Thread by @docrussjackson

The European Convention on Human Rights is one of humanities' greatest achievements: an international response from Allied nations to the Nazi Holocaust & other human rights violations during WWII, to ensure they never happened again.

And now the SICK @Conservatives want out. 🤬

The new UN human rights chief @volker_turk has urged the British government to reconsider its plans to deport asylum seekers to #Rwanda, warning that in the past similar “offshoring” schemes had led to “deeply inhuman” treatment of refugees.

theguardian.com/global-develop…

In his first public comments on the controversy since taking office last year, Volker Türk rejected PM Rishi Sunak’s description of the £140million deal as “common sense”, saying that as well as being legally & ethically problematic it was also “very costly” & unlikely to work.

“You cannot offshore your responsibilities to another state in the way that is envisaged [by the UK Govt]. It does raise very serious concerns, both from an international human rights & international refugee law perspective.”

Asked whether the Govt should go back to the drawing board, he said: “Yes, absolutely.”

The high court ruled that the @Conservatives’ plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was lawful, but also said the Govt failed to “properly consider the circumstances” of proposed deportees.

In December, the cruel & authoritarian #Rwandan government said that it only had capacity to receive about 200 people – less than 0.5% of the total who have crossed the channel in 2022 - nowhere near large enough to be a deterrent.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1637400963722932225?s=20

Türk, who succeeded Michelle Bachelet as the UN’s high commissioner for human rights in October, said there were “ways & means” for how Govts could tackle smuggling gangs & ensure that those in need of protection receive it, but that the #Rwanda Plan would likely do neither.

“Of course, it looks very dramatic to send people to Rwanda – but is it going to [do] the trick? I doubt that very much, and actually history proves it, if you just look at some of the things [we] saw in the Australian context.”

Türk said he had seen how Australia’s offshore processing centres on Nauru & Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, had been marked by human rights abuses. The latter was closed after the country’s supreme court ruled it illegal.

“The way that asylum seekers were treated in Nauru and Manus was deeply, deeply inhuman,” said Türk. He also asked the Govt to tone down its rhetoric & “emotional language”, having previously criticised Braverman’s “horrible” use of the word “invasion”.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1624347298640560128?s=20

“It’s not that there aren’t issues about irregular arrivals. That’s clear & it’s an issue that one has to deal with… but we have to take out the emotions, including some of the emotional language.”

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1635206816048242689?s=20

“We need to deal with it as an issue that is guided by international standards, international rights & international refugee law.”

The nihilistic @Conservatives are destroying not just Britain's reputation for being fair-minded & law-abiding, but also Winston Churchill's legacy.