Dear Editor,

This month, the world celebrated World Refugee Day on June 20. We raise our voices in solidarity with the millions of people across the globe who have been forcibly displaced due to war, persecution, climate disaster, and structural violence.

In every region of the world, refugees continue to be treated not as survivors deserving of care and dignity, but as criminals, threats, or burdens. This systemic dehumanisation must end.

From Jamaica, where Haitian refugees are forcibly repatriated with military force without due process or respect for their fundamental rights, to Palestine, where Israel’s apartheid policies and continued military occupation not only dispossess Palestinians, but generate waves of new refugees through violence and genocide, the global community is failing to uphold even the most basic protections enshrined in international law.

Refugees are not illegal. Seeking asylum is a human right, codified in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, which obligate states to offer protection to those fleeing persecution. Yet these legal instruments are increasingly ignored or openly violated. From the shores of the Caribbean to the borderlands of Europe and the Middle East, refugees are being subjected to racist, xenophobic, and punitive policies: detained, denied entry, criminalised, and deported in violation of both domestic and international obligations.

This year’s International Day of Refugees was a moment of reckoning. We demand:

• That all governments respect and uphold the 1951 Refugee Convention and cease the illegal expulsion of asylum seekers.

• An immediate halt to racially discriminatory practices that criminalise black, indigenous, and racialised refugees.

• The establishment of humane, transparent, and rights-respecting asylum procedures.

• Accountability for states whose actions contribute to displacement, including those complicit in war, occupation, and climate injustice.

Refugees are not statistics. They are human beings with histories, families, and futures. Their rights are not optional. They are non-negotiable.

We call on governments, institutions, and civil society everywhere to defend the right to refuge, to reject militarised borders, and to build a world in which no one is punished for seeking safety.

End the war on refugees! Uphold international law! Restore dignity!

Stand Up For Jamaica