Tag Archives: humanitarian

Caron Lindsay

Even the Daily Mail thinks the Government isn’t doing the right thing by child refugees

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 28th April 2016 - 1:45 pm

Who ever would have thought that the Daily Mail of all publications would come to the conclusion that the Government has got it wrong on helping the child refugees already in Europe?

Today’s editorial does repeat at length a good bit of its usual anti-immigration, anti-Merkel and anti-EU rhetoric, so you’ll still need a shower after reading it. Even despite all that, it comes to this rather startling conclusion:

But every sinew of our hearts tells us it’s a gesture that must be made — while every child we take will mean a life of hope in place of despair.

Mr Cameron should consider that of all the countries in the Europe, Britain has the longest established tradition of offering sanctuary to refugees from war and oppression.

It urges the Government to accept Alf Dubs’ further amendment which was passed in the House of Lords on Tuesday night.

There are numerous petitions going round the internet asking the Government to do the decent thing and help some of these children. However, Alf Dubs has created one on the Parliamentary petitions website which has at the time of writing collected almost 40,000 signatures in two days. It says:

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Vinous Ali

Visiting the Northern Greece refugee camps with Tim Farron

By Vinous Ali | Sun 17th April 2016 - 10:55 am

Refugee camp Northern GreeceOn Monday I flew out to Greece with Tim ahead of his visit to the camps in the North on Tuesday. Hours earlier UNHCR informed us they would no longer be able to facilitate the visit of a ‘high-profile’ individual given the security concerns after the clashes the day before. I tried desperately to reassure them that it was not exactly a ‘high profile’ visit, there would be no security team, huddle of staff and no media crew following him around– something that I don’t think they really believed.

So we flew into Greece with ‘fluid’ plans let’s say.

I spent Monday night manically emailing all the contacts I had working in the field to see if we could line up briefings for Tim the next day and had a surprising response. Everyone was very keen to meet Tim to tell him what they were doing and what they needed from the UK Government. One organisation who wasn’t even currently in Idomeni, the informal camp we visited on Tuesday morning, came over especially to give Tim and an overview of what was happening on the ground day in, day out.

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Caron Lindsay

Tim Farron visits refugee camps in Greece – “Real people in desperate circumstances fleeing war”

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th April 2016 - 2:05 pm

The news is constantly full of big numbers, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people heading to Europe to escape war and destruction. Tim Farron is in Greece today, talking to some of them. What’s very clear is that behind those big numbers are individual people and families, just like ours, who had been living peaceable lives, getting on with their jobs, sending their children to school, just like the rest of us. They have been displaced by events beyond their control, war, violence, destruction and seek a place of safety where they can contribute to society and get on with their lives.

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Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett

We should be ashamed of UK inaction on refugee crisis

By Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett | Tue 23rd February 2016 - 11:55 am

David Trett refugees

On a bleak windswept desolate morning in mid February, I walked through puddles of mud whilst alongside me a community of refugees, desperate to re-start their lives, remain near the French /UK border hoping to escape the situation and get to the UK, or some other place of sanctuary. I visited along with my Lib Dem colleague Councillor David Chalmers. I’m left wondering what will become to all those that I met this weekend.

I believe in showing humanity, care and love for our fellow citizens wherever they come from in the world, especially those escaping from lives of persecution, violence and discrimination. We, as a country, should be utterly ashamed of ourselves, as should the French authorities, for allowing a situation to develop only 20-25 minutes by travel from our shore, where a group of harmless, fear stricken people are left looking for sanctuary.

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The Voice

#WeAreAllHuman: Liberal Youth members show solidarity with Calais refugees

By The Voice | Fri 7th August 2015 - 8:53 am

“We will not dehumanise, we will not demonise, we will support them.”

Liberal Youth members have made a video in solidarity with the refugees in Calais. Joanne Ferguson, who joined the Party in May and has written for this site several times, tells David Cameron: “You have the power to save human lives, use it.”

Watch and share.

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The Voice

Tim Farron goes to Calais to see the humanitarian crisis for himself

By The Voice | Tue 4th August 2015 - 10:16 pm

For Tim Farron, the situation in Calais has always been primarily a humanitarian one. He was furious last week when David Cameron described the desperately vulnerable people there as a “swarm.” Most recently he asked Cameron to make sure that we were doing our fair share to end the “immeasurable suffering” of the people in Calais. He wrote:

I am sure you agree that it is heartbreaking to see hundreds of desperate people subsisting in makeshift camps night after night, willing to risk life and limb in the hope of a better future while many in Kent and across the country see their daily lives hugely disrupted through no fault of their own.

I welcome your commitment yesterday to providing France with the resources needed to deal with the situation and am writing to seek assurances that alongside the necessary security measures, support will also be given to humanely process those seeking asylum, return those who have no right to remain, and ensure that, in line with international obligations, standards of welfare and accommodation are urgently improved.

Today he went to Calais to see the situation on the ground for himself.

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