Over half a million sign petition saying they don’t want to be like the UK or Germany
South Koreans are revolting
against the arrival of Muslim refugees, with over half a million signing
a petition asserting that Muslim migrants don’t integrate and that they
don’t want their country to end up like the UK or Germany.
The controversy began when an influx
of nearly 1,000 asylum seekers from Yemen arrived on the South Korean
resort island of Jeju. They took advantage of a new visa waiver program
that allowed people from 186 countries to visit the island without a
tourist visa.
This led to 950 foreign nationals, the
majority from Yemen, arriving as tourists under a one month permit but
then immediately claiming asylum, a process that can take years while
they remain in the country.
“And local people here are worried,” said Hank Kim,
owner of the Core Travel Agency. “We have all read about the problems
that immigrants have caused in Europe — in Germany and France in
particular — and we do not want that to happen here.”
Emphasizing that South Koreans do not
think the Muslim religion is compatible with their culture, Kim added,
“They all have big families and they bring their own culture instead of
trying to adapt to the place where they live.”
With officials anticipating asylum
claims to double compared to last year, South Koreans are concerned that
economic migrants will exploit the system to take advantage of
healthcare and other benefits.
Over 520,000 people subsequently signed a petition opposing the arrival of Muslim refugees while around 700 attended a protest march in Seoul on Saturday.
Song Young-chae, a professor at the
Center for Global Creation and Collaboration at Seoul’s Sangmyung
University and one of the protest attendees, said South Koreans wanted
to avoid to same “crisis” that has befallen European countries who
opened their borders to mass Islamic immigration.
“We have seen on television just how
many problems are caused when a country like Germany or the UK is
relaxed about immigration and the damage it does to societies,” he said,
pinpointing pedophile grooming gangs and terrorism as two negative
side-effects that South Korea did not want to import.
“There are already Muslims living in
South Korea, many of whom have married a Korean and been granted
permanent residency here, but they still choose to live in their own
districts and make no effort to integrate into this society,” he said.
“They also attempt to convert Korean people into their religion.”
South Koreans being wary of mass
Islamic immigration is unsurprising given the level of animosity
generated in Europe by open border policies, where 55 per cent of Europeans now support a total ban on Muslim immigration.
Last year, only 121 people out of
9,942 who applied obtained refugee status in South Korea, emphasizing
how Asian countries allow very little Islamic immigration or immigration
period.
No comments:
Post a Comment