Talk:André Shepherd

Opener
This is the beginning of the talk page for André Shepherd (Gushagelberg (talk) 22:04, 20 December 2008 (UTC))

I erased the recently added tag for the US Army portal. I don't think it's all that relavent to this page. The person who added it also added the section "see also" which already existed. Perhaps someone can convince me that the link is necessary. There is also already a link to the wiki article on the US Army. (Gushagelberg (talk) 16:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC))

Link to the press release added and removed the NPOV label. --Neozoon 20:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"second U.S. soldier..."
I keep seeing the reference to Shepherd being the second U.S. soldier to apply for refugee status in Germany, but I never see any references to the first. Anyone know who this was, when it was, the details of the asylum claim, and the outcome of the case? Hzoi (talk) 21:49, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * In German news sources this case is references often as "first case of US soldier seeking asylum" (e.g. http://www.connection-ev.de/z.php?ID=183 or http://henningswunderbarewebwelt.blogspot.com/2008/12/erster-us-soldat-beantragt-asyl-in.html ) --Neozoon 22:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

__________________________ I strongly doubt that Mr Sheperd is either the 1st or the 2nd US soldier to apply for asylum in Gernany. If the origin for this is a press report, that doesn't make it necessarily authoritative. Newspaper stories about refugee cases can be notoriously sloppy with regard to facts. Few writers handling such stories really know much about refugee issues, statistics, etc.

As of the 1990s, Americans had been seeking asylum at "a steady trickle of about 1000 per decade." Germany and Canada were the countries with the largest numbers of those who were actually granted asylum.

Under the Bush Administration (2000 – 2008) the numbers of Americans seeking asylum exploded to 400 in 2006 alone.

It's believed that a significant percentage of these are AWOL or otherwise connected with avoiding military service. But in fact there is very little reliable data about US citizens who seek asylum: because no one's collecting it.

Large numbers of men evading the draft in the Vietnam War also fled abroad. Canada gave "sanctuary for war resisters, over 100,000 draft dodgers and deserters during the Vietnam era."[8] (See [] Countries willing to incur frowns from Washington in this way tend to be in a minority. At that time it was mostly Canada and Sweden. I'm not sure if this was done under asylum law per se.

I suggest adding this link to the article: www.refugeesfromtheusa.org. It's the only advocacy organization for Americans seeking asylum at this writing (although some others focus specifically on helping US military personnel.) Refugees (talk) 21:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

______________________________________________ After checking in with editorial, I went ahead and added the link to Justice For Refugees From the US, as it seems appropriate for this article. I invite other editors to look over the website to see that the link is called for here. Refugees (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * In the German-language article discussion, there is a casual mention of Jeffrey Carney who might have sought asylum in Germany. -- marilyn.hanson (talk) 03:33, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Notability issue
I think Sheperd's case definitely qualifies for notability standards. It's an important test case, which has received international attention and support from experts in the field.

The UN High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR) publishes annual statistics on refugees worldwide. The latest available counted around 4000 US citizens as either recognized as refugees, under strict international criteria; or waiting for a decision in their asylum claim.

However, they remain effectively invisible in the media, public dialogue, etc. Sheperd is one of very few who've managed to make their voices heard and their case known. So in a sense, he's a representative of thousands of victims of human rights crime who are voiceless and invisible. I'd say that's pretty important. Refugees (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Categories
I'm looking over the categories for this article. I sort of gather that these are pre-set existing categories, in the Wikipedia system (which I'm not greatly familiar with yet.)

But I've some questions about these categories. Is it necessary that this article is called "military history" only?

This is about refugee / asylum issues. It seems to me that it belongs in that category. Can it be in both?

I also take issue with the "low importance" designation. People would probably call, for instance, Edward Snowden a higher importance bio. Yet these two should be linked, along with others, pertaining to US citizens seeking asylum.

There are 17-26 million refugees in the world today. It's a desparate condition, and a complex issue. It's a way that masses of people may lose all civil rights. It's an issue important enough that international laws have been created to govern it, & billions spent on it. But what can be done to these people, and has been done, makes shocking reading.

It's a huge international human rights issue. "Stakeholders'" control of the public discussion has tended to cover up the fact that those who seek asylum are not'' only from poor, third-world countries.

The existence of political refugees from the US has an important impact on this huge, very hot public debate.

So I strongly dispute the "low importance" designation for this article. And I suggest that it be included in a "refugee / asylum" category; and/or under international law &/or human rights litigation.Refugees (talk) 00:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

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