The Church of Ireland primate Archbishop Robin Eames has said the public has been encouraged to see asylum seekers "as liars, cheats, a threat to our values, our culture and our security".
Many were "afraid of people seeking asylum, resentful of them, willing to blame them for all manner of social ills", while they also believed there were far more people seeking asylum than was in fact the case. He commented that "much of public discussion about people seeking asylum objectifies them so that people no longer seem them as fellow human beings".
The Archbishop was speaking in Belfast yesterday at the launch of a book, Asylum Voices, edited by Dr Andrew Bradstock and Rev Arlington Trotman.
He said "we must never forget that asylum seekers are fellow human beings". Many of them were also "our Christian brothers and sisters, sometimes fleeing precisely because of religious persecution and we feel a special kind of bond with them".
He continued: "But whatever a person's ethnic origin or faith, all are equally-made in the image of God and have the absolute right to be treated with dignity and respect."
He spoke of his own concern at the treatment of asylum seekers in Northern Ireland. He and other Church leaders had visited Magilligan prison where they were being detained.
"I was astonished to find people of different ages and nationalities mixing freely with people accused of a wide range of criminal activities, including sex offences. I saw young people, vulnerable young people, awaiting the processing of their claims for asylum, in daily contact with those accused of vicious crimes," he said.
He had not got satisfactory answers from the authorities when he asked why asylum seekers were not accommodated separately. He had pressed the matter in the House of Lords and was told there was no available special facility in the North for asylum seekers. He said he recognised that the situation had changed since then and that the numbers involved were small.
"My experience taught me something of the tragic human side of this issue in a local context."