Committee: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Topic A: Islamophobia’s role in the resettlement of refugees and their safety.
Director: Ana Sofia Viejo Barragán
Moderator: Carolina Valadez Hernández
l. Committee Background
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was founded in 1950,
during the repercussions of the Second World War. It falls under the “Programmes and
Funds” category of the General Assembly in the United Nations System. The
organization's main purpose when founded was to help Europeans who had fled their
home country or lost their homes because of the difficult circumstances. The current
primary purpose of the organization is to protect the quality life and the rights of all the
people that are forced to flee their country. UNHCR has won two Nobel Peace Prizes
throughout its history, the first being in 1954 for their revolutionary work with all the
European refugees, and the second one in 1981 for expanding and becoming a
worldwide aid and support for refugees. Refugees, Stateless people, returnees and
asylum-seekers are some of the millions of people that the program helps restart their
lives. The system provides all the refugees with health, education, shelter and
protection equitably to heal their traumatic past and give them hopes for a brighter
future.
ll. Introduction and Description
Islamophobia has been a big problem among Muslim countries in the last couple
of years, since war has been grave in the area, causing a major refugee crises. Muslim
extremists from different branches of the Islam religion have been fighting for power
since the beginning of this religion. This has become much more severe since each
group of people (which only differ minimally in their beliefs) wants to rule the country.
The greatest refugee crisis since World War II began in 2011, when Syria's civil war
began, and has only been getting worse. This is why people from Syria and Afghanistan
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are willing to put their lives in danger to get out of the country. Therefore, people from
other countries have to react and help all these innocent people that are trying to flee
from their countries in war, but have to be careful of not putting their own countries at
risk by doing so.
III. History of Topic
Islamophobia comes from the Greek root word Phobos, meaning a great amount
of fear; consequently, islamophobia means fear and resentment against islam or
muslims, generally when speaking of them as a political force. Islamophobia has been
the reason for millions and millions of people to leave their home and flee to another
country, becoming refugees. A refugee is defined as a person who leaves their country
looking for refuge and safety to another country due to war or persecution. The biggest
priority of refugees is to find someplace where they feel safe; therefore, to get accepted
by foreign countries is imperative so they can achieve just that. That is why it is
extremely important to understand refugees reasoning for leaving their islamic
countries, and know how to help them feel safe without risking the well being of the
recipient country.
Most countries that follow Islam have been involved with violent religious
extremism for a long time, and that is one of the main reasons why people don’t feel
comfortable living there. Muslim countries have always been known for their
uncommonly strict laws and punishments, like for example, the Sharia Law. During the
last five years, there has been a constant civil war in the Islamic region including Syria,
Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries. This has affected a lot of people and even
caused family separation because of military conscription for life against their will. “They
hope to live without fear of being persecuted, and they hope that their lives are not at
threat and that their children receive an education held in proper classrooms under
suitable supervision.” (Tawhidi, 2016). It is also relevant to say that not all refugees that
flee these countries are poor, and that the punishments and laws are not caste based,
but have been going for thousands of years.
​The birth of Islam dates back to the year 610, which is when the religion’s
prophet Mohammed is said to have lived. Their religion grew to have the greatest
military force by the 17th century; unfortunately, Europe started taking control over the
majority of their territory like they had done to the rest of the world at the time. After
many years of colonization they were self-sufficient once again, they got on their feet
and started to create their independent ideology based on the Quran, Islam’s central
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religious text. The Muslim countries didn’t want to depend on any colonizer anymore, so
they decided to create their own government. The deeply religious people, which were
the vast majority, decided to turn their beliefs into laws, which implied some extreme
measures mentioned by the Quran.
The first major refugee crisis that happened within the Muslim area was caused
by the decolonization of Africa, in the 1960’s. Africa had been colonized by Europe for
almost a hundred years; therefore, they had become dependent on Europe’s organized
and structured government. Even after years of being independent, Africa still needed
Europe to play an important role in the area. Africa was not self-sufficient and could not
rule itself alone, so many people started to flee, not just from Africa, but also from
Muslim neighboring countries that were being affected. This caused more than 4 million
refugees due to the aftermath of the decolonization, since people could find better
opportunities with stronger economic development and a more stable government. This
major episode involving refugees was the one that led the UNHCR to expand and aid
refugees worldwide.
