The Inevitable Endpoint of EU Refugee and Border Policy Spells Genocide

There has been abundant reporting recently on the continuously ongoing exercise in inhumanity that is European Union refugee policy. Alas, the focus is often on singular incident, such as the recent tragedy of the sunken both that had at least 700 die of drowning in the Mediterranean (here, here, here). However, already several month ago, BBC reported that in the course of just a few months last year, over 2 200 people were estimated to have lost their lives due to similar causes in these deadly sea. A more recent report from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is cited by the same source as implicating an expectation of the number of people meeting similar destinies in the Mediterranean alone will reach 30 000 this year (also reported here), and other sources note that the number of refugee deaths in the Mediterranean is already 30 times higher this year compared to the same period in the former. A detailed map of all registered deaths since the year 2000 can be found here.

As dryly noted by well-known public health educator, and my countryman, Hans Rosling in a recent video – rhetorically answering the cynical question why refugees don't fly instead, as this is much cheaper and safer – the primary cause of this development can be located almost entirely in the inhuman border and refugee policies of the European Union and its member states:

 

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True to this essence of European policy in this area, in the 2014, the UK announced that it would cancel all further engagement in missions to rescue victims of capsizing refugee boats, leading to sharp reactions, e.g., from Amnesty International. In a similar spirit, the European Union has reacted to the more recent outcries, with a 10-point plan, most of which is nothing else than just more of business as usual, as noted by, e.g., Human Rights Watch. For the essence of EU border and refugee policy is to stretch its supposed commitment to international asylum agreements to its limits, bearing in mind that the right to ask for asylum starts at the border points of a country and keep the eyes shut to the devastating consequences of this sort of policy:

1. KEEP THEM OUT! 

"the EU's maritime patrolling operations in the Mediterranean, called Triton and Poseidon"

"capture and destroy vessels used by the people smugglers" 

2. PREFERABLY BY PREVENTING THEM FROM NEVER ATTEMPTING TO LEAVE!

 "EU will engage with countries surrounding Libya through a joint effort between the Commission and the EU's diplomatic service."

"The EU will deploy immigration liaison officers abroad to gather intelligence on migratory flows and strengthen the role of the EU delegations

3. AND IF THEY HAPPEN TO REACH THE EU, GET THEM OUT AS QUICK AS POSSIBLE!

"European Union's asylum support office will to deploy teams in Italy and Greece for joint processing of asylum applications."

"EU governments will fingerprint all migrants."

"EU will consider options for an "emergency relocation mechanism" for migrants."

"EU will establish a new return program for rapid return of "irregular" migrants coordinated by EU agency Frontex from the EU's Mediterranean countries."

At the same time, similar thinking is shaping this adaption to European Union border and refugee policy standards by Bulgaria (along its border to Turkey), which hopes to be admitted as full member shortly and therefore implements this perversity, apparently failing to note the bitter ironic link to its own iron curtain past (also here):

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This is the voice of three monkeys failing to register the complete unsustainability of their chosen path. Or, let me be more precise, this path is completely unsustainable as long as the European Union recognises the notion of its lack of rights to commit organised mass murder. For at the end of the day, this is the only conceivable endpoint that this policy can have.

The idea that capturing a few criminals, currently exploiting the desperate situation of refugees created by European Union policies, would somehow make said refugees stop attempting to finalise their escape is nothing but plain stupidity. Once these bands are dealt with, there will instead be the initiatives of others, not least refugees themselves and ordinary people trying to help them. For the need to escape is not created by these minor border bands of cynic criminals, those are mere symptoms of an infinitely more cynic and inferior way of responding to the ever present needs that have had refugees on their way across history and the world since the dawn of humanity. At that point, the EU will face the choice of continuing the policy and thus deploy the military and police forces referred to in its 10-point programme to start attacking the refugees themselves, besides anyone aiding them. Similarly regarding the idea to "engage with countries surrounding Libya" (and other bordering countries, as the need arises) and "strengthen the role of the EU delegations", effectively to have bordering countries set up concentration camps funded by the EU, to effectively lock the refugees up to stop further escape (a recent analysis by Doctor's without Borders of how bad the situation is in this respect already now is here). Again, the question then arises what will be the EU policy when these incarcerated people – as they have all reason and every moral right to do – attempt to break out. In both cases, the logic of current EU policy seems to dictate  nothing less than genocide. Whether or not it is performed by proxy or bona fide European armed personnel is, in this case, completely irrelevant.

