Ask your MP to act urgently on vulnerable Syrians

Freedom from Torture is concerned that only around 50 Syrians fleeing conflict have been allowed to come to Britain under a vulnerable persons’  initiative since the UK declined to participate in a  broader U.N.  resettlement programme.

Evidence of human rights violations,  including torture, in Syria, is overwhelming. Earlier this year a report by former war crimes prosecutors evidenced the depths of the Syrian regime’s brutality - the U.S. Holocaust Museum is now displaying the photographic evidence of fatalities  - and a UN commission of inquiry has documented accounts of Daesh’s use of terror to subjugate Syrians living in its areas of control, as well as the use of extreme violence against both civilians and captured fighters.

As winter sets in for vulnerable displaced Syrians in the Middle East we are joining The Refugee Council in asking all our supporters to write to their MP asking them to call on the UK Government to admit more of these vulnerable Syrian refugees.

As winter sets in for vulnerable displaced Syrians in the Middle East we are joining The Refugee Council in asking all our supporters to write to their MP asking them to call on the UK Government to admit more of these vulnerable Syrian refugees.

Freedom from Torture believes that Syrian children and adults made vulnerable  by torture are still not accessing appropriate protection, treatment and support. Many would have  a right to refuge in international law, including in the U.K.,  under the Refugee Convention and to rehabilitation under the U.N. Convention Against Torture. The U.K. has ratified both these conventions and should act accordingly.

Earlier the UK Government announced a resettlement programme for refugees from Syria called the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme (VPR). The Home Office only anticipates helping ‘several hundred people over three years’ in this way and 50 people have so far arrived in the UK through this scheme.