Rishi Sunak's Safety of Rwanda Bill sees politicians assume a terrifying new power to decide what is real – Ian Johnston

Never mind that a 2022 US State Department report on human rights in the country found “credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary detention; political prisoners or detainees; transnational repression against individuals located outside the country, including killings, kidnappings, and violence; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy...” It goes on, but no matter. “The Republic of Rwanda is a safe country.”

Forget that, in November last year, the UK Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, that the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful because there was a real risk that the people concerned would be sent back to the country they had fled and a regime that may desire to murder them. This is contrary to several international laws and also a number of this country’s, including the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Bloggers and journalists arrested

But then, the newly passed Bill states “it is recognised that... the validity of an Act is unaffected by international law”. And, of course, our own judges will soon, by law, be forced to accept that “the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.

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Close your eyes and ears to reports like that of Human Rights Watch, which found the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party had been waging “a campaign against real and perceived opponents of the government”. “Critics, including internet bloggers and journalists, were arrested, threatened, and put on trial… In some cases, they were arrested for speaking out about security force abuses, including unlawful and arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial killings, or for criticising the ruling RPF and its human rights record. Allegations that the authorities beat or otherwise ill-treat political prisoners are common in Rwanda,” it added.

The government of Rwanda does not want anyone to hear such claims and soon our courts will be compelled to ignore them because, remember, “the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country”.

Soviet ideology once trumped science

Pretend to yourself that an election result in which President Paul Kagame was returned to power with 98.8 per cent of the vote is a sign of a free and fair election in a democratic country, even though the murderous dictator Vladimir Putin only ‘won’ 88 per cent in Russia’s recent sham elections. For there is no reason to be concerned: “The Republic of Rwanda is a safe country.”

In the Soviet Union, scientists who uncovered evidence at odds with Communist ideology soon learned of their mistake. When politicians assume the right to decide what is true, to turn fiction into legal reality, we should be very, very afraid.

"Rwanda is safe. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” George Orwell's 1984 was meant to be a warning about totalitarian states, not a political guidebook for incompetent, self-serving politicians whose reaction to becoming hopelessly lost on their quest to retain power is to throw away their moral compass.

Rwanda is not safe.