The seminar tonight's event is titled Techno-Humanitarianism, Rethinking the Securitization and Victimization of Refugees. We are very lucky to have here with us Martina Tazeoli, who is a lecturer in politics and technology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of The Making of Migration, The Biopolitics of Mobility at Europe's Borders, Spaces of Governmentality, Autonomous Migration and the Arab Uprisings, published in 2015, and co-author with Glenda Gorelli of Tunisia as Revolutionized Space of Migration in 2016. She's co-editor of Foucault and the History of Our Present, oh, sorry, co-founder of the journal Materiale Foucaultini and on the editorial boards of the journal Radical Philosophy. Our discussion tonight is Brenna Bunder, who is a senior lecturer here at SOAS in the law department. She's published widely in the areas of critical legal theory, sovereignty and indigenous rights, contemporary disputes over ownership and property rights, amongst other themes. She's the author of Colonial Lives of Property, Law, Land and Racial Regimes of Ownership, published in 2018 by Duke University Press. So, first we will hear from Martina. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much, thanks. So thanks a lot, Faisy, for this invitation that gives me the opportunity to speak about my current research project and to have feedback on this. So what I present today is part of a broader research project about what might be called the financialization of refugee humanitarianism, that is to say the increased role played by financial actors such as banks in governing refugees. So very much has been written and said about the role of private actors and corporation in their enforcement of the border regime, but much less has been investigated about the role of these financial actors and how they collaborate with humanitarian actors. So this research project that I've done until now as focused on Greece, but I mean we will expand also with other colleagues in the near future to other countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and the UK. And the reason why I'm interested in discussing this project is because it gives me the opportunity also to broadly reflect on the new way in which, the different way in which humanitarian actors operate on the ground through the implementation, the widespread implementation of digital technologies in sites such as refugee camps. So also on this topic there is a quite growing literature in particular in the field of critical migration studies and critical security studies about what authors have called techno-humanitarianism, and my specific angle, my specific entry point in this research is twofold. The first one is about how refugees or better asylum seekers, people who try, and I was playing, why try to claim asylum, are shaped by the forced use of digital technologies in refugee camps. So unlike scholars who sees the opportunity of digital technologies, of the widespread use of digital technology to say, okay let's move beyond a question on the subject and let's move towards an inquiry center on STS, science and technology studies and how technology are used to track migrants. I rather use this, I rather focus on this transformation to investigate how subject themselves have been transformed. So subject in this case, asylum seekers, through this multiple transformation of refugee-humanitarianism. And secondly, I'm interested in the specific economy of knowledge which is at stake in refugee-humanitarianism and I think that a lens and insight into this techno-humanitarianism allows looking even more in depth at the way in which refugees are governed by being constantly disoriented. So through what I call a nobfuscated knowledge that they are affected by. So even if a humanitarian actor promote this technology as a way for overcoming the opacity in terms of what the refugee knows or don't know and to streamline the refugee procedure, I will show in this lecture that actually this technology becomes an obstacle for the refugee themselves and contribute to this kind of epistemic disorienting that they are constantly affected by during their asylum procedure. So let's start with a short vignette from Lesbos. January 7, 2019, Greek Island of Lesbos. UNHER's officer are walking tent by tent in the hospital of Moria to do the monthly verification and the top up of the prepaid cards given to asylum seekers who are eligible for the so-called refugee cash assistance program. According to the UNHER, the program, and you will explain in a minute what is about, I quote, restore dignity and empower asylum seekers and refugees. In meanwhile, few migrants who are complaining about the lack of humanitarian support and infrastructures in the camp. At that time, around 70,000 women, men and children were living in a crowded hospital of Moria. We have no water and some areas of the camp, in some areas of the camp there is no electricity either. We are all becoming mad as some of us have been stranded here for one or more year. An Iranian man told me outside the camp. Then he added, now I have to go back to my tent as the UNHER is coming to top up my card. They informed me this morning with a text that I need to be there. I hope to be still eligible. My friend relies to be out of the scheme as he finally got the refugee status, but nobody told him how long he would receive the monthly financial support for. It's very difficult to understand how all this technology work, end of quote, Asia. So this snapshot from Lesbos where asylum seekers are given prepaid cards by humanitarian actors while they are exposed to a condition of protracted precarity and vulnerability is iconic of the reality of techno-humanitarianism. The relationship between migrants on the one hand and humanitarian actors and Greek authorities on the other is fundamentally mediated by technological devices, some of which are compulsory. So there is this compulsory technological mediation that turn asylum seeker into forced techno users, and I will explain in which sense. So I think that the distribution of debit cards that I will discuss more in detail later should be situated within what might be called a constellation of technologies of refugee humanitarianism which also include these financial tools, so the debit cards that affect the daily life of asylum seekers and that mediate their relations with humanitarian actors at different levels and of their asylum application. So first, migrants who apply for asylum become hindered forced techno users as long as they need to navigate an heterogeneous technological ecosystem. Digital technologies are implemented in a way that obstruct migrant access to the asylum system and to financial support and that disorient migrants forcing them to hectically find out the new technological rules they need to comply with. So for instance, just to give you an idea, concrete example, in order to book an appointment with the Greek asylum service on the mainland, on the Greek mainland, migrants need to make this Skype call that is very hard to make, not only for the Skype as such that some people might not have, or they might not have internet, but also because this Skype number is constantly busy. Secondly, I suggest that the analytical grids of securitization and victimization are not fully adequate for grasping in depth how asylum seekers as forced techno users are shaped and disciplined. So in the literature, in critical refugee studies and migration studies, there is this attention paid to this articulation and mutual entanglements between modes of securitizing migrants or presenting migrants as potential threat, as risky subject, and at the same time, how the same migrants in the same context or in different context might be perceived and treated as victims, as subject of pity. But I think that these analytics that has been mobilized so much in the literature with expressions such as subject of care and control that in part capture indeed most of the mechanisms that are at stake in a camp, however, is not fully adequate to grasp all this transformation that have not been triggered by technology, but definitely this insight on digital technology helps in highlighting the current restructuring of refugee humanitarianism. The disciplinary mechanism enshrined in the functioning of technology in refugee humanitarianism contribute to craft asylum seeker not just as subject of care and control, but also as in their subject, which means that basically migrants are constantly obstructed in their attempt first to claim asylum, physically obstructed, and technologically obstructed, and also in the possibility of getting access to their rights and for instance, also to financial and humanitarian support. So I think that we need to complicate the representation of refugees, risky subject and subject to risk that is a subject who are deemed to be potential threat to national security and who might alternatively be portrayed as victim to be protected. This constellation of technology and their changing rule contribute to governing asylum seekers through disorientation. And the focus of on Greece I think is interesting not only because Greece is the first countries of the European Union where the European Commission implemented the refugee cash assistance program, but also precisely because it's not one of the most advanced country in terms of technological experimentation. For instance, Jordan, the famous Zatari camp, famous in the sense that it's well known for this technological experimentation implemented by the UNHCR, but precisely because there is this mix of widely promoted technology such as the prepaid card and more ordinary one like the Skype system, but also WhatsApp and Viber chat that however constitute a real constellation of obstacles to the migrants that cannot be resolved through the lens of security. So this technology are not the main point is not through this technology migrants are trapped, our control and monitor. This is also the case, but I think that this is not the main political and theoretical state. And however, so scholars who have been trying to complicate this securitization and victimization narrative have ended up recently, there are many articles that have been published recently on that in portraying the refugees as the self-reliant subject, as the autonomous subject. So if you want reproposing the same narrative that humanitarian actors such as the UNHCR are crafting. And I think that however, looking at the refugees as this resilience and subject to his entrepreneurs of himself is quite misleading if we look at the actual functioning of this technology. So the first move that I think is important to make is precisely moving out from an exclusive security gaze on migration and on refugees. So the fact that this technology should be are used for tracking migrants. And as I said, this is also the case in particular because when migrants are given these prepaid cards, they might be tracked in real time both by the humanitarian actors and by the bank, right? As we can be tracked, right? Our financial transaction and also they can find out the exact location where migrants take cash, right? And however, this is not the main goal of these humanitarian actors, not because they welcome migrants, but because there are other ways in which migrants might be tracked. So the fingerprints when they are identified after landing. And also because it's interesting to notice that migrants are not only at least seen and I think less and less seen in these sites like in Italy and in Greece or the frontiers of Europe as potential threat as such. There is definitely also this aspect and indeed it's interesting to notice the increased cooperation between the European Agency, Europol and the European Agency Frontiers inside the hotspots in Italy and in Greece. But at the same time, they are not, this is not the main representation. The main representation is refugees as a burden to manage. And they are not even seen as victims or at