Sandra Bisson from St Ouen set up the petition calling on Chief Minister Ian Gorst and fellow politicians to ‘say no to granting refugees asylum in Jersey’. She says that Jersey – which is currently considering welcoming ‘five or six’ Syrian families – should instead support refugees via the Jersey Overseas Aid Commission.
Prior to the attacks in Paris on 13 November the change.org petition, which was set up a month ago, had been signed online by 250 people. Within hours of the terrorists killing 130 people in the French capital that figure had risen to 750. More than 1,250 people have now signed it.
The response mirrors patterns identified by polls in the UK, where a survey by The Times newspaper in the wake of the events in Paris found that 49 per cent of people thought that Britain should be accepting fewer or no refugees. That was up from 22 per cent in an earlier YouGov poll.
Last week Senator Gorst called on Islanders not to jump to conclusions about refugees following the events in Paris. He also said that the States was currently taking legal advice as to if the Island could take in refugees.
Mrs Bisson said that she had not advertised the petition following the Paris attacks because she did not want to ‘use people’s deaths’ to generate support.
‘It would be wrong to use people’s deaths, which were absolutely horrific, to generate support,’ she said. ‘What we are trying to do is not scaremonger, we really, really aren’t trying to be like that. We are trying to get people to support the genuine refugees in various camps, and I don’t mean the camps in France, using overseas aid.
‘But obviously Paris and the Russian plane crash, all of those things are going to make people sit up and take notice. One of the things I have found is the general apathy in Jersey about everything.’
She added that along with a number of other Islanders and while ministers were still considering their position on allowing refugees to come Jersey, she was now deciding what the next step would be, including whether to approach a States Member to take the petition to the Assembly.