But, of course, my point is that this analysis demonstrates the complete unsustainability of current European Union border and migration policy. Especially pondering that current refugee and migration streams are in fact nothing compared to what may be expected in the future due to the effects of climate change and other environmental problems (also effecting economic and social instability and war in their aftermath), one can easily see that it can end up nowhere else than in massive genocide on desperate people fleeing destitution or other dire circumstances. Pondering the constitutional backbones of the EU, such as the European Convention of Human Rights (not to speak of EU member states' uniform commitment to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide), this should effect careful consideration of the increasingly apparent folly of the current policy path among European policy makers and high officials. Is this how you want to end up; as mass murderers on a grand scale – is that what Europe and the European Union is about? This is the question that those three monkeys desperately seek to avoid.

BBC newspeak on mob hate crimes against Roma in France

So, here's a short note on a piece of news reporting that upset me quite a bit yesterday night. Partly this is due to the nature of the events described, bearing evidence of the French authorities' increased acceptance of lawless harassment against Roma people, thus setting aside basic obligations to tend to human rights, rule of law and legal security. But even more so, the way in which these events are described upset me. Especially considering the source being not the press office of the Front Nationale or the British National Party, but actually the BBC.

Basically, what is reported is that of a local French mob running amok – inspired by the usual anecdotal rumours and lose slander figuring in cases like these since the witch-hunts of the 17th century – taking the law into their own hands and forcing (one supposes by threats of violence and/or actual physical force, how else does one force?) a group of homeless Romas (sometimes referred to as Gypsies or Travellers) to flee a camp set up on a wasteland close to a Marseille housing estate. In the process, parts of said camp were set on fire and anonymous members of the mob in so many words say that they were passively or indirectly inspired to the attack by local police authorities. Said authorities in turn seem to actively turning a blind eye to the incident claiming that they were "not able to report any crime".

This, the usually impeccably to the point and correct BBC chooses to describe as "vigilantes" with "no reports of violence" "evicting". Yep, vigilantes – just like Batman or any other righteous crime fighter who steps in when the high and mighty lost their ability to uphold the law. Yep, non-violent – just like that example of peaceful popular protest known as Kristallnacht that also had suspected arson and unlawful coercion and threat on the menu, besides general mayhem And the best of all: evicting, just like any landlord would do had the tenants not behaved themselves – all proper and according to due procedure. Yep, nothing to add to the local police's obviously completely ridiculous stated inability to report any crime. If this is not the worst case of racist newspeak I have encountered in mainstream media for a long time I don't know what is.

Shame on you, BBC!

Hate Crime and Human Rights: A Complicated Story

This spring, I posted a short pointer to some online writings by David Brax (here, here, here, here, here, here, here), who is working together with myself and people at the Universities of Central Lancashire and Frankfurt in the European Commission sponsored project When Law and Hate Collide. Our main task in this project is to advise EU on what a pan-European concept of hate crime should look like and what sort of policy regarding hate crime that can be justified on a European level. As so often is the case with European projects, a background for the need to have some research done is vast differences between different EU member states as to how some topic is treated. So, a basic problem is that it is unclear, to say the least, what a hate crime is supposed to be from a European perspective.

This is also admitted by many national agencies and multinational organisations responsible for monitoring hate crime, provide statistics, support action against hate crime, and so on. They all basically admit that they do not know precisely what a hate crime is, but as a remedy some related features are often held out to be repeatedly present as what may be called "markers" of a hate crime.

One of these features is that a hate crime is not – repeat not – a particular type of crime. A hate crime is an ordinary crime (murder, assault, theft, harassment...) connected to some sort of factor signalling that the perpetrator commits the crime in conjunction with holding a particularly biased or disparaging attitude or view towards the victim in virtue of a perceived membership of this victim to some particular social group. In some cases, there are attempts to limit what may be entailed by this reference to membership of a social group, and in many European countries (such as, e.g. Germany or the U.K.) such limits are indeed in place. However, in other cases, like Sweden, the legal statutes defining hate crime in the national law are open ended in this respect, or (as in the case of Belgium and Poland) so inclusive that all social groups imaginable would seem eligible.

