A week is being dedicated to political asylum by the Catholic Church of England and Wales from 20 to 25 June. In a press release published to mark Refugee Week, Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue points out: “The fact that the world still finds a need for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and refugee NGOs serves as a sobering reminder of the international community’s continuing failure to prevent violence, persecution and poverty, and other root causes of conflict and displacement”. O’Donoghue continues: “The UNHCR tells us that the world’s refugee population continues to fall, but protracted refugee situations remain as people continue to flee from their homes in countries such as Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Iraq and Uzbekistan. It is clear that the problem of forced migration has not gone away, and it is likely to remain one of the major concerns of the international community in the 21st century”. In the UK citizenship applications fell by 8% in 2004 and reached the figure of 135,000, in comparison with an increase of 28% in 2003. There were 8260 political refugees in the first quarter of 2005, an 18% reduction over the comparable figure for the first quarter of 2004. There were 700,000 immigrants with citizenship, 70% from Africa, from the Indian subcontinent and from Asia.
