Amnesty UK refugee & migrant rights programme director. Tweets relate more or less to issues on which I work. For media enquiries: https://t.co/gtyf9bZTnE
Aug 26, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Everyone has the right to seek, in another country, asylum from persecution in their own. There’s no requirement that this be in the nearest country or any particular country. This comes from Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1/5
It is not permitted to penalise someone, still less punish them, simply for exercising that right by crossing one or more borders without prior permission. This comes from Article 31 of the Refugee Convention. 2/5
Aug 25, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Official immigration & asylum data published today.
Once again shows critical importance of asylum system to any meaningful contribution by UK to global responsibility of providing asylum. 1/5 gov.uk/government/sta…
Of 15,451 people permitted to stay in UK because of risk of persecution or similar harm, 13,827 of them were required to reach UK first & claim asylum.
Another 5,290 people were granted visa to reunite with someone granted asylum (they needed that someone to get here first). 2/5
Jul 4, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
There is no question that expulsion to Rwanda under this Arrangement is not lawful since it is plainly contrary to vital principle & purpose of the legal agreement into which the UK voluntarily entered in making & adopting the Refugee Convention. 1/7 theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/j…
Oddly, the Rwanda Arrangement expressly recognises some of that principle & purpose in its Preamble while expressly undermining that by its content & intention. 2/7
Apr 16, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Short points on UK-Rwanda deal…
1. It isn’t about UK outsourcing the processing of people’s asylum claims. It is about UK discarding asylum responsibilities altogether. Anyone subjected to it is intended to be made entirely Rwandan responsibility.
2. It’s unclear how it relates to anything in current or proposed legislation or rules. But one way or another, if UK is able to apply it to anyone it will be refusing to admit or retain responsibility for that person’s asylum claim.
It was August 2020, when Home Secretary announced she would make crossing Channel by boat to seek asylum “unviable”.
20 months later, as she was warned, her policies have only sustained the very conditions that lead to these journeys. 2/7 independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…
Tomorrow & Wednesday will be last two days for MPs to scrutinise & vote on this Bill. To how much of following can they possibly give proper scrutiny, let alone meaningfully vote upon given Government will ‘whip’ to require its majority wins out? 1/15
Clause 9 will empower Home Secretary to strip British citizens of their citizenship in secret.
Stripping people of their citizenship is already a draconian power. Seeking power to do so secretly shows contempt for British citizenship & the rights of every British person. 2/15
Oct 12, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
People crossing the Channel by boat to seek asylum are visible in a way that people making different journeys to UK to do so are not. Ministers & others have exploited this visibility to excite some sense of national emergency. But what is the reality… 1/11
Firstly, there were more asylum claims made in UK in 2019 than 2020. In first half of 2021, there were more claims than in first half of 2020 but still fewer than same period in 2019. So, over period of heightened attention to boat crossings, asylum claims haven’t gone up. 2/11
Feb 18, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
One striking aspect drawn out in today’s children’s citizenship fee judgment is that the Home Secretary effectively abandoned her own evidence submitted to the High Court & sought to rely on parliamentary debates to show she had done something her own evidence could not show. 1/7
Her own evidence showed she hadn’t considered children’s best interests in setting a fee that deprived many children of citizenship rights, not least because it showed a failure or refusal to understand that citizenship rights were highly important & belonged to the children. 2/7
Jan 12, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Her daughter was banned from Home Office building because officials refused to tolerate being told they were wrong. Let’s think on that. 1/5
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Over several years, Ministers & Parliament have cut & removed rights of appeal because they refuse to tolerate people insisting officials are wrong & trying to correct that. 2/5
