Fifteen minutes before takeoff: The European Court of Human Rights delivers a knockout blow to Britain, and the plane departs empty for Rwanda without the refugees. Will Denmark be deterred?

A ruling issued yesterday by the European Court of Human Rights put a temporary halt to asylum plans in Britain, and the chartered plane that was supposed to take asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda was forced to leave Boscombe Down airbase in Wiltshire last night without a single passenger on board.

Britain faces a long legal battle after the British government was forced yesterday to abandon plans to send a plane full of asylum seekers to Rwanda, where more than 30 asylum seekers were to be sent to the African country which, according to an agreement with the United Kingdom, would handle their asylum cases.

But in recent days, legal objections have caused the number of passengers to drop to only about seven.

Last night, the European Court of Human Rights dealt a decisive blow to British plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, at least for the time being, according to Tinne Hersing Knudsen, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation's UK correspondent. She said: “It went very dramatically. One of the men who was supposed to be on the 7:30 pm flight to Rwanda was told that the European Court of Human Rights would be intervening in his case. Shortly after, the same thing happened to the rest of the passengers. At 10:15 pm, just 15 minutes before takeoff, the last person was removed from the plane. We don't know if they had fastened their seatbelts, but the flight was canceled.”.

Asylum agreement between Britain and Rwanda

In April 2022, the United Kingdom signed an asylum agreement with Rwanda.
The agreement stipulates that Rwanda will receive asylum seekers from the United Kingdom in exchange for a fee.
The five-year court will send some refugees to Rwanda to seek asylum there. .
They may be granted permanent refugee status to remain in Rwanda. If not, they can apply to settle there for other reasons, or seek asylum in a “safe third country” and will not be able to return to the UK.
The policy primarily targets young, unmarried people arriving in the UK through what the government calls “illegal, dangerous or unnecessary methods” such as small boats or hidden in trucks.
In return, Rwanda will receive one billion kroner. At the same time, the UK will cover the accommodation costs for the asylum seekers as well as their transport to Rwanda.
According to the British government, the deal is an attempt to deter refugees and migrants from buying trips to Britain via the English Channel from people smugglers.
Source: BBC

The plane was scheduled to depart as the first of several, as part of an agreement Britain had made with Rwanda.

But according to the European Court of Human Rights, British courts did not thoroughly investigate whether it was actually justified to send people to Rwanda.

This is despite the fact that a British court ruled late on Monday that there was no basis for halting flights to Rwanda.

The correspondent reports that the legal challenges to British asylum policy specifically concern whether it is actually legal to send asylum seekers to another country in the manner the UK intends. The question is whether this is permissible under the European Convention on Human Rights, which the UK has signed and remains a party to. Can people be sent to Rwanda, a country 6,500 kilometers away? And can one be sure they will be treated properly once they arrive in Rwanda? The European Court of Human Rights believes these issues have not been thoroughly investigated. As long as there is no such guarantee, people cannot be sent, the correspondent notes. She adds that the court also ruled that asylum seekers cannot be sent until 14 days after a decision is made regarding the legality of the action. Therefore, a major legal battle is expected in the coming weeks, she concludes.

Considering all options
The British government recently indicated that it might consider withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights if it hinders its planned asylum policy. When asked whether the time was right for the UK to withdraw due to the government's difficulties in implementing its policy towards Rwanda, Boris Johnson replied that it was very possible. Yesterday, he stated that all these options were under constant review. Today, the message from Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey is that the government is not planning to withdraw but intends to appeal the European Court of Human Rights ruling to allow flights to take off with refugees to Rwanda.

Asylum seekers in the United Kingdom

In 2021, 75% of arrivals were men aged between 18 and 39. About 5% of men were over 40, 7% of women were over 18, and 12% were children under 18 (three-quarters of whom were male).

Previously, Iranians made up the vast majority of arrivals – 80% in 2018 and 66% in 2019.

More recently, there has been a greater mix of nationalities crossing the border. Iranians made up 30% of those arriving by small boat last year, while Iraqis accounted for 21%, Eritreans 11%, and Syrians 9%, according to the UK Home Office.

The message from the British government today is that they have already begun planning their next trip, and that the European Court of Human Rights' decision will not deter them.

Refugee agreement between Denmark and Rwanda

According to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), what happened in the United Kingdom is causing doubt and uncertainty regarding the Danish agreement.
Last year, Denmark also entered into a “cooperation agreement” with Rwanda, which made it possible to process asylum outside of Denmark’s borders.

Although it is not clear exactly how such an agreement between Denmark and Rwanda will be formulated, the European Court of Human Rights“ decision creates uncertainty about Danish plans, according to Amnesty International, which criticizes such a plan: “The court confirmed many of the criticisms made by a large number of organizations against this policy. In other words, the agreements risk violating fundamental human rights. This means that the prospects for a Danish asylum agreement with Rwanda are now uncertain,” Martin Limberg Pedersen, policy director at Amnesty International Denmark, told the Ritzau news agency.

(Sources: Danish Radio website, BBC and Sky News)