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I tried to fly to London on a fake passport [video]
- pbadenski 10y agoI was wondering if it's legal what this person did. I thought others would too. Here's what I found: "Although some asylum seekers might enter the UK illegally, once they have applied for asylum they are no longer ‘illegal’. Anyone seeking protection is entitled to stay in the UK while awaiting a decision on their asylum claim." (http://www.asylumaid.org.uk/the-asylum-process-made-simple http://www.asylumaid.org.uk/the-asylum-process-made-simple)
- countryqt30 10y agoWell, this is only true as long as UK is part of EU. It's an EU law.
- widforss 10y agoNo, it's in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 14.1: "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution."
- pjc50 10y agoNo, it's part of the UN convention on refugees: http://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html http://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html
- jvdl 10y agoI must be missing something. Why didn't he apply for asylum in France then?
- throwaway049 10y agoSome motivations for travelling on from France to UK (as mentioned in various news media over recent years) Smugglers telling people that it is better to live in UK (the smuggler then gets to charge for the trip). Easier to get work without papers Community of people from same country of origin More generous welfare provision (UK still gives 'normal' accommodation, other EU countries are re-purposing non-residential buildings to house asylum seekers)
- RockyMcNuts 10y agomore flexible / stronger / better paid labor markets ... easier to get a job in UK than France for most immigrants
- DominikR 10y agoSocial services don't pay enough.
- overlordalex 10y agoI haven't watched the video, but it would more likely be things like already having a basic grasp of English, being more familiar with the culture, etc, that would make integration easier.
- curiousgal 10y agoYou'll probably get downvoted but you are correct. As an Arab it sickens me how these "refugees" are choosing what country to stay in despite the fact they say they escaped war and torture. It saddens me how they are giving us, potential future immigrants with degrees and a desire to be functional parts of society, more bad rep.
- widforss 10y agoAs a refugee one is looking for a better life per definition. Surely the primary goal is to get away from war or threats of violence and death, but if you were starting over, wouldn't you want to start with the best possible odds?
- curiousgal 10y agoThe worst of those odds still beats living in Syria by a long mile believe me. For this particular guy, going for the "best possible odds" definitely doesn't justify the risk he took. In a nutshell, beggars can't be choosers.
- vidarh 10y agoOf course beggars can be choosers. What that statement generally means is that beggars can't generally afford to turn down charity, hoping for others to give something better. But in this case this is not what we are talking about, but a situation where someone has to decide which country they will try to apply for asylum in, amongst multiple possible options. In that case, they most definitively can choose to some extent, even though the alternatives may have different perceived risk profiles. And as with everything else, of course some people will choose badly.
- nraynaud 10y agoIt's essentially psychological, the UK is more popular amongst refugees, and they natively speak english, the 2 other big countries speak either French or German. I forgot to add: when the application is done, he's legally pinned to the country.
- ljf 10y agoFrom listening to him, he speaks excellent English - I might also assume he'd find it easier to settle here for that reason.
- krona 10y agoAs the original documentary laid out this week, one of the biggest motivations for them to get to the UK is that once they have asylum, it's far easier for them to get their dependents (the entire family) to move to the UK legally, for free. In other countries in the EU (Germany and France were mentioned), it can take 2-3 years for this to happen; in the UK it can take weeks.
- pjc50 10y agoWhy is this?
- glomph 10y agoProbably because France and Germany just accept a lot more asylum seekers.
- Fiahil 10y agoIndeed, Germany accepts more asylum seekers than any other in Europe. However, here in France, the problem is the bureaucracy involved. It's legendarily slow, inefficient, and painful. There is little political incentive to change it since our right wing (profoundly anti-immigration) has gained in popularity in recent years. More generally, anytime you'll have to deal with our administration, it will be incredibly painful (for foreigners and locals alike).
- Perixoog 10y agoHe's an English teacher.
- nraynaud 10y agoNo, it's directly Geneva Convention. There are some EU specific things, like the country of entry is responsible to handle the refugee status application, and the European Court Of Human rights is merciless with States giving in to their instincts on refugees, but the base principles are linked to the big treaties on war.
- roel_v 10y ago"and the European Court Of Human rights is merciless with States giving in to their instincts on refugees" Not disagreeing with you, just clarifying: the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU, and AFAIK there is no intention of Britain leaving the Council of Europe (essentially, complaints can be brought to the ECHR against members of the CoE).
- tremon 10y agoAFAIK there is no intention of Britain leaving the Council of Europe Britain's new PM seems to have that intent: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/25/uk-must-leave-european-convention-on-human-rights-theresa-may-eu-referendum http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/25/uk-must-leav...
