Britain’s shame: UK rights record slated by Amnesty’s annual report
The report comes as the government brings forward a shocking round-up of asylum seekers for deportation to Rwanda. “We will resist, together,” says Jeremy Corbyn.
Amnesty International has just produced its annual report on The State of the World’s Human Rights and shamefully Britain gets a special mention. The organization accuses the UK of “deliberately destabilising” human rights internationally.
The report comes as the Guardian highlights a shock operation by the Home Office to detain asylum seekers across the UK today in preparation for deportation to Rwanda. The round-up, unprecedented in scale, is believed to have been timed to gain maximum electoral advantage for the government ahead of this week’s local elections.
The Guardian reports: “Officials plan to hold refugees who turn up for routine meetings at immigration service offices and will also pick people up nationwide in a two-week exercise. They will be immediately transferred to detention centres, which have already been prepared for the operation, and held to be put on later flights to Rwanda. Others identified for these flights are already being held.”
Amnesty International’s report presents a stark assessment of the global betrayal of human rights principles by today’s leaders and institutions. In the face of multiplying conflicts, it says, the actions of many powerful states have further undermined the global rules-based order first established in 1945.
“In a conflict that defined 2023 and shows no sign of abating, evidence of war crimes continues to mount as the Israeli government makes a mockery of international law in Gaza,” says the organization.
The report points to the USA’s brazen use of its veto to paralyse the UN Security Council for months on a much-needed resolution for a ceasefire, as it continues to arm Israel with munitions that have been used to commit what likely amounts to war crimes. It also highlights the grotesque double standards of European countries such as the UK and Germany, given their well-founded protestations about war crimes by Russia and Hamas, while they simultaneously bolster the actions of Israeli and US authorities in this conflict.
“The confounding failure of the international community to protect thousands of civilians – a horrifically high percentage of them children – from being killed in the occupied Gaza Strip makes patently clear that the very institutions set up to protect civilians and uphold human rights are no longer fit for purpose,” said Agnès Callamard, AI’s Secretary General.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, weighed in on Britain’s refugee policy: “The Illegal Migration Act and the Rwanda scheme are a complete betrayal of the rights of refugees and the principle of offering sanctuary to those in need, but they also represent the death knell for the universal application of human rights in the UK. We’re particularly alarmed at the dangerous precedent set by ‘switching off’ the human rights of certain groups as a political convenience.”
Amnesty’s report was highly critical of Britain on other fronts. It accused the UK of pursuing “a policy agenda that breached its international human rights commitments and curtailed human rights protections. People seeking asylum and other migrants were particularly targeted, along with protesters. New government legislation further eroded the freedom of assembly and expression. Police faced findings of institutional racism and other forms of discrimination.”
Access to abortion was still “hindered”, said the overview. “Legislation was passed terminating investigations into and prosecutions of historic human rights violations during the Northern Ireland Troubles. Minimum service levels during industrial action were imposed in various sectors.”
The report further criticised Britain for delaying or abandoning key policies intended to contribute towards reaching net zero by 2050. These included a delaying of the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 and of the phase-out of liquid petroleum gas boilers for residential heating. “Requirements on residential landlords to increase the insulation of their properties by 2028 were scrapped. In November, the government announced plans to pass new legislation permitting fossil fuel companies to bid for new oil and gas drilling licences on an annual basis.”
Freedom of expression is also under attack, with the passage of the Public Order Act, furthering a legislative crackdown on peaceful protest. Secondary legislation expanded the circumstances in which the police can impose conditions on protests, backed by prison sentences. In May, dozens of peaceful protesters were arrested around the coronation of King Charles III, including pre-emptive arrests.
“Arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment of peaceful environmental protesters continued throughout 2023,” said the report. In some instances, defendants were prevented by judges from referencing climate change in their defence, and those who ignored such orders faced prosecution for contempt of court and prison sentences.
Non-violent protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza were described by the then Home Secretary as “hate marches”. Some people in the UK on temporary visas had their leave to remain curtailed because of their involvement in pro-Palestine protests.
The report also singled out Britain on the issue of discrimination, highlighting the government’s blocking of Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Act, the Casey Report’s findings on institutional racism, sexism and homophobia in the Metropolitan Police and the use of strip-searching by police against children.
Amnesty’s report also criticised the government’s Prevent strategy, itself the subject of a separate Amnesty report last month which described it as “a dangerously broken system.”
On refugees’ and migrants’ rights, the report said the government’s Illegal Migration Act was “in conflict with the UN Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights.” The act stopped the processing of asylum claims made by people who had arrived without prior permission and granted new powers to detain migrants without effective judicial oversight, despite a recent report detailing 19 instances of inhuman or degrading treatment of detained people by staff within a five-month period. The act also reduced the safeguards for migrant survivors of human trafficking and unaccompanied children.
Meanwhile, the government round-up of asylum seekers, reported today, is expected to meet active opposition. The Guardian reports that “Police in Scotland have been put on alert because of the high risks of street protests and attempts by pro-refugee campaigners to stop detentions. Local communities in Scotland have twice prevented deportations by staging mass protests.”
It will be interesting to see if such protests are replicated elsewhere in the next days.
A Momentum spokesperson said: “This is horrifying news and a reminder that the hostile environment is alive and well. We need Keir Starmer to stand up for migrants’ rights as he once promised to do, oppose this Tory war on migrants and advocate for more safe routes for refugees.”
Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP called the Home Office crackdown “a brutal election stunt that will cause consternation and fear amongst many asylum seekers and their families, who came here desperate to find safety and security. Shameful.”
Former leader Jeremy Corbyn MP tweeted: “I am disgusted by reports that the Home Office will begin rounding up and detaining asylum seekers, in preparation for deportation to Rwanda. This is a terrifying, repulsive election stunt from a government devoid of humanity. We will resist, together.”
mage: London protest 2023, c/o Labour Hub.
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