Many years later, at the turn of the 21st century, people in the Muslim regions of
Africa, Middle East, and Asia kept fleeing to foreign countries with the hope of obtaining
better opportunities in life. Most countries were doing their best to receive as much
refugees as they could because they knew the terrible conditions they came from, but
after the terrorist attack of September 11,2001 to New York’s Twin Towers, countries
started to have distrust. ​“Respondents indicate that following September 11th, 2001,
levels of implicit or indirect discrimination rose by 82.6% and experiences of overt
discrimination by 76.3%.” (University of Leicester, United Kingdom, 2006). People
started to prejudge and discriminate all Muslims just because some of them were
extremists and terrorists. The amount of refugees taking into the U.S. from the Muslim
area started to decrease since they didn’t want to risk any more acts of terrorism. “Still,
all of the 19 hijackers on September 11 were Muslims. Every one of the FBI's 10 most
wanted terrorists are Muslims. Nearly all the groups and individuals listed in President
Bush's executive order blocking terrorist funds were Muslims, too.” (Schanzer, 2002).
Nevertheless, not all Muslims are terrorist, so it was an extremely unfair and unfortunate
approach towards the situation to discriminate all of them.
The greatest refugee crisis since World War II principally involved the Islamic
countries too, and was unleashed by the Syrian civil war in March 15, 2011. After the
war started in Syria, people felt scared and insecure, so a lot of them started to flee to
neighboring countries including Lebanon and Turkey, as well as other places in Europe.
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Countries started to make pledges on how many resettlements for the Syrian refugees
they were willing to give; Germany (43,431 resettlements) and the U.S. (open-ended)
being on the top. Unfortunately, by 2012, there were too many people looking for refuge
in foreign countries and there was no more capacity for countries to keep letting people
in at the same rate. “​The UN refugee agency reported today on World Refugee Day that
the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide has,
for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million people.” (Edwards,
2014). This led to the construction of mayor refugee camps, that consisted in hundreds
of tents placed side by side, with insufficient space for people to be comfortable and no
appropriate hygiene, which also allowed various illnesses (such as HIV, cholera,
malaria, and jaundice) to penetrate the camp.
Sadly, as some countries were doing their best to let as many refugees in as
possible, other were doing exactly the opposite. An example can be the construction of
Bulgaria’s fence at the Turkish border because too many asylum-seekers were trying to
get in. In 2015, over a million of refugees arrived to Europe by sea in desperation of
finding a home, a lot of them dying due to overcrowded sails. It is only a matter of time
before the islamic government starts to do something about all the people leaving their
country. This is why all countries must cooperate and do something to stop this situation
from getting worse,and from the damage it would cause to both the displacement
groups and the receiving countries.
IV. Study Cases
Syria:
When talking about refugees, Syria is well known for being source of the
majority of them. The biggest refugee crisis since World War II happened in 2011, when
the civil war in Syria officially began. Since then, more than 11 million Syrians and
Muslims in general have fled their countries and left their homes. Syria, along with most
of the other Islamic countries, are also known for their religious extremist, which is the
reason of both the leaving of refugees, and the doubt of foreign countries to welcome
them. Syrians are some of the main targets when discriminating refugees, because
some of the people originally from this country have been known to be terrorist.
Nevertheless, there is no reason for all refugees to be discriminated or treated
differently than any other citizens, but countries still have a long way to go before
achieving that.
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Germany:
Germany is one of the most powerful countries within the EU, and one of the
countries that accepts the most refugees. Germany is one of the countries receiving
most asylum-seekers applications from Muslim refugees. Within the EU it has the
largest percentage of population that is Muslim, with 5.8%. This percentage sums to a
total of 4,760,000 Muslim refugees in their territory (Hackett, 2016). Like a lot of the
other refugee-accepting countries, it is fully aware of the consequences that receiving a
large amount of refugees can bring, and about the precautions that should be taken.
Nonetheless, Germany is still receiving refugees and has made a minimum pledge on
the amount of refugees that are to be received.
Hungary:
Hungary is a third world country, also known as a developing country.
Nonetheless, it does not let its economy stop it from being a big refugee-receiving
country. According to BBC News in 2016, 54.000 refugees were to be moved out of
Hungary for all the risks and damages that they may cause, but the Hungarian
government rejected this plan. Actually, the Hungarian government decided to receive
more refugees, including many of the ones that were being relocated within the EU.