- andyjohnson0 10y agoTheresa May (new UK Prime Minister) has unfortunately been very clear about her desire to leave the European Convention on Human Rights [1] though not afaik the Council of Europe. The Europhobic wing on the Conservative Party may be satisfied with just leaving the EU, or they may not, but I suspect the idea of abrogating the treaty will reappear at some point post-Brexit. (Just to be clear: I profoundly disagree with her on this.) [1] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/25/uk-must-leave-european-convention-on-human-rights-theresa-may-eu-referendum http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/25/uk-must-leav...
- matthewmacleod 10y agoWhile I agree with this, I would point out that she explicitly ruled out moving forward with this policy as prime minister.
- nraynaud 10y agoHe broke quite a few laws (and documented it), but there are strong treaties protecting refugees against some national laws. He could go to jail if France were to sue him for using a fake document, but that would not change that he's protected against deportation to Syria.
- tankenmate 10y agoAnd since he wanted to go to the UK the French authorities are more likely to caution him rather than jail him as once he successfully leaves then he is no longer France's problem.
- jkot 10y agoI am Czech, he used passport of my country. For fake passport there is a sentence for upto 3 years in jail.
- thats_cute 10y agoThis person clearly knew the risks. And what's the harm? It's not like he was visiting your country.
- jkot 10y agoThat passport has an owner. It could come from robbery... and identity theft is nothing nice...
- smcl 10y agoSince you're Czech you probably know that "Ferredo Nesterova" is not a Czech man's name, so I suspect it was never a real passport.
- JorgeGT 10y agoThis is like saying a "Javier Fernández" cannot be a British citizen because it is not a British man's name. And he specifically says (00:40) that the passport digitally contains a different picture, of maybe the real owner.
- smcl 10y agoNope, it's much simpler (and I wouldn't make that judgement). Male Czech having a feminine surname ("-ova") probably wouldn't happen. Edit: you updated your comment with the bit about the picture so it looks like I ignored it even though I didnt. He's speculating, we have no idea on the origins of the passport.
- JorgeGT 10y ago
- DominikR 10y agoI just fail to understand how the BBC can portray this as something great. I mean the guy tries to enter Britain 2 times with fake passports and he was already in France. (what is he fleeing from in France?) And then there's the fact that this guy had contacts to criminals that can create fake passports. I guess nobody did something about that too, their smuggling and fake passport business is probably still making profits!
- oolongCat 10y agoWell, let's hear what you would do if you were in a war torn country, if you had to fear for your life, if you were tortured by horrible people. There are so many innocent people, who has nothing to do with the violence. Show some compassion towards your fellow man, please.
- joosters 10y agoWhat makes you think that the BBC are portraying this as 'great'? The report contains no views other than the asylum seeker himself (and of course he thinks it great, it was his aim after all!)
- DominikR 10y agoOh come on, just listen to the music they overlay at the end when he has tears in his eyes because he is so happy that he made it. Sounds like a happy end to me. Edit: And he is no asylum seeker in my book. He was in France so what is he fleeing from?
- pskocik 10y agoSmuggling tip: On a Slavic passport, if your last name ends in ova, it says you're female.
- patates 10y agoInteresting... So one's surname changes according to their gender?
- ktt 10y agoExactly but not for all surnames. See: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-in-Russian-culture-a-womans-last-name-must-end-with-the-letter-A?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-in-Russian-culture-a-w...
- bontoJR 10y agoYes, exactly, in fact I thought he has been caught because of that, not about the credit card thing... Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_name#Female_surnames https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_name#Female_surnames
- stratocumulus 10y agoOnly the endings, for example the feminine form of Novák becomes Nováková. When moving to a country where there's no distinction, one usually stays by the masculine form in the official documents, regardless of gender. For example, an American-born daughter of Polish immigrants inherits and uses Kowalski as her last name, but if she were born in Poland, she would use the form Kowalska (and her son would be called Kowalski, etc.)
- pavel_lishin 10y agoI'm Russian, and it's very jarring sometimes to meet or read about the daughter of immigrants who has a traditionally Russian name, but keeps the masculine last name. (e.g., Katerina Ivanov - which sounds really strange due to the gender mismatch.)
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- thats_cute 10y agoThis kind of reminds me when I would be writing a nodejs application, and I have to jump into C to get down and dirty with the optimizations. The kernel can only do so much when it's under panic, so I believe I made the correct choice.
