Patel insists Rwanda is safe for asylum-seekers – despite expert advice on torture

Priti Patel: she’s not one to listen to advice she doesn’t like.

The Home Secretary has confirmed that she is ignoring the advice of an adviser who said the Rwandan government tortures political opponents, in pushing her policy of deporting asylum-seekers there.

Priti Patel insisted that Rwanda was a “safe country”.

She said the comments had been made by “officials in a different government department”.

She added: “But of course it is the Home Office who has led the economic development migration partnership which is our resettlement partnership to Rwanda. Rwanda is a safe country and all our work with the government of Rwanda shows that.”

She was responding to a High Court judgment that seven statements by an adviser should be made public in advance of a Supreme Court ruling on whether the Rwanda deportation policy is legal.

A judge ruled that a further four statements should not be published as they could potentially harm international relations.

It is not unreasonable – on the face of it – for the government to seek advice and then ignore what it is told.

Governments may take opinions from multiple sources before forming their own opinions and policy.

But this has the potential to blow up in the Tory government’s collective face, if the decision to ignore warnings about this foreign government leads to asylum-seekers being harmed.

3 Comments

  1. Molly Ayton August 19, 2022 at 1:57 pm - Reply

    Maybe Priti Patel and the rest of her office should go to Rwanda for a year.
    They should be taken from their beds in the middle of the night under force and frogmarched onto a plane with armed guards (maybe even handcuffed) in only the clothes they are wearing , with no idea of were they will end up Do not speak the language of host country. They should be made to go through the horrors of trying to contact UK home Office and other government offices that will ignore their calls

  2. John Smith-Warren August 19, 2022 at 2:51 pm - Reply

    If Rwanda is a safe country – why didn’t her parents move there from Uganda instead of coming to the U.K.?

  3. jake August 19, 2022 at 4:24 pm - Reply

    UK tortures us political dissidents as well :-(

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