Refugees deserve our compassion
The cross-party committee report which suggests Wales should become a “nation of sanctuary” for refugees is commendably well-intentioned.
There are already communities in our country which have extended a generous welcome to families fleeing from the horrors of war, notably in the Middle East.
As a signatory to the Geneva Convention, the UK has a duty and moral obligation to take in people who are in danger of death or torture in their countries of origin.
It is absolutely right that Wales should play its part in providing the humanitarian assistance such victims have a right to expect.
We do, however, live in increasingly febrile times. Xenophobia is on the rise, whipped up by unscrupulous politicians and their cheerleaders in parts of the media.
Sadly, there are those in Wales who lack the compassion refugees deserve to be shown. A dissenting report written by Ukip AM Gareth Bennett places what appear to be impossible conditions on anyone seeking refugee status. They would have to be in immediate risk of execution - and be able to prove they had not taken part in political or human rights activity in their country of origin.
By this logic, anyone protesting against a tyrannical regime would be disqualified from refugee status and would have to suffer the consequences.
It’s important to be clear that human rights activists who have opposed the oppression of women, racial groups, religious minorities and atheists – as well as those who have campaigned for freedom of speech – most certainly do qualify for refugee status under the internationally accepted definition.
Politicians and others who seek to deny that deserve condemnation.
Yet while supporting the committee’s general principle, we believe there are two important qualifications to be made.
Offering sanctuary is an international obligation and other nations should be prepared to accept a fair allocation of refugees too. Many countries have refused to accept any at all, and others have adopted a grudging approach at best.
President Trump has set a bad example by seeking to discriminate against Muslims from countries he has singled out arbitrarily for opprobrium. But Trump’s United States is not alone. Even some Muslim countries – notably the Gulf States – have been reluctant to help their co-religionists.
With whatever international influence we have left, we must do what we can to encourage other countries to offer sanctuary to refugees.
The other qualification is the need to distinguish between refugees and those who are more correctly described as economic migrants.
The debate about refugees has been muddied by the conflation of refugees and economic migrants.
While there is a place for economic migration, it is not the same as fleeing death and torture. We cannot be expected to accommodate every economic migrant and it is important that controls are in place to ensure we don’t do so. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%