- Retr0spectrum 10y agoAre you a Markov chain? Edit: For those curious, this is what the parent comment said: This kind of reminds me when I would be writing a nodejs application, and I have to jump into C to get down and dirty with the optimizations. The kernel can only do so much when it's under panic, so I believe I made the correct choice.
- ommunist 10y agoPart of Mrs May propaganda.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoIf it's propaganda, it's probably not propaganda for her, she's taken a very hard line on immigration.
- ommunist 10y agoMaking immigration the issue at BBC. This is propaganda. Britain instead of trying to solve internal economical problems, caused by greed and incompetence, goes the easy way - demonisation of immigration.
- jglauche 10y agoDoes anyone have a mirror that does not require flashplayer to be installed?
- cantrevealname 10y agoSee my tip elsewhere in the comments about the Flash problem.
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- cantrevealname 10y agoA tip for anyone who can't play the video: If you're trying to view the video under Windows, you'll get an error that says, "You need to install Flash Player to play this content. Download Flash Player now." Tip: Install a browser add-on to change the user agent to report "iPad" or another platform for which a Flash Player does not exist. The video will then play. I personally use the Firefox extension called "User Agent Switcher" which works well. It's so ridiculous that we have to do this. I thought Flash was dead. I'd like to ask the BBC's web developers why they don't just show the non-Flash video if Flash is not installed in the user's browser?
- bisby 10y agoThis would make sense if they didn't have a non Flash option (like Twitch.tv for instance, although they just announced an HTML5 beta). But if they have a way to serve the video without flash, it just blows my mind.
- jsingleton 10y agoiPlayer defaults to HTML5 if flash isn't installed, but this hasn't been rolled out to the news player yet by the looks of it. If I visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/html5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/html5 in Firefox with no Flash installed then I get: Flash is not installed or enabled If you would prefer not to use the HTML5 Player beta on this device you must download or enable Flash.
- 0xmohit 10y agoBBC recently figured out how to (partially) migrate to HTTPS [0]. Give them a few years to realize that video can be played without using Flash too. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/f6f50d1f-a879-4999-bc6d-6634a71e2e60 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/f6f50d1f-a879-49...
- jsingleton 10y agoGood news, but a shame it will stop me injecting a fake breaking news banner. Will have to settle for just DNS blocking, but that doesn't cache for as long. https://unop.uk/block-bbc-breaking-news-on-all-devices/ https://unop.uk/block-bbc-breaking-news-on-all-devices/
- kleiba 10y agoI don't quite understand it, but he was already in France when he tried to fly to London, right? He could have just applied for asylum there, it's all EU. Or was this in the light of the UK at some point in the future leaving the EU?
- AdamN 10y agoThe UK is not part of the Schengen zone so being a temporary resident of France would not entitle you to enter the UK.
- kleiba 10y agoYes, you're right. But my point was: if what he wants is to seek asylum because he's from Syria, he could as well have applied for it in the E.U.
- thesimon 10y agoYou can't really apply for asylum in the "EU", you need to apply for asylum at a country. Often there are also travel restrictions in place and asylum status e.g. in Greece doesn't allow you to just move to Germany, Italy or France. And as some comments have pointed out: With very good English, your opportunites are obviously a lot better in the UK than in any other country.
- JshWright 10y agoGiven his fluency, it seems likely he would prefer a primarily English speaking country (it's likely a win-win, as he is far more likely to be able to become a productive member of society in a country where he speaks the language).
- dmytroi 10y agoWhat's annoying for me that's for other people (non-asylum, non-EU) the system is very bureaucratic and usually not so supportive, for example for someone from post-soviet country it might take up to a year to get a working permit in Sweden. Even if you apply for EU blue card it doesn't help much. But for asylum applications there is a "fast track" with all support possible, sure some part of them are fleeing from war, but some (or even probably most) of them are just economic asylum seekers, just check last statistic from Sweden [1]. It might be safe to assume that economic asylum seekers are looking for better life, which is fair and reasonable, but in this case the system is broken : why economic asylum seekers should get easier/faster/priority process over workers from non-EU countries, or why workers from non-EU countries should even bother with immigration process if they can just apply for asylum and be done with it? - [1] http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Statistik/Asylsokande---de-storsta-landerna.html http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Statistik...
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago> why economic asylum seekers should get easier/faster/priority process over workers from non-EU countrie What makes you think they do? The UK locks many asylum seekers in immigration detention centres.
- kixpanganiban 10y agoThis was incredibly moving. I don't come across content like this in HN that often. Kudos, he was brave.