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Category: UK news

  • Europe silent on plight of refugees in Libya, says IOM mission chief

    Federico Soda said there needed to be ‘more condemnation’ of the conditions in state-run detention centres in Libya

    Europe has been accused by a senior international official of acquiescence in the plight of thousands of migrants in Libya held in arbitrary detention in “deplorable conditions”.

    Federico Soda, chief of mission at the International Organisation for Migration’s mission in Libya, said not enough was being done by outside actors to try to change the war-torn country’s “environment of arbitrary detention and deplorable conditions” for migrants.

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

  • Downing Street must withdraw its threat to replace the Human Rights Act | Letter

    The government’s bill of rights proposal will weaken the public’s right to challenge abuse, says Geoffrey Bindman

    Rafael Behr correctly identifies the government’s threat to replace the Human Rights Act with a bill of rights as “government by gesture and culture war provocation” (Inane and Orwellian: a Queen’s speech to improve the life of Boris Johnson, 10 May). The Human Rights Act incorporates the rights set out in the European convention on human rights. Jack Straw MP, home secretary when it was introduced in 1998, referred to it as “bringing rights home”. No new rights were created, but thereafter British citizens could pursue them in our own courts instead of making the journey to Strasbourg. That route remains available because the government has committed itself to our remaining party to the convention.

    The government’s independent Human Rights Act review, chaired by the retired lord justice of appeal Sir Peter Gross, reported on 14 December 2021. It found that the act was working well and there was no case for its repeal. Ignoring this advice, Dominic Raab issued a consultation paper on his bill of rights proposal, which met almost total rejection from those who responded.

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

  • Afghan female judge awarded prestigious human rights prize

    Fawzia Amini advocates for rights of Afghan women and girls from London hotel room she’s been stuck in for nine months

    One of Afghanistan’s top female judges has been honoured with an international human rights award while she continues her work to advocate for her country’s women and girls from a London hotel.

    Fawzia Amini, 48, fled Afghanistan last summer after the Taliban takeover of the country. She had been one of Afghanistan’s leading female judges, former head of the legal department at the Ministry of Women, senior judge in the supreme court, and head of the violence against women court.

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

  • Tamil refugees detained by UK on Chagos Islands go on hunger strike

    Forty-two hunger strikers are part of group of 89 Sri Lankans whose boat was intercepted in Indian Ocean by UK military

    Dozens of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who have been detained for more than seven months in a military base on an overseas territory claimed by Britain have gone on hunger strike in despair at their plight.

    The 42 hunger strikers are part of a group of 89 Sri Lankans, including 20 children, whose boat was intercepted and escorted to Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean by the British military after running into distress while apparently headed to Canada from India in October.

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  • ‘Ella’s law’ bill seeks to establish right to clean air in UK

    Jenny Jones says bill, named after girl who died of asthma, treats pollution as matter of social justice

    A new clean air law is starting out in parliament after the Green party peer Jenny Jones won first place in the House of Lords ballot for private members’ bills.

    Named Ella’s law, as a tribute to nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah who died from asthma induced by air pollution, the bill would establish a right to clean air and set up a commission to oversee government actions and progress. It would also join policies on indoor and outdoor air pollution with actions to combat our climate emergency, and include annual reviews of the latest science.

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

  • MSPs weighing gender recognition reforms told ‘trans people are not an ideology’

    Director of Stonewall Scotland speaks to parliamentarians as they take evidence on draft bill

    MSPs have been urged to keep foremost in their minds that trans people are “human beings wanting to go about their daily lives”, as a Holyrood committee begins taking evidence on a draft bill that aims to streamline the process by which an individual can change their legal sex.

    Colin Macfarlane, the director of Stonewall Scotland, told members of the Scottish parliament’s equalities, human rights and civil justice committee: “There has been a whipping up of a moral panic and an othering of trans people in the public discourse. Trans people are not an ideology – trans people are our friends, our family and our colleagues.”

