Priti Patel Abandons Refugee Channel Pushback Policy

Priti Patel’s refugee pushback policy has been officially withdrawn by the government days before a judicial review of the tactic was due to be heard in the high court. The government’s legal department acknowledged in a letter on Sunday that the plan to try to force people in dinghies back to France has been abandoned after Boris Johnson’s announcement that the Royal Navy would take over operations in the Channel.

Patel’s officials last week received notification that the Ministry of Defence, which is now in charge of picking up refugees in the Channel, did not have permission to use the tactic, the letter said. The policy, which was finalised in the autumn by the Home Office, authorised and encouraged Border Force officials to stop migrant vessels in UK waters and forcibly redirect them to return to France.

In January, Patel said pushing back boats was “absolutely still policy” when she gave evidence to the House of Lords justice and home affairs committee. In its letter, the legal department said the policy and procedures had been withdrawn and that the MoD joint commander had not had permission to authorise the use of turnaround tactics.

Read more: Rajeev Syal, Guardian, https://rb.gy/mqmnqc

Britain’s Cruel Plans to ‘Offshore’ the Vulnerable Won’t Stop With Refugees

Britain survived as a state by moving its tyranny and violence out of sight. Priti Patel’s plan to send refugees to Rwanda is business as usual.

“What do they know of England, who only England know?” was the ode that Rudyard Kipling once sang. His claim was a confession that, if you really needed to know about the structures that govern this island, you shouldn’t look here at all: you should look at India, Jamaica or Nigeria.

Last week, it was Rwanda’s turn to tell us about ourselves: the UK government announced it had signed a deal to transport asylum seekers who arrive in the UK to an offshore processing site in the East African state before their application would even be considered
This agreement is the legislative realisation of the admiration that this government and its media cheerleaders have long had for the Australian offshore immigration detention system, where asylum seekers have been held in the harrowing purgatory of island camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea for years on end whilst their claims stall.

Australia’s treatment of refugees has been widely condemned by human rights groups and the UK’s plan to imitate it has already provoked the anger of the UN and the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, used his Easter sermon to pass judgement on the government’s plans, declaring that they “cannot carry the weight of our national responsibility as a country formed by Christian values; because subcontracting out our responsibilities… is the opposite of the nature of God”.

Read more: Kojo Koram, Open Democracy, https://rb.gy/gemrkm

Rwanda is A One-Way Ticket - if Recognised as a Refugee you Remain in Rwanda

The idea of “offshoring” or “extraterritorial processing” is not new in the UK and has been implemented (then abandoned) by Australia. The basic idea is that an asylum seeker is either intercepted before physical arrival and removed to a safe third country or, if they reach the territory of the country concerned, they are then removed to the safe third country.

On one model the asylum seeker, if recognised as a refugee, might be readmitted to the first country. On another, they remain in the safe third country (or be resettled to yet another country).

The Rwanda deal is firmly in the latter camp: those recognised as refugees will be forced to remain in that country and not allowed to come to the UK. This is clear from the text of the deal and is stated explicitly in a letter from the Home Office’s top civil servant, Matthew Rycroft: “the UK’s legal obligations end once an individual is relocated to Rwanda, and GoR [government of Rwanda] takes on the legal responsibility for that individual and for processing their claim in line with the Refugee Convention”.

[The buildings and hotels in which the Rwandese Authorities intend to accommodate the asylum seekers from UK, where initially built, and used to, accommodate survivors from the 1994 Tutsis Genocide. The survivors accommodated there have been expelled to make room for the asylum seekers from UK.]

A statement by the UK’s international ambassador for human rights Rita French in July 2021 expressed “regret” that Rwanda was not conducting “transparent, credible and independent investigations into allegations of human rights violations including deaths in custody and torture”. She added: “We were disappointed that Rwanda did not support the UK recommendation to screen, identify and provide support to trafficking victims, including those held in government transit centres.”

Rwanda is already home to more than 127,000 refugees, mainly from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, most of whom are in refugee camps and are not allowed to work.

Michela Wrong, a British journalist and author of Do Not Disturb, a book about human rights abuses in Rwanda, said: “It has no viable opposition party. The elections are rigged; their democratic system is a sham; there’s a newspaper that spouts out government propaganda.

The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) has expressed strong opposition, saying asylum seekers “should not be traded like commodities” and warning that the deal will “only magnify risks, causing refugees to seek alternative routes”.

A group of 150 British organisations supporting refugees have signed an open letter to the prime minister describing the plan as “ill-thought-out” and warning that it will result in “more, not fewer”, dangerous journeys by people trying to reach the UK.

A YouGov survey conducted within hours of the announcement meanwhile found that 42 per cent of those questioned opposed it against just 35 per cent who were supportive.

Read more: May Bulman, Independent, https://rb.gy/nleaev

Scrap the Nationality and Borders Bill - The Lords Must Stand Firm!

Protest: Tuesday 26 April 1-3pm

Opposite House of Lords, Old Palace Yard, SW1P 3JY

On Tuesday the racist Nationality and Borders Bill comes back to the Lords, at the same time as the hated Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill, which undermines the right to protest. Both these bills will fall if the Lords stand firm and refuse to back down. The Lords’ amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill would:

?Get rid of the biased treatment against asylum seekers which denies people the right to claim asylum, win refugee status, have recourse to public funds and the right to family reunion

?Force the government to give notice if they want to remove people’s citizenship

?Stop the criminalisation of “illegal entry” (when practically every legal route has been removed) ?Stop the criminalisation of those who help people who arrive by sea

?Allow unaccompanied child refugees to join their family ?Give more protection to victims of trafficking.

