In response to the appointment of Rishi Sunak as the new Prime Minister, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:

“From draconian new protest laws, an asylum policy as ineffective as it is immoral and threats to tear up the Human Rights Act, these have been dark years for human rights in the UK and Rishi Sunak needs to break decisively with these and many other anti-human rights policies of his predecessors.

“On Northern Ireland, Sunak needs to halt controversial plans to effectively grant a de facto amnesty to those who committed killings during the Troubles. 

“Rishi Sunak needs to recognise that when the UK backslides on human rights, it undermines the Government’s ability to hold leaders to account for their repression in places like Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and elsewhere.

“We need the UK to become something closer to the beacon for human rights that ministers frequently claim that it is.”