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

  • Exiles angry as Queen hosts king of Bahrain

    UK is ‘haven for dictators’ says critic after Queen invites ruler who outlawed political opposition in Middle Eastern state to the Royal Windsor horse show

    The king of Bahrain is expected to attend the Royal Windsor horse show on Sunday after a personal invitation from the Queen, prompting anger from campaigners who claim the UK is “sportswashing” what they say is an increasingly repressive regime.

    King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has been invited as a guest of the Queen, demonstrating a warmth of official ties despite the Middle Eastern state’s outlawing of political opposition, and human rights violations including torture.

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

  • Levi Bellfield: Raab says killer’s marriage request is ‘inconceivable’

    Justice secretary says safeguarding concerns must be addressed, and criticises Human Rights Act

    Levi Bellfield’s request to get married in prison is “inconceivable” unless serious safeguarding concerns are addressed, Dominic Raab has said.

    Bellfield, who murdered Marsha McDonnell, Amelie Delagrange and Milly Dowler, is engaged and has requested a prison wedding, the Ministry of Justice has confirmed.

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

  • This British ‘bill of rights’ is constitutional butchery that will make us all less free | Shami Chakrabarti

    The 1998 Human Rights Act, an outstanding legal achievement, is being taken apart simply to empower the government

    After years of threats and Conservative manifesto commitments, it looks like a British “bill of rights” to scrap and replace the 1998 Human Rights Act is finally upon us. “My ministers,” read the Prince of Wales in his mother’s place on Tuesday, “will restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts.”

    But scratch the surface and you find this bill of rights to be precisely the opposite – not a document to empower ordinary people in post-Brexit Britain, but a power grab by the state. Remember, this is the prime minister who once illegally shut down parliament for irritating his political agenda – for the No 10 Praetorian Guard, “legislature” is euphemism for the “executive”.

    Shami Chakrabarti was shadow attorney general for England and Wales from 2016 to 2020, and was director of Liberty from 2003 to 2016

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

  • Threat of being sent to Rwanda ‘harming health of UK asylum seekers’

    Rights organisations say refugees going into hiding as Home Office admits LGBTQ+ people could face persecution in African country

    Ministers’ threats to send unauthorised migrants to Rwanda are having a detrimental impact on the physical and psychological health of people seeking asylum, according to two major refugee charities.

    The British Red Cross and the Refugee Council, which worked with nearly 44,000 people in the asylum process, warn that they are disappearing from hotels and are reluctant to claim support for fear of deportation, detention and other harsh measures.

    A Rwandan asylum seeker who contacted the Red Cross in south-east England fearing he could be sent back to the country. He disclosed that he would be in hiding and refraining from accessing support so he is not identified by the authorities.

    An Afghan man living in temporary accommodation in the east Midlands who disclosed that he had gone into hiding, fearing that he would be detained and sent to Rwanda. He said that many of his friends were in the same situation and planned to go underground.

    An asylum seeker from Ethiopia based in the West Midlands said that he feels anxious about the passing of the Nationality and Borders Act and disclosed he had left his accommodation out of fear that he will be sent to Rwanda.

    An Afghan asylum seeker also based in the West Midlands who said he feels he is a second-class refugee as he is not eligible for recent schemes designed to support Ukrainians.

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

  • Queen’s speech shows Boris Johnson is out of ideas, says Labour

    Agenda includes bills to overhaul planning and human rights law but few new cost of living measures

    Keir Starmer said Boris Johnson’s government was “bereft of ideas or purpose” after a Queen’s speech that included bills to overhaul the planning system and rewrite human rights law, but few new measures to tackle the cost of living crisis.

    Warning that the UK faced a “stagflation crisis” the Labour leader said: “We need a government of the moment, with the ideas that meet the aspirations of the people.”

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

  • Boris Johnson to force through new anti-protest curbs in Queen’s speech

    Government to announce new offences to stop protesters from ‘locking on’ to infrastructure

    Boris Johnson’s government will force through police powers to prevent disruptive yet peaceful protests as one of 38 new bills in Tuesday’s Queen’s speech.