least it's not so easy for migrants who want to apply for asylum in Italy and Greece at the moment to be portrayed as a victim. And indeed, both in Italy and Greece, there is a huge struggle around vulnerability. So only those who managed to be recognized as highly vulnerable have this kind of preferential channels that in Greece consisting, being able to move from the island to the mainland. And in Italy, they have anyway as a kind of facilitated access to protection. And but however, there is a whole struggle around being considered and not being considered vulnerable and there are many cases of non-recognized vulnerability, also very, I mean, blatant vulnerability. So taking into account the use of digital technologies in the field of humanitarianism, the UNHCR's program to announce Refugees Resilience Entrepreneurship, so this is how the UNHCR present all this, a growing scholarship has pointed the affirmation of humanitarianism as a liberal diagnostic predicated upon refugee self-reliance and autonomy. So also criticizing this. But anyway, they take for granted this narrative. The partial turning humanitarianism stressed by these authors from refugees as victims towards refugees as self-reliant subject drove the attention to how refugees can adapt to their new circumstances. The analytical greed of neoliberalism and its multiple articulations such as resiliency, humanitarianism, refugees entrepreneurship. However, it seems to me does not able to fully grasp the peculiar assemblages of disciplinary rule, repeated obstruction and injunction to autonomy and forced technological mediation. So what is this refugee cash assistance program that I mentioned at the beginning? In 2016, the European Commission launched the refugee cash assistance program, which was then fully implemented in 2017 as a response to the so-called refugee crisis. So this was the official justification, the official narrative. And this program consists in prepaid cards delivered to all asylum seekers. So all people who have an asylum card in Greece, both on the mainland and on the island. And actually this cash assistance program was introduced not only as a humanitarian relief measure, but as a technical financial tool for enhancing refugees' dignity and freedom of choice. By conceiving freedom of choice as a freedom to choose among different products that refugees might want to buy. So because with this card you can go to the ATM machine and take cash and go to the shops. There are multiple details and restrictions, but just to put it briefly, what this program consists of. So on the one hand, the UNHCR promoted this program as they did in Jordan as a program to enhance refugee autonomy, but then if you go and check how they manage the program and also how they, what they say, how they take stock of the program two years later, for instance, in this evaluation of the facts of cash-based intervention on protection outcomes in Greece, they deliberately admit that this program was enforced actually for allowing refugees to cope with basic needs and that also on that level, the program failed. So they say, they admit, actually, we realize that until now many asylum seekers who benefit from this program didn't manage to cope with their basic needs, right? So kind of self-admittance of failure and where at stake there are also only these basic needs and definitely not a program of self-entrepreneurship and autonomy, right? So some important aspect to consider about this program is that this program implies specific disciplinary and spatial restriction on the asylum seekers. So asylum seekers, at least at the beginning when the program was launched, was launched they had to accept, to stay in the accommodation, so in the hotspot or reception center or camps depending on where the refugees were provided by the UNHCR or by the Greek autonomy, sorry, then these conditions likely change even thanks to migrant struggles that took place over the three years. So the spatial restriction that basically were, if you want in contradiction with this claim to autonomy about where the refugees wanted to stay were considered as quite intrusive and restrict disciplinary on the part of the asylum seekers. So this is the first point to notice that this card were given within this widespread system of incarceration. Incarceration on the island because migrants, most of them are not allowed to move and also more broadly of spatial confinement and impossibility to decide who are to stay. So building on this context, I use here the analysis of economic geographer Tatiana Tiemme who discuss in few articles who developed this concept of the asling subject and asling economy to advance some insight about the production of refugee subjectivity, how they are depicted and govern as forced techno user. The hostile Tiemme explains designate a condition of protracted liminality and way to characterize by a quote individual's insecurity disproportionately distributed. And at the same time, constant practice of struggle and experimentation on the part of this subject. The asling subject needs to constantly struggle and frantically move for getting by and I add for getting access to rights.  Indeed, they are repeatedly obstructed in making use of humanitarian and financial support and they constantly need to find out how rules have changed and this is the other important to me at least that I will discuss in the second part. So this constant obstruction is generated not only by how technology have been set for representing an obstacle to the refugees, but also what refugees do not know about how the system works. And even if when they know how it works, this knowledge is not sometimes very useful to get access to the financial support or to solve a temporary problem that they might have with this technology. That these refugees are entrapped in a panoply of technological steps. So this is paradox on the one hand, autonomy through technology and on the other that this technology becomes compulsory, our compulsory on many level of the asylum procedure. And at the same time they are caught in a state of uncertainty as long as they need to navigate a techno humanitarian system that constantly changes rule and disciplinary mechanism. The images of the in the wrestling subject simultaneously helps questioning linear narrative about the refugees as entrepreneurs of themselves and self-reliant refugees. Indeed, asylum seekers are respected to act as responsible techno users. So there is this fictional narrative. So they are given these prepaid cards and they are depicted as subject or should act as if they were responsible techno user as if they were responsible citizen. Even if most of them will be denied of the international protection very likely and definitely they won't become citizen and they will be excluded from the financial circuits very soon because the other important feature of this program is that as many financial support programs for refugees it lasts only until when these people are still of concern of the UNHR. So until when their asylum application is under process, under examination and until when, I mean they can appeal against the rejection in case so they can stay within the system but then they are out. So there is this temporariness that I think is interesting that characterizes being incorporated into mechanism of data instruction and also being incorporated in these financial circuits, financial humanitarian circuits but just in a temporary mode. So in the end there is no possibility for them to even from a liberal point of view to use this temporary inclusion in the financial system for becoming, to open for instance an individual bank account because the card that they are given is not associated to any individual bank account is just associated to the general UNHR financial wallet. So there is actually a sort of dependence that is increased and announced between the refugees and the humanitarian actors. As asylum seekers as for techno users are asking subject in so far as they bustle about the techno bureaucratic steps that they need to take. So this is not specific of this techno humanitarianism if you want but I think that this technology on the one hand highlights, help us in highlighting this obstacle and on the other contributed to increase these obstacles and also about finding how rules have changed. Even digital platforms that are widely used on a daily basis by migrants, for instance technological systems like WhatsApp become cumbersome technology for them when these become compulsory mechanisms that mediate their relationship with the humanitarian actors. So to some extent the life of asylum seekers as car beneficiary and as techno users in the outspot is partly shaped by the interwaving of logic of care and control for sure. And yet if on the one hand it's true that migrants are subjected to both securitization and mode of temporary relief, on the other it's worth noticing that outspot have become sites of blatant protracted vulnerability. So it's not even the case that migrants are object of humanitarian support, right? Or I mean this is precisely one of the main tragic states at the moment. And so but they are turning this force techno users. This temporariness of the cash program if you want goes together with this dimension of uncertainty within which they are forced to comply with multiple bureaucratic and technological steps. So uncertainty, unlike analysis that look at how refugees are entrapped in a sort of limbo and they are just waiting, I think it's important to insist on this disciplinary modes that force asylum seekers to do multiple activities while they wait. They don't just wait, right? It's not an empty waiting time. So just, so this is just two picture that I took inside the office of one of the NGOs that is in charge of giving these debit cards to the asylum seekers and of doing this monthly verification procedure, which means every month asylum seekers need to go to the office and to report if their legal status for instance has changed or if there are more family members in the family. So every change should be reported to the organization. And on the basis of that, the year organization confirms or not confirm the payment for that month, right? So how this monthly verification procedure works is very interesting because first it has changed over time. So during these three years has changed a lot. So it's very difficult to say how it works because there have been changes that have been difficult for myself as well to follow, right? And broadly what is important to know is that in order to do this monthly verification procedure, migrants are, so migrants received, in particular on the mainland, texts on their phones about the location of the office just few days before the monthly verification takes place and also with the time of the appointment. So they need, if they lose for instance their phone or the change number, it becomes a real problem. And what happens if they, for instance, if they have a technical problem with their cards because their card is temporarily blocked or if they digit the wrong pin number is that they can communicate with the NGOs and with the UNHCR only via WhatsApp and Viber then it was Viber only and so it changed. But anyway Viber and WhatsApp are the main technological channels, fourth channels that migrants need to use. So what happens is that this on the one hand, okay there is this general rule, you have to use this technology on the other. What happens in reality is that this technology have been set in a way that constitute a real obstacle for the migrants. So this paper says that if a migrant, a card beneficiary send multiple messages to Viber, these messages goes immediately at the bottom of the queue. So it's a sort of punitive measure. In this way migrants who are particularly anxious and who send their request of, because their card doesn't work multiple times, their response is automatically delayed, right? And the reason, and they can send these