Yarl’s Wood IRC: Protest This Saturday 10th September - End the Rwanda Plan

This Saturday 10 September, we will be protesting at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre to demand an end to the Rwanda plan and withdrawal of the recently passed Nationality and Borders Act which undermines the right to claim asylum and protection – a right recognised in international law.

Yarl’s Wood stopped detaining women in 2020 after protests exposed a sexually predatory regime and rape by guards, Shockingly women (including mothers with children) are now again at risk of being detained there.

The legality of the Rwanda Plan is being challenged in the High Court this week by three groups including the Public and Commercial Services Union which represents 80% of Border Force staff. Another challenge is due in October. Despite this, the government could announce another Rwanda flight shortly. Evidence shows that arbitrary detention and torture are commonplace in Rwanda; refugees protesting over cuts in food rations where arrested and some killed.
It is urgent that the growing movement against these brutal laws is visible right now. Please join us and share this information widely.

This protest is organised by Action Against Detention & Deportations, which we are part of.
More details & coach tickets from London here https://linktr.ee/nodeportations.

Global Women Against Deportation: http://crossroadswomen.net/

Continuing Conflicts That Create Refugees - September 2022

Deteriorated Situations: Ethiopia, Somalia, Somaliland, Sierra Leone, Taiwan Strait, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ecuador, Israel/ Palestine, Syria, Libya.

Tensions soared in the Taiwan Strait as China conducted large-scale live-fire exercises around Taiwan as part of its response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.

In Sierra Leone, President Bio accused the political opposition of an insurrection, as deadly protests over the rising cost of living erupted across the country.

Al-Shabaab conducted its first major assault in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu since President Mohamud returned to power, killing over twenty people.

In Israel-Palestine, Israeli forces launched an offensive against the Islamic Jihad faction in Gaza that killed dozens of Palestinians in the worst fighting since May 2021.

In northern Syria, Turkish drone strikes and cross-border attacks on Turkish army sites by Kurdish-led forces fueled a deadly escalation that claimed lives on both sides.

Ecuador’s President Lasso imposed a state of emergency in Guayaquil city after a bombing killed five people. The attack marked a dramatic escalation of violence in a country plagued by rising gang-related crime.

Aside from the scores of conflict situations we usually assess, we tracked notable developments in August in Brazil, Nile Waters, Rwanda and Togo.

Improved Situations: None

Conflict Risk Alerts for September: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya

Ethiopia’s federal and Tigray forces returned to frontline fighting, shattering the March ceasefire. Hostilities could further escalate along multiple fronts, threatening prospects for long-awaited peace talks.

The renewed Tigray conflict risks upending the volatile calm along Eritrea’s border with Ethiopia, where Asmara's troops could engage in fighting with Tigray forces.

In Libya, the worst fighting in years erupted in the capital Tripoli between forces loyal to the two rival governments, raising the prospect of a return to full-blown war.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch

While backing a major package of laws that criminalised small boat crossings, the home secretary repeatedly told MPs the majority of arrivals were “economic migrants”. But new Home Office statistics show that, since 2018, 94 per cent of people arriving in dinghies have claimed asylum and only 8 per cent of the applications considered have been refused.

Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesperson, said: “A few years ago, misleading parliament meant resigning from the cabinet. The fact that Priti Patel refuses even to apologise for it shows that Conservative ministers clearly now believe the rules simply don’t apply to them. Boris Johnson and his ministers have destroyed any sense of integrity or accountability in government.”

During the period in which Ms Patel made the false statements, between October and February, Home Office reports said that “almost all” migrants crossing the English Channel sought asylum. The ministerial code, which governs conduct and accountability, states: “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.

Read more: Lizzie Dearden, Independent, https://rb.gy/q8zbkt

Creeping Authoritarianism – The Next Threat To Our Civil Liberties

While the mainstream media has been preoccupied by the Conservative Party’s infighting over who will be Britain’s new prime minister, sinister but barely noticed plans are being drawn up with profound threats to our civil liberties. It is creeping authoritarianism in a very British way – the government is steadily but quietly eroding democratic accountability, including the right to challenge arbitrary executive diktats. As Boris Johnson’s premiership draws to a close, the Conservative government has set in motion four Bills before Parliament to limit the role of the independent judiciary, increase secret courts, repeal the Human Rights Act, and restrict the freedom of the press.

The Bills contain dangerously loose and deliberately ambiguous language – what for instance, is “legal but harmful” online content? Some cabinet members would even like to extract the UK from the European Human Rights Convention, an international treaty that is enshrined in Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement. The government defends its plans with truly Orwellian arguments. Suella Braveman, the attorney general, asserted last month in a speech to the right-of-centre Policy Exchange think tank that there is a “serious risk that the fight for rights undermines democracy”.

