June 19, 2000
6:57 AM Subscribe
UK - Eighty-eight people mistaken for tomatoes found dead in a truck.
Asylum seekers have had such a raw deal in the press here recently too, the tabloids (no surprise there) have run pictures of Kosovan refugee women on the street begging and somehow managed to stir up real xenophobia toward these people. So much so that our 'all things to all people' government has introduced a 'fast-track' system to process asylum applications which involves detaining them like criminals before sending them back from whence they came.
Unfortunately there are unscrupulous people only too willing to prey on those desperate to get out of whatever situation they find themselves in. The results are there for all to see, 54 dead people in a container trying to enter the country illegally as they had no faith in the system for asylum seekers. I have always been proud of the multi-cultural society we have here, but recently something seems to have changed, there seems to be less of a compassionate attitude than there used to be.
Sometimes I feel ashamed to be British.
Man I'm not having a good day today [crawls back under stone muttering.....]
posted by Markb at 9:37 AM on June 19, 2000
Unfortunately there are unscrupulous people only too willing to prey on those desperate to get out of whatever situation they find themselves in. The results are there for all to see, 54 dead people in a container trying to enter the country illegally as they had no faith in the system for asylum seekers. I have always been proud of the multi-cultural society we have here, but recently something seems to have changed, there seems to be less of a compassionate attitude than there used to be.
Sometimes I feel ashamed to be British.
Man I'm not having a good day today [crawls back under stone muttering.....]
posted by Markb at 9:37 AM on June 19, 2000
'fast-track' system to process asylum applications which involves detaining them like criminals before sending them back from whence they came.
Sounds like the INS to me. Can't you come up with an original way to torture and humiliate people who are fleeing from execrable situations in their homelands?
posted by elgoose at 10:23 AM on June 19, 2000
Sounds like the INS to me. Can't you come up with an original way to torture and humiliate people who are fleeing from execrable situations in their homelands?
posted by elgoose at 10:23 AM on June 19, 2000
I think it was 58.. Or maybe 88. I dunno.
posted by eyesandfists at 10:26 AM on June 19, 2000
posted by eyesandfists at 10:26 AM on June 19, 2000
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duh! Try being mowed down by tanks if you freely speak your mind. That alone would be incentive to pretend to be a box of raw ketchup.
"Gee! The fact that so many people cross the ocean from Cuba to Florida, and so many mexicans attempt to illegally cross the border into California and Texas must mean something powerful is motivating them."
"Gee! We threaten to incarcerate people for breaking the law and yet they still break the law. That must mean something powerful is motivating them."
What planet is Nick Hardwick from? I bet he thinks we'll eventually win the war on drugs too, and stamping out evil prostitution is just a few more weeks away now. Any time we'll have that one licked, you bet!
I'm surrounded by idiots!
posted by ZachsMind at 8:27 AM on June 19, 2000