messages to these numbers depending of their language. There is also an helpline, so a phone number, but as I've been told by the NGOs, even if they call this number, most of the time nobody answer, right? So the only way is actually to text through Viber or eventually through WhatsApp in this specific range of time. And so the explanation, the official explanation provided both by the UNHCR and by these NGOs is that they have multiplied all these technological obstacles and also associated with this uneven temporality. So they just receive the text, they don't know when, but it will be just few days in advance and at some point another text with the location. In order to avoid that migrants gather outside the office and that they can organize and struggle. So there is this potential disruption that migrants might cause and is important I think to politicize all these implementation of technology in light of how this technology is used as a mode of control, not because migrants as such are trapped individually, but because they are controlled as a group and as a potential mob if you want of people who can organize protests or just that can disrupt the function of the system. So the way in which this technology have been set I think should be situated within a broader functioning of the political technology of the asylum and in order to look at how this digital disruption are far from being just technological gems, right? But are part of these attempt to physically and also with administrative measure block and decelerate disrupt the access to the asylum system. So migrants are preventively disciplined as potential mobs and at the same time they are governed through a multiplicity of scattered temporal deadlines and rules that they need to abide to. This mix of technical temporal mandatory steps generate a widespread disorientation among the migrants. So there is this condition of being entrapped into compulsory technological steps to take but also movements to make. So the state of uncertainty as I said force them to become hyper mobile and to understand really at the level of sites where they have to go and also at the same time to understand to constantly be updated about how this very small change happen in the way in which technology are set in the criteria for instance. And this is extremely difficult because many of these criteria are not change on the paper. So they are changing practice and other times it's very difficult in the end to know about this change. So this question of the knowledge of what refugees know and also even if they know how the system work how such a knowledge might turn out to be pointless in order to get access to rights is quite visible if we focus on the cash assistance program. And as I said on this broadly on this panoply of technology. So I think that there has been also in this case there is a literature in migration studies about the knowledge and the known knowledge used by states and the production of ignorance used by state for controlling migrants and for governing migrants better. But in my opinion this is not the whole point. So it's not only that states deliberately or in voluntary ways or all this debate about voluntariness or involuntary way of implementing enforcing ignorance I think is a bit of a trap because it depends when you say intentionality who is the actor that you have in mind. In this case there is a multiplicity of actors many of these have also conflicting interests among them. Well to me it's more interesting to notice how in order to obstruct the access to asylum and the access to rights refugees are affected shaped by this constant disorientation that in part consists in partial knowledge of the system not because there is no transparency. So this is the point that is not claimed for more transparency. Most of the time the UNHCR is playing very well on its website how the cash assistance program works but of changes and the unevenness of change. And on the other hand because even if when refugees know the system might function in a different way. So these uncertain that focus on uncertainty helps in shifting the tension from the eventual ignorance and no knowledge produced by the states towards the way in which migrants are affected by that. And to look at what Miranda Freaker called epistemic injustice that migrants not only migrants but I think it applies to migrants very well are affected by. So this knowledge is also the result of the discredit of the refugees speech but also the refugees conducts and behavior in their use of technology. So at the level of speech most of the time the authorities and the NGOs do not believe when migrants argue yeah but well it's not I didn't try to dodge the system and to get the financial support twice in a month right. So there is this that is very common in the asylum system in general also during the asylum application the asylum interview so there is this epistemic injustice at stake even if you know your knowledge cannot be actualized it's not is unhelpful but also the level of condoms. So as many NGOs reported migrants use the cars in order to cheat the system and to try to take the payment twice in a month or to give a card for their friends and so on. So in this paper that I'm currently developing I try to combine the analysis by Michelle Foucault and also by authors that build on Foucault to explain this lack of credibility towards refugees. So at the level of epistemic injustice and the discourse the untrue discourse that refugees are supposed to give any time with the analysis of Franz Fanon about the condition of the colonized subject that is not only considered a subject who lies but also subject whose behaviors and movements and conducts and bodies are suspect and are constitutively there for cheating the system. So this unpredictability is at the same time a way for governing migrants and the way in which migrants I mean the condition in which migrants find themselves and strategically mobilize for coming to grips with this uneven functioning of technology. So migrants as car beneficiary and forced techno users are governed through the production of unlegible techno humanitarian assemblages made of disciplinary rules that are frantically change over time. I speak about the production of unlegible mechanism of government as these do not consist only in a lack of transparency and legibility. Rather they are actively made not legible or hardly legible because the risk I think of just pointing to the opacity of this criteria is that we end up and say okay well we need to be more transparent. The UNHCR should write more transparent and more clear documents. But the point is that the refugee system per se is predicated upon these ambiguities and these opacity that are not necessarily narrow to the information that migrants might receive or not receive. So even if the migrants receive the information this information might be assembled in a way that turn out to be useless to the migrants or in the end the access to that specific service might be denied to the migrants on the basis of small exception. Right? So the obstruction that migrants in using the services provided by humanitarian actors face are not accidental disruption nor technical jumps and failures. On the contrary the constellation of technologies that migrants need to navigate actively ampers the access to the channels of their asylum as well as to the financial and humanitarian support. So as part of that asylum seeker who are turned into forced techno users do also need to keep themselves up to date about the frantic changes and disciplinary rules and bureaucratic steps they need to take. The reiterated production of unlegible techno disciplinary rules are constitutive of constitutive components of ways of governing through disorienting. And I think that in the face of this is very important to ask ourselves, okay what do we do in the face of this disorientation and uncertainty which is announced by the two of these technologies without ending up in a liberal statement towards for more transparency, right? Precisely because it's a political technology which is predicated upon in particular more and more. So the channels of the asylum are actively obstructed by European countries. So first of all I think that we need to question this securitization and humanitarianization, victimization of migration within a more nuanced analysis of the multiple obstruction and the multiple forms of date and value extraction that these technology are sourced off. So the migrants is there not only as someone to be saved or someone to be protected from but also as a surface of value and date extraction. And these modes of extraction are really, I mean at the core of this political economy of asylum that is particularly visible if we look at this techno, multiplication of technologies. And the second thing is that in the face of this disorientation experience by migrants, we need, I think that more attention to how refugees are, the way in which refugees are affected by this partial knowledge might help in reformulating the critical discourse which start from the obstacles that migrants face in accessing asylum and also how to cope with this uncertainty without aiming at a streamlined refugee system. So how refugees themselves strategically use this uncertainty but also how politically we can, I mean this is an open question, we can face such an uncertainty without claiming more transparency and more clear rules in a moment when these clear rules are clearly set for excluding migrants. Thank you very much for that and now we will hear from Brenna. Okay, I'm just going to ask you a few questions, Martina. Thanks so much for that really engaging paper and it's a really fascinating area of research. So I guess one question, a first question is about the relationship between this mode of governing and disciplining and producing subjects, in this case the refugee or asylum seekers subject and modes of governing non-refugee people because as you were describing the system, of course I was thinking a lot about something like universal credit, which is a system that was brought in using a lot of different kind of digital technologies to create obstacles to people surviving in fact, right? So we know that the system of universal credit and the technological forms which people are forced into using to obtain benefits has also produced a level of insecurity, disorientation, et cetera that it sounds, I'm not trying to draw a parallel but it was evocative of that, your paper. And so I guess the question is, is it the digital technology per se or the rationality underlying it? And I think that's a different question than the epistemic questions and the questions of knowledge that you raised in the second part of the paper. I think I'm wondering about the rationality that underlies the use of these specific technological forms that produce such impossibility in the day-to-day lives of people to the point where they, it presents an obstacle to surviving in fact, so that's one question. Yet we know that people subvert these technologies in order to survive. So I wanted to ask about, in your research, how have you found asylum seekers getting around, is there any way of getting around the use of these technologies or, I mean, we know in any oppressive system, people refuse and resist and get around things and come up with other ways of getting money or getting food or getting shelter. And so I was wondering about that, the kind of resistance to this oppressive techno-humanitarianism. Another question I had was about the issue of spatial restriction. So the scene that you described, so you're in a camp or you're on an island, and then you are further, you have a further spatial fixedness or restriction, which is given effect through the use of these digital technologies, right? And it reminded me though, in a way, and I wondered whether there's a similarity in the political economy of digital technologies in the refugee camp and the political