In November 2019 I was asked to speak on a panel at The Istanbul Process in the Hague. Little did I know something of what I was saying would provide a precursor to recent events – that of ‘offshoring’ those seeking safe refuge in the UK to another country, costing UK taxpayers millions, and untold suffering to those already traumatised – having been tortured, beaten, threatened with death, this is what we do. The following is the full of my talk and background information:
Istanbul Process – Group 3, Monday the 18th of November 2019
Incitement to religious hatred and violence: pushing back
By the Revd Bonnie Evans-Hills
Quotes for press:
‘Genocide and atrocity start with one thing – a word, a word of hate, a word that singles any group of people out as something to fear, as something different, as less than human. And through this word of hate whole populations are gradually made vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation.’
‘The Istanbul Process provides the means to push back against words of hate, and through this pushback challenge those who seek to manipulate, control, and exploit.’
Talk:
In April of 2015, a forum of religious leaders from across the globe were gathered in Fez, Morocco, at the behest of the UN Office for Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect to discern a way forward in preventing atrocities. It was then decided to hold five regional consultations, asking religious leaders and actors to discern what they felt were flashpoints for genocide in their religion. The first of these was held in Europe, and it is to that session that I am best equipped to speak.
Together we discerned three main areas of concern, all of which are intertwined – that of radicalisation, with the greater concern even then with far right influence over that of those leaving to join ISIS; of related increasing hate crime and hate speech; and the lack of humanitarian response to refugees.
Those working in the area of genocide studies realise that atrocities don’t just happen overnight. They are incited, through a gradual increase of de-humanisation of any particular group – whatever group conveniently stands out as different.
This can be any group, usually a vulnerable minority, but not always, that is different in any way from the majority – whether it has to do with race, or religion, or disability, or language, or culture, or ethnicity, or gender.
We know from international studies into hate crime, that the greater majority of these crimes usually have to do with race – but also that often there is a fuzzy demarcation between race, religion, and ethnicity. Reporting and recording of hate crime varies from nation to nation, as legislation in each nation perceives hate crime differently through its legislation. Exact figures are difficult to discern – but we are able to gain some general idea of trends.
Hate crime, hate speech in particular, is the first step in grooming a populace into believing that any one group of people is somehow a threat, or somehow less, than the rest of the population.
We are currently witnessing groups of people being branded as dangerous, as terrorists, as a threat to everyone else because of a mixture of their ethnicity alongside religion. From the Uighur in China, the Rohingya in Myanmar, to refugees in Europe.
From the European perspective, the EU has part-funded 26 concentration camps in Libya. There is no other word for what have been termed as detention centres. It is well documented that these centres are places where people are held, having committed no crime other than seeking safe sanctuary from violent conflict or crippling poverty.
We make humanitarian excuse that we are preventing people from drowning in the Mediterranean, only to die in these camps where they are starved, lack healthcare, lack sanitary conditions, are trafficked into forced labour or sexual exploitation, and held for ransom from relatives in Europe. And people still die in the Mediterranean. We have criminalised rescue at sea, against international law.
The UK has built a Wall, has paid for a Wall – in Calais, where unaccompanied minors, families with young children, as well as groups of men, have been forced to camp trying to find a way to the UK. The greater majority of these people have some kind of link to the UK, and most have been awaiting processing of their paperwork. In the meantime, they lack any proper, humanitarian facilities, and camps across Calais and Dunkirk, and in Paris and Brussels, are raided at least 3 times a day by French police, paid for by the UK. Their tents, sleeping bags, phones, even shoes, are confiscated and destroyed. Meanwhile, good folk in the UK and France and Belgium do their best to provide food, and replace their phones, tents, sleeping bags and shoes.
All of this is happening because Europe is afraid of brown people of another religion, speaking another language, coming to seek refuge from wars – much of which Europe has supported and supplies arms that are used against these same people.
This covers just about all of the stages of genocide. And it is excused and instigated by words, words of hate – just like every single genocide that has happened in the 20th Century until now, whether it is the Holocaust of WWII, or Rwanda or Bosnia. It all began with words of hate.
And yet we also know that when people seeking asylum have been welcomed and helped to settle into a place of safety, they give back in the way of hard work and stability. As we heard Nichola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, state, in reply to the conservative government’s renewed policies of hostile environment, refugees and migrants do not take away jobs – they help create them.
What is happening in Europe is also reflected in the Americas, with those seeking escape from the ravages of rampant drug gangs and organised crime. And similar in the continent of Africa, with corruption and violent conflicts.
The only solution is to reinforce the humanitarian values as set out in the International Declaration of Human Rights – and for member states of the United Nations to agree to work toward and invest in those values, rather than undermine them. The funding we use to keep people out is better put to humanitarian response.
For reference:
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – Article 7
1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.