'Refugees are welcome here': Hundreds rally against UK asylum bill in London

By Aysu Bicer

LONDON (AA) - Hundreds of people gathered outside the UK parliament in London to protest against the government’s new asylum bill and to show solidarity with people seeking refuge in the country.

The protest was backed by the Fire Brigades Union, the Muslim Association of Britain, human rights charities and opposition politicians.

The UK government's new plan to stop small boat migrants has been met with criticism from human rights organizations and refugee advocates who argue that it violates international law and the UK's obligations under the Refugee Convention.

The plan includes detaining the majority of those arriving on small boats for the first 28 days without bail or judicial review and preventing them from making claims to stop deportation until after they have been removed.

The crowd, who came together in front of Winston Churchill's state statue outside the parliament, were chanting slogans such as "Who built the NHS? Migrants built the NHS” and “Refugees welcome here: blame austerity, not migrants."

"In any normal society and in any safe society, in any compassionate society, the right of any person is to be protected. This bill seeks to attack some of the most vulnerable people in society," Scottish National Party's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn told Anadolu.

"I'll be voting against it and I hope our colleagues too. The government should listen to organizations, not just in the UK, but across the world to see that this is wrong. The problem is they won't listen, because they don't care about the people who are making these perilous journeys," he said.

Tom Marshall, one of the organizers of the protest and a member of the Socialist Workers Party, also said that the government will see more people trying to cross over to this country through unsafe means.

"It's just going to be more and more families ripped apart," he said, adding the countless people have been drowning in the English Channel.

"And it's just going to be used as a scapegoating issue to ... divide everyone in this country against each other and play migrant card for all their issues," he underlined.

According to Amnesty International, the rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are protected by international law regardless of how and why they arrive in a country.

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has expressed concern over the matter, saying that if passed, the legislation would amount to an "asylum ban."