PRESSURE is building on Priti Patel to drop plans to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda after campaigners lodged a legal challenge against the policy in the High Court today.

The emergency proceedings, launched by Duncan Lewis Solicitors on behalf of charities Care4Calais and Detention Action, civil servants’ union PSC and four people facing deportation to Rwanda, is the first legal challenge of the policy to be put before the courts.

Lawyers argue the policy is unlawful and will challenge whether the Home Secretary has the right to carry out the plans, the rationality of her conclusion that Rwanda is generally a “safe third country” and the adequacy of provision for malaria prevention.

The claim has been issued as a matter of urgency considering the looming flight to Rwanda scheduled on June 14 next week.

Campaigners added that Ms Patel has refused to give assurances that removals to Rwanda will not take place until the lawfulness of the policy has been tested in court.

A second legal challenge by Freedom from Torture against the policy is expected within days.

Lawyers are also seeking an injunction to stop the flight on June 14, campaigners said.

Detention Action deputy director James Wilson said Ms Patel has “overstepped her authority” in her bid to deport people to Rwanda.

“It’s vital that new government policies respect and uphold the laws that we all, as a society, have agreed to follow,” he said.

The Human Rights Committee also heard concerns about the Rwanda agreement yesterday.

Barrister Colin Yeo said that the plans may be in breach of Article 33 of the UN Refugee Convention.

He said: “Essentially, you’re saying to somebody: ‘you can go to Rwanda or your home country where you face persecution, which would you prefer?’

“And some people might choose to go back to their home country and take their chances there.”

He added that it was still unknown what people will face when they get to Rwanda.

“These people are going to be human canaries in a human rights coal mine,” Mr Yeo said.

Dozens of people gathered outside the Rwandan high commission in Marylebone, west London, to demand the country’s authorities drop the deal.

One protester, who told the crowds she had fled persecution in Nigeria due to her sexual orientation and had claimed asylum in the UK, hit out at the east African nation’s poor record on LGBT rights.

“Rwanda of all places,” she told the crowd.

“They want to send them to go and die. They are scared of persecution, this is not fair. We have to stand together to stop this atrocity.”

The demo was organised by Movement for Justice and supported by Afghans Beyond Borders, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts and others.

The protesters also heard from men detained in Brook House, facing deportation to Rwanda.

One man who said he was from Syria told the demo through an interpreter: “We came to the UK to apply for asylum, we are not a criminal, we don't even know where Rwanda is.”

Karen Doyle from Movement for Justice told the Morning Star: “The Rwandan government has the power to stop the flight,” she said. “This is a two-sided deal, if one side of the deal breaks down Britain can’t abdicate its responsibilities and send people to Rwanda.

“The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is happening in Rwanda next week and we’re calling on all the commonwealth nations to condemn Rwanda and the UK for this deal.”

International Federation of Iraqi Refugees general secretary Dashty Jamal, one of the speakers at the demo, said he knows of 16 Iraqi Kurds who’ve been given removal directions to Rwanda on flights scheduled for June 14, and another on June 23.

He told the Star he had spoken to one Kurdish asylum seeker in detention who said that if he is sent to Rwanda, officials will be taking his dead body. Being given the notice was the first time he had ever heard of Rwanda, Mr Jamal said, “He told me: ‘I hear it’s an anti-democratic country, they violate their own people’s freedom, how will they respect me as a Kurdish man, how will I be welcomed in this society?”

A Home Office spokesperson said the policy "fully complies with international and national law.”