economy and use of digital technologies in the prison. There's been some work done, I mean, I'm not a prison study scholar, but I think there's been quite a lot of work done on the use of particular companies to provide certain technologies that are used, that limit the way in which inmates can, for instance, make telephone calls, or that there's a kind, I wonder if there's any parallels to be drawn. And then I also wonder about the political economy of this infrastructure. So you mentioned banks as being some of the financial actors who are profiting off of this, but I wonder about tech companies, big tech. I mean, all of the different corporate actors who are exploiting these systems of captivity for profit. So I guess a question about the political economy of the infrastructure of the digital technologies, specifically in spaces of confinement. Another question I had was about the idea of temporariness and this dimension of uncertainty that you spoke about and how these digital technologies, because they're changing all of the time or their modes of operation are changing and shifting, that this contributes to a sense of disorientation and uncertainty in a situation that's already of profound instability and uncertainty. And again, I guess I wondered, well, I guess a couple of questions follow from that. So one question is how do the burdens of the digital technology, because it sounds like this is, it's not just obstacles, but it's imposing huge burdens on people to they have to navigate all this stuff to access basic things like cash. But how do the burdens of the digital technology distract refugees from doing other things with their time? And I was wondering if you've noticed a shift in that. So just at the very kind of mundane everyday level. And then I also wondered in terms of this disorientation and what you called the techno-temporality, I guess I wanted to ask how this sits with or differs from other kinds of refugee temporalities, right? So I mean, I was thinking a lot about the kind of disorientation that a lot of Palestinians living in exile or Palestinian refugees have written about for decades, which has nothing to do with technologies, right? That there's just this fundamental disorientation that is produced through being in exile or being a refugee. And that all of these things are legal, our fictive constructions, like the techno-temporality is a fiction or is fictive. The idea of the absentee owner is a fiction. These are all kind of fictive temporalities that are imposed on refugees. And I mean, I could go on about the property aspect of that, right? Because I mean, in a way there's a part of this disorientation is produced by being in an environment where you don't have access to any kind of normal property relation, right?  I mean, so this reality of being dispossessed of your home, I think produces like a foundational and fundamental kind of temporal disorientation. So I'm wondering how the techno-temporal sits with these other modes of temporal and spatial disorientation. And then I guess a last question is around how these technologies interfere with the legal framework because you mentioned that these technologies basically create an obstacle to accessing one's rights. And I was wondering, are there legal technologies at play? I mean, are refugees also forced to make their claims using different technologies? I mean, I remember with Lorenzo and Charles' work years ago in terms of mapping migrant deaths, for instance, they were using a lot of sophisticated technologies, but when the lawyer came in to try and start bringing legal challenges, she needed people to go to the refugees and put down with pen and paper their oral testimony.  So those are the questions that your paper provoked for me, so, yeah. Okay, thank you. Do you want to come back quite a bit, or would you? Well, I can just, I don't know. Yeah, okay, yeah, you can come back in the course of the questions. All right, so we're ready to open up for questions. Please raise your hand to indicate if you have a question, we have Robin Mike. So yeah, first one is just up there. Hi, thank you very much for your talk. It was really interesting and I look forward to read your paper on that. I had a question when you talk about the, this kind of dichotomy that happens in migrant studies about securitization versus victimization and then seeing migrants as a threat versus as a victim that are, you know, that just make us feel pity about them. But you said that most of the time they're rather seen as a burden that needs to be managed. And I was thinking if this is not a question of surveillance capitalism on how to track migrants and their finance in order to actually have more control over them. It might, I was thinking that maybe it might be something about not humanitarianism, but rather the deshuman, deshumanitation, I don't know how to say that. The human, yeah, it's dehumanizing but it's like the process of dehumanizing of crisis. Because I feel like when finance and technology become the substitutes for humans and institutions as a medium, then you're also not taking the agency out of it and having no one responsible for that. But at the same time you're taking all the human part out of it and making it more an inhuman issue, something that doesn't need human to be dealt with. So my question was that because I think you mentioned at some spot that at some time that it's not about tracking migrants because there are other ways to do that, especially with the prepaid card. So is it maybe a way of actually getting rid of responsibility and at the same time putting the burden into technology and not the institutions? So yeah, I think it was that. Yeah, just up there. Hi, this was really interesting because I also worked on Lesvos Island and then later in Athens. As far as I know, once refugees or asylum seekers are granted asylum, this cash assistance is gone. So one of the questions is like, have you ever looked at this process as well, like what happens when somebody's granted asylum and then loses this cash assistance program? And also in my observations, there was a difference between men and women's allowance. Like men were getting I think 120 euros and women 90 euros. So there was this gender gap as far as I remember, especially when I was on Lesvos. And also like with the new government now in Greece, I think again this cash card system is going to change. So with all of these things also changing and happening, how can we be sure about this technology is really away from all these politics and how they want to manage men and women separately in terms of like theorizing the whole role of this cash card. I mean, I think we need to problematize that a little bit more. And did you also speak to any of the refugees? What was the process of like using this technology? Like what it meant to them and what was doing to them in their everyday lives? So like how was it operationalized in the everyday life of the refugees? Because for me, they were experiencing this emptiness and void in the day. And this cash card thing was happening, I don't know, once a month or so.  So I think we cannot deny like this whole void happening in refugees everyday lives while they're waiting. Thank you. We can take one more question this round if you indicate with your hand. Oh, sorry, I missed you. Yeah, just over there. Hi, this is following up on those who actually think it's very dehumanizing as well. And I'm curious, very basic administrative kind of question. How are the tech and the financial services that are going to be used? How are those decided upon? Who decides who gets, if it's Viber or it's WhatsApp or it's Skype or whatever. And if an asylum seeker, I know it might be unlikely, but if they don't use the money because at that moment they get processed or something, do they get to keep anything? Do they get to transfer it into an account or anything like that? Do you know of any formal way that people get together to make formal savings? Or do they just do it informally as like group cash plans or something like that? And do you know if the personal information gets collected for tracking? Thank you. Would you like to come back now to those questions and Brenas? Okay, so I start from Brenas's question. Thanks a lot for this engagement with the paper. And yeah, there are many things that I didn't mention in this talk that I've written about in another paper about the actual functioning of the cash car system because today I wanted to focus more on this broader technological constellation. But so let's start with the question of temporariness. So temporariness and certainty, yeah, definitely. So what I want to say as a general comment is that indeed I take a distance from analysis that look at this techno-humanitarianism as a big shift and that look at this techno-humanitarian assemblages as a kind of, I mean through techno-optimist lens, right? So I don't think that we can look at this technology as like a radical shift. In this sense, I think that the actual functioning of the asylum system through technologies and on the one hand shed light on how these uncertainties constantly reproduce and that you can also find elsewhere. So I don't think that there is necessarily, I totally agree, you'll find elsewhere. So these people in exile and definitely is not something peculiar to Greece or Jordan. I think that however, many of these analysis about waiting and uncertainty to me are miss something about, okay, how these status of waiting is actually not empty. Okay, then I will come back to your point about emptiness, but there is emptiness, there is sense of, okay, I don't know how to really, what to do, how to kill time, right? Even in Greece, the migrants say this, but actually this is not totally empty because migrants are forced to make multiple tasks. So in this technological proliferation, definitely force them to be more hypermobilia and to be, so it doesn't streamline their life, right? On the contrary, they are more forced to do things while at the same time they are completely entrapped in this state of uncertainty because they have to wait anyway, they don't know when, so the fictive temporality is definitely, I don't think is a characteristic of Greece or in general of this technology, but I can see for instance the difference in this sense, I think, in this specific case, comparative approach might be helpful. So with Italy where there are no technologies at all in the level of financial support and there is this big problem of, I mean, uncertainty there is really, there's really materializing this long waiting time that migrants just kill by trying to be exploited by employers who hire them on a temporary basis. But there is definitely not this force interaction with technology in Italy, so they're very basic system of receiving cash and this is the other point that I don't want through this, so in this paper and also in another paper like published on this, my temporary conclusion is that we shouldn't analyze all these by saying so are these cards good or bad, right? Because definitely migrants are happy to get these cards and this financial support and also, yeah, they are forced to do this task, but in the end, unlike in Italy, they are more sure that they will have this, I mean, that financial support is set, is 90 euros per month if they receive foods in camps is 150, if they don't receive foods in the food income, so it's definitely not a question of is better or worse? And this leads me to the other point, so you said this oppressive technology how migrants get around it, so I think that this is to me the most difficult, probably, question, not, you know, I can mention how migrants try to cheat the system to put in UNHR's term, but I don't think that this technology are actually oppressive because these are technology that are also, this is the twofold, I mean, the ambivalent dimension, these are technology that refugees want because the prepaid cards in particular means money, even if