Read more: Richard Norton-Taylor, Declassified UK, https://rb.gy/pn2zpg

Briefing: Inadmissibility in Asylum Claims After the Nationality and Borders Act 2022

The government’s new rules on inadmissibility in asylum claims have come into force and now apply to asylum claims made on or after 28 June 2022.

These rules set out the circumstances where an asylum claim will be put on hold while the Home Office tries to remove the asylum seeker to some other country for their claim to be considered there, instead of in the United Kingdom. The new rules provide broader grounds for treating asylum claims as inadmissible.

The declared policy behind the new rules is intended to encourage asylum seekers to make a protection claim in the first safe country they reach. In reality, the effect may well be simply to increase delays in the asylum process with minimal removals to safe third countries actually taking place.

When can a claim be treated as inadmissible?
The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 inserted sections 80B and 80C into the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 to provide a wider scope for asylum claims to be treated as inadmissible. Under the modified rules, all that is necessary for the Home Office to declare an asylum claim is admissible – and thereby put it on hold for an indefinite period – is a “connection” of some sort to a safe third country. The type of connection is defined in section 80C and can take any of five forms:

Read more: Freemovement, https://rb.gy/b79lb1

Anti-Racists Rally Against Rwanda Deportations Plan

Up to 600 anti-racists protested outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London on Monday 5th September, against the Tories’ Rwanda deportations plan. It was part of a day of action called by Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), the TUC union federation and the Care4Calais charity. Care4Calais and the PCS union had brought a case against the Home Office, challenging its policy to send refugees to Rwanda in east African. Outside the court, protesters chanted, “Say it loud, say it clear. Refugees are welcome here,” and, “No borders, no nations. Stop deportations.” Care4Calais founder Clare Mosley told Socialist Worker, “All the people that have turned out today are an inspiration. They are standing up to racism. Ordinary people—school teachers, shop assistants, retired people—have taken a stand.”

A range of MPs, trade unionists and activists addressed the crowd. Paula Peters from Disabled People Against Cuts said, “I have a message to Liz Truss. You need to give all asylum seekers and refugees leave to remain. And we say no to their new anti-refugee laws. There needs to be decent mental health funding for every asylum seeker, refugee and people in this country.”

Read more: Isabel Ringrose, SWP, https://rb.gy/cha3fh

Experts Condemn UK’s ‘Degrading’ and ‘Discriminatory’ Rwanda Migrant Scheme

Experts on torture prevention have condemned the government’s plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, claiming the scheme is “inherently degrading” and breaches international human rights law. Three days before the High Court is due to hear the first legal challenge against the policy, leading academics, including two former chairs of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, warned the process was “inherently incompatible with the UK’s obligations under the Refugee Convention”.

In a letter sent by the Bristol University’s Human Rights Implementation Centre to home secretary Priti Patel, they also said, “the rushed process of initial assessment” before deportation would increase the trauma of those involved. In April, the home secretary signed what she described as a “world-first agreement” with Rwanda in a bid to deter migrants from crossing the Channel. But the first deportation flight – due to take off on June 14 – was grounded amid legal challenges.

Read more: Jane Dalton, Maryam Zakir-Hussain, Independent, https://rb.gy/xqiprq

Rwanda Policy Already Having Profound Impact on Health And Wellbeing of Asylum Seekers

A significant new report by Medical Justice takes a look at the harm being caused by the Government's policy of targeting asylum seekers for relocation to Rwanda.Medical Justice says the UK's migration agreement with Rwanda is "cruel and unconscionable" and is already having a profound impact on asylum seekers arriving in the UK.

In its report, Medical Justice details the effects of the policy on the health and wellbeing of 36 people who arrived in the UK to claim asylum and were subsequently selected for removal to Rwanda.

The report also describes the process whereby asylum seekers receive a Notice of Intent (NOI), which tells an individual that the Home Office is considering removing them to Rwanda or another country they have passed through.

The report explains: "Medical Justice has been in contact with 51 people who have had Notice of Intent (NOI) for removal to Rwanda, since mid-May 2022. This report collates and analyses anonymous data from 36 of the 51 people. The 36 people were selected for inclusion on the basis of Medical Justice caseworkers provided support to them and we had sufficient information on, and includes the 17 people who Medical Justice clinicians have conducted medical assessments for."

NOIs were issued to the 36 asylum seekers between two and twenty-eight days after they arrived in the UK to claim asylum.

Readd mre: EIN, https://rb.gy/lpgjtt