Priti Patel accused of trying to deport former Iranian police officer to Rwanda

[muriel_volestrangler]

Priti Patel has been accused of trying to deport a former senior Iranian police officer who fled to the UK after giving first-hand testimony of potential human rights violations by the Iranian government.

Counsel for the Iran Atrocities Tribunal –also known as the Aban Tribunal – in London has written to the home secretary saying that a named former officer in the Iranian police has been detained in the UK and been told he will be sent 4,000 miles to Rwanda next week.

In a letter seen by the Guardian the counsel claims the former officer fled to the UK in May after being sentenced to five years in an Iranian prison for refusing orders in 2019 to fire indiscriminately upon crowds of protesters.
...
Hamid Sabi, counsel to the Iran Atrocities Tribunal, wrote that the former police officer arrived in the UK on a small boat on 14 May 2022 and is now detained in Brook House detention centre at Gatwick. On 31 May, he was served with notice that he would be sent to Rwanda, the letter claimed.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/07/priti-patel-accused-of-trying-to-deport-former-iranian-policer-officer-to-rwanda

She's the pantomime villain of Home Secretaries - if it's evil, she'll do it.

[SharonClark]

1. Why Rwanda? Is the UK good with sending

a person who refused to commit a crime to certain death?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Because Rwanda will take the money, and the Tories want it to be a deterrent

so the poor human rights record of Rwanda is a vital feature of the scheme:

Ostensibly, a key driving force behind the policy agenda is preventing loss of life at sea. Will deporting men who arrive in small boats to Rwanda achieve this goal? No. Is it a sustainable solution to the realities of 21st Century refugee migration? No. All of the research evidence suggests that people board unsafe vessels to cross the English Channel and other bodies of water because no safe or legal routes are available. The more controls that are introduced, the more dangerous journeys are made. There is no evidence to suggest that doing horrible things to people deters others from doing the same. For example, Australia’s policy of deporting people who arrived in boats seeking asylum to an island detention camp indefinitely without access to adequate medical treatment, asylum adjudication, and beyond the reach of human rights observers, had no impact on the numbers of boat arrivals there. Nor has the EU policy of placing people in overcrowded camps on Greek Islands stopped others crossing the Mediterranean. Finally, when Israel started deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda and abandoning them, their asylum application numbers were unaffected. In short, all the evidence suggests that the policy will not have a deterrent effect.

What effect can we then expect? Having fled their countries of origin on long and traumatic journeys with the ambition of reuniting with family or friends, perhaps going to university, getting a job, and starting their life in the UK, deportees -a mix of nationalities- will find themselves unexpectedly in Rwanda. They are unlikely to speak Kinyarwanda. As with other groups who are deported to unfamiliar countries, it seems plausible that this forced relocation will have a devastating impact on these individuals and that some will be highly vulnerable to destitution and exploitation. It also seems plausible that some will leave, and new smuggling routes will open. What is clear is that this is a spectacularly cruel thing to do to people.

What, then, makes this kind of policy thinkable in the first place? It seems to depend on an assumption that men who make irregular Channel crossings are not only not real refugees, but that they are not fully human. I say not fully human in the sense that they do not seem to be seen by the British government as people deserving of equal respect, dignity, and access to human rights. The policy is literally dehumanising. People arriving in small boats are to be treated like pesky animals causing a nuisance who need to be removed. Such dehumanisation is dependent on racialised ideas about who is worthy of rights, and who is ultimately disposable. It is utterly unthinkable that such a policy would be implemented for Ukrainians, even though the situation in Syria is not dissimilar to that in Ukraine. This is because a racial logic underpins the spectacular cruelty of deportation. And it is that racial logic which drives these kinds of policy proposals.
...
Since the policy is in violation of the Refugee Convention, there will be legal challenges, and it seems unlikely that this is a long term solution to small boat Channel crossings, but what it does do is move British asylum policy genuinely onto the terrain of the far right. We cannot understand what is happening without recognising the racist worldview underpinning it. The only alternatives, then, must be based in anti-racist work and activism. It’s time to get busy.

https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2022/04/rwanda

[Tetrachloride]

2. Any royal family to speak?

[Emrys]

4. Prince Charles has piped up:

Prince Charles criticises ‘appalling’ Rwanda migrant scheme – reports
Source says Prince of Wales was ‘more than disappointed’ with deportation plans

Prince Charles has privately criticised the government’s policy of deporting migrants to Rwanda, calling the practice “appalling”.

The heir to the throne has been heard opposing the policy behind closed doors, a source has told the Times and the Daily Mail.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/10/prince-charles-criticises-appalling-rwanda-scheme-reports

Also reported in a bit more detail and context here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/11/prince-charles-slams-uk-plan-to-send-refugees-to-rwanda-reports

Since Charles is starting to take on a role akin to a regent given his mother's increasing frailty, you can read these "reports" that he's said something in private as a public statement of opposition - by convention, the royals aren't supposed to challenge the government directly, and such reports of private sentiment are a common code (used when the queen "was overheard" expressing concern about the possible result of the Scottish indpendence referendum, for instance).

[LeftishBrit]

5. Vile creature