Religious leaders ask British government to help refugees

Religious leaders from across the United Kingdom published Monday an open letter to the British government demanding help for refugees.

In the letter by the Interfaith Refugee Initiative to Prime Minister Theresa May, the signatories considered that the government’s response to the refugee crisis was slow and narrow.

“In the face of the unfolding human catastrophe, there are immediate and viable steps that the Government can take to offer sanctuary to more refugees,” said the letter.

British authorities had promised to take in only 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next four years, and former PM David Cameron decided to accept 3,000 refugee children registered in France, Italy and Greece.

But the religious leaders said Government should create more safe and legal travel routes and adopt more family reunion policies.

“Under the present immigration rules, a British doctor of Syrian origin could not bring her parents from a refugee camp in Lebanon _ even though they were refugees and she could support and house them,” they wrote.

The letter denounced that families could only be reunited through desperate irregular journeys that were unsafe and often ended in easilyavoided tragedies.

Among the signatories were former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain Harun Rashid Khan, as well as leaders from a variety of Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian groups.