Besides this, however, it is very regularly underscored as a background to this sort of explanation that, due to the definition of a hate crime in terms of a crime committed in conjunction with a certain sort of negative bias against the victim, there is a close connection between the notion of a hate crime and that of a human rights offense or violation. Sometimes it is even said that hate crimes are acts that violate the human rights of the victim. This, however, we have found to be problematic and in need of some scrutiny.

First, it is clear that when the notion of human rights is used in this context it refers primarily to such rights as defined in, e.g., the UN Declaration on Human Rights or the European Convention of Human Rights. Now, these rights are all legal rights that are enjoyed by individuals or citizens against states, governments or official institutions representing such entities. In other words, the only one who can commit a human rights violation is an entity of the latter kind and, thus, a hate crime cannot, by conceptual necessity, be a human rights violation.

Second, the human rights framework in international law has indeed led to the emergence of the concept of crimes against humanity, which are seen as very closely linked to the concept of human rights and the institutions of the declarations mentioned above. However, it is also clear that hate crimes are not crimes against humanity. It may very well be that most crimes against humanity (genocide, ethnic cleansing, systematic torture, and so on) are also hate crimes. However, most hate crimes are certainly not crimes against humanity, but mundane fellonies of the sort unfortunately occurring in all societies on a daily basis.

Third, a hate crime cannot be characterised as a rights violation of a certain sort even if we forget legal rights, and instead consider basic ethical ideas about moral rights. Now, of course, all those crimes that may become hate crimes in the presence of the further factor of a negatively biased attitude against the victim on part of the perpetrator would, of course, be considered to be rights violations on this basis. Moral rights hold between people, and when one person kills or assaults another, steals her property, and so on, he violates the basic right of being respected as a person (there are exceptions, I know, but these are not important here). However, these acts do not become more of rights violations in the presence of a negatively biased attitude. They already are fully fledged rights violations. So, again, being a human rights violation cannot be what distinguishes a hate crime from other crimes.

Having said all this, it is clear that if someone was to say: "hate crimes have nothing to do with human rights", this would strike also me as both odd and false. However, the relationship between the notions of hate crime and human rights is less straightforward than simply hate crimes violating human rights (as we have just seen). So, the notions do connect, but not in a necessary conceptual or logical way. My suggestion is that they connect through a number of ethical policy premises about the responsibilities of governments and states to ensure and protect the human rights of their people. Here's a sketch of how I think:

Human rights (in the international legal sense) prescribe states to provide their population with a certain sort of protection and security. This, among other things, includes people to be able to enjoy the freedoms of opinion, assembly, life-style et cetera that they have a right to. But if the state allows individuals to interfere with the execution of these freedoms of other people, it does not perform this fundamental task properly. This is the ultimate motivation for criminal law and related preventive policies. This, in itself, does not single out hate crimes as special besides other crimes. Moreover, the very same human rights allow people to hold negatively biased opinions of one another and even prescribe that the state should protect also this instance of freedom of opinion. This order of things, however, is motivated by the upholding of a fundamental distinction between holding an opinion and acting it out. This distinction is fundamental to any society that is to combine the tenets of liberal democracy with the basic need for peace, law and order (without which no society could ever live up to the prescriptions of human rights laws). Thus, when people don't respect this distinction in a way that makes them commit a crime, they attack not only the victim of this crime, but become a potential threat to general social stability (and, thus, to the well-being of all). For sure, a single hate crime perpetrator will hardly throw a well-ordered society into chaos, but if he was to become just one among many, this would be a terrible threat. For this reason, society has – by reason of its obligation to respect and protect human rights – an obligation to take extra action against such tendencies.

This line of reasoning may be extended, bringing in particularities of a nation, such as certain social groups already being the victims of prejudice and persecution. In that case, hate crimes against members of those groups become even more urgent business for the state from a human rights perspective. But it still holds that none of these hate crimes are human rights violations or offenses. Rather, they are crimes surrounded by certain factors that make them extra serious from the perspective of a state whose mission it is to observe the prescriptions of human rights statutes.

For those curious about hate crime, here are a few sources of information:

FBI Hate Crime Statistics
EuroSTAT statistics on Hate Crime (scroll down)
Human Rights First on Hate Crime
OSCE: Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights