United Kingdom: 251 NGOs to the British Government, “law to deport migrants to Rwanda is cruel and shameful”

The Rwanda deportation bill is “a shameful and performatively cruel law that will risk people’s lives and betray who we are as a society”. “The wider public” in the UK “do not support” this law which “would enable the British government to forcibly expel people seeking asylum – including children and survivors of trafficking and modern slavery – despite concerns they could be put at grave risk of harm and human rights abuses”. These harsh words are addressed to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in an open letter released by representatives of 251 British NGOs, from Oxfam and Care4Calais to the Jesuit Refugee Service in London, a refugee and asylum seeker centre run by the Jesuits. The letter from the NGOs also accuses British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of abandoning “our duty to share in the global responsibility towards those forced to seek safety”. The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O’Flaherty also criticised the law just passed by the UK Parliament, saying it “raises major issues about the human rights of asylum seekers and the rule of law more generally”. “The United Kingdom government should refrain from removing people under the Rwanda policy and reverse the Bill’s effective infringement of judicial independence”, the Commissioner added.
Valentina Bombelli