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Category: UK news

  • Inadequate help for torture victims in UK immigration centres, watchdog finds

    Borders inspector blames unfounded suspicions by ministers that detainees are gaming the system

    Torture victims and suicidal people in immigration detention centres are not receiving adequate help because of unfounded suspicions from ministers and officials that they are cheating the system, the UK borders watchdog has found.

    David Neal, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration (ICIBI), also questioned why Suella Braverman had ended annual investigations into the treatment of vulnerable adult detainees.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • UK risks being listed as a ‘human rights abuser’, NGO warns

    Human Rights Watch warns UK has ‘very short window’ to reverse legislation, including restrictions on the right to protest

    The UK government could soon make the list of countries that abuse rather than protect human rights with its “outright assault” on the rights of its own citizens and aggressive roll-back of protections such as on the right to assemble and protest, according to the international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW).

    “The shrinking civic space is not relegated to countries far away,” said Tirana Hassan, the acting executive director of HRW. “When you come to the UK, you look at the very worrying trend we are seeing. A slew of legislation was passed last year where fundamental human rights are being challenged. The protest law is something we are deeply concerned about.”

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • UK review of gender recognition list risks ‘trans travel ban’

    Campaigners condemn government plan to update list of countries whose GR certificates are automatically recognised

    Rishi Sunak has been told he risks “re-toxifying” his government’s record on LGBTQ+ rights and introducing “an effective trans travel ban” after the equalities minister announced a review of countries whose process for changing gender on legal documents is recognised by the UK.

    Kemi Badenoch notified the Commons on Monday of plans to update the list of approved countries and territories whose gender recognition certificates (GRCs) are automatically recognised by UK officials.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti released from jail after family post bail

    Alidoosti was arrested for support of women’s movement in Iran, including posing on Instagram without hijab

    The celebrated Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti has been released from prison by the authorities after her friends and family provided bail. Pictures of her outside jail with campaigners holding flowers and without a hijab were shown on Iranian social media.

    She had been arrested for issuing statements of support for the women’s movement in Iran, including by posing on Instagram without a hijab, the compulsory hair covering in the country.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Welsh first minister criticised for ‘lavish’ World Cup hotel stay paid by Qatar

    Mark Drakeford and economy minister Vaughan Gething were guests of host nation at five-star Ritz-Carlton

    The Welsh first minister has been criticised for staying in a five-star hotel paid for by the Qatar government during his trip to the football World Cup.

    Mark Drakeford and the Welsh economy minister, Vaughan Gething, stayed at the Ritz-Carlton as guests of the host nation.

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  • Dominic Raab ‘deceptively and deliberately’ undermined me as victims’ tsar, says Vera Baird

    Outgoing commissioner says justice secretary expected her to be his ‘puppet on a string’

    The role of a victims’ champion in England and Wales has been “deceptively and deliberately” undermined, leaving people affected by crime voiceless in the corridors of power, the outgoing victims’ commissioner has said.

    In her first major interview since stepping down from the role in September, Dame Vera Baird accused the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, of seeking a “puppet on a string” while he undermined the rights of victims with his proposed bill of rights.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Our loved ones are imprisoned abroad. Why won’t the UK government help? | Gurpreet Singh Johal and Sanaa Seif

    Our brothers have spent another Christmas unjustly detained overseas – abandoned by those who should protect them

    In March, after six years in captivity in Iran, the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe flew home to be reunited with her family. The photographs of her hugging her husband, Richard, and their daughter, Gabriella, moved me to tears. I have long shared their anger at the UK government’s failure to protect its citizens imprisoned overseas. But, in that moment, I was able to share their joy, too.

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  • MP urges Britons to leave Iran after arrest of ‘British linked’ suspects

    Foreign affairs committee chair says holding of men allegedly involved in protests part of ‘industrialised taking of hostages’

    All British people still in Iran should leave immediately because of the “industrialised” level of people being taken state hostage, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee has said.

    Alicia Kearns made her call after the Iranian government said it had arrested seven “British linked” suspects including some dual nationals allegedly involved in the country’s anti-government protests, which began 100 days ago.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Braverman says she wants to deliver Rwanda deportations at scale as soon as possible – as it happened

    This live blog is now closed. You can read our full report here:

    And here is the key quote from the summary of the judgment.

    The court has concluded that, it is lawful for the government to make arrangements for relocating asylum seekers to Rwanda and for their asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda rather than in the United Kingdom. On the evidence before this court, the government has made arrangements with the government of Rwanda which are intended to ensure that the asylum claims of people relocated to Rwanda are properly determined in Rwanda. In those circumstances, the relocation of asylum seekers to Rwanda is consistent with the refugee convention and with the statutory and other legal obligations on the government including the obligations imposed by the Human Rights Act 1998.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Sunak rejects Tory calls to ignore human rights court rulings over Rwanda deportations

    No 10 opposes bill that would allow removal of asylum seekers from UK even if it went against European court judgment

    Rishi Sunak has rejected calls by dozens of Conservative MPs to toughen up his asylum plans further by ignoring rulings from the European court of human rights over the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda.

    The prime minister sidestepped questions in the Commons over whether he would be willing to withdraw from the European convention on human rights, saying he was delivering legislation allowing people who had arrived illegally to be removed from the UK.

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  • The UK foreign secretary talks tough on rights abuses, but where’s the action? | Dan Dolan

    James Cleverley squares up to some states, but ducks egregious cases involving allies such as India, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia

    The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said that the British government “wants dictators to fear us”, but to those watching closely it would seem that he has a highly selective approach to human rights abusers.

    Just days ago, the Foreign Office was scrambling to withdraw comments by a minister, David Rutley, acknowledging that Saudi Arabian authorities had tortured a Jordanian father facing imminent execution, after a complaint by Saudi authorities.

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  • Civil society calls on Rishi Sunak to commit to keeping Human Rights Act

    More than 150 groups urge PM to rule out once and for all its replacement with Dominic Raab’s bill of rights

    More than 150 civil society groups have written to Rishi Sunak urging him to commit to retaining the Human Rights Act and rule out its replacement by a British bill of rights.

    The prime minister’s position in regards the proposed legislation is in doubt but Dominic Raab, having been reappointed justice secretary, remains determined to push through his pet project, which was shelved under Liz Truss’s premiership.

    Fundamentally weaken the right to respect for private and family life.

    Remove the legal duty on courts and public bodies to interpret other laws compatibly with human rights, exposing people to the arbitrary use of laws with no checks.

    Limit access to justice by adding barriers to bringing a human rights case to court.

    Destroy the positive obligation on public bodies to take proactive steps to protect people from harm, including protecting domestic and child abuse survivors.

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  • UK will sanction human rights abusers rather than ‘commentate’, says Cleverly

    Foreign secretary criticised UK’s lack of robust approach at taking action against perpetrators around the world

    British diplomats have too often acted as “commentators” rather than using leverage against human rights abusers, according to the foreign secretary, who said the culture of his department would shift so that dictators would “pay the price”.

    The UK is set to announce a raft of sanctions against individuals in 11 countries, including Iran, Russia, Mali and Nicaragua, targeting those responsible for acts of torture, sexual violence and the repression of protests.

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  • Watchdog criticises UK ministers’ ‘antagonism’ towards human rights

    Council of Europe report finds government’s attitude is weakening protections for the public

    The UK government has “an increasingly antagonistic attitude” towards human rights that is weakening instead of strengthening protections for the public, a European inquiry has found.

    Inflammatory language used by MPs and officials to describe lawyers could put their safety at risk, according to the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović.

    Provisions in the PCSC Act that de facto criminalise Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities leading a nomadic lifestyle must be rescinded.

    There is “a high level of anxiety among stakeholders” about human rights protection in the UK, in view of the significant impact of recent and proposed legislation.

    The UK’s policies towards refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are eroding their rights. Proposals criticised in the report include newly introduced inadmissibility rules for asylum claims, the possibility of removing persons to Rwanda, and the criminalisation of asylum seekers arriving irregularly.

    The emergence of a harsh political and public discourse against trans people in the UK has a negative impact on their rights.

    The UK government should consider withdrawing the legacy bill, which offers a conditional amnesty to people accused of killings and other Troubles-related crimes.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Harry and Meghan win racial justice and mental health award

    Duke and Duchess of Sussex honoured for their activism days ahead of revelatory Netflix show

    A US human rights charity has awarded Harry and Meghan its Ripple of Hope award for their activism on racial justice and mental health.

    In a statement celebrating their award, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said “a ripple of hope can turn into a wave of change”. The couple received the award on Tuesday night in New York, two days before the release of a tell-all Netflix show expected to include damning revelations about the royal family.

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  • UN refugee body criticises ‘errors’ in asylum report backed by Braverman

    Organisation questions use of ‘illegal’ to describe asylum seekers in report calling for radical crackdown

    A report partially endorsed by the UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, calling for a radical crackdown on those seeking asylum has been criticised by a UN body for “factual and legal errors”.

    Braverman wrote the foreword to the report by the right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies that says “if necessary” Britain should change human rights laws and withdraw from the European convention on human rights in order to tackle Channel crossings by small boat.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Hong Kong withholds British lawyer’s visa, delaying Jimmy Lai trial

    Hong Kong’s immigration department withheld Timothy Owen KC’s application for an extension of his work visa on Thursday

    Hong Kong has temporarily blocked a top British human rights lawyer from representing jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, in a trial stymied by delays and calls for an intervention from Beijing.

    British King’s Counsel Timothy Owen was set to represent Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, who has been in jail on protest-related offences since his high-profile arrest in 2020.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Democracy is at risk. We can’t let oligarchs exploit British courts to silence their critics | David Davis

    The super-rich are menacing those who seek to scrutinise with Slapps: expensive, lengthy and often bogus lawsuits

    • Report: Senior media figures call for law to stop oligarchs silencing UK journalists

    Free speech is the fundamental basis upon which democratic life is built. Many of our other precious freedoms stem from it. In the UK, we naturally take it very seriously. But it is now under threat, from oligarchs and crooks who are abusing our world-renowned legal system in order to silence their critics.

    There is an epidemic of so-called lawfare cases in the UK. The world’s super-rich are hitting journalists, writers, whistleblowers and anyone else who scrutinises them with Slapps – strategic lawsuits against public participation. These are defamation accusations, often with a spurious basis (if they have any basis at all), brought with the intention of terrifying those who question them.

    David Davis is the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Owen Paterson’s lawyers admit irony of his seeking ECHR’s help

    Representatives of Eurosceptic insist he had been left with no option but to appeal to European court of human rights

    Lawyers for Owen Paterson have admitted the irony of the former MP bringing a case against the UK government at the European court of human rights, despite having previously called on Britain to “break free” of the court entirely.

    Representatives for Paterson, a prominent Eurosceptic Conservative who resigned last year in the midst of a lobbying scandal, issued a statement on Monday insisting he had been left with no option but to appeal to a court whose authority he had previously questioned.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Could the Qatar World Cup be a turning point for ethics in sport? | Letters

    Dr Mike Diboll on our complicity in human rights abuses, Karl Eklund on apartheid South Africa, Antony Barlow on the UK’s own failings, and Stan Labovitch on why he won’t boycott watching the World Cup

    Nesrine Malik is correct: Putin’s Russia does “hunt” its exiled dissidents (It’s not just Qatar hoping we now ‘put politics aside’. It’s the hypocritical west, too, 21 November). Saudi Arabia does so too, for example Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Yet Saudi Arabia still gets to host a Formula One grand prix, so-called Clash on the Dunes boxing matches, and international golfing. The 2012 Bahrain grand prix went ahead amid torture and the shooting dead of unarmed protesters. Malik is also right to stress that our governments arm the Gulf states, provide them with surveillance technology, PR, political and diplomatic cover, and – in a situation where sovereign wealth is often hard to distinguish from private hyper-wealth – safe havens for blood money.

    In return for turning a blind eye to grotesque human rights abuses and institutional homophobia and misogyny, “we” get cheap hydrocarbons, “inward investment” that melds our economy with those of the Gulf states, a regional “security” stance and, in the case of Bahrain, a Royal Navy base. Gulf sportswashing has a wider context, and it is a sad reflection on us that human rights abuses only occasionally come to the fore during sporting events, and media debate is so often mired in anti-Arab racism.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Police should have helped Shamima Begum return to UK, court told

    Tribunal hears there were grounds to suspect the then 15-year-old had been groomed as a child bride

    Police should have helped Shamima Begum return to Britain after she joined Islamic State in Syria because there were grounds to suspect she had been groomed as a child bride, a court has heard.

    Samantha Knights KC told a tribunal that the police had an obligation to investigate whether Begum, who was 15 when she left the UK, was a victim of human trafficking, and then help her return if she was.

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  • Owen Paterson taking UK to human rights court after lobbying scandal

    Former MP, who once argued UK should break free from Strasbourg court, is challenging finding he repeatedly broke rules

    Owen Paterson, the former MP at the centre of a lobbying scandal that engulfed Boris Johnson’s government, is taking the UK to the European court of human rights to challenge the finding that he repeatedly broke the rules on paid advocacy.

    Paterson, a leading Brexiter who also once argued the UK should “break free” from the ECHR, filed his case on the grounds that his right to respect for private life was infringed under article 8 of the European convention on human rights.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Shamima Begum may have been a victim of child trafficking, court told

    Lawyers for 23-year-old who left UK to join Islamic State in 2015 challenge ‘hasty’ decision to revoke citizenship

    Shamima Begum, who left Britain as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State (IS) in Syria, was likely to have been the victim of child trafficking and sexual exploitation, a court has heard.

    Lawyers acting for the 23-year-old began a new appeal on Monday against the removal of her British citizenship at a hearing of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac).

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • International troops quit Mali as violence and Moscow’s influence grow

    Germany latest to end peacekeeping mission as operations prove unable to stop Islamic extremist insurgency

    Thousands of international troops are withdrawing from Mali amid surging violence, growing Russian influence and an acute humanitarian crisis.

    On Wednesday Germany became the latest country to end its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in the unstable west African country. Earlier this week, British officials said that 300 British soldiers sent in 2020 to join the United Nations force would be returning earlier than planned.

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  • Dozens of child asylum seekers placed in Home Office hotel for adults

    Concerns raised after children classified wrongly as adults were assigned to a hotel where a serious stabbing took place last month

    At least 40 child asylum seekers were placed in a Home Office hotel designated for adults where one of them was a victim of a serious stabbing last month, the Guardian has learned.

    Lawyers and NGOs have repeatedly raised concerns about children being assessed wrongly as adults by the Home Office after arriving in the UK on small boats.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • UK must act over poverty, housing and equal rights, says UN body

    Human rights council makes more than 300 recommendations, with many coming from less well-off countries

    The UK must tackle rising poverty, the UN human rights council has said in a report that includes demands from less well-off countries for the British government to act.

    Amid worsening financial prospects for millions, the member states of the UN body also demanded action on housing to prevent homelessness, better food security for young children, and equal rights for people with disabilities.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Sister of Alaa Abd el-Fattah accused in Egypt of ‘spreading false news’

    Complaint, which prosecutor has yet to accept, raises risk of Sanaa Seif’s detention during Cop27

    The sister of the jailed hunger striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been informed that a pro-government lawyer has filed a case against her with the Egyptian public prosecutor accusing her of espionage and “spreading false news”.

    The news comes a day after Sanaa Seif spoke at an event at the Cop27 climate summit being held in Egypt, which was widely reported on. The case accuses her of “conspiring with foreign agencies against the Egyptian state, foreign agitation, and incitement against the Egyptian state and its institutions, and deliberately spreading false news.”

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Charities demand inquiry into Heathrow immigration centre conditions

    Home secretary urged to investigate after detainees’ protests over their treatment during power outage

    • UK politics live – latest news updates

    Detention charities have called on Suella Braverman to launch an urgent independent investigation into the disturbances at a Heathrow immigration removal centre over the weekend after a power cut.

    In a letter sent to the home secretary and senior Home Office officials on Tuesday the charities Bail For Immigration Detainees and Medical Justice said the investigation should be launched without delay to find out exactly what had happened at Harmondsworth detention centre and to ascertain the conditions the detainees encountered when deprived of electricity, heating, running water and toilet facilities during the power cut.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s family fear he may be being force-fed in Egyptian prison

    Sister says they need ‘proof of life’ amid concern for activist’s wellbeing and worries UK government not doing enough

    The family of jailed British-Egyptian hunger-striker Alaa Abd el-Fattah have voiced fears that Egyptian officials may be torturing him behind closed doors through force-feeding.

    On the sidelines of the Cop27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, reportedly told French president, Emmanuel Macron, that he was “committed” to ensuring the democracy activist’s health “is preserved,” and that “the next few weeks and months will bring results”.

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  • An intervention from Rishi Sunak today is all that stands between my brother and death | Sanaa Seif

    My brother Alaa Abd el-Fattah is on hunger strike in an Egyptian prison and is now refusing water. The prime minister is his last hope

    At 10am on Sunday morning my brother Alaa drank his last sip of water in an Egyptian prison. He has been on hunger strike for more than 200 days and now, as world leaders arrive for Cop27, he has stopped drinking water.

    He’s been in prison for nine years. He’s not doing this now because he wants to die, but because it’s the only way he might get to live again. He’s been in prison for all but one year of his son’s life for his writings about democracy and technology, and his anti-authoritarian stance. The whole world is watching what happens in Sharm el-Sheikh, where I write this from, and he is staking his life on a belief that the world will today stand with him.

    Sanaa Seif is a film-maker, activist and sister of the imprisoned writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.