THE CEO of a refugee charity has condemned the “dehumanising” language being used to describe migrants by sections of the UK media and called on the Prime Minister to sack the Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
Robina Qureshi, the CEO of Positive Action in Housing – a homelessness charity dedicated to supporting people from migrant or refugee backgrounds in Scotland – pointed to the front page of Monday’s Daily Telegraph as an example of the kind of coverage that heaps further stigma upon migrants.
The front-page leads with the headline "Migrants side by side in hotels with public" in response to the news that Home Secretary Suella Braverman is reportedly considering housing migrants in hotel rooms alongside members of the public instead of booking out entire hotels as temporary accomodation.
This is peak Daily Telegraph dehumanising, stigmatising & engaging in xenophobia. It is saying "migrants" in an unstable world are not like you & me: the UK "public". And tragically this daily poison feeds & shapes UK politics, discourse & what govt does in our name. pic.twitter.com/GDBssIk7gm
— Gerry Hassan 🇺🇦 (@GerryHassan) October 31, 2022
Qureshi told The National: “What are [migrants], cockroaches? Are they not human?
“These are people living alongside us, fleeing from violence and war, and this is how they are being framed by our media.
“It’s some of the worst we’ve seen in terms of dehumanising language.”
Quereshi pointed to an incident that occurred at a migrant centre in Dover on Sunday as an example of how this rhetoric impacts migrants.
A man threw petrol bombs at a Home Office migrant centre, injuring two people, before being found dead at a nearby petrol station.
“This is what happens when you have a Home Secretary who says it is her dream to see migrants being deported to Rwanda.
“She needs to go. She’s stoking this language and it’s leading to violence. She needs to leave the role immediately.”
Positive Action in Housing have penned an open letter to Rishi Sunak calling on him to sack his recently appointed Home Secretary.
During Liz Truss’s short tenure as Prime Minister, Braverman reportedly blocked refugee transfers from a migrant processing centre in Manston, Kent that led to overcrowding and outbreaks of scabies and diphtheria.
The letter has been signed by dozens of refugee and human rights organisations.
“It is shocking that your Home Secretary stoked xenophobia and anti-immigrant hatred to the point of blocking human beings from being transferred out of a disease-ridden, overcrowded camp,” the letter stated.
“Her dreams of planes to Rwanda are real-life nightmares for desperate refugees.”
It comes as the BBC is being criticised for platforming figures such as Nigel Farage in the wake of the attack in Dover, who was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme on Monday afternoon.
During the interview Farage said that any migrant that came to Britain by illegally crossing the channel should not be eligible for refugee status.
What a terrible decision by the BBC to interview Nigel Farage over the Manston migrant centre. What the hell does he have to offer in this debate? This is the time for a serious discussion on the impact of the Tory’s cruel immigration policies. Not more myths and scapegoating.
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) October 31, 2022
He also claimed that the reason people couldn’t get an appointment at a GP’s office was because of the number of legal immigrants who had entered the UK since 2002.
Zamard Zahid, an anti-racism campaigner based in Glasgow, said such rhetoric from the media and senior Conservative politicians was directly impacting the lives of refugees in the UK.
She told The National: “For people of colour this is the same hostile environment towards immigrants that our parents faced when they were invited to the UK to work and rebuild the country after the war.
“Enoch Powell, the Shadow Cabinet Secretary, was sacked by the Conservative leader at the time for exacerbating ‘racial tensions’.
“It’s over five decades later and the very same hateful rhetoric has been made acceptable by using brown-faced home secretary’s like Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.
“Not only are we seeing them using extreme methods of deportation but the divisive language used by these politicians is emboldening an already right-wing press.
“This environment of paranoia and fear directly impacts the lives of people of colour and refugees within schools, workplaces, and on the streets.”
She added: “This so called “migrant crisis” and scapegoating of immigrants and refugees diverts attention away from the real-life issues of energy bills, fuel costs and cuts to pay.
“Sensationalised stories of small boats carrying men sells newspapers.”