    In a move to reinstate measures thrown out by the House of Lords in January, the government will announce new offences to stop protesters from “locking on” to infrastructure, extend stop and search powers, and make it illegal to obstruct transport projects.

    New criminal offences of locking on, and going equipped to lock on to others, objects or buildings – carrying a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

    The creation of a new criminal offence of interfering with key national infrastructure, such as airports, railways and printing presses – carrying a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison and an unlimited fine.

    Measures to make it illegal to obstruct major transport works, including disrupting the construction or maintenance of projects like HS2 – punishable by up to six months in prison and an unlimited fine.

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

  • Consequences ‘dire’ if Human Rights Act ditched, more than 50 groups warn

    Exclusive: PM is told tearing up act could endanger women and girls and damage peace in Northern Ireland

    Tearing up the Human Rights Act would have “dire consequences” including removing obligations to properly address violence against women and girls and destabilising peace in Northern Ireland, more than 50 organisations have warned.

    In a letter to Boris Johnson, Amnesty, Liberty, the British Institute of Human Rights and others have spelled out the “significant implications” of repealing the act, which is expected to be announced in the Queen’s speech on Tuesday, asking for an urgent meeting to discuss the plans.

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

  • UK urged to act after UN panel rules detention of Briton in India ‘arbitrary’

    Jagtar Singh Johal has been detained since 2017 and allegedly tortured, accused of helping to fund assassination plot

    The UK is under pressure to insist India release Jagtar Singh Johal, a British citizen, after a UN working group ruled he had been arbitrarily detained by India and his detention lacked any legal basis.

    Boris Johnson apparently raised the case when he met the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, last month and provided a written note of consular cases, but Foreign Office ministers have not confirmed whether they regard his detention as arbitrary.

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  • Legal cases may explain why Rwanda plan is not working, suggests No 10

    As Channel crossings pick up, asylum seekers seem undeterred by plan to deport people to east Africa

    Legal challenges to the policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda could be a reason why the plan has not yet, as intended, started to deter unofficial Channel crossings, Downing Street has said.

    After a period without significant numbers of crossings amid bad weather, several hundred of people made the journey in recent days, bringing the total to more than 7,000 so far this year. It is the first time this has happened since the passing of the nationalities and borders bill, which set out the policy framework.

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

  • Twitter takeover: EU warns Elon Musk must comply or face sanctions

    Internal market commissioner raised concerns that hate speech will increase on the platform

    The EU has warned Elon Musk that Twitter must “comply with our rules” or face sanctions that range from fines to a total ban, as concerns were raised that hate speech will increase on the platform under his ownership.

    The world’s richest man has agreed a $44bn (£34bn) deal to buy the social media network, which will hand control of a platform with 217 million users to a self-confessed “free speech absolutist”.

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

  • UK plans to send thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda, says Boris Johnson – as it happened

    This live blog has now closed, you can read more on the UK’s new asylum system plans here

    Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, made a rare appearance on the morning broadcast round earlier today. He said the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda would mark a “humane step forward”. He told Sky News:

    We have to deal with this problem. We have a very good relationship with Rwanda: it’s an up-and-coming economy, it has got a very good record with migrants in this particular issue.

    And it’s an arrangement which I think suits both countries very well and provides the best opportunities for economic migrants, for those who have been in the forefront of this particular appalling problem for so long now.

    We’ve put forward proposals to make it more difficult for smuggler gangs to advertise online on social media, which is partly how they do it.

    We think there should be safe and legal routes that people need for family reunions and so on, so that they don’t have to arrive through these illegal routes in order to make their asylum claims.

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

  • Boris Johnson takes pre-emptive shot at lawyers over Rwanda scheme

    Analysis: plan to send unauthorised migrants overseas is likely to be very difficult to defend in courts

    Detailing plans to send unauthorised migrants to Rwanda, Boris Johnson managed to blame “politically motivated lawyers” for forcing the government to draw up such a drastic policy, and also for any future failure to implement it.

