To All Living Things
Last Week's Column

HUMAN RIGHTS HAVE NO BORDERS
by Kathy Gay

id you know that:

• 1 in every 115 people on earth has been forced into flight?

• 25 to 30 million people are displaced within their own countries?

• 80% of the world’s refugee population live outside Europe and North America, and more than half are in Africa and the Middle East?

• most refugees are women and children?

• the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) says there are 27 million people in the world who are "of concern" to them and, of these, at least 15 million people are entitled to international protection because they are refugees?

Every day people make the agonizing decision to leave their homes, communities and countries because they are afraid. They are afraid for their lives. Their fears are based on real suffering, real threats, or the real experiences of friends and neighbors.

They flee war, terrified that they will be attacked or caught in the cross-fire. They flee individual persecution, frightened that they will be imprisoned, tortured or executed.

The persecution they are trying to escape is not confined to any region or to any political system. Refugees have crossed almost every territorial boundary in the world in search of safety.

They are cut off from family and friends, their lives completely disrupted. Frequently, they live in camps where food and medical supplies are scarce, and where there is no way to earn a living. They are often the victims of abuse and exploitation.

Amnesty International’s Position on Refugees

People usually become refugees because their human rights are at grave risk. They sever the link with their own state and seek the protection of another because their own government is persecuting them or cannot be relied upon to protect them. Their fear of persecution, discrimination or human rights violations should guarantee them sanctuary.

But when refugees seek the protection of another state, they rarely receive a warm and gracious welcome. Many are turned back at the border without a hearing, detained as "illegal immigrants," subjected to further violence or squalid conditions in refugee camps, put through summary and unfair asylum procedures, or sent back to countries where they will not be safe.

Amnesty International believes that basic human rights principles provide an inviolable standard of protection for all people, regardless of asylum decisions made by individual states. The organization does not work on behalf of all refugees, but only those who are at risk of execution, "disappearance," torture, or imprisonment as prisoners of conscience. International law prohibits the forced return of individuals from one country to another where they are at risk of becoming victims of human rights violations, and this position provides the basis of Amnesty’s intervention on behalf of refugees.

It is Time for a Reminder

Over the past decade, widespread disregard for human rights has caused one refugee crisis after another. At the same time, the system devised to protect refugees has fallen into disarray, with states showing increasing reluctance, and sometimes outright unwillingness, to accommodate refugees. And UNHCR, the agency created to guarantee international protection for refugees, appears unable to ensure that states fulfill even their minimum obligations towards those forced to flee their country.

Every day governments violate the established principle of non-refoulement, the fundamental basis of refugee protection. This principle prohibits states from sending anyone against their will to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations. It is a norm of customary international law, binding on all states irrespective of whether they are party to the U.N. Refugee Convention.

Although Amnesty International is always working on behalf of refugees who are at risk of human rights abuse, it seems the time is right for the organization to bring the issue to center stage. It is time to speak up just a little bit louder. A little bit longer. And in much greater numbers.

The Refugee Campaign

On March 19, 1997, Amnesty International launched a worldwide campaign aimed at preventing human rights abuses of asylum seekers and refugees. The Refugee Campaign, which ends on December 10, 1997, targets all countries who fail to meet the current international standards for the treatment of refugees.

The intent of this campaign is not to call for bold new measures by the international community, such as the development of new international standards. Rather, the organization and its members from all corners of the globe will speak up and remind the world’s governments of their existing obligations towards refugees and urge them to ensure that these minimum standards are always respected.

* * * * *

About six weeks ago, VegSource presented an action from Amnesty International on behalf of Burmese refugees who were being forcibly returned to Myanmar from Thailand. This week VegSource presents an action on behalf of 300 Colombian refugees, most of whom are women and children, who have been forcibly returned to their homeland from Panama.

This week's Amnesty Action.

__________________________________________________

Kathy Gay is a vegan, and has been a member of Amnesty International for nearly 10 years, where she has worked on numerous campaigns. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a business analyst for a leading California bank.

Kathy's column, To All Living Things, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.