PRESS RELEASE:Refugees are Victims of British Government’s Inhumane Policy

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23 April 2024

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees and International organisation of Iranian Refugees, would like to convey our condolences to the families of the 5 victims, including a child, who died trying to cross the English Channel on Tuesday, April 23rd. This is yet another tragedy. The British Government should be held responsible for this tragedy due to its inhumane policies.
 
On the April 22, 2024, the British parliament voted in support of the Conservative bill to make the sending of Refugees to Rwanda a new law. This policy has previously been stopped by the international and European courts on numerous occasions as it was considered to violate provisions of the Charter of Human Rights. On November 2023 the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Rwanda scheme was unlawful. According to its ruling the refugees would be at risk of being returned to their home countries where they could face harm. This legislation ignores British laws and international rules. 
 
Such practices by the present British government reveals its inhumane character as it obviously does not care about sending asylum seekers to an unsafe country. Such practices are in glaring breach of the provisions of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits torture and inhumane treatment. In 2018 the British Government itself condemned Rwanda for killing 11 refugees. In a nutshell, refugees are fleeing unsafe countries only to be sent to another unsafe country by the British government.
 
This anti-asylum policy of the British government is against all international standards on refugee rights. If it wants to prevent refugees from entering the UK, it must stop supporting war and the militaristic policies it is pursuing in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. These wars are pushing people to flee in pursuit of safety and a better life.
 
We, at the International Organisation of Iranian Refugees and International Federation of Iraqi Refugees-IFIR, condemn the above-mentioned recent outrageous legislation and ask the legislators to listen to the UK Supreme courts and European and international courts and stop putting the lives of refugees at risk.
 
We call on human rights organizations, trade unions, Socialist and progressive parties and organizations, prominent lawyers in the UK, Amnesty International and tens of thousands of refugees in the UK to fight against this anti-human policy called Rwanda Policy. 

International Organisation of Iranian Refugees

International Federation of Iraqi Refugees – IFIR