Activists disrupt UK home secretary's speech, demand 'racist' Rwanda policy be dropped

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) – A speech by Britain’s home secretary was disrupted by a group of young activists protesting controversial government plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

At the Friday night event, eight campaigners from Green New Deal Rising, a group that says it is “fighting to stop the climate crisis and build a world in which we can thrive,” accused Priti Patel of “killing people with racist policies.”

One activist at the Bassetlaw Conservative Association Spring Dinner told Patel as she started her speech that the plans to send asylum seekers and refugees to Rwanda was “inhumane” before being dragged out of the dining hall by a bodyguard.

Another shouted, “As young people wanting to live in a fair and compassionate society, we are disgusted by your treatment of refugees,” before also being removed from the event.

Attendees at the dinner can be heard in video footage of the incident, shared by the activists on Twitter, chanting: “Out, out, out.”

“Priti Patel! We demand you drop your racist and problematic Rwanda migration policy,” another activist shouted.

When government plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda were announced in April, they were quickly condemned as “inhumane” by many activist groups and NGOs.

The UK government has insisted that Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world and that asylum seekers would have a better chance there.