“What is the difference between migrants and refugees?”, asks Panos in Athens. “Are all the European countries applying the same procedures to deal with them?”
The answer is from Jean-François Ploquin, Director of the French NGO Forum Réfugiés:
“Migrants by definition are people who go from one place to another, refugees are those who do it because they are seeking protection because they flee a major risk to their lives or physical integrity and who seek refuge – this protection they do not have in their countries of origin.
“The definition of refugee is a written text that’s already old – “the Geneva Convention of 1951“http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html. It was produced during the postwar period. Today 145 states in the world have ratified it. This Refugee Convention provides for a person who is persecuted or fears persecution for reasons related to race, religion, nationality and membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Those are the categories
