Holy See calls for protection of the rights of refugees, displaced persons
(December, 09, 2011) The Holy See has expressed concern over the large number of
refugees and displaced persons in the world saying their number and suffering still
remain a wound in the social fabric of the international community. Archbishop Silvano
Tomasi, Holy See’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland,
expressed his delegation’s concern on Thursday at a two-day intergovernmental event
marking the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
The archbishop said that the 33 million refugees of the world that the UN’s High Commissioner
for Refugees is mandated to protect and assist, are both the flashing red light of
alarm pointing out deep social and political failures and an urgent call to remedy
their suffering. “A world where human rights are violated with impunity will never
stop producing refugees of all kinds,” he said. The right “to run for one’s life”
away from persecution or similar tragic situations calls for the right to enter a
foreign territory and other rights in the host country, he said. The way into the
future, he added, requires both a renewed effort to eliminate the root causes of forced
displacement and a more comprehensive protection when displacements occur.