To mark Refugee Week, the Bristol Migrants’ Rights Centre in association with Bristol Festival of Ideas presents Phillip Cole and Christien van den Anker in conversation. The United Nations Convention Relating to Refugees (1951) promises asylum for persons who ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion’are outside their national countries. Today many millions of people worldwide have this status and others, so-called asylum-seekers are trying to get it. Yet states in the wealthy North have increasingly tried to stop the persecuted from reaching their shores and politicians often seek to stigmatize them as “bogus”, as economic migrants in disguise. The issue of refugees has therefore become inextricably mixed up with the issue of immigration in general, with issues surrounding trafficking, the right to work, and living in a multi-ethnic and multicultural society. Tonight’s discussion will be moderated by Christopher Bertram, University of Bristol.