Demonstration to mark International Refugee Day on Saturday 20 June

Amnesty International calls refugee day rally

Amnesty International groups in London have teamed upwith the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, Hackney Refugee & Migrant SupportGroup, London Detainee Support Group and others to organise a demonstrationcalling for an end to the destitution of refused asylum seekers.

The march takes place on Saturday 20June as part of Refugee Week. Itwill start at 12 noon at Embankment and head off past Westminster to Trafalgar Square, where a rally insupport of asylum seekers will be held.

Thousands of asylum seekers in the UK who have hadtheir claims to asylum refused find themselves trapped in utter destitution.Most are refugees from countries torn apart by conflict where human rightsabuses are rife. They cannot return to their countries of origin for fear oftheir lives. Yet they are prohibited from working in the UK and cut offfrom receiving benefits. They are condemned to live in poverty, dependent onthe charity of others and vulnerable to the worst kinds of exploitation.

Many people have acknowledged the needto change a system that condemns refugees to poverty. A report in March lastyear by the Independent Asylum Commission states that the UK’s treatmentof asylum seekers “falls seriously below the standards of civilised society”.The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP wrote in a recent report for the Centre forSocial Justice that "the policy of making asylum seekers destitute is meanand nasty and has not worked". 

Speakers at the rally will include:Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK; Jeremy Corbyn MP; MauriceWren, director of Asylum Aidl; Donna Covey, director of the Refugee Council;Jean Roger Kaseki, human rights campaigner from the Democratic Republic ofCongo; Marilyn Bonzo, refugee from Zimbabwe; Makola Mayimbika, Poetic Justice;Emma Ginn, Medical Justice; and Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of UniteAgainst Fascism.

Amnesty International is part of StillHuman Still Here, a broad coalition of 29 organisations campaigning to bringall refused asylum seekers out of destitution by extending asylum support,permission to work, and access to healthcare and education until they are safeto return or granted leave to remain.

Thecoalition also includes the Refugee Council, Refugee Action, the Red Cross, theCatholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, and the Archbishop’s Councilof the Church of England.