Still We Rise SWR Media

Frances Webber, Author of Borderline Justice, Barrister and board member of the Institute of Race Relations for over 40 years. The facts of this case raise serious questions and the prospects of an appeal loom large. Every Individual must be afforded a fair trial and the principles of justice and fairness demand that all including those who don’t have power and are the most vulnerable in society have access to justice.

In this episode, we confront a disturbing reality unfolding, the criminalization of people seeking asylum, Britain of course is still a signatory to the Refugee Convention, a document it once championed. A recent report published by the Centre for Criminology at the No Such Thing As Justice Here lifts the veil on this criminalization law. One key feature of this report is the seminal trial of a Senegalese National, Ibrahima Bah whose age is contested, his birth certificate says he is 17 years old. He stands accused of steering a dinghy boat, in which tragically, four people perish, lost to the unforgiving depths of the sea. Bah, a person seeking asylum,  now finds himself ensnared in a web of injustice. His testimony at Cantebury Crown Court paints a harrowing picture: forced at gunpoint to navigate perilous waters by people traffickers, compelled by circumstances beyond his control. 
And yet, his narrative is not one of solitary suffering. It finds echo in the voices of those who, against all odds, made it to the shores of Dover, bearing witness to the horrors endured on that fateful voyage.
What emerges is a stark indictment of a policy forged in the crucible of fear and intolerance. A policy that casts aside the principles of compassion and humanity, instead wielding the heavy hand of criminalization against those in their most vulnerable hour. And perhaps most chillingly, this policy finds its architects not in the distant halls of power, but in the children of immigrants themselves, Priti Patel, James Cleverly and Rishi Sunak who know all too well the struggle and resilience upon which migrating to this country is built upon. And so we must confront the uncomfortable truths that lie at the intersection of law and morality. For in the story of Ibrahima Bah lies not just a singular injustice, but a reflection of a broader crisis of conscience—one that demands our attention, our empathy, and our collective resolve to set things right.

Dr. Peter William Walsh is a Senior Researcher at The Migration Observatory, and Departmental Lecturer in Migration Studies, at the University of Oxford. He has authored over forty reports and articles on UK immigration policy, including family migration, student migration, settlement, irregular migration, detention, deportation, asylum, Afghan refugee resettlement, Ukrainian refugee migration, small boat arrivals, and the Hong Kong route to citizenship.

This week we are joined by Dr. Emelie McDonnell, a human rights and refugee advocate, with experience and expertise in human rights, refugee, and international law more broadly. We look at Britain’s diminishing rights record through the lens of Human Rights Watch whose work across the world is well-established and respected. Britain has set itself on an extraordinary path with a raft of domestic legislation that criminalises people seeking asylum who arrive without prior authorization, in breach of its obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention.  Not only that, it plans to outsource the processing of Refugees to Rwanda, a country with a very poor rights record. Domestically plans to repeal and replace the Human Rights Act are afoot. It’s a truly precarious time for would-be Refugees. Emilie McDonnell talks us through the implications, she’s clear, these changes are egregious and a flagrant disregard of international law.  An instructive compelling listen
 
 
 
 

Over the last few months Nicola Kelly, a former Home Office Staffer and now journalist focused on UK immigration and asylum policy and human rights, has been looking at what’s going on at the Home Office and the department its’ become today. She reveals a culture of fear that emanates directly from Priti Patel's office, civil servants who feel morally compromised by strident policy positions, not least the Rwanda Policy. Morale is the lowest it’s ever been. Faced with backlogs of over 100,000 asylum cases, Afghans living in hotels for over a year, Channel Migrants dumped in Napier barracks.  The department is too slow, too bureaucratic, too defensive and too hard-hearted. A compelling Listen.

Bill of Rights SynopsisDominic Raab has set Britain on a course of travel that indulges its worst Brexit excesses.He famously said he didn’t believe in social and economic rights and so it is no surprise that he sought to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a Bill Of RightsRaab asserts that this Bill will give people more rights to free speech and limit ‘bogus’ human rights claims. Not so says Liberty’s Director Martha Spurrier.This Bill does nothing but limit and restricts people's access to their rights, it pits the British courts which she laments as ‘increasingly conservative’ with the Strasbourg Court and deliberately sets them up for a collision courseMartha gives us a historical masterclass on the vital role that the Human Rights Act has played in securing people's rights and holding public authorities and the Executive accountableA compelling listen.