Musings From Abroad

British PM Sunak remains adamant over migration deal with Rwanda

Published

7 months ago

April 24, 2024

British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has remained adamant on the controversial migration deal, promising to start sending asylum seekers to Rwanda within 10 to 12 weeks.

This would happen after parliament passed long-awaited legislation that would make it easier to remove people who come to Britain illegally.

The Supreme Court ruled the policy illegal in November, but Sunak says the new law is more important than any legal issues. This is how he plans to keep his promise to stop people coming across the Channel in small boats.

Sunak also said he would stop people from taking small boats across the Channel, which is a dangerous route that goes for about 20 miles (32 km). Last year, more than 29,000 people came this way. In 2022, a record 45,775 refugees came this way.

For many Britons, leaving the European Union in 2016 meant taking back control of Britain’s borders and stopping people from freely moving into the country but reports show the situation remains a problem. There have been 6,265 people found so far this year, which is almost 25% more than the same time last year.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to the plan in April 2022. It sends anyone who came to Britain illegally after January 1, 2022, to Rwanda, which is about 4,000 miles (6,400 km) away.

Nevertheless, European courts stopped the first flight of people being sent back to their home countries in June 2022. The Supreme Court then supported a decision that the plan was illegal because migrants could be sent back to their home countries or to other countries where they would be mistreated.

Sunak said that the government had reserved commercial charter planes, ready an airfield, and trained staff to take migrants to Rwanda. He said that the first flight would leave in 10 to 12 weeks, but his party thinks that the new law doesn’t go far enough to stop asylum seekers from being able to appeal against being sent back to their home country.

Because of the law, British courts won’t be able to decide if Rwanda is safe, but they might have to decide on specific cases on their own, though only for very narrow reasons.

“If it ever comes to a choice between our national security — securing our borders — and membership of a foreign court, I’m, of course, always going to prioritise our national security,” Sunak said.

Britain has already paid Rwanda more than 200 million pounds ($304 million), and it could cost more than 600 million pounds to resettle about 300 people. At this point, about 50,000 people could be sent there, but it’s still unclear how many people Rwanda can hold.

Related Topics:Featured Rishi Sunak Rwanda

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Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

9 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

1 day ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.