POST 24: 'Refugee Tales'

"If ministers are to “start work on plans to identify innovative efficiencies and reforms, delivering the remaining consolidation over the next four years” (Report, 21 July), can we suggest that the Home Office saves substantial costs by ending the inhumane and unjust practice of indefinite detention for immigration purposes? People are locked up, without trial, for an indefinite period, for no more than an administrative convenience. This practice costs the taxpayer £166m a year, £75m of which is spent on locking people up who are then just released into the community."

Suzanne Fletcher

Chair, Liberal Democrats for Seekers of Sanctuary 

The Guardian, Letters

Sunday 26 July 2015 20.07 BST

WALKING

http://refugeetales.org/events/

The Refugee Tales was dreamed up by a consortium of academics and writers, and whilst never  never quite leaving aside that slightly bookish feel, is nonetheless an  example of concerned citizens putting their shoes on and walking for what they believe.

The event followed the actual path of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a nine-day pilgrimage to show  solidarity with Refugees and Detainees. There were stopovers each night along the trail, with readings from authors such as Iain Sinclair and Ali Smith, and concerts playing to appreciative crowds, some of whom marched the whole way from Dover to Crawley,  others who caught trains to single venues.  It is annexed to the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group (GWDG).

TALKING

In Australia, ‘Welcome Dinners’ are a different forum for ordinary citizens to take action in ways that match their need to show they care.

https://www.facebook.com/TheWelcomeDinnerProject?fref=ts

PUBLISHING

"One of the refugees tried to explain to me what life was like in the transit centre after long periods in detention: 'You become domesticated, like an animal inside a cage. You think they are fine. They look normal, they seem healthy but they could not survive in nature, and that is like us now. We become like that. Mentally, we are not fine.'

An ethnic Rohingya refugee told me, 'In Burma, the government shoots us. Here, they kill us mentally.' "

Elaine Pearson, The Guardian, Monday 20 July 2015 06.50 BST

Elaine Pearson is the Australia director at Human Rights Watch. Follow her on Twitter @pearsonelaine

c. Z Soboslay 2015.