scholarly journals Mystery ships and risky "Boat People" : a discourse analysis of newsprint media and coverage of the 2009 Tamil refugee migration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Bradimore
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Security Framework ◽  
Public Dialogue ◽  
Boat People ◽  
The Press ◽  
October 17

This study seeks to identify how Canadian newsprint media portrayed seventy-six Tamil refugees who arrived off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia on October 17, 2009. The corpus consists of articles published between October 2009 to January 2010 from The Vancouver Sun, The Toronto Star, and National Post. Using discourse analysis, I questioned issues of framing, representation, and identity and sought to understand how the Tamil refugee migration was understood within public dialogue. The study found that there was an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees as the press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism, and constructed the refugees as 'risky'. The discussion placed security -- rather than human rights -- as a focal point and portrayed the immigration system as both "failing" and "abused" by "bogus claimants". This security framework provided the necessary political environment for refugee reform Bill C-11 to be ushered through parliament later that spring.

scholarly journals Mystery ships and risky "Boat People" : a discourse analysis of newsprint media and coverage of the 2009 Tamil refugee migration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Bradimore
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Security Framework ◽  
Public Dialogue ◽  
Boat People ◽  
The Press ◽  
October 17

This study seeks to identify how Canadian newsprint media portrayed seventy-six Tamil refugees who arrived off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia on October 17, 2009. The corpus consists of articles published between October 2009 to January 2010 from The Vancouver Sun, The Toronto Star, and National Post. Using discourse analysis, I questioned issues of framing, representation, and identity and sought to understand how the Tamil refugee migration was understood within public dialogue. The study found that there was an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees as the press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism, and constructed the refugees as 'risky'. The discussion placed security -- rather than human rights -- as a focal point and portrayed the immigration system as both "failing" and "abused" by "bogus claimants". This security framework provided the necessary political environment for refugee reform Bill C-11 to be ushered through parliament later that spring.

scholarly journals Mystery Ships and Risky Boat People: Tamil Refugee Migration in the Newsprint Media

2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Bradimore ◽  
Harald Bauder
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Boat People ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
The Press ◽  
Droits Humains ◽  
October 17 ◽  
Analyse De Discours

ABSTRACT On October 17, 2009, seventy-six Tamil refugees arrived off the coast of Victoria, British Columbia. This study examines how the Canadian newsprint media portrayed this event and in which policy context this coverage occurred. We analyze articles published between October 2009 and January 2010 from the Vancouver Sun, the Toronto Star, and the National Post. A discourse analysis addresses issues of framing, representation, and identity to understand how the Tamil refugee migration was represented in media debate. Our results show that there was an overall negative representation of the Tamil refugees as the press emphasized issues of criminality and terrorism, and constructed the refugees as risk. The discussion established security—rather than human rights—as a focal point and portrayed the immigration system as both “failing” and “abused” by “bogus claimants.” This security-oriented framework provided a discursive background for the refugee reform Bill C-11 to be ushered through Parliament later that summer.RÉSUMÉ Le 17 octobre 2009, soixante-seize réfugiés tamouls sont arrivés au large de Victoria, en Colombie-Britannique. Cette étude examine la manière dont la presse canadienne a couvert cet événement et le contexte politique dans lequel cette couverture a eu lieu. Pour ce faire, nous analysons des articles publiés entre octobre 2009 et janvier 2010 dans le Vancouver Sun, le Toronto Star et le National Post. Une analyse de discours porte sur le cadrage, la représentation et l’identité afin de comprendre comme les médias ont dépeint cette migration des réfugiés tamouls. Nos résultats montrent que la couverture tendait à être négative, la presse mettant l’accent sur des questions de criminalité et de terrorisme et décrivant les réfugiés comme posant des risques. La couverture était axée sur la sécurité—plutôt que sur les droits humains—et décrivait le système d’immigration comme étant défaillant et abusé par de faux demandeurs d’asile. Ce cadrage soulignant la sécurité a offert un appui discursif pour la Loi C-11 sur la réforme concernant les réfugiés, passée au Parlement en été 2010.

Deconstructing Turkey’s “Open Door” Policy towards Refugees from Syria

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Togral Koca
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Security Framework ◽  
Liberal Policy ◽  
The Way

Turkey has followed an “open door” policy towards refugees from Syria since the March 2011 outbreak of the devastating civil war in Syria. This “liberal” policy has been accompanied by a “humanitarian discourse” regarding the admission and accommodation of the refugees. In such a context, it is widely claimed that Turkey has not adopted a securitization strategy in its dealings with the refugees. However, this article argues that the stated “open door” approach and its limitations have gone largely unexamined. The assertion is, here, refugees fleeing Syria have been integrated into a security framework embedding exclusionary, militarized and technologized border practices. Drawing on the critical border studies, the article deconstructs these practices and the way they are violating the principle of non-refoulement in particular and human rights of refugees in general. 

