Sánchez speaks out about anti-migrant 'xenophobia' at UN début
Monday, October 1, 2018 @ 11:52 AM
SPAIN'S president Pedro Sánchez made his United Nations début appearance yesterday (Thursday), speaking publicly at the organisation's AGM to explain and defend his immigration policies.
Reports released today quote him as calling on all member nations to do their bit and saying nationalism had no place in modern society, especially when migrants' wellbeing and even lives were at risk. Assisting migrants stranded out to sea is a 'moral imperative' at a time when 'global challenges' were on the table, including refugees and what is often termed 'economic migration', specifically coined to cover those escaping third-world poverty and seeking a better life and work in the first world so they could support their families at home.
“And a time like this does not need nationalist messages, or those that exclude – it's time to forge a new cooperative leadership based upon the willingness not just to listen to others, but to understand their reasoning, to take on a profound feeling of empathy and to realise that no single party has a monopoly on the truth,” Sánchez said, very directly and strongly.
He called for all UN members to recognise the 'issues' that the 'migration drama' is causing in recipient countries, and commitment to those States, as well as 'above all, justice and fair distribution of responsibility' in which 'everyone has the obligation to help'. Referring to xenophobic and far-right sentiments in some countries – without naming them – Sánchez reminded everyone present that Spain had been 'battered by the financial crisis like few other nations in western Europe', yet, despite this, 'the immense majority of society' has 'never turned its back on the migration drama'.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com