.
http://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/sozial-irrsinn-wir-eritreer-sind-nicht-faul
-id3143084.html
<
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.blick.ch/new
s/schweiz/sozial-irrsinn-wir-eritreer-sind-nicht-faul-id3143084.html&prev=/s
earch%3Fq%3D
http://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/sozial-irrsinn-wir-eritreer-sin
d-nicht-faul-id3143084.html%26espv%3D2%26biw%3D1866%26bih%3D1017>
3. 2014 EU Commission Report on Eritrean Asylum Applications
4.
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/eritrea
5.
http://youtu.be/CDQRH80P7ys?t=1m58s
Received on Sat Sep 27 2014 - 06:22:11 EDT