Proselytism and Ostentation: a Critical Discourse Analysis of the European Court of Human Rights’ Case Law on Religious Symbols

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 162-188
Author(s):  
Giulia Evolvi ◽  
Mauro Gatti
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Religious Symbols ◽  
European Court ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This article focuses on the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) case law about religious symbols (N=27) from 2001 to 2018, exploring the following questions: What discourses does the ECtHR employ in cases about religious symbols? How do ECtHR’s discourses about religious symbols evolve in time? The data is innovatively analyzed through critical discourse analysis and leads to two findings: first, the ECtHR tends to endorse ‘Christian secularism,’ considering Christian symbols as compatible with secularism but not Muslim symbols; second, ECtHR discourses occasionally become more favorable to Muslim applicants over time, but the evolution of case law is not linear.

Human Rights and Gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 194-210
Author(s):  
Melanie Hoewer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
National Level ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
Security Framework ◽  
Self Perception ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Two Sides

What explains the disconnect between two images of the Irish state: the champion for gender human rights in matters of foreign affairs, and laggard on these rights internally? Is there a disconnect, or are these two sides of the same coin? Hailed internationally for its progressive promotion of the women, peace and security framework, policymaking at the national level reinforces multidimensional experiences of inequality for those most powerless in Irish society. A more nuanced, intersectional understanding of human rights and equality is central to understanding this ambivalent approach of the Irish state. This chapter explores the roots of Ireland’s position on gender rights and assesses Ireland’s role as champion for gendered human rights in the international sphere. Reviewing existing contrasts and contradictions, it provides a discussion of reasons and possible remedies for addressing these, and an explanation of what this may indicate about the Irish polity and its global self-perception.

Press Performance, Human Rights, and Private Power as a Threat

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Edwin Baker
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
Magic Bullet ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Free Press ◽  
Government Power ◽  
The Press ◽  
Private Power

The essay concerns the manner private power threatens the proper democratic role of the press or mass media. But first, Part I examines two preliminary conceptual matters involved in locating this discussion in the context of a conference on private power as a threat to human rights: 1) the relation of human rights to private power in general. This relation is complicated due to fact that human rights can themselves be seen as the assertion of private power against government or against collective power while, depending on how conceptualized, human rights can be improperly threatened by private power even while private power operates in a generally lawful manner; 2) involves the relation of press freedom and human rights. Here I argue that human rights are ill-conceived if offered as embodying any particular right in respect to the press—more specifically, I argue that a free press is not a human right—but argue instead that an ideal media order that is embodied in a broad conception of free press provides the soil in which human rights can flourish and the armor that offers them protection. Both government power and private power are necessary for and constitute threats to these supportive roles of a free press.Political-legal theory—or in constitutional democracies, possibly constitutional theory—should offer some guide to how the tightrope between government as threat and government as source of protection against private threats ought to be walked. That is, the goal is to find both proper limits on government power and proper empowerment of government to respond to private threats. Part II examines the variety of private threats to the proper role of the press. It focuses on two forms of threats: first, market failures that can be expected in relatively normal functioning of the market; second, problems related to the purposeful use of concentrated economic power. Responsive policies are multiple—no magic bullet but varying different governmental (as well as private) responses are appropriate. However, Part III illustrates this point by considering only two types of governmental policies, both of which I have recently been involved in advocating: first, government promotion of dispersal of concentrated power by means of ownership rules and policies; second, tax subsidies in the form of tax credits for a significant portion of journalists salaries as a means to correct for underproduction of journalism on theory that this journalism generally produces significant positive externalities.

Expanding Boundaries of Human Rights in (East) Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-110
Author(s):  
Philip C. Aka
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Law And Politics

To what extent has politics in Uganda changed since the era of egregious human rights abuses under General Idi Amin? Using the new book on law and politics in Uganda under Museveni referenced below as focal point, this essay answers that question in a discussion that also sketches three themes, testimony to the plasticity of the human rights doctrine, including the expanding boundaries of human rights in (East) Africa.

scholarly journals Obesity as a Covered Disability Under Employment Discrimination Law: An Analysis of Canadian Approaches

2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 620-649
Author(s):  
Harris L. Zwerling
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
North America ◽  
Employment Discrimination ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Central Thesis ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Antidiscrimination Laws

Since the passage of the first anti-discrimination laws in North America, the number of groups or classes protected has slowly expanded. People with disabilities are one of the more recent groups to be covered by such laws. No Canadian human rights statute includes the obese or overweight as a separate designated group. British Columbia is the only jurisdiction in which obesity per se has been found to be a covered disability. All other Canadian jurisdictions that have explicitly addressed the issue require claimants to prove that their obesity is a disabling condition and has an underlying involuntary medical cause. This paper examines the treatment of the obese under the antidiscrimination laws of the Canadian federal and provincial jurisdictions, focusing primarily upon the laws of Ontario. Its central thesis is that despite the reticence of various human rights agencies, there is ample legal basis for including obesity as a covered disability under human rights law.

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