it's very small amount, but they say, okay, this is the only thing that helps us in these moments in particular because they, I mean, most of them do not find any kind of even job in the black economy and also these other, these WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, most of them don't see this technology as a problem in terms of surveillance. Some of them are, I mean, they are suspicious about technologies, but most of them, they just really want to get this access to these cars and their real, I mean, problems is to get the money and that most of the time, many times, they are excluded for multiple reasons from that, so that is to me this problem of how do we reformulate a critical analysis of this technology if, first, migrants need to deal with technology if they want to get access to this item, so the Skype system might consider, yeah, a trap, but I mean, it's the way for them to get access to their right to apply at least and on the other hand, to the cars that they really want, so it is complicated, the question of, do migrants want to, I mean, escape or dodge this technology, no, actually, no, it is not like the fingerprint. Right. That is a direct implication on their movement. But it's interesting because most people in the world don't see those technologies as a form of oppressive surveillance, right? But they are. I mean, you know, so it is interesting about bringing refugees or asylum seekers into the same surveillance, someone mentioned surveillance infrastructure that the rest of us are in all the time without any, you know. Yeah. Yeah, and perhaps they're different, so when you really want to apply for asylum, your main goal is that one, right? You maybe don't mind that if you are also monitored. Also because they said they are monitored since the beginning, since when they land and the fingerprint is the most violent form of technology. Sure. Because then they are blocked, basically. So yeah, definitely there have been, at least at the beginning, when the system, because the system is like many cases with the border regime, very much reactive, so because of migrant struggles and migrant strategies, they have, the UNHCR has been able to set the system in a way that makes more difficult for migrants to cheat it, right? So at the beginning, many managed to get the financial support in 2017 twice and they jump from one comes to another and managed to, because there was not central database. Now there is, so it's more difficult to do this. Another thing that some people mentioned to me is that if your friend escaped to Macedonia and for few days, so in the days when there is the monthly verification, when the UNHCR gives the financial support, you can take the car, so there is a way to take the car of your friend without, even if the friend left, so in principle it is no longer eligible for the cash assistance. But it's just a question of, I mean, if they managed in this small leeway of time. So special restriction and prison study, thanks a lot, I think is very important also because the island is, as you said, prison per se. Yeah, again, I don't know if it's, I prefer to speak about control in the sense that it's control over migrant lives in general, but this surveillance, so for instance I had the opportunity to see what the UNHCR can see in real time, but so they just see where migrants take the money from, right, and where they move, if this happens in the country, if they try to pay outside Greece that the car is immediately blocked. But the point is that both the UNHCR and the Greek authorities and the European, they don't really want to try this migrant too much because if the migrants leave, the implicit goal is that, I mean, more and more migrants manage to leave Greece on the slide without, so there is also a wood battle over numbers between the UNHCR and the Greek authorities in order to declare how many people benefit from this system. And in order to receive money from the European Union. So this surveillance, what I don't know and I've been trying to understand this is then how this data that is collected, that this is related to your question, at the moment of the registration in the cash assistance program and during the monthly verification, how it is shared and not shared among actors. So it's a very complicated infrastructure of data circulation. So the UNHCR is basically the main actor that manage the wood system and has access to both database, the database of the bank and the database progress which is the database of the UNHCR itself. The NGO, they both have access partially to these two database, but in the database of the bank, there are only minimal information and not information about, for instance, the legal status of the person. So they're the bank, which is a bank based in London and this is interesting, it's not a Greek bank. So it's a kind of an example of externalization of asylum within Greece. So Greek authorities are only marginally involved. The bank is in London and the UNHCR manage the wood system and the European Commission gives the money. And the bank, from what they told me when I interviewed them is that they don't even see these people these migrants as potential future clients because they know that they will be denied of protection or even if they are, they will stay in Europe, they certainly are poor people, they would, who knows if they will be able to open a bank account because in the end the money cannot be transferred to a proper bank account. So this is the point that they lose the amount of money if they don't spend. So there is this idea of the migrants as self-entrepreneurs is really. No, no, no, that's too quiet. To universal credit, yeah, definitely thanks a lot for this and I think this is one of the research directions to carry on. So to me it's quite relevant that this program has been enforced in Greece where there has been a huge economic crisis and how this system has been set also taking into account the level of the minimum wage of the Greek people. So in order not to create this competition between the Greek and the refugees because there have been many complaints on the part of the Greek, in particular in the specific side. And so I think that is very interesting to reorient, to expand this research beyond the field of refugee percent to see how this measure, to me is an interesting site of experimentation, how it is used on refugees and how similar measure have been used elsewhere. Although there are also specificity in the sense that this financialization, I use this term but I think is also a bit inappropriate in relation to humanitaries because then if we go and see how this credit work is really, so they have just this prepaid card that is totally dependent on the UNHCR giving them the money. So it's like the same cash system that we have in other countries like in France, in Italy and that is mediated through this card. So it doesn't, it's nothing similar for instance to micro-credit, right? So they don't really enter any financial independent system. And then what else, legal technology. Yeah, so the most important thing to notice is this Skype system that is really not beyond, even if they don't want to be registered for the cash system program, they need to use Skype and this was implemented in 2016 and as far as I know it's only in Greece so in Italy there is not such a measure and it's compulsory and this creates a long waiting queue because there are only certain times when migrants depending on the nationality they can call and I've been trying to understand on the, because in principle everything is transparent on the UNHCR website but in reality the rules of this time slot change over time when you, I mean if you are a Pakistani national you can call and also I mean which days of the week and so on. So it's a super complicated system. So this mediates and I think change the way in which, but definitely I agree with you that is in the end is the, so on the one hand there is this financial slash humanitarian support and on the other there is the legal process in the sense of how they can get the asylum which is however mediated by this Skype that trigger many protests on the part of refugees who has to be, I mean to, that the Greek authorities who implemented this right that they stop to use this system because it's a real burden. However, I think the two are connected because then this cash system is connected to the accommodation system. So migrants who receive the refugee status are in principle in six months excluded both from the accommodation which is connected to the asylum procedure and from the cash system. Then you can, in reality, there are many exceptions and also differences in terms of when migrants are excluded. And then on the question of, so no, there is no difference between men and women. The monthly payment is 90 euros if they receive food in camps or 150 if they don't. And for families it's different depending on family members. But I definitely agree that there is this, so not only because there is a new government but even if you read how the European Commission justifies the World Program, there is uncertainty also in this implementation of the system so the Greek authorities who are supposed to take over the World Program in 2018 then it was postponed to 2019 and they are still, the UNHR is still managing the whole procedure, right, the whole program. So who will take, we will be in charge of the cash assistance program is, it's really one of the political stakes at the moment because the European Commission declared that the refugee crisis is basically over in Greece so they try to hand over to the Greek but this is a big issue because the money comes from the European Commission, right, unlike in Italy so this is also the big difference between Italy and Greece that Greece has this European funded program. Then victimization secretion secretion. Yeah, I definitely agree with you with this getting rid of responsibility and also this creating a physical distance and this is what they also say, the UNHR officer, in this way we avoid to have these crowds, right, of migrants who want to take cash and it might be dangerous and inhumanization precisely in this sense these technopolitics that put a distance between them and their humanitarian actors. At the same time, and this is connected to what also Bran asked, all this technological infrastructure then most of the time fail and so the paper is still the main vehicles for these humanitarian actors to register, for instance, during the monthly verification procedure, right, that there are so many problems, technical problems for instance that they are not able, the UNHR, to update their database and they keep writing on the paper so this is absolutely, so then this human clash cannot be avoided, despite what they want, also because refugees struggle a lot, they put their presence, physical presence at the core, struggling against their exclusion from the program and so on and also because that there are so many technological gems that are due not only to technical problems but also to conflicts among the actors involved, right, so how the UNHR wants to manage the system and what the fact that Greek authorities in part want to get access to this data that, so they don't have direct access to the data collected by the UNHR. I, again, I don't know if the point is surveillance capitalism, I think there is, to me this angle of extraction is interesting as a way for not overcoming but complicating that is securitization, victimization because the refugees are there and as, this is another question that Brenna asked, so that there is this involvement of private actors and ITAC companies that irrespective of control of migrants per se, so they are not so much interested in monitoring you as an individual but they take data and what they are doing, for instance, the UNHR is producing these statistics about refugees as consumers, right? So Mastercard is part of this game, so is the Mastercard logo is on