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France asking why only Ukrainian refugees get rights

Ramin Mazaheri 
Press TV, Paris

Outcry is growing over the European Union’s comparatively red-carpet treatment of Ukrainian refugees after years of appalling treatment of non-White asylum-seekers.

Many in France are demanding that European nations take responsibility for all refugees, and especially for refugee crises, which have been fomented by Western violence. 

In a historic and surprising decision, the European Union has decided to give refugees from war the instant right to live within the bloc, and freely travel. They also have the right to work. They even now have rights to housing and medical care. There is one catch: this only applies to Ukrainians. 

These rights are not being extended to refugees from Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali the Central African Republic or any of the other countries in which Western armed interventions provoked refugee crises.

Seemingly no one would begrudge Ukrainian refugees their human rights, but many in France are wondering why they are getting treated totally differently from Black, Brown and Muslim asylum-seekers. 

Drowning by the dozens in Calais, France; freezing to death in Poland; packed into camps in Italy; building steel fences; denying basic sanitation; fear-mongering about refugees election after election, the long-running European refugee crisis has taken a new turn and yet standard European policy remains mostly unchanged. 

An outcry is growing for the European Union to extend their unity, and many say their humanity, towards non-White refugees.

Many say the open discrimination - which reveals a deep racism and xenophobia, as well as an arrogant hypocrisy - will ultimately stain the European Union around the world and at home. 


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