Jan 21 2016 : The Times of India (Chennai)
Colour code: UK town gives refugees red-door houses
London:
REUTERS
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It Has Made Them An Easy Target For Abuse
Asylum seekers in the northern English town o Middlesbrough are suffering abuse as they have been hou sed in properties that almos all have red front doors, ma king them easy targets for ra cists, the Times newspaper reported on Wednesday .The houses are owned by a subcontractor of G4S, the out sourcing giant which has been embroiled in a series of scan dals over alleged incompeten ce and abuses. A spokesman for G4S said the subcontractor Jomast, would repaint the do ors. Asylum seekers living in the houses described having eggs and stones thrown at their windows, dog excrement sme ared on their doors and racis jibes shouted at them, the Ti mes said in its report.
Britain has not received migrants in the same huge numbers that arrived in other European countries last year, but public concerns over immigration are run ning high and tensions have risen in many communities with high concentrations o migrants. Immigration mini ster James Brokenshire said he had ordered an urgent au dit of housing for asylum see kers in northeast England which is provided by G4S un der a government contract.
“If we find any evidence o discrimination against asy lum seekers it will be deal with immediately as any such behaviour will not be to lerated,“ Brokenshire said in a statement. The Times quo ted Ahmad Zubair, from Afg hanistan, as saying he had re painted his front door white to stop the abuse, but a Jomast worker had repainted it red citing company policy .
“Asylum houses have red doors. Everyone knows that,“ Zubair was quoted as saying.
Andy McDonald, the member of parliament representing Middlesbrough, told the newspaper the red doors were “a way of marking people out that is reprehensible“, while his predecessor Ian Swales said they reminded him of “Germany in the 1930s“. Stuart Monk, owner and managing director of Jomast, said paint was bought in bulk for use at all its properties. “It is ludicrous to suggest that this constitutes any form of discrimination, and offensive to make comparisons to a policy of apartheid in Nazi Germany ,“ he said in a statement. Local police declined to comment.
The Times said it had identified 168 houses owned by Jomast of which 155 had red doors. Reporters spoke to people living at 66 of the properties with red doors and found that 62 of them housed asylum seekers of 22 nationalities. The Times said Middlesbrough had one asylum seeker for every 173 residents, the highest concentration anywhere in Britain. The home office said its guidelines were that no area should have more than one asylum seeker for every 200 residents.
In Norway, migrants taking lessons in Western attitudes to sex
A workshop that seeks to educate asylum-seekers in Norway about Western attitudes to sex and sexual assault will appeal to European neighbours struggling to cope with a wave of refugees, but not everyone who attends the course is a fan. The aim of the course is to discuss -and discourage -rape in the context of a Scandinavian society that is more sexually liberal than back home. Norway initiated the programme after a series of attacks on women at night in the streets of Stavanger, Norway's third-biggest city, in 2009. The course will reverberate with European countries facing the migration crisis , especially after mass sexual assaults on women in Cologne, Germany. REUTERS
Britain has not received migrants in the same huge numbers that arrived in other European countries last year, but public concerns over immigration are run ning high and tensions have risen in many communities with high concentrations o migrants. Immigration mini ster James Brokenshire said he had ordered an urgent au dit of housing for asylum see kers in northeast England which is provided by G4S un der a government contract.
“If we find any evidence o discrimination against asy lum seekers it will be deal with immediately as any such behaviour will not be to lerated,“ Brokenshire said in a statement. The Times quo ted Ahmad Zubair, from Afg hanistan, as saying he had re painted his front door white to stop the abuse, but a Jomast worker had repainted it red citing company policy .
“Asylum houses have red doors. Everyone knows that,“ Zubair was quoted as saying.
Andy McDonald, the member of parliament representing Middlesbrough, told the newspaper the red doors were “a way of marking people out that is reprehensible“, while his predecessor Ian Swales said they reminded him of “Germany in the 1930s“. Stuart Monk, owner and managing director of Jomast, said paint was bought in bulk for use at all its properties. “It is ludicrous to suggest that this constitutes any form of discrimination, and offensive to make comparisons to a policy of apartheid in Nazi Germany ,“ he said in a statement. Local police declined to comment.
The Times said it had identified 168 houses owned by Jomast of which 155 had red doors. Reporters spoke to people living at 66 of the properties with red doors and found that 62 of them housed asylum seekers of 22 nationalities. The Times said Middlesbrough had one asylum seeker for every 173 residents, the highest concentration anywhere in Britain. The home office said its guidelines were that no area should have more than one asylum seeker for every 200 residents.
In Norway, migrants taking lessons in Western attitudes to sex
A workshop that seeks to educate asylum-seekers in Norway about Western attitudes to sex and sexual assault will appeal to European neighbours struggling to cope with a wave of refugees, but not everyone who attends the course is a fan. The aim of the course is to discuss -and discourage -rape in the context of a Scandinavian society that is more sexually liberal than back home. Norway initiated the programme after a series of attacks on women at night in the streets of Stavanger, Norway's third-biggest city, in 2009. The course will reverberate with European countries facing the migration crisis , especially after mass sexual assaults on women in Cologne, Germany. REUTERS
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