    By blaming them for Britain being seen as “a soft touch for illegal migration”, continuing a government narrative against “lefty lawyers”, many in the profession believe the prime minister is putting a fig leaf over a policy that is likely to be extremely difficult to defend in the courts and may end up at the European court of human rights.

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

  • Colston Four acquittal to be referred to court of appeal

    Unusual move to seek legal clarification, which cannot reverse verdict, amounts to the ‘politicisation of jury trials’, says defence lawyer

    The attorney general has referred the case of four protesters cleared of the toppling of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston to the court of appeal for legal direction.

    In a rare move, which cannot reverse the not guilty verdicts, Suella Braverman is to ask appeal judges for clarification on whether defendants can cite their human rights as a defence in a case of criminal damage.

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

  • Replacing Human Rights Act will weaken protections, say peers and MPs

    Joint committee on human rights says plans contravene principle that human rights are universal

    Dominic Raab’s proposal to replace the Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights is not evidence-based and will diminish protections for individuals, MPs and peers have said.

    The criticisms by the joint committee on human rights (JCHR) are the latest directed at the planned changes, which the justice secretary has said will counter “wokery and political correctness” and expedite the deportation of foreign criminals.

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

  • Liberty threatens to sue government over ‘racist’ joint enterprise law

    Human rights group argues law unfairly attaches gang motives to black and minority-ethnic young men

    The human rights group Liberty is threatening to sue the government and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over the bitterly contested law of joint enterprise, arguing that it is discredited and racist in the way the authorities pursue it.

    Under the law, people present when a person is killed can be convicted of murder despite not committing any serious violence themselves, if they are found to have “encouraged or assisted” the perpetrator. Liberty is acting for the campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty By Association (Jengba), which supports approximately 1,400 people in prison who believe they have been unjustly convicted of serious crimes perpetrated by somebody else.

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

  • High court overturns acquittal of HS2 protester after appeal by prosecution

    Judges direct conviction of Elliott Cuciurean in what is being seen as blow to right to protest

    The high court has directed that a protester against the HS2 rail line who was originally acquitted of aggravated trespass should be convicted after an appeal by the director of public prosecutions.

    In a decision that will come as a blow to protesters more widely, two judges, including the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett, ordered that the case of Elliott Cuciurean be remitted to the magistrates court with a direction to convict.

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

  • UK’s draft refugee and police laws are ‘human rights vandalism’, says Amnesty

    Rights group’s annual report accuses Britain of setting ‘worrying reverse course’ in bills on refugees, policing, protest and welfare

    The government’s attack on fundamental rights and protections enshrined in UK law is an “act of human rights vandalism” that would curtail the ability of people to hold the state to account, Amnesty International has claimed.

    In its annual report on the state of human rights across the world, Amnesty strongly criticised the British government for its attempts to dismantle the Human Rights Act and a battery of new “draconian” legislation on refugees and policing.

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

  • Amnesty hits out at Tory plans to replace Human Rights Act with bill of rights

    Justice secretary Dominic Raab’s proposals will ‘slash away’ at rights of ordinary people to challenge government, group says

    Amnesty International has criticised plans by the justice secretary Dominic Raab to replace Labour’s Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights.

    Raab has argued that the proposal will better protect the press in exposing wrongdoing and said he feared free speech was being “whittled away” by “wokery and political correctness”.

    The deputy prime minister told the Daily Mail that under plans being drawn up, there would be only limited restrictions placed on the protections on free speech with checks to stop people abusing it to promote terrorism.

    Laura Trevelyan, Amnesty’s human rights in the UK campaign manager, hit out at his plan on Saturday.

    “Scrapping the Human Rights Act has long been the intention of Mr Raab and others not because they want to extend any protections, but because they want to slash away at the powers ordinary people have got to challenge the government and its decisions,” she said.

