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Below is the registration link for the Central England Area Meeting Peace Committee to mark 70 years of the UN Refugee Convention, Wednesday 28th July 19.00 – 21.00.

Is the UK still compliant with the letter and the spirit of the 1951 UN Refugee treaty?

About this event: CEQ Peace Committee invite you to this event to mark the 70th Anniversary of the UN Refugee Convention (also known as ‘the Geneva Convention of 1951’) and explore its relevance today.

We will ask whether the UK is still compliant with the letter and the spirit of the treaty, with speakers:

2 July 2021: BBC: The number of migrants waiting in the UK for their asylum claims to be processed was nine times higher by the end of last year than it was in 2010.

One is Patricia, 19, who fled war and abuse in Liberia and says her mental health has suffered during the two years she has waited for a decision.

There are currently 65,000 people in the queue, official figures obtained by the Refugee Council suggest. [Read the report here: https://media.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/01191305/Living-in-Limbo-A-decade-of-delays-in-the-UK-Asylum-system-July-2021.pdf]

The Home Office said it had a plan to “fix the broken asylum system”.

25 June 2021: This is an organisation that monitors big business, as its name suggests: Corporate watch reveals the figures behind Channel-crosser deportations

Between August and December 2020, in the run-up to Brexit, the UK Home Office carried out a rush of mass deportation charter flights. This was part of a media campaign to show the government was “taking back Britain’s borders” – against the menace of desperate refugees crossing the Channel in small boats.

Corporate Watch published a detailed report on one of the first flights, on 26 August 2020, highlighting the abuse these refugees faced in the UK, and after they were dumped in Germany and France. We also profiled the airlines running these flights for the Home Office including Hi Fly, Privilege Style, and TUI.

We can now make an overall assessment of what happened: how many people were deported, to where, using what airlines, and how much it all cost.

Read more here: https://corporatewatch.org/the-home-office-deportation-drive-against-channel-crossing-migrants-a-balance-sheet/

25 June 2021:We are Young Leaders. We come from three groups led by young refugees and asylum seekers: Safe Passage Young Leaders, The KRAN Youth Forum and Hummingbird Young Leaders.

Together, we are a group of 26 young people from different backgrounds working together for a better future for young refugees and asylum seekers.

We are a community of people with experience of migration and the asylum system, brought together by humanity, and we are working to protect and defend human rights.

We are a voice for the voiceless. We have high hopes that together we can make a change. 

We believe that the Government needs to make fundamental changes in policy to ensure that people fleeing war and persecution can access safe routes to sanctuary. Through a series of group workshops and discussions, we have worked together to agree on the following list of eight recommendations.

5 June 2021: Following our course on Understanding the Roots of the Immigration System, Woodbrooke and Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network hosted a day on 5th June: ‘Solidarity in the hostile environment: what can we do?’   https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/product/solidarity-in-the-hostile-environment-what-can-we-do/  We were joined by people with lived experience of the asylum system.

This is a summing up of the day. A report/ artwork representing the day will be available later:

This morning we listened to people who have direct experience of the hostile system: