MP for Edinburgh South West, Joanna Cherry, QC, MP, is the newly appointed Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and has taken one of her first actions in that role by writing to the Home Secretary.
It is no secret that all SNP MPs have protested against the UK Government’s deal with Rwanda to send refugees there in an attempt to dissuade people from making the dangerous cross-Channel journey from France.
As Chair of the JCHR, Ms Cherry has written a letter to Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, questioning the government policy, and pointing out that the committee considers that it breaches human rights on several fronts.
Ms Cherry told The Edinburgh Reporter: “The committee is very concerned that Rwanda is not a sufficiently safe destination to be a partner in an asylum agreement of this kind. The Government is proposing to divert people seeking asylum in the UK to Rwanda to go through the Rwandan refugee system. The intention is that once individuals are in Rwanda the UK will have no responsibility for them. Outsourcing the UK’s responsibility for asylum and refugee protection like this is wrong. Removing asylum seekers to a state where they face a real risk of serious human rights abuses, or of being sent on to a dangerous third country as a result of an inadequate asylum system, is inconsistent with the UK’s international treaty & human rights obligations.”
The letter is here:
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
