Yasmine Ahmed says government actions regarding asylum seekers, climate activists and pro-Palestine protesters are starting to ‘look very much like authoritarianism’
The British government’s aggressive politicisation of human rights is a dangerous assault on democracy that must be halted before irrevocable damage is done, the UK director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Yasmine Ahmed, who has been the UK director of HRW since November 2020, said the government indicating it could “disapply” the Human Rights Act to an emergency bill that will allow it to send asylum seekers to Rwanda – despite the supreme court ruling the policy illegal – is part of an escalating attack on human rights.
