**8In Britain and across much of Europe, public opinion has swung against refugee claimants. Growing numbers of asylum-seekers and antagonistic press coverage have fuelled the change. A project is now under way to try to reverse the tide, but as Gemini News Service reports, it may not be enough. Mike Crawley writes from London***

ITS a blissful suburban scene on the television screen, one that could be found in any western country: a girl rides a bicycle, a boy watches cartoons, a couple makes a pot of tea.

Suddenly, explosions shatter the neighbourhood calm. Tanks prowl outside the suburban homes, firing on them. Soldiers kick in doors and rattle of rounds from machine-

'This kind of thing happens every day." says the voice-over, "turning people like you into refugees."'

It’s a TV advertisement produced by the European Commission and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), part of a campaign to try to improve public opinion about asylum -seekers.

By showing white middleclass people going about their dally lives, the commercial tries to make its target audience empathise with refugees and say: They're no different from us."

A similar theme runs through the other ads in the campaign. A second television ad depicts a band of armed thugs bursting’into a church and abducting a woman from the congregation,

In a radio advert, a teacher is leading a history class when soldiers arrive to confiscate their books. "They’re not our kind of history books," barks an officer.

A print advertisement shows a man putting a wedding ring on the pale, thin finger of a woman under the heading." With this ring 1 thee condemn,." the text explains that people Sometimes become refugees because they marry someone from the "wrong" ethnic group and incur the anger of authorities.

All the ads conclude: "Now you know where refugees are coming from, you can make them feel a bit more welcome."

Many in the British public are not particularly welcoming towards the growing number of asylum-seekers coming to the country’s shores. A new poll showed 53 per cent of respon-

dents want the country’s asylum laws tightened. When asked if people who have genuinely suffered political persecution abroad should.be allowed to slay in Britain, one in three said No.

Similar sentiment is gaining ground around Europe, prompting the ad campaign.

"Too many people are turning their backs on refugees." says Hope Hanlan, the UNHCR representative in Britain.

'Those who manage to reach this country were victims who should now be welcomed as survivors. Surely they deserve help and acceptance instead of mistrust."

Hanlan blames elements of the press — what she calls "the literary equivalent of 1970s skinheads" — for worsening public opinion of asylum-seekers. She says the advertising campaign is "a challenge to the rampant sensationalism, the distortion that is the public's daily diet as far as refugees are concerned."

In one local paper, a writer wanted to "flush refugees down the sewer like the rest of the garbage," a comment that is now the subject of a Press Complaints Commission investigation.

"Brutal crimes of the asylum-seekers," roared a frontpage headline in the Daily Mail, a widely read tabloid. Other papers have complained in both news and editorial pages that refugees are flocking to Britain to cash in on state benefits.

In the publics mind, the distinction between refugees and illegal economic migrants has become so blurred that the word "refugee" is now a playground slur hurled by children.

Refugees" don’t come to look for charity." Says Hanlan. 'The genuine refugee is so grateful to be safe here that they will do anything. They don't want charity. They don't want food vouchers. They want to live a normal life,"

The brunt of the world's refugee crisis has long been borne by developing countries and that's still the case today,

with nations like Pakistan. Tanzania and Ethiopia playing host to large numbers of people fleeing persecution. Of the 12 million people currently classified as refugees worldwide. 4.7 million are in Asia and 3.4 million are in Africa.

Britain meanwhile is home to just over 100.000, a mere 0.85 per cent of the world's refugees and 3.5 per cent of Europe's refugees. Yet listen to much of the press coverage in Britain and you would think the island was being swarmed.

It is true that despite the small percentages, the number of asylum-seekers coming to Britain is growing. Last year, some 46,000 asylum claims were field in Britain, against 26.200 in 1990.

The increase was prompted in part by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ensuing violent breakup of Yugoslavia, and the release of pent-up intolerance toward ethnic minorities in the former eastern bloc. The nasty civil wars plaguing places like Somalia. Afghanistan. Algeria and central Africa have also played a role.

The numbers are still small enough that they could easily be absorbed without a hiccup amid London's population of seven million. But many of the asylum-seekers wait for a decision on their claims in smaller towns in coastal countries like Kent and Essex, arid their numbers are proportionately large enough to have a Visible impact on social services.

The recent news that dozens of Romanian asylum-seekers were being housed in a senior citizens' care ward that had just been closed down did not go over well in the town of Dartford. A disproportionate amount of media coverage did not help the matter.

The outcry over asylumseekers has proved a touchy issue for Britain's Labour government sensitive as it is to public opinion yet conscious of its humanitarian roots. When it introduced its new asylum policy on 9 February, it leaned toward public opinion, taking

away cash benefits from refugee claimants and embarking on plans to cluster asylum seekers in empty public housing estates.

A major obstacle facing the EU/UNHCR advertising campaign is that it needs to rely on the generosify of media outlets, even the ones that have run nasty stories about refugees The £400,000 budget for the campaign does not include enough to pay for advertising time or space, so they are asking for freebies.

As government-owned media. the BBC will run the ads and it is possible that some of the more progressive newspapers like The Guardian will do-nate Space. But its readers are already sympathetic: the bloke who is angry at "bogus asylumseekers typically reads a tabloid.

"We're unfortunately not very optimistic that certain tabloids will run this campaign." acknowledges Lyndall Sachs, UNHCR’s London information officer and the person who has to try to persuade me-dia outlets to run the ads free.

Hanlan admits: "If people refuse to accept the ads. we will have a big problem."

An expert in political communication says £400.000 is not much money in the world of advertising. Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, a Cambridge University lecturer in marketing, also analysed the adverts and is sceptical that the campaign will make much of a dent in public opinion.

"It’s a competent and smooth campaign, but I think it could have made far more out of the material.” says O’Shaughnessy. "I don't think these advertisements are going to be remembered by people. We re not left with anything smouldering in the mind."

He says the ads are too bland and conservative. He argues that a far more effective advertising campaign is one that generates a lot of controversy and becomes a news event in itself, commanding coverage, comment and publicity.