KIGALI: Rwanda said the UN refugee agency had lied when the organization told a British court this week that asylum seekers sent to the East African country could be moved on again to states where they risked torture or death.
Lawyers representing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told the court on Monday that Rwanda’s asylum system was inadequate, as part of a challenge to the British government’s policy to deport asylum seekers there.
The lawyers said removing asylum seekers to Rwanda put them at risk of being transferred again in a banned process known as refoulement — building on past evidence which formed an important part of the UK Supreme Court’s reasoning when it ruled last year that the British plan was unlawful.
“UNHCR is lying,” Rwanda’s government spokesperson said in a statement late on Tuesday.
“The organization seems intent on presenting fabricated allegations to UK courts about Rwanda’s treatment of asylum seekers, while still partnering with us to bring African migrants from Libya to safety in Rwanda,” the spokesperson added.
A UNHCR spokesperson in Rwanda said she had no immediate comment.
Rwanda’s government said cases raised by the UNHCR lawyers in court had involved people arriving in Rwanda who had legal status in other countries but did not meet entry requirements, or of people leaving Rwanda voluntarily.
Britain said last week that the first flight to Rwanda would take off on July 24, though that was dependent on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Conservatives winning national elections on July 4.
That looks unlikely as Britain’s opposition Labour Party, leading by about 20 points in opinion polls, has pledged to scrap the plan if elected.
Rwanda says UN refugee agency lying in British asylum policy case
https://arab.news/r4acq
Rwanda says UN refugee agency lying in British asylum policy case
- UNHCR lawyers tell British court that Rwanda’s asylum system is inadequate, as part of a challenge to the British government’s policy to deport asylum seekers there
Canada’s top envoy to the US will resign before review of free trade agreement
- Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during US President Donald Trump’s first term
TORONTO: Canada’s ambassador to the US for the last six years said Tuesday she’s resigning next year as the two major trading partners plan to review the free trade agreement.
Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said in a letter it is the right time to put in place someone who will oversee talks about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that is up review in 2026.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Hillman “prepared the foundations for Canada in the upcoming review” of the agreement.
Carney noted she’s one of the longest-serving ambassadors to the United States in Canada’s history.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Hillman in 2017. She was the first woman appointed to the role.
Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during US President Donald Trump’s first term and worked with US and Chinese officials to win the release of two Canadians detained in China.
Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-US trade, and Hillman had been leading trade talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Trump ended trade talks with Carney in October after the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the US, which upset the US president. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over Trump’s insistence that Canada should become the 51st US state.
Asked this week when trade talks would resume, Trump said, “we’ll see.”
Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and more than 75 percent of Canada’s exports go to the US Most exports to the US are exempted by the USMCA trade agreement but that deal is up for review.
Carney aims to double non-US trade over the next decade.
About 60 percent of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85 percent of US electricity imports as well.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