Italy:
Italy is a well-developed country within the European Union. During the last 8
years, this country has been a host to thousands of refugees. In fact, Italy has recently
rescued about 6,500 refugees from the Mediterranean, who would have probably not
survived otherwise (Aljazeera, 2016). Unfortunately, after receiving refugees for a while,
they figured out that they had let in much more than they could actually handle, and
started a program to relocate them elsewhere. This can be understood in many ways as
trying to protect their own population from any dangers or consequences of exceeding
themselves in the number of refugees accepted, but these type of countries must also
take in consideration that they are not only protecting the homes of their people, but
stealing the homes of others as well.
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Greece:
Greece used to be a well-developed country, but has recently suffering
several economic crises. In 2013, “It became the first developed country to be
downgraded to an emerging market status.” (Dunkley, 2013). This has made Greece
incapable to receive and maintain as much refugees as they did before. They are trying
to relocate refugees elsewhere within the EU, or even move them to other continents.
Yet once again, this country is not realizing that for some refugees Greece is not an
asylum anymore, but a home, and they are taking it away from them.
Iraq:
Iraq is one of the most affected countries in this refugee crisis not because it is
receiving too much refugees, but because a lot of people are leaving the country. One
of the main reasons why people are fleeing is because of ISIS, which is creating a lot of
fear within citizens for their extremism. To this point Iraqis are very widely spread
throughout the world, with the majority in Germany and U.K, and Netherlands.
Pakistan​:
Pakistan has been one of the strongest allies that Syria has had. A long time
ago, Pakistan has aided Syria in any way that it can. Nonetheless, Islamophobia is
present in the country regardless of whether or not they are willing to accept refugees,
because they are aware of the risk and all the problems they could cause to Syria and
their alliance of they start letting the wrong people in. Apart from their alliance with
Syria, they have been suffering from their own crisis lately, so they are receiving less
and less refugees, and producing more of them that want to flee within the country.
Russia:
Russia is a powerful and well- developed country. Nevertheless, Russia has
been known to be failing in receiving a fair part of all the refugees from Syria and other
Islamic countries. Since the civil war in Syria started in 2011, Russia has not offered a
single resettlement place for Syrian refugees. It has been claimed by some Russian
representatives that receiving refugees from these needed Islamic countries is simply
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not on their agenda. Russia has been quite involved in this civil war, but it has done
nothing for the 11 million people losing their homes in that region.
Switzerland​:
Switzerland has not been a prime destiny for people from Islamic countries
looking for refuge, and most rather go all the way to the United States. Overall, the
Swiss towns do not like the idea of refugees getting inside their country. Some Swiss
towns are even willing to pay a €200,000 fine before accepting 10 Syrian refugees into
their small towns of about 22,000 each one. This is something that is in desperate need
to change, because these poor refugees are running out of option to look asylum in.
India:
India has the 3rd largest Muslim population in the whole world. Nonetheless,
it still not a signatory of the “1951 Refugee Convention”, that most countries have
already agreed to, that establishes that nations must cooperate in helping people that
are forced to leave their homes because of war or persecution. It is believed that India
is not very willingly accepting a lot of refugees because they are not in the best situation
themselves. There has been recently wars in the country, a lot of natural disasters,
terrorism of their own, and human trafficking. This is principally why India has refrained
to receiving refugees in this tough time in their history.
V. Actions Taken
Throughout the years, the UN has constantly been trying to fight this massive
problem. In March 2010, the Human Rights Council made a resolution that involved
condemning Islamophobic behavior in many ways. The UNHRC resolution 16/18 was
also made some time later. This resolution included various NGO’s and the General
Secretariat monitoring various types of communication to identify and control all forms
of Islamophobia. Furthermore, on October 2013, the UN passed a resolution created by
OIC (Organizations of the Islamic Conference) that has the effect of stifling all kinds of
speeches that could defame or undermine religions. All of these actions have already
been taken, and clearly haven’t been enough to solve the problem. The mission is to
use innovating ideas and new solutions to stop this problem as quickly and efficiently as
possible.
VI. Key Questions
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1.​ ​Is your country a subject to islamophobia? Why or why not?
