AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has singled out Britain for strong criticism in its annual human rights report, highlighting government plans to restrict the rights of refugees and protesters. 

In a stark warning, the UK arm of the organisation said that Britain will be unable to credibly act as a champion for human rights on the global stage if it continues to push ahead with a series of widely condemned laws. 

Amnesty’s annual review, which analyses human rights trends globally and covers 154 countries, flags the Tories’ Nationality & Borders Bill, the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill and moves to scrap the Human Rights Act as matters of serious concern. 

The policing Bill, which seeks to hand officers sweeping powers to shut down non-violent protests, would drastically curtail the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, it warns. 

The report, published today, also argues that moves by Justice Secretary Dominic Raab to replace the 1998 Human Rights Act with a new Bill of rights would “significantly erode human rights protection in the UK.” 

It notes that the rights of refugees and migrants were routinely violated in the year 2021-2022 and criticises government moves to make it harder for people to claim asylum in Britain with measures contained in the borders Bill. 

Amnesty International UK’s CEO Sacha Deshmukh said: “The UK can’t credibly champion human rights internationally if it’s busily undermining and unravelling them at home.”

The Human Rights Act is a pillar of rights and protections in Britain, he added, warning that scrapping the legislation would be “an act of human rights vandalism that must be countered at all costs.

“The public’s recent outpouring of support for people fleeing Ukraine adds further emphasis to the need for the government to completely reset its deliberately hostile treatment of people seeking sanctuary in this country.

“As we’ve seen with the anti-war protests on the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities, the right to peacefully protest is absolutely precious — yet the draconian policing Bill is about to severely limit protest in our own country.

“The UK has set a very worrying reverse course on rights and protections just when it should be standing up for human rights, not dismantling them.”

The annual report is also critical of other areas of policy, pouring scorn on the government decision to scrap the £20 universal credit uplift last year.

Afghan citizens fleeing the Taliban were failed by the government, it adds, while progress to implement promised resettlement schemes to help them come to Britain have been too slow. 

On the state of human rights worldwide, the report paints a bleak picture, noting that: “The systemic inequalities that drove the pandemic were further entrenched, not systematically reduced” in 2021-2022. 

It reads “2021 should have been a year of healing and recuperation. Instead, it became an incubator for greater inequality and instability, not only in 2021, not just for 2022, but for the decade ahead.”

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said that a global failure to build an international response to the pandemic “sowed the seeds of greater conflict and greater injustice.”

A British government spokesman said: “All of our reforms, including the Human Rights Act, aim to strike a proper balance between individuals’ rights, personal responsibility and the wider public interest.

“The Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill will balance the fundamental right to protest with the need to swiftly deal with those who endanger and disrupt people’s lives, while also protecting communities by clamping down on unauthorised encampments.”