The UK this week started a trial of tracking migrants with an electronic device. The Interior Ministry says it especially wants to track people who arrive via “dangerous or unnecessary” routes, for example by crossing the Channel in a small boat. Report that British media Saturday morning† Refugee organizations are critical and fear that people fleeing violence will be treated as criminals by the trial.
The tracking devices will collect data on how many people are hiding once they arrive in the UK. Tracked migrants may also be subject to a curfew. Those who fail to meet the conditions for their asylum application may face arrest and prosecution. The ministry says it wants to use the test to test whether it is tag of migrants helps to process their asylum applications faster, because it is easier to keep in touch with them. It is not clear exactly what that device looks like: it may be an ankle bracelet, which is also used in England and Wales to (temporarily) to get out of jail†
The trial started Thursday in England and Wales. It is part of the deterrent policy that the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to implement in an attempt to reduce (illegal) migration through the Channel. Refugee Council refugee director Enver Solomon calls it a “draconian and punitive” trial that “shows no compassion for very vulnerable people” arriving in the UK. “It is appalling that this government wants to treat as criminals men, women and children who have fled war, bloodshed and persecution.”
Rwanda
Earlier this week, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that another controversial part of Britain’s deterrence policy should not go ahead for the time being: in the latter, the Court blocked the first flight that refugees from the UK to Rwanda would have to have. bring. According to The Independent are the 130 asylum seekers that would initially be released via this flight, the first to receive an electronic tracking device.
The agreement the UK signed with Rwanda in April has been widely criticized. The Court in Strasbourg ruled on the case of one asylum seeker, which meant that the others were also not allowed to be put on the plane. The Court expressed doubts about ‘access to a fair and efficient asylum procedure’. In addition, there is ‘a real risk of irreversible suffering’ for deported asylum seekers.
In an interview published Saturday in the British newspaper The Telegraph Interior Minister Priti Patel lashes out at the Court’s judgment: she calls the “opaque way” in which the ruling was reached “outrageous”. “The Court has not made this ruling before, which makes you question the motivation and the lack of transparency.”
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