June 21, 2000
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U.K. questions asylum policy
58 deaths spark debate over attitude to immigrants
By Olivia Ward Toronto Star European Bureau
LONDON - As the grim results
of autopsies on 58 Chinese illegal entrants found dead in Dover
continue to surface, a fierce debate on immigration and asylum in
Britain is heating up.
``Had the immigrants survived there would have
been nothing but condemnation of the `bogus asylum-seekers' and
calls from both left and right for their deportation,'' said the
liberal daily Guardian. ``Why does it take deaths on such a gruesome
scale to evoke the correct response?''
Yesterday, following stomach-turning descriptions of the last
moments of the young men and women, in an overheated and airless
Dutch truck, police in the Netherlands arrested a man. They refused
to say if the suspect was Arle van der Speck, 24, the Dutch engineer
who registered a company in Rotterdam last week that leased the
truck.
Police in Dover continued to interrogate the truck driver, who
was also under arrest.
As the news splashed over the front pages of the national
newspapers, the debate over accepting foreigners into Britain took a
newly sympathetic turn.
For months the government has talked tough on asylum seekers,
saying it's cracking down on phony claimants, including cutting cash
support payments.
William Hague, leader of the Opposition Tories, has also racheted
up animosity toward asylum-seekers. But the shocking discovery at
Dover has brought calls for a reassessment of Britain's policies on
immigration and asylum, even in traditionally conservative quarters.
``Official policy, which is to `keep new immigration to a small
and inescapable minimum,' needs review for three reasons,'' says the
Times of London. ``It virtually forces migration to be clandestine;
it does not reflect practice (more than 150,000 people came to
Britain last year, half on work permits); and the theoretical `near
zero' takes too little account of the fact that in Britain,
fertility trends point to a marked future decline in the ratio of
working-age people to pensioners.''
Yesterday's newspapers were also full of articles detailing the
miserable conditions the refugees were fleeing in Fujian province of
southern China, and their struggle for a better life.
Meanwhile, television news reports have featured interviews with
customs officers and police, describing the terrible deaths of the
migrants, some barely out of their teens, who may have been forced
to pay up to $50,000 (Cdn.) each to smugglers. They were locked in
the truck behind some crates of tomatoes, and the refrigeration unit
was turned off. The deaths have been attributed to asphyxiation.
Yang Chen, 20, who slipped into Britain in January and has
applied for political asylum, said he was sure his cousin, Chen Lin,
19, was among the dead.
The teenager's parents had borrowed $21,000 for the trip, and
their son left Fujian province in February, Yang told Britain's
Press Association.
He phoned home regularly during the journey through Beijing,
Moscow, on foot through the mountains of the Czech Republic and then
to the Netherlands.
``The last call was from Holland on Sunday and they said they
were travelling to the United Kingdom that night,'' Yang added.
``They have not heard from him since.''
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