How red flags were brushed aside to push through Rwanda deal
Source: The Guardian
How red flags were brushed aside to push through Rwanda deal
Documents disclosed to high court case show repeated warnings about asylum processing plan
Diane Taylor
Fri 9 Sep 2022 15.14 BST
Last modified on Fri 9 Sep 2022 18.47 BST
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When the deal was announced, details about how it would work were scant. But the high court case challenging various aspects of the policy has revealed what went on behind the scenes, thanks to the government’s disclosure of a mass of internal documents.
Although Sir James Eadie KC, representing the government, assured the court on Thursday that the scheme has specific safeguarding elements built into it and “there has been the most intensive investigation of that scheme imaginable”, little emerged in the documents to give comfort to critics.
What the documents show, beginning with a diplomatic telegram from the British high commissioner to Rwanda, dated 18 September 2020, are repeated concerns about the unsuitability of Rwanda as a destination country for asylum seekers. The high commissioner expressed alarm about a lack of freedom of speech and the disappearance of opponents of the country’s president, Paul Kagame.
As the plans developed, the criticisms from government officials multiplied: extrajudicial killings; the recruitment of refugees to conduct armed operations in neighbouring countries, including children aged 15-17 to fight across Rwanda’s border in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; a red traffic-light rating in relation to human rights; and a clear recommendation made to the director general at the Home Office on 23 April 2021 not to pursue Rwanda as an option.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/09/rwanda-asylum-processing-deal-warnings-ignored-high-court