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

  • Jiggery-wokery: the real obstacle to a united front on Ukraine | Rowan Moore

    Concern about a placename’s associations with slavery – unlike cosying up to oligarchs – doesn’t put anyone on Russia’s side

    Beware the journalistic use of the word “we”. It’s a slippery pronoun that can slide from meaning “we, the whole of humanity” to “we, the author and some like-minded friends” to “we, an ill-defined mass who uphold an imaginary consensus that the author wishes bravely to oppose”.

    It’s out in force in the persistent and evidence-free claims that “woke wars”, as the Daily Telegraph’s Sherelle Jacobs put it last week, have gravely undermined “our” ability to confront the evils of Vladimir Putin. In the cold war, she claims, conflict with the Soviet Union was “confidently framed” as one between “the enlightened forces of liberty and the darkness of communism”. Now, “we” are tearing ourselves apart with “squabbles over statues and gender pronouns”.

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

  • Raab says UK bill of rights will stop free speech being ‘whittled away by wokery’

    Deputy PM says proposals to replace the Human Rights Act will enable principle of free speech to be a legal ‘trump card’

    Dominic Raab has disclosed proposals to replace Labour’s Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights which he believes will enable the principle of free speech to become a legal “trump card”.

    Raab, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, has argued that the plan will better protect the press in exposing wrongdoing and said he feared free speech was being “whittled away” by “wokery and political correctness”.

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

  • Home Office illegally seized phones of 2,000 asylum seekers, court rules

    Secret, blanket policy to take mobiles and extract data from them judged unlawful on several fronts

    The Home Office operated an unlawful, secret, blanket policy to seize almost 2,000 mobile phones from asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats and then downloaded data from these phones, the high court has ruled.

    The court found that the policy was unlawful on multiple fronts and breached the asylum seekers’ human rights. The judges ruled that there was no parliamentary authority for seizures and data extractions and that the legal power that Home Office officials thought they could use was the wrong one.

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

  • A smacking ban could have been imposed years ago – and saved children’s lives | Letters

    More than 800 children have been killed since my amendment to the Children’s Act was rejected in 2004, says David Hinchliffe. Plus a letter from Sharman Finlay

    Your editorial commending the Welsh government on its smacking ban (21 March) might have drawn attention to the NSPCC’s estimation that at least one child is killed each week in the UK, usually at the hands of a parent or carer. This appalling level of mortality most likely understates the actual figure but is undoubtedly directly connected to the fact that we have historically afforded children less protection in law.

    My amendment to ensure children had the same legal protection from assault as given to adults was not accepted by the then Labour government when the 2004 Children Act was passed, and I have a vivid recollection of the prime minister, Tony Blair, telling me at the time that the proposal was “a notch too far”. I have often wondered how many of the more than 800 children killed during the near two decades since might just possibly not have lost their lives if we had introduced that very modest and quite simple reform.
    David Hinchliffe
    Labour MP for Wakefield, 1987-2005

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

  • Saudi executions are glossed over for oil | Brief letters

    Improved human rights | A chant for Putin | Dame Caroline Haslett | Boycotting P&O

    During his trip to Saudi Arabia, Boris Johnson praised the country’s improved human rights record (Boris Johnson upbeat on Saudi oil supply as kingdom executes three more, 16 March). As only three men were executed during his visit there, compared with 81 at the weekend, is that what Johnson means by an improving human rights record?
    Jim King
    Birmingham

    • During the Vietnam war, when Lyndon B Johnson was US president, demonstrators chanted daily outside the White House: “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” The same question would no doubt be asked of Putin by Russians (Survivors leaving basement of Mariupol theatre after airstrike, say officials, 17 March), if they did not live yet again under a repressive dictatorship.
    David Winnick
    London

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

  • Ministers ‘failing to protect’ people trafficked to UK as modern slaves

    Anti-slavery commissioner says change in law needed so that victims are more likely to be allowed to stay in UK

    Ministers are failing to protect people trafficked to Britain as modern slaves, the government’s own expert has said.

    Sara Thornton, the UK’s independent anti-slavery commissioner, said the law needed changing so those established as victims of traffickers would be more likely to be granted protection and allowed to stay in the UK.

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