IAWM Press Statement, 22 September 2015
Irish Anti-War Movement Public Rally
PROTEST AT EU COMMISSION AND PARLIAMENT OFFICES, DAWSON STREET, DUBLIN, 5.30PM. THURSDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2015.
REFUGEES ARE VICTIMS OF WAR – LET THEM IN! NO TO FORTRESS EUROPE.
END THE WESTERN-LED WARS AND PLUNDER THAT CAUSE THE REFUGEE CRISIS
See link to poster on FB here – https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153304735858347&set=gm.1146074342082252&type=1&theater
As Irish politicans return to the Dáil this week the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) is holding a public rally this Thursday at 5.30pm at the EU Offices in Dawson Street Dublin to highlight the plight of refugees fleeing war, the complete innadequacy of the EU Governments’ response and the fact that many EU Governments are actively engaged in the wars that are causing the refugee crisis in the first place.
While Governments prevaricate and now even those countries previously willing are sealing the borders, the desperate refugees fleeing wars in the middle east need our help more than ever. This is an era-defining moment and it needs clear, open, honest organisation to solve it.
Governments should stop sitting on the fences or playing to their xenophobic galleries and welcome the generous response by ordinary citizens throughout Europe, including here in Ireland. Those people and organisations must be allowed to be part of the organised solution.
IAWM Press Statement, 22 September 2015
Irish Anti-War Movement Public Rally
PROTEST AT EU COMMISSION AND PARLIAMENT OFFICES, DAWSON STREET, DUBLIN, 5.30PM. THURSDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2015.
REFUGEES ARE VICTIMS OF WAR – LET THEM IN! NO TO FORTRESS EUROPE.
END THE WESTERN-LED WARS AND PLUNDER THAT CAUSE THE REFUGEE CRISIS
See link to poster on FB here – https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153304735858347&set=gm.1146074342082252&type=1&theater
As Irish politicans return to the Dáil this week the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) is holding a public rally this Thursday at 5.30pm at the EU Offices in Dawson Street Dublin to highlight the plight of refugees fleeing war, the complete innadequacy of the EU Governments’ response and the fact that many EU Governments are actively engaged in the wars that are causing the refugee crisis in the first place.
While Governments prevaricate and now even those countries previously willing are sealing the borders, the desperate refugees fleeing wars in the middle east need our help more than ever. This is an era-defining moment and it needs clear, open, honest organisation to solve it.
Governments should stop sitting on the fences or playing to their xenophobic galleries and welcome the generous response by ordinary citizens throughout Europe, including here in Ireland. Those people and organisations must be allowed to be part of the organised solution.
Questioning the quota system proposed by EU leaders Memet Uludag of the IAWM Steering Committee said:
“First of all, the resettlement program is not driven by the realities of the crisis. Putting forward a number that doesn’t even register when compared to the total number of refugees is meaningless.
What will the EU do when the 160,001st refugee child arrives on their doorsteps?
Given the fact that what drives the refugees to EU countries is not the ‘golden opportunities’ in Europe but the horrific situation in their home countries and the worsening conditions in Turkey-Jordan-Lebanon etc, where millions of refugees are facing an intolerable future, how are the EU states expecting that there will be no more refugees coming once the quota has been reached?
There are only two possible answers to this question: insanity or total callousness and indifference to human suffering.
Secondly, as the total number of 160,000 for resettlement was announced, each and every EU government engaged in a numbers game to make sure that they would take the least possible number of refugees over the longest possible duration. Every government rushed to argue for their own ‘national interests’. In this competitive race to the bottom the individual numbers put forward by EU states did not even add up to the total figure of 160,000.”
Jim Roche, IAWM PRO said:
We must help the refugees and stop the wars that are causing them to flee their countries. While refugees still flee the war zones in huge numbers it beggars belief that warmongers gathered in London last week at the world’s largest arms fair to sell all kinds of sophisticated weaponry to a melange of despotic dictatorships with appalling human rights records, many of whom are helping to prolong the Syrian civil war and, in the case of Saudi Arabia which the west supports, bombing Yemen into the stone age.
We call on world governments, particularly the US, Britain and Russia, to stop flooding the middle east with armaments and use the resources instead to help solve the refugee crisis. A Dunkirk type response is needed to help the refugees. The scale of this epoch definging issue has just not been adequately addressed by the EU or US both of whom could be flying in planes to bring out refugees instead of flooding the place with weapons or building walls around countries.
The Irish Government should take a public stance on this issue instead of wimpishly waiting to see what their masters in the US and EU are doing.”
END
Contact:
Jim Roche, PRO, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 087 647 2737
Memet Uludag, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 087 7919307,
John Molyneux, Secretary, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 085 735 6424
Michael Youlton, Chair, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 815 9487
Glenda Cimino, Steering Committee IAWM, Tel. 086 124 9456
Gearóid Kilgallan, 01 2800866,
Mark Price, 086 3454332,
For more information on the IAWM see:
Website – www.irishantiwar.org
@IrishAntiWarMvt https://twitter.com/#!/IrishAntiWarMvt
Find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/25608030879/
