THE next prime minister must abandon the “unlawful and reckless” policy of sending refugees to Rwanda, Amnesty International has said, amid warnings of the African nation’s “troubling” human rights record. 

Ahead of the new Tory leader being revealed, the human rights organisation warned that Home Secretary Priti Patel “should never have led us to this point” where asylum-seekers face being deported on a one-way ticket to the African country. 

Amnesty International UK refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds said: “This shameful policy was always a profound error of judgement.

“In their efforts to defend the UK-Rwanda deal, Priti Patel and other ministers have made themselves PR agents for a country with a track record of arbitrary detention, torture and the repression of free speech.”

Despite receiving multiple warnings about Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including from their own advisers, ministers have pressed on with the policy.

Tory leadership candidates Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have both vowed continue the scheme if elected. 

On Friday, a group of international torture prevention experts warned the government against maintaining the policy, branding it “inherently degrading” and a breach of international law. 

The University of Bristol human rights implementation centre sent a letter to ministers on Friday saying that the punitive and discriminatory basis of the scheme risks causing significant harm to the mental wellbeing of those threatened with removal. 

Freedom from Torture chief executive Sonya Sceats has described the plans as “immoral in the extreme.” 

Torture survivors are among those targeted by the Home Office for deportation to Rwanda, according to doctors working for Medical Justice who carried out in-depth medical assessments of asylum-seekers under threat of removal. 

A legal challenge to the policy returns to the High Court on Monday, with expert evidence due to be heard about how the deal harms torture survivors. 

Today, protests against the Rwanda scheme took place outside Colnbrook immigration detention centre, near Heathrow, and another detention site near Manchester airport. 

Action Against Detention and Deportations, a new coalition, will stage a further rally outside Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire this coming Sunday to mark the end of the High Court case.