Word: war
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When police demolished the illegal refugee squatter camp known as "the Jungle" in northern France in September, the French intended to make a statement - that European governments were finally getting serious about stemming the constant tide of asylum seekers who have fled war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan for the continent. A month later, French and British officials have begun to forcibly deport some of the tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan refugees whose epic journeys have ended in detention camps in Europe - making good on a threat they have voiced for months...
...Afghanistan war drags into its ninth year and the Iraq war its seventh year, the European Union faces a unique challenge in trying to stop refugees from these countries. Unlike the huge numbers of Africans trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, Iraqi and Afghan migrants face only an overland journey - though one that can take months. Once they reach the E.U., usually by crossing from Turkey into Greece, migrants can easily slip over internal E.U. borders, crossing numerous countries without detection. Many of them attempt to make it Britain, where they speak the language and have relatives. Those...
...Refugee organizations have decried the deportation of asylum seekers to the two war-torn countries, saying it is unlikely to stop the influx of people into Europe and is possibly unethical. "There is a paradox," says Dan Hodges, director of the London-based charity Refugee Action. "We are consistently being told of the extreme nature of the military struggle against extremists and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, but when it comes to people seeking sanctuary, the governments' policies are more nuanced." (Read "How the Afghan Election Was Rigged...
...European officials also face a deeper question over what constitutes a refugee these days. The international refugee rules were drafted during the Cold War in order to offer asylum to those who risked individual persecution for their political or religious beliefs. That now seems dated, with migrants fleeing everything from wars to famine and ecological disasters like droughts. Still, many immigration officials have stuck to the original definition. "They say, 'You weren't really fleeing persecution, just fleeing bullets,' " says Bill Frelick, director of the Human Rights Watch refugee-policy program in Washington. "But those distinctions are rapidly fading...
...territory. Reporters Without Borders registered five arrests of journalists, some of them completely illegal, and three cases of imprisonment. The military censorship applied to all the media is also posing a threat to journalists. As regards its extraterritorial actions, Israel was ranked 150th. The toll of the war was very heavy. Around 20 journalists in the Gaza Strip were injured by the Israeli military forces and three were killed while covering the offensive." (Read a TIME cover on Israel's assault on Gaza...