With no other option, Ashraf undertook a harsh journey to the UK in search of asylum after being persecuted, intimidated and threatened in his native Iran because of his Christian faith in a Muslim-majority country.
After a journey of months, in which he almost died on a ship that was shipwrecked between France and the British coast along the dangerous route of the English Channel, the man was detained by the London authorities, who without giving him the opportunity to be heard, he was notified that he would be sent to Rwanda along with other migrants.
(Also read: What is the UK’s controversial migrant deportation program)
This is due to the controversial agreement reached in April between the United Kingdom and the African country -in exchange for a first installment of more than 140 million euros- which seeks to “relocate” asylum seekers who enter irregularly through this route.
And although the first flight was supposed to leave last Tuesday with Ashraf and other applicants, a few hours before the plane took off, which the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson wanted to keep secret, the European Court of Human Rights prevented the process considering that the London justice had to first assess the legality of the expulsion plan.
So, the measure went from being a “practical solution” to a symbolic defense of the Executive that seems to want to go to the last consequences. Even this week Johnson was determined to raise the tone in the face of criticism, to the point of suggesting the possibility that his government withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Convention on Human Rights.
(You may be interested in: The United Kingdom refuses to stop deportations of migrants to Rwanda)
Downing Street also faces numerous humanitarian organizations, criticism from the Anglican church and even the British crown. On the latter, the newspaper The Timeswhich quoted an anonymous Buckingham Palace source, said Prince Charles “expressed that he was beyond disappointed with this policy”, which he called “appalling”.
The Anglican church, meanwhile, said it was “an immoral policy that puts the UK to shame”. “Our Christian heritage should encourage us to treat asylum seekers with compassion, fairness and justice,” the 23 archbishops said in a letter also published in the newspaper.
(Also: Rwanda defends the expulsion of migrants agreed with the United Kingdom)
Johnson justifies his decision in that, with the measure, the crossing of migrants through the English Channel will be discouraged and the business of human traffickers who take hundreds of refugees in dangerous boats to British shores will collapse.
In November 2021 alone, nearly 6,900 people arrived on English shores in rickety boats, including a record 1,185 in a single day. And, according to figures from the British Home Office, so far this year, more than 10,000 irregular migrants have come through this deadly sea crossingwhich last November was the epicenter of the deadliest shipwreck of a boat recorded on this busy road, in which 27 migrants perished.
Hence, the growing clandestine arrivals have become a political nightmare for the prime minister, who had promised greater control over immigration after Brexit.
In addition, the crossings are a regular source of tension with France, since the Elysée considers the efforts made by London to prevent ships from leaving its shores insufficient, despite financial aid from the United Kingdom to reinforce surveillance.
Therefore, Johnson’s survival instinct led him to believe that any strategy to reduce irregular immigration would be backed by the Conservatives who backed Brexit in 2016, and backed him as Prime Minister in 2019.
(Keep reading: Wars in the world trigger the global number of displaced people)
As Carlos Vargas-Silva, director of the Center for Migration, Politics and Society at the University of Oxford, explained to EL TIEMPO, the new scheme “ends UK legal responsibilities to asylum seekers who would need to stay in Rwanda”, a country that hides a terrible reverse of DD violations. H H.
The Geneva Convention establishes that an asylum seeker cannot be returned to a country where his freedom is threatened, while the refugee Convention ensures that such people cannot be penalized for entering a country irregularly and are within the right to apply for asylum in the receiving country.
Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, for his part, said this week that London is transferring its responsibility to a country that does not have sufficient structure to care for migrants.
“The UK argues that it is doing it to save many people from dangerous journeys, but is this the right way to do it, and is this its real motivation? I do not think so“, he claimed.
In addition to the physical cost, the trip has the psychological cost of being forced to dispose of the bodies of those who die on the high seas.
Cecilia Estrada, doctor in International Migration and director of the Chair of Refugees and Forced Migrants at the Comillas Pontifical University in Spain, told this newspaper that those who arrive in the United Kingdom come from countries such as Iraq, Iran, Eritrea, Uganda, Congo, Afghanistan or Syria.
These are mostly men between the ages of 18 and 40, from countries that are among the most dangerous in the world, according to International SOS, which puts them at high risk of torture or slavery.
“These people are fleeing from conflicts, from persecution, from forced marriages. They flee from death (…) And they arrive in the United Kingdom with the hope of taking refuge in that country, traditionally known for harboring protection values for the most vulnerable”, explains the expert.
In this sense, analysts consider that restrictive policies such as the one that the British government intends to implement they do not have a deterrent effect on the migrant and refugee population.
(You can read: Could Scotland become independent from the United Kingdom? 4 keys to understand it)
“A lot of these measures don’t work for the simple fact that people traveling from Syria, for example, don’t care that there’s a little law that says they can be penalized upon arrival because they’re too scared for their lives.” says David Cantor, director of the Refugee Law Initiative at the School of Advanced Studies at the University of London.
According to Estrada, “what happens when trying to stop the arrival of fleeing people is that the flow does not disappear but instead develops on other routes and paths that are even more dangerous.”
Hence, human rights organizations insist that these types of regulations only impose more anguish and fear on those who have already suffered the horrors of war, torture and persecution.
“They arrive in boats that face a series of tremendous dangers such as the state of the sea or overloading. If the boat is for 20 people, 40 can get on board. They drift for several days and come famished. In addition to the physical cost, the trip has the psychological cost of being forced to dispose of the bodies of those who die on the high seas.”, emphasizes Estrada.
For Peter Walsh, principal investigator of the Oxford University Migration Observatory, the measure does not match reality if one takes into account that “there is no legal way to go to the United Kingdom to request asylum.”
“There is no visa for the specific purpose of seeking asylum. To do so, you have to be in the UK. So this, in effect, forces people to take these dangerous routes,” she notes.
(In other news: What it takes for Julian Assange to be extradited to the US.)
Rwanda, an African paradise?
And it is that Rwanda, the most densely populated country in Africa with a population of 552 inhabitants per square meter, does not seem to be exactly “a paradise for migrants” as the United Kingdom tries to describe it to promote its new policy.
The 2021 report of the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the situation of DD. H H. in that country indicates that the Rwandan Patriotic Front – political group in power – represses the voices of dissidents and keeps the field closed for political opposition to the media and civil society.
In fact, several bloggers, such as Yvonne Idamange, a survivor of the Tutsi genocide, have been sentenced to prison for “inciting violence and spreading rumours”.
Added to this are violations of the rights to freedom of expression or privacy. According to a report by Amnesty International, more than 3,500 activists, journalists and politicians in that country were the object of espionage by the Rwandan authorities through the Pegasus program.
In terms of refugees, although the country enjoys a good reputation for hosting refugees, international media recall that in 2018, for example, 12 refugees who were protesting in front of the UNHCR headquarters were shot dead by the Rwandan police.
(Also: EU takes legal action against the United Kingdom for breaching the post-Brexit agreement)
And HRW assures that “in Africa, it has documented and received credible reports of Rwandan refugees and asylum seekers who were subjected to enforced disappearance or murder.”
But Walsh explains that there are two main ways that Rwanda benefits from all of this: “The first is financial. They have already received €140 million from the UK. And the second is political, because it allows them to try to show that they are a modern, fast and developed country.”.
Meanwhile, thousands of migrants are dodging death and anguish while the United Kingdom assures that it will be a matter of time to achieve their goal.
ANGIE NATALY RUIZ HURTADO
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
@Angie_ruiz26
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