The British court decision, which halted the government’s plans to send thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda, was celebrated by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and humanitarian organization Amnesty International (AI), IPS reported from Geneva.

UNHCR “welcomes the UK Supreme Court’s decision that the proposal to transfer asylum seekers to Rwanda under the Alliance for Economic Development and Migration would violate international law and UK law,” the agency said in a brief statement.

The alliance is a pact signed by the British and Rwandan governments, on April 14 2022, for the African country to accept asylum seekers who, according to London, arrived on its territory illegally, while processing their applications.

It was determined that the UK would give Rwanda $155 million in return for their agreement to host the deportees, who must receive support for their accommodation, medical care, training and integration.

The deal was negotiated with Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame by the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (2019-2022) and supported by his successor Rishi Sunakunder pressure from the ruling Conservative Party’s right wing to halt immigration deemed illegal.

On November 15, the UK Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision, stating that there were insufficient guarantees that Rwanda could guarantee migrants’ rights when processing asylum applications and preventing them from returning to their country of origin. .origin, although it may occur in the future.

“At present, we have come to the conclusion that the necessary changes to eliminate possible risks, for the legal security of migrants, may be made in the future, but have not yet occurred,” the Court ruled.

Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive of Amnesty UK, said: “This decision is vital to protect people seeking asylum in this country. “The government must now take decisive action against this shameful event in British political history.”

“The agreement with Rwanda, a country with a history of serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture and repression of freedom of expression, is deeply wrong and cruel,” Deshmukh said.

For the activist, “the time has come for the government to not only abandon the idea of ​​reaching an agreement with Rwanda, but also remove the fundamental policy of refusing to process people’s asylum applications.”

However, Sunak announced that he would push for emergency legislation to have Rwanda recognized by Parliament as a “safe country”, where potential refugees could be sent.

In a press conference, Sunak said he would do “whatever it takes to stop foreign courts – such as the European Court of Human Rights – getting in the way of decisions made in the UK.”

In April 2022, the European court based in Strasbourg (France) stopped the take-off of the first British flight to Kigali carrying immigrants.

“If the Strasbourg court decides to intervene against the wishes expressed by Parliament, I am ready to do what is necessary for the flight to take off,” Suniak said, alluding to the possibility of withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights.

UNHCR frequently expresses concern about the “externalization” of asylum obligations and the serious risks this poses to refugees.

The UN agency acknowledged “the challenges posed by irregular arrivals through the English Channel (which separates the UK from continental Europe)”, but advocated alternatives to deportation to Rwanda “including cooperation with neighboring European countries”.

According to British government data, in the year ending June 2023, 97,390 people (75 percent of men and 25 percent of women) requested asylum, 19 percent more than the previous year, and 40,386 of them arrived in small boats via the English Channel.

The countries of origin of most asylum seekers are Albania, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Eritrea (and most of them arrive by boat across the English Channel), India, Bangladesh, Sudan and Pakistan.