2. ​Is your country in an economical level sufficiently high enough to accept and receive
refugees?
3.​ ​Do refugees seek your country for asylum? Why or why not?
4.​ ​Has your country had any trouble because of immigrants or refugees?
5. ​ ​Does your country believe the problem is a priority that has to be solved?
6.​ ​Does your country want to relocate refugees or accept more and why?
7.​ ​Describe statistics in your country referring to refugee resettlement.
8.​ ​How many refugees is your country willing to host and why?
9. ​Are there commonly discrimination cases because of religion and beliefs in your
country?
10. What has your country done to contribute to the problem or solution of this
situation?
VII. Note from the Chair
As a participant of MUNAIM 2017, all delegates must fulfill some expectations, in
this case established by your own chair. It is expected that all delegates come as a
representative of their country and take such place; therefore, no personal opinions
non-related to the delegate’s country should be presented. Solutions that already exist
should not be proposed unless there have been major modifications in order to improve
it. Delegates should also use innovative and new solutions, taking in consideration their
country’s power and abilities. Furthermore, delegates must stay on topic and be
professional when debating, meaning no direct or indirect insults toward any other
delegate or staff member.
VIII. Sources
Al Jazeera. (2016, August, 30) “ Italy Rescue 6,500 Refugees from Mediterranean”
Retrieved on September, 29, 2016 from:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/italy-rescues-6500-refugees-mediterranean-16
0830091606146.html
Corcoran, A. (2013, June, 20). “Refugee Resettlement Fact Sheet” Retrieved on
October, 4, 2016 from:
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/refugee-resettlement-fact-sheets/
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Dunkley, J. (2013, June, 12). “Greece becomes first developed country to be
downgraded to emerging market status” Retrieved on October 10, 2016 from:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/greece-becomes-first-developed-co
untry-to-be-downgraded-to-emerging-market-status-8655730.html
Edwards, A. (2014, June, 20). “ World Refugee Day: Global forced displacement tops
50 million for the first time in post-World War II era” Retrieved on September 25, 2016
from:
http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2014/6/53a155bc6/world-refugee-day-global-forced-di
splacement-tops-50-million-first-time.html
European University Institute. (2016, September) “ Syrian Refugees: A snapshot of the
crisis – in the middle east and europe” Retrieved on September 27, 2016 from:
http://syrianrefugees.eu/timeline/
Hackett, C. (2016, July, 19) “ 5 facts about the Muslim population in Europe” Retrieved
on September 29, 2016 from:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/19/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-i
n-europe/
Jr, R. (1998). “Africa's refugees: causes, solutions, and consequences.” Retrieved on
September 29, 2016 from: ​http://www.popline.org/node/358989
Parkinson, C. (2015, December, 31). “ The Year Europe Buckled Under the Biggest
Refugee Crisis Since World War II” Retrieved on September 25, 2015 from:
https://news.vice.com/article/the-year-europe-buckled-under-the-biggest-refugee-crisissince-world-war-ii
Sato, E. (2016, July, 26). “ Brazilian “Security” Threats Affect Refugee Policy” Retrieved
on September 27, 2016 from:
http://www.coha.org/brazilian-security-threats-affect-refugee-policy/
Schanzer, J. (2016). “ At War With Whom?A short history of radical Islam” Retrieved on
September 28, 2016 from: ​http://www.meforum.org/168/at-war-with-whom
Sheridan, L.P. (2006, March). “ Islamophobia Pre- and Post- September 11th, 2001”
Retrieved on September 25, 2016 from:​ ​http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/21/3/317.short
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Tawhidi, S.M (2016, January, 8). “ The Refugee Crisis: Why Muslims Are Fleeing from
Islamic Governments” Retrieved on September 28, 2016 from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shaikh-m-tawhidi/the-refugee-crisis-why-muslims-flee-fro
m-islamic-governments_b_8931588.html
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2016) “History of UNHCR” Retrieved
on September 25, 2016 from: ​http://www.unhcr.org/history-of-unhcr.html
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2016) “Who We Help” Retrieved on
September 26, 2016 from: ​http://www.unhcr.org/who-we-help.html
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2016) “ Middle East and North Africa”
Retrieved on October 1st, 2016 from:
http://www.unhcr.org/middle-east-and-north-africa.html
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