and I'm trying to understand the role of the, how is it called, Windows so that UNHR use in this mediation with the progress database and these are not, because this is related to the economy of knowledge, there are so many people involved in this program who manage the program and most of them have no idea of how this data is used. I think, because it can come boring otherwise. No, no, no, not that, but to get some more questions in, so do we have, we're gonna have to finish quite soon, do we have any last questions on this subject? I'll give you a second to contemplate. Yeah. I was thinking that all the parallels that exist between how migrants are governed but also how non-migrants citizens are governed, especially in the West with the infrastructure of surveillance capitalism, do you think that maybe it's kind of like force pushing into technology, it's some sort of like to purge, so like to create like a force assimilation into the system? I don't know if I'm explaining myself because it was like a crazy idea I got. So there's a structure that we all are a part of, which is surveillance capitalism to an extent and the fact that migrants are now kind of being pushed into it, is it because those who actually make it pass are forced into assimilation into the system as well, like some sort of purge, when you put technology as a medium, then you have to be, I mean, you have to know how to use technology but also how to go on with it to be part of it. So putting that as an obstacle, it's also a way of purging people who might not assimilate as good as others. Any very last questions, this is your last chance. No? Okay. No, I think yeah, in part you're right. Also because what I didn't say is that asylum seekers are asked to give feedback about the use of their cars and so they are like, the UNHR might call them randomly and say what is your experience and there is a whole questionnaire of points, questions that they might be asked and this data, this extraction of knowledge if you want, is used by the UNHR itself. So there is this idea, you participate to your own detention, to your own governmentality basically. And so this non-violent mode of co-opting the migrants themselves and by telling them, look you're like a consumer, right? You are like a citizen who can contribute to tell us what do you think about the functioning of the system. All right, please join me in thanking the speakers.


Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Colin Louther and I'm Liz Wade. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live. Every year on December 31st, millions of people around the world stay up late. They stay awake until the clock turns to midnight. They do this to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another. When the clock reaches midnight, everyone cheers and shouts. Some people kiss someone they love. A New Year's celebration can be a fun celebration with friends or family. It is a good time to think about the past, but it is also a good time to think about your hopes for the future. However, did you know that if you live in a large city such as San Francisco in the United States or London in England, you may see New Year's celebrations all year? This is because people have come to these cities from all around the world. They bring their traditions and celebrations with them. And not everyone celebrates the New Year on the same day. Russian people celebrate Novy Goat on January 14. The Assyrian New Year is called Kapa Nisan. It is celebrated on April 1st. And people from Thailand celebrate the New Year in April as well. They call the celebration the Son Kran Festival. Today's spotlight is on different New Year's celebrations like these from around the world. In the country of Vietnam, people celebrate the New Year with the holiday Tet Nguyen Than or Tet Holiday. This is the Festival of First Days. It marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year. This celebration is on different days each year. This is because the time of celebration is based on the moon. But it is usually around late January or early February. During Tet, people often return to their family homes. It is important to begin a New Year clean, happy and full of good luck. So people clean their homes. They pay debts. They may display a New Year's tree in their home to keep away evil spirits. It can be a kumquat, peach, apricot or tangerine tree. When the clock strikes midnight on the New Year, people make as much noise as possible. They shout and hit drums or other instruments. They wish each other Chuk Mung Nam Moi or Happy New Year. The Persian New Year happens in the month of March. 300 million people around the world celebrate the Persian New Year called Noruz. Noruz marks the beginning of the Iranian calendar. It is a 13-day-long celebration. Masoud is a Persian man living in London. He spoke to the BBC about what Noruz means to him. For me, it has been brought down from the generations. We have been told about the culture of Iran and the celebration of the New Year, which brings new life to spring into action for the year. And it is just a time to be full of joy. Noruz is a time for families to be together. People travel home if they are able. They set a table with seven special things that begin with the Persian letter S. This is called Haft Seen. Each thing represents something different. They may represent age, love, wealth, spring, new birth, health, and a sweet life. People wish each other a Deshamah Mubarak. This means Happy New Year. Hindu people living in the south of India celebrate Yugaadi. And Hindu people living in other parts of India celebrate Gudi Padwa. These celebrations are similar in many ways. There are two names because the people speak different languages. But during both celebrations, people create beautiful designs on floors called rangoli. They clean their houses and eat together with family. And of course, they wish each other Naya Saal Ki Shubkhanu, which means Happy New Year. Rupa Vaidla lives in India. She believes these celebrations are important. She spoke to the website Deccan Chronicle dot com. Every celebration has its own meaning. It has been passed down from generations. They all have a story to tell. This is what makes us and our families grow stronger and closer. We must teach our children the importance of every festival. They are the ones to take our culture and history forward. There are many other times that people celebrate a new year. Jewish people celebrate Rosh Hashanah at the end of September. Muslim people mark Muharram around the same time. People in Cambodia celebrate New Year in April. People in Korea celebrate at the end of January. Each of these traditions are different. But many involve cleaning, family, food and remembering the past. When someone celebrates a different tradition than we do, it can make us feel separate and different from them. But it does not have to. In 2019, the Ethiopian New Year Festival of Enkututash was at the same time as the Chinese Autumn Festival. Some Chinese people who were living and working in Ethiopia held a combined celebration. Kang Rongyao moved from China to Ethiopia for work. He told the website Shinwa. Celebrating the two events in one place together with my Ethiopian colleagues was a special experience. I was amazed and happy with the many traditions and cultural values of our two countries. They value a family connection and the traditions of the celebration give me a look at the meaningful Ethiopian culture. I think it is in many ways similar to the Chinese culture.  You can think about the past year or the future year. It can also be a good time to think about people all around the world. People celebrate different things in different ways. But when we enter into a new tradition, we may be surprised to discover how similar we are to one another. Have you ever celebrated a new year of another culture? Did you learn anything new about the world? Did you learn anything about yourself? Tell us what you think. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at radio at radioenglish.net You can also comment on Facebook at facebook.com slash spotlight radio. The writer of this program was Adam Navis. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it on the internet at www.radioenglish.net This program is called When is a New Year? New Year's celebrations around the world. Visit our website to download our free official app for Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Happy New Year!


I'm Joshua Cooper and welcome to Cooper Union. What's happening with human rights around our world on Think Tech Live, broadcasting from our downtown studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, in Moana, New York, Haya. Today we're looking at rights without distinction in our world, the universality of human rights, Article II in Asia, the case of North Korea. It's an honor to have amazing activists and advocates being able to share. And Vinicius, I'd love to ask you first, what first got you involved in this important issue and why is it crucial for humanity? Thank you for the question. First of all, I'm South Korean Australian and I spent some time at the Sydney Juice Museum as a volunteer researcher and meeting all these survivors and seeing them really actively spreading the message of peace, justice and tolerance really inspired me a lot. And I think that having met some North Koreans living in South Korea when I was working in South Korea, their life stories and their escape stories have deeply moved me. So I'm somehow able to connect the dots and here I am. Yun, thank you so much for joining us and can you share with me why is this issue so important to you and why is it essential to the core of the global arena? I was a victim and survivor but until 2012, I didn't know much about universal depression, human rights and also international law because in my country in North Korea and in China, the communism countries never mentioned about the human rights issues. But now I am a human rights activist and my voice is North Korea, 25 million North Korean voices. So this is the international human rights law that is mentioned in the individuals and also human rights and dignities. So that's why this is really important for me. Thank you so much and thank you for being the voice of all the people of North Korea that aren't able to speak and exercise Article 2 as well as many of the other articles in UDHR. Can you share with us why this issue is important in international law to you and what first inspired you to get involved? As an educator based out of Taiwan for an international school, I think that human rights especially the reflection within the biologues on human rights are quite vital when it comes to the peaceful resolution of the cross-strait issue and it's quite important for us to be equipping students with with the tools and the mindset that's going to lead to the development of the capacity to engage with views that may be different from their own in a peaceful and amicable way without resorting to violence. Thank you so much and of course peace is at the core of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Michael Kirby we really thank you so much for joining us. We know you have done so much in Australia for human rights but also throughout the region and the role that you've taken at the UN. Can you share with us that role you've taken at the UN regarding North Korea in Article 2? Well I was asked to serve as chair of the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea exactly 10 years ago and therefore I'm going through a series of conferences remembering that 10-year interval and what we've achieved and what has not been achieved. The Commission of Inquiry conducted its inquiry in the Anglo-American way that is to say we had public hearings we had the media present and we kept the witness evidence online you can still see it there Commission of Inquiry on North Korea and the object was to provide the general assembly as a human