In response to last night’s House of Lords vote on the Victims and Prisoners Bill in which Peers failed to strike down clauses which strip away protections under the Human Rights Act, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:

“The Human Rights Act is being dismantled by stealth.

“First they came for asylum seekers, and now it’s prisoners’ rights which have been ‘switched off’.

“It’s extremely alarming to see this sinister trend by which the Government is excluding groups of people from basic rights.

“Human rights protections are designed to be universal, not given by politicians to groups they favour and taken away from groups they don’t like.  We should all be extremely concerned that the principle of universal human rights protection is being chipped away before