UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that US President Donald Trump’s order to imposed ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim majority nations ‘is not the best way to protect America or any other country’.
Voicing his hope that the President will soon review his order, Guterres on Wednesday said, “In my opinion, this is not the way to best protect the US or any other country in relation to the serious concerns that existed about the possibility of terrorist infiltration. I don't think this is the effective way to do so."
"What was lacking was a capacity to have a comprehensive approach to the problem," he added.
The Secretary-General further said that “it is very important to check the very dramatic situations the refugees are facing when they have no chance to reach protection”.
"And I think this measure should be removed sooner, rather than later," he opined.
Guterres’s reaction comes a day after his office issued a statement, saying that ‘refugees fleeing conflict and persecution are entitled to protection’.
"Refugees fleeing conflict and persecution are finding more and more borders closed and increasingly restricted access to the protection they need and are entitled to receive, according to international refugee law," the statement had said.
Under the executive order signed by Trump last week, refugees from all over the world will be denied US entry for 120 days while all immigration from so-called ‘countries with terrorism concerns’ will be suspended for 90 days. The countries included in the ban are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