rights council and ultimately the Security Council of the United Nations an independent impartial report on North Korea. I had been a judge for 34 years before I sat on the inquiry and that's what we did we prepared an independent report we made our findings and those findings were overwhelmingly very critical of North Korea we didn't agree with all of the submissions but we agreed with most of them and we presented a case for action against those who were guilty for human rights abuses in North Korea and unfortunately that requires the action of the Security Council and that has to overcome the veto power that belongs to the P5 the permanent five members and that includes the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China without that action by the Security Council it's impossible to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court and so we have not achieved our goal but we have our record and the record speaks to the world and my hope is that the record will respond alternately to the appeal of Jiwon and other human rights activists for North Korea for the people of North Korea because they are the people who are the core of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thank you so much Michael and that really gets to the point of what Denise was sharing earlier. Denise can you throw with me what's the state of human rights in North Korea and what are some of the most important issues the world should know about? Certainly there are other people who may know more about what's really going on inside North Korea and when people say you know we don't really know much about North Korea it's not a criticism it really is a country that is so incredibly difficult to know and and and what really goes on and you know the situation changed so at the moment the pressing issue one of pressing issues is that the issue of the repatriation of North Koreans back to North Korea from China so there are currently about 33,000 3300 3300 stateless North Koreans scattered all over China so you know we had Jihan here this morning and she was one of the most people miraculously was able to find her freedom and at the moment now that the COVID is over China is actually planning to repatriate North Koreans and they will you know face executions and all kinds of inhumane treatment back in their homeland so this is the situation that we would like to as activists the world to know and do something about it. Thank you Jihan what would you share the most important issues has the voice of North Korea that the world must know about and that we should all take action together to end? 10 years ago COI report came out but you know that many people still don't understand this North Korea systems so firstly it's many people they don't know that it's North Korea politics because it's North Korea controlled to us it's the 10 Prince priests and also Workers Party Korea they controlled all people and you know also it's the universal degradation human rights act for two mentioned that we respected all humans without the colors nationalities in our sex everything is mentioned that but in North Korea they divided classifications so this means they divided three different classes in North Korean people is the elitist and also middle class and the hostile classes so we hated each other's is Koreans each other's and we always is looking forward to them what they say what they kind of actions but not only to that we also hated the Americans and the South Koreans and also who doesn't like that socialism countries so that is a kind of political emotions I learned that's where I when I was born so that is all North Korea systems so North Korean people still don't know that what's happened in outside the countries and also they don't know about the history too because North Korea published only fake histories and the brain was to people and they also destroyed their thinking so we North Korea's kind of is giving a regime's machines kind of is a puppet because it's a we don't know what is human right meanings what is human dignity we don't know also what is individual's meanings so you know that nowadays is when it's already mentioned that it's China repatriated to North Koreans North North Korean refugees to North Korea so you know there are many filmmakers they human trafficking in China after pregnant baby but the Chinese community party continued to send back to them so North Korea not allowed these mixed babies in North North Korea so they miscarried either this baby or kill the unborn baby in front mothers and also you know that in China too many is that the child who are born in North Korean mother and they also hatelessness so that is all happened in now but it's in the world they were listened and you know the world is still the silent it's North and China's issue thank you so much for sharing about the power of propaganda but also all the rights are interconnected and it's that part of the dividing and conquering is still going on within the people of North Korea but then also to perpetuate a distrust of people outside as well Jun can you share with us the issues in North Korea that we should all care about most sure I believe that it's all good and well for us to pay lip service to the issue of human rights but to really put this into perspective especially for students it may be necessary to provide greater relatability and greater connection to the personal stories that result from the circumstances that we find ourselves in especially those stories from survivors such as Tion and others I believe that this is very important for connecting the issue to students and to prevent it from being relegated to the type of issue that is far removed from their awareness and their baby lives and it's important for us also to encourage dialogue and reflection on the issue and so in doing so have students be able to relate to this not just on an issue that's mentioned in the news or that's mentioned in the textbooks but really as an issue that has a human face to it thank you and Michael you talked about the record and I think that's so important to really document what has happened to people to put a face on the situation in North Korea what would you highlight that are the most pressing issues in North Korea today well before I was pointed by the United Nations for North Korea I had worked for the Secretary General as a special representative for human rights in Cambodia and Cambodia went through the period of the Khmer Rouge misrule and one of the important lessons I learned in that exercise was keeping the record taking the record distributing the record was extremely important it's important for the history of the country concern and in terms of the work of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations North Korea is a really bad job and therefore the nine-point program which we were given in the Commission of Inquiry on North Korea dealt with the priority issues as seen by the Human Rights Council access and ability to get around in North Korea they don't allow their citizens to move except under great discipline and control they don't allow tourists or others to go and visit them and report on their condition as Gehorn has said women and children are a major issue many actions and abuses were brought to attention in our report the politics of the place is such that you can't have a different point of view abductions of foreign nationals including many Japanese nationals is a major issue I mean they said they've sent their agents into Japan effectively to steal Japanese citizens to bring them to North Korea to teach them Japanese language so that they can go back as spies and intrude into Japan and the problem of nuclear nuclear and other weapons long range missiles this is something really that has become worse than since the report of the Commission of Inquiry we didn't actually deal much with that because it wasn't such a big issue but since the report of the Commission of Inquiry the development of nuclear weapons and the firing repeatedly of missiles even one when Mr Kim Jong-un went to meet Mr President Putin a missile was sent just to let everybody know that that's the business they're in and that's the business they're rather good at and that's where they're spending their money instead of food food is a big issue in North Korea so all of these are the issues but the question is how do we move from a report and the chronicling of the sad history of North Korea since the Second World War and how do we convert it into an action plan and that's what is a high priority at this stage building on those great points from chronicling to creating the culture of human rights did you share with us Vinice a little bit about who you see as some of the champion NGOs and heroes and heroes that are doing action to counter the situation in North Korea to ensure human rights thank you for the question and it's a great one because actions speak louder than words and I really would like to take the opportunity to convey my appreciation on behalf of all the you know activists working to improve the situation in North Korea and here we have the unsung hero a very Australian hero Michael Kirby joining us and sharing his wisdom and experience of the past 10 years really because the I guess commission of inquiry you know you as a chair you only serve for one year you have no obligation to continue your activism or commitment towards the cause but Michael has really been such a champion in a sense that he always says yes to these engagements he does not need this I just like to say thank you for being here today and I'm still making your voice heard for the people of North Korea another person that I like to mention is not alive and his name is Raphael Lincoln he is a Jewish lawyer and philosopher and somebody who actually coined the term genocide and I think it's important for you know we talked about the you know the UDH article 2 in Asia and as an Asian person I never learned about Raphael Lincoln I never learned about what genocide really meant because we talk about atrocities and violence and you know bad things happening in the world but the conceptualization of human rights and all these contemporary frameworks and I guess the legal frameworks we as to mention we need to educate the young ones to understand as to how we come to understand and exercise our rights as humans and protect others rights as well so it's not really about North Koreans at the end of the day as we protect others as we become a good neighbor when you're a good neighbor we are you know it's important to be a good citizen and be a good neighbor and this is for me that everybody is a hero there isn't you know one single hero in this world and we as adults we have a responsibility to I guess continue this legacy what the survivors of the Holocaust have really done in these rights so I just wanted to you know highlight it now thank you for mentioning Raphael Lincoln and there's important work that he did to then make sure that we had those five elements of what genocide is and noting that it's not all five but just one to actually constitute time of genocide so we really appreciate you shared that also the sense of solidarity that was really born in San Francisco when the UN was created that we're all in this together we must organize do you can you share with us some hero you see and work on North Korea on a daily basis yes for me I have two heroes so first is the icon copy and in the games so without them is this world still don't know the what's happened in North Korea because myself came to the UK in 2008 you know the many people didn't know North Korea they only knew Korea and also some people knew South Korea so they talked about the North Korea as a part of in province in North side and also many people don't know that is a Korean world I know that is a school is already teaching about the Korean world but it is not really important histories at moment so many people didn't understand about the North Korea and the