According to “The Independent”, the British government is funding Seefar, a company established in Hong Kong, to convince the candidates for exile not to take the road.
Some 700,000 pounds sterling (835,000 euros). According to daily revelations The Independent of Sunday, it is the sum paid by the British Home Office to the company Seefar, established in Hong Kong, to dissuade Afghan migrants from joining the United Kingdom. As the Taliban stood at the gates of power and the country sank into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, Seefar led a communication campaign in the country in 2020, supported by the British government. The goal? To give up the Afghans who would like to take the road to Great Britain.
“We will return you”, can we read in white capital letters on a photo showing a group of migrants. Images like this abound on Seefar’s social media. Presented as a non-profit company, this company has existed since 2014. Taking the visuals of international NGOs, it looks like a refugee aid organization, at first glance.
Bright future
On her website, she promises to support vulnerable migrants and gives them a bright future. But behind the veneer of its communication, Seefar is an opaque company, financed in particular by governments like that of the United Kingdom. She qualifies herself as being specialized in “migratory behavior change”. To convince potential candidates for exile not to join Great Britain, the company relies on studies carried out in the country, and the various reports of which are published on its site.
If the British government did not officially associate itself with the communication campaign in Afghanistan, denying any direct link, it nevertheless financed it. The UK ministry’s public expenditure records list 12 separate payments and grants made to Seefar between 2016 and 2018, with a maximum amount of £ 120,000 each. But without mentioning the details of these orders.
This Seefar campaign is not the UK’s only migration policy action. A branch of sites declined in several languages was discovered, in particular “The Migrant Project”, a site which intends to fight against illegal immigration by advocating legal alternatives … but without providing information on the asylum application procedure, as revealed The Independent last July. To advertise these sites on social networks like Facebook or Instagram, the Interior Ministry has spent more than 20,000 pounds (23,800 euros). These communication campaigns are said to have targeted 16 million people.
“Avoid risks”
Officially, Great Britain justifies this policy by the will “To avoid the risks taken on the migratory routes”. But unofficially, it’s about deterring immigration. However, the island is far from being the country in Europe which hosts the most Afghan refugees: they were 3,227 to seek asylum there in 2020. When Afghanistan again fell under the yoke of the Taliban in August 2021, the British government pledged to welcome 20,000 refugees from the country. Finally, only 5,000 are authorized to set foot in the territory for the moment.
Since 2016, as in many European countries, the United Kingdom has tightened up its migration policy. A dynamic which was accentuated last year with a reform of the asylum system. Under the leadership of the Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, the new bill proposes to create an immigrant status of “Second category”, for migrants arriving illegally on British soil. And London does not seem willing to do without Seefar’s services: the government has already decided to grant the company up to £ 500,000 in additional public funds in the near future, under a new contract.