action on asylum and refugees
churches' refugee network
publications
Asylum in Britain: a question of conscience
Revd. Canon Anthony HarveyAnthony Harvey has made the whole of his book available as a free download:
Asylum in Britain, a question of conscience - Anthony Harvey (PDF) [Help]
This book gives a brief outline of asylum in the light of Christian teachings. It highlights with clarity the national and international policy problems, and queries current public perceptions and statutory practice.
Anthony Harvey was formerly Canon Theologian at Westminster Abbey and remains an active member of the Steering Committee of the Churches' Refugee Network for whom he has organised a number of expert seminars.
Book contents:
Words and attitudes
Are asylum seekers a threat to our living standards?
Are they ‘genuine'?
Asylum seekers and Economic migrants
What's wrong with fleeing poverty?
Who is a ‘genuine asylum seeker'?
Meeting ‘real' asylum seekers.
Faith , moral duties, and our views on asylum seekers.
The right to seek asylum and the duty to grant it.
International law and national self interest.
Communication: the clash between legal and moral views.
Open Borders?
Immigration control or ‘opening the flood gates'?
In favour or against: the economic arguments.
Trafficking
Dangerous illegality.
The doors are closing: obstacles to accessing asylum as a right.
Why no visas? Diplomats and their instructions.
Legislation and regulation to prevent access.
The ‘Pull Factor'
Making Britain unattractive as a destination: by detention, reduced welfare support, bars to health care and education.
Unsafe assumptions: what ‘evidence' decides what is a ‘bogus application'?
Strangers and Pilgrims
Christians can never regard language about nationhood, sovereignty, and the rights of inherited citizenship as having ultimate validity. We recognise the legitimate right of our fellow citizens to the home and environment which they have inherited; but we cannot accept that these rights necessarily override the duty we owe to strangers in our midst.
From the point of view of a Christian nurtured on the concept of a pilgrim people with true citizenship only in another world, any system or ideology which reinforces an exclusive nationalism must be regarded as essentially due for re-assessment. Nationhood is a relatively modern concept, never accepted, for example, in Islamic political thought and is being progressively eroded by modern international treaties, by institutions such as the European Union and by the power of multi-national companies.