human rights issues but after the COI came out and you know many people wake up because the people talked about the Holocaust already passed 1940s but this another genocide happened in 21st century so Michael Corbett reminded to us again is the the human rights issues so I'm really thankful as Michael Corbett here and also dating and the second my hero is 25 million because you know that I live in freedom country so sometimes you know I give up my opportunity sometimes I give up my freedoms because that is a freedom country but I think about the my North Korean people and them I just start up again yes freedom need and the freedom is not free you know the poor myself escaped North Korea and arrived in the UK that is a long journey 10 years journey but you know that my freedom is sacrifice my fathers and also my younger brothers and also my son so this freedom is not only my freedom that is all my father my younger brother and also my freedom's journey so it is nowadays is 25 million my North Korean people journey and they they will give up and they continue to fight I know they are momentous silent but they continue to fight is a kill me so they all my friends and heroes thank you so much in June can you share some NGOs that you see a really champion the issues in North Korea because as she pointed directly impacted are really the heroes as they endure and afford to have the rights violated daily but can you share some that you think that are making the world more aware of what's happening in North Korea why it's so important sure I would just like to echo when he's and gion's sentiments and comment on the fact that I think North Korean survivors have an important role to play in the education of the next generation not only in terms of addressing the issues which we presently face with North Korea but also in ensuring that this never happened again and regarding organizations that are doing good work in the field when he's and I are currently in discussions with one such organization unique Korea and I believe that in future the focus should be on educating younger age groups because this is really where we could have the most impact thank you human rights education of course is absolutely valuable and very important and Michael could you share with us some champions that you see that are carrying the mantle of what you've chronicled and are taking actions regularly to make sure North Korea is featured well there are so many civil society organizations working for human rights in North Korea that I hesitate to single one out but all the familiar and well-known international human rights bodies but also a large number of them in South Korea you don't get any from North Korea because of the rigid regime there but we were basically set up because of activism of civil society calling for a commission of inquiries they call for it over and over again but ultimately in 2013 it happened and we were set up and it wasn't a one-man show we had a very fine lawyer and human rights observer Marzuki Darusman and he was from Indonesia and a very fine activist from Serbia Sanya Berserker and so we three decided we were going to do this inquiry in a different way most UN inquiries are done in what I'll call the Napoleonic way the French law system it's the matter of going to a back room and reading all the reports and getting a report done but we did it in public and in our report every second page has quotes from the witnesses and as has been said by others in this program by doing that we spotlighted the human terms of the crisis of human rights in North Korea and I think that was the reason why there was such a result it is when the report came down it was a sensation in the United Nations they've never had a report done in this way and it led to the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry a very strong vote in the Human Rights Council extremely big vote in the General Assembly and then almost uniquely a decision of the General Assembly to recommend that it be referred to the Security Council because as has been said before by others human rights and international peace and security are both mentioned in the preambles to the General Charter of the United Nations and in the Universal Declaration so putting them together and intertwine led to the referral to the Security Council and the subject is on the agenda of the Security Council there was a meeting last December of the Security Council meeting more more recently and so it won't go away it's on the highest organs of the United Nations and what we need is our governments the governments of countries that respect human rights to be stalwart and vigilant in raising the issues presented in the report and COI and most especially the Republic of Korea South Korea under the previous administration of Moon Jae-in they were really very reluctant to upset North Korea because they thought softly softly and sweetly they might need to change and I think Mr Trump might have also thought that but it doesn't work with North Korea they've got too much of an investment in the King Kim dynasty and therefore it hasn't worked and that's why we've now got the problem which is being focused in the 10th anniversary of the COI the problem of what we do to convert words into action I agree actions speak louder than words but words are very important because they provide the record and the mobilization considered society to keep the focus of discussion on human rights abuses in North Korea and I hope that is going to happen in the 75th anniversary of the UDHR which we will be observing in December of this year an Australian Dr H. Lee Evans was in the chair as president of the General Assembly with the third session of the General Assembly in 1948 and he gathered the UDHR into action so we have a special commitment and knowledge of the universal declaration and I hope we're going to have a lot of countries getting behind this for the reflection on the 75th anniversary of the UDHR on the 10th of December thank you so much and it's really great to have that background you also then provide insight as we're looking on the 30th anniversary of the Bangkok Declaration of Peace which was crucial for civil society come together and it is great to see where we're at now but pointing out the blueprint for where we need to go forward. Wenice can you share with us your future vision for the future of human rights in North Korea? Sure it's a big question because there's so much work to be done and and to expect changes in North Korea it's it's it's not easy as activists we often all go through this sort of fatigue and sense of despondency almost that what can we really do about the people that are trapped in the country and I guess you know I just wanted to mention you know about the importance of the Holocaust education the global Holocaust education and genocide prevention institutions initiatives that have been really really working hard to spread the message of tolerance empathy understanding and you know that we're all humans whether we're Jewish South Korean North Korean Chinese half Chinese half North Korean really doesn't matter we're all humans and I think it's important that we look out for each other you know and intergovernmental organizations such as International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance have been very very active in terms of spreading this exact message and I think that Australia is a member since 2019 but South Korea isn't a member in fact Australia is the only country from the Asia Pacific region to be a member and they observe in country in New Zealand but I think we need to do better that more Asian countries such as Cambodia, China, South Korea should join organizations such as Aira and really yeah spreading keep spreading the message that more people would be encouraged to it is important as we just had the 78th session of the UN General Assembly open last week Jiyun can you share with us your vision for the future of human rights in North Korea oh yeah you know this week is Korea's special week you know the full moon is a two-stop so every year you know the two-stop is coming and we are nearly came especially you know the I still don't know where my brother but yet and you know and where about my younger brother so that is my hope one day we reunited with my family but this is not easy you know that is for me when the report came out you know I believed that it's North Korea quickly changing and my people please yeah it's the same as me but it's 10 years it's still happening still my country people invisible in this world so it's now as I am activities and also many people mentioned that this education is really important so you know the article two also mentioned the languages so many people think about that is the South Korea and North Korea same language we used but North Korean people used the totally different language because it's a North Korea radio is a game tonight they destroyed our personal language they always use the political languages so we are writing the political issues we listen to the only political issues you know but everything is we use the politicals so many North Korean defectors they sharing the story in the outside world they speaking is a kind of politics but you know there's many NGOs and also you know that translations they changed a lot of meanings so after it's our evidence is gone because this is a different language so I hopefully in future in educations or academics and NGOs they have to understand the North Korean languages because our language is not only language that is our memories and our survival story and the history so we have to is that we have to is put our original is that everything in the report thank you June for really reminding us how personal this is for you and for so many North Korean June can you briefly share your opinion it would be immensely positive if we could be stronger collaboration in this area especially collaboration between activists NGOs survivors even forums and platforms such as this Joshua this which we're hosting right now I believe that this is immensely powerful and I think that for education it would be wonderful for the various stakeholders in the various forces to join together to create something that will hopefully inspire the future generation thank you and Michael final words your vision for this important issue well my vision is that the world and in particular North Koreans should know that the United Nations cares that we care that we are on the issue and we are going to not give up but insist on delivering the respect for human rights which really we gave an a plan of action a roadmap in our report and good things were done there is a special rapporteur Elizabeth salmon who continues the work of the CLI and the votes as I said were very strong in the organs of the United Nations and as has been said by others in this program all of these issues are integrated the issue of human rights the issue of the environment the issue of nuclear weapons and the safety of our world where would we be if we didn't have the United Nations to provide a forum and to provide the people of the world with the opportunity through their nations to express their concerns about these issues we've established a field office in North Korea in South Korea which continues recording the stories of those who have suffered and we participate in programs such as this so that citizens of countries who are members of the United Nations will know and will lend their support to the action which the CLI recommended we mustn't forget the people of North Korea thank you the theme of never forget was a huge aspect of the creation of the UDHR and of course with the UN sustainable development goals that halfway that enlarging to make sure that climate is also part of the conversation we thank you all for joining us and we know we'll all stay involved to achieve the UDHR on the 75th anniversary going forward into the future Mahalo Nui thank you for joining us today