White List Won’t Wash
If you’re on the list you’re safe..or so at least goes the rationale of a new European Union proposal that sees the definitons of the geneva convention on refugees narrowed down even further. Female genital mutilation and child trafficking still occurs in Mali, while in Bostswana homosexuality is banned and Amnesty reports extensive mob violence in Benin…yet these are among the countries that have made it onto the EU’s so-called “safe” country list. The move sponsored by the G5 will see the creation of a so called white list from which asylum applications will be presumed false, leading to fast tracked deportations. Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Collective in Sydney is outraged over the recent EU proposal despite official reports on ongoing human rights violations in countries such as Benin, Botswana, Ghana and Mali.