Even with these amendments the Bill will devastate lives beginning with mothers and rape survivors. It is based on charges dreamed up by pathological liars: whilst planning to strip everyone of their rights, Priti Patel claimed the Bill was needed to protect women from men jumping the asylum queue. She also backed Cressida Dick’s defence of police violence against women and communities of colour.

?Organised by: Global Women Against Deportations which includes the All African Women’s Group, a 100 strong organisation of women asylum seekers and refugees from every continent along with Legal Action for Women, Women Against Rape and Women of Colour/Global Women’s Strike.

T: 0207482 2496 E: gwad@allwomencount.net

Priti Patel Accused of Misleading Parliament Over Refugee Pushbacks

The home secretary has been accused of misleading parliament after a high court ruling revealed that unpublished parts of a controversial policy to push back migrant dinghies in the Channel said the tactic would not be used against asylum seekers. The pushbacks policy was finalised in autumn 2021, yet in January this year Priti Patel said pushing back migrant boats was “absolutely still policy” when she gave evidence to the Lords justice and home affairs committee. She has been accused of giving that evidence even though she knew about the unpublished clauses in the policy not to use pushbacks against asylum seekers.

The former shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, accused Patel of misleading parliament and called on her to apologise: “This judgment reveals the home secretary connived to mislead refugees, voters and parliament that people expressly seeking asylum could be repelled in UK waters. Priti Patel must apologise and rethink large sections of her borders bill before it returns to the Lords. It is a disgraceful breach of the rule of law.”

Details of the unpublished policy came to light during a legal challenge to the pushbacks plan brought by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), and the NGOs Care4Calais, Channel Rescue and Freedom From Torture.

Read more: Diane Taylor, Guardian, https://rb.gy/xmvsbm

Any Single Asylum Seeker Now in the UK - Can be Deported to Rwanda

Any person who has arrived in the UK illegally, or by dangerous or unnecessary methods from safe countries since 1 January 2022, will be considered for relocation to Rwanda.

The UK is providing substantial investment to boost the development of Rwanda, including jobs, skills and opportunities to benefit both migrants and host communities. This includes an initial investment of £120m as part of a new Economic Transformation and Integration Fund.

The UK is also funding the processing costs for each person relocated, such as caseworkers, legal advice, translators, accommodation, food, healthcare, and for those granted protection, a comprehensive integration package to help them put down roots and start a new life. Every person’s needs are different, but we anticipate the amount would be comparable to processing costs incurred in the UK. Funding is only provided while a person remains in Rwanda.

House of Commons: Daily Report Wednesday, 20 April 2022
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/

Justice Minister Quits Over Covid 'Rule-Breaking' in Downing Street

Justice minister Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (David Wolfson QC) has handed in his resignation a day after it emerged the prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer received fixed penalty notices in relation to a Downing Street gathering during lockdown.

In a letter to Boris Johnson today, Lord Wolfson said: ‘I regret that recent disclosures lead to the inevitable conclusion that there was repeated rule-breaking, and breaches of the criminal law, in Downing Street.

'I have – again, with considerable regret – come to the conclusion that the scale, context and nature of those breaches mean that it would be inconsistent with the rule of law for that conduct to pass with constitutional impunity, especially while many in society complied with the rules at great personal cost, and others were fined or prosecuted for similar, and sometimes apparently more trivial, offences.

‘It is not just a question of what happened in Downing Street, or your own conduct. It is also, and perhaps more so, the official response to what took place. As we obviously do not share that view of these matters, I must ask you to accept my resignation.’

Source: Monidipa Fouzder, Law Gazette, https://rb.gy/x9t3mb

The deal with Rwanda (whose authorities British officials accused last year of killings, disappearances and torture), to relocate asylum seekers there, spells the end of the Refugee Convention in the UK and a return to the 1930s and ‘40s, when desperate refugees from Nazism were forced to seek sponsors and prove that they would not be a charge on public funds in order to get visas. The 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights, declaring the universal right to ‘seek and enjoy asylum’, and the 1951 Refugee Convention, were meant to put an end to that, recognising the need for refugees to flee without papers. But the deathly Australian ‘offshoring’ model, which until now only Israel and Denmark have sought to copy, inverts the meaning of asylum – and makes a mockery of the parliamentary process, where the Lords are fighting tooth and nail to preserve asylum rights.

Rwanda Genocide of 1994 - Some 200,000 Hutu Were Exterminated by the Government

A planned campaign of mass murder in Rwanda that occurred over the course of some 100 days in April–July 1994.

The genocide was conceived by extremist elements of Rwanda’s majority Hutu population who planned to kill the minority Tutsi population and anyone who opposed those genocidal intentions.

It is estimated that some 200,000 Hutu, spurred on by propaganda from various media outlets, participated in the genocide.

More than 800,000 civilians—primarily Tutsi, but also moderate Hutu—were killed during the campaign. As many as 2,000,000 Rwandans fled the country during or immediately after the genocide.