The Home Office has been accused of bullying behaviour
towards a charity that works with torture survivors, after seeking to
remove a video of a courageous Holocaust survivor confronting the Home Secretary
over her language towards refugees.
Video footage, that you can see above shared by the charity Freedom from Torture, emerged
over the weekend of Suella Braverman being questioned by Joan Salter,
83, during a constituency meeting in Fareham on Friday.
Ms Salter, who was made an MBE for her work on Holocaust education,
likened Ms Braverman’s despicable language on migrants attempting to cross the
English Channel to that used by the Nazis.
Salter said: “I am a child survivor of the Holocaust.
“In 1943, I was forced to flee my birthplace in Belgium and went
across war-torn Europe and dangerous seas until I finally was able to
come to the UK in 1947.
“When I hear you using words against refugees like ‘swarms’ and an
‘invasion’, I am reminded of the language used to dehumanise and justify
the murder of my family and millions of others.
“Why do you find the need to use that kind of language?”
In the video, Braverman thanked
Ms Salter for her question, and said she "shared a huge amount of
concern and sympathy" over the "challenge" of illegal immigration,
adding that her own parents were not born in Britain.
She added:
"There is a huge problem that we have right now when it comes to illegal
migration, the scale of which we have not known before.
"I won't apologise for the language that I have used to demonstrate the scale of the problem."
Ms Braverman's answer was greeted with applause from the audience but has since been condemned by many others.
Freedom From Torture has also said that the Home Office has taken the unusual step of issuing a public statement
about the incident on social media, confirming it had asked the human
rights charity to remove the video.
In a statement posted on Twitter on Saturday, the Home Office said:
“The Home Secretary attended an event last night and took questions,
including on immigration policy.
“Footage of a conversation with a Holocaust survivor is circulating
online. The video has been heavily edited and doesn’t reflect the full
exchange.”
It went on to add: “Since the footage misrepresents the interaction
about a sensitive area of policy, we have asked the organisation who
posted the video to take it down.”
Freedom From Torture chief executive Sonya Sceats said the charity
will not remove the short clip from social media, and pointed out that a
video of the full exchange is available on its website.https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/holocaust-survivor-confronted-suella-braverman-to-say-your-hateful-language-has-consequences
Sceats said: “Suella Braverman refused to apologise for offensive and
dehumanising language when challenged by a Holocaust survivor at a
party meeting.
“Not only that, but the Home Office has demanded we remove the footage.
“As an organisation providing therapy to torture survivors who feel
targeted by her language and who know first-hand where such dehumanising
language can lead, we will not do so.”
The reaction to Joan calling out Suella Braverman’s anti-refugee rhetoric face-to-face has been huge. The news is full of reports of Suella Braverman’s cruelty, and 5 million people have now heard Joan’s story on social media.
Suella Braverman response to Ms Salter isn't all that
surprising,less than a week into her tenure as Home Secretary under Prime
Minister Rishi Sunak, Ms Braverman referred to her job as being "about
stopping the invasion on our southern coast". including saying it was her ' dream' to be able to deport migrants to Rwanda using a controversial asylum agreement.People like Suella like to point to their parents or grandparents immigration status, as if that excuses their deplorable attitudes; it doesn't, and if anything makes those attitudes appear even worse.Her hardline stance on immigration alongside her inflammatory comments about migration has also seen her branded as ' Enoch Btaverman' in the way she is stoking racism. She is totally unfit for office and should never have been appointed in the first place, the politics she represents are cruel. inhumane, extreme and reactionary.
The attempt by the Home Office to persuade Freedom from
Torture to take down the video is simply outrageous, because it seems like politicisation
of the civil service which is stepping in an attempt to salvage Suella
Braverman's reputation.
The
prime minister’s spokesperson said on Monday: “You’ll know the UK’s
record on providing a safe haven to tens of thousands of people, whether
it’s people from Afghanistan or other countries and we continue to be
proud of that record.”
Asked
twice if the PM agreed with Braverman’s language, the spokesperson
said: “The Home Office put out a statement on this. I don’t have
anything to add to that.”
Thank you Joan Salter,for speaking truth to power. and rereminding us that language is so important. We must continue to stand against hate speech and the dehumanising of people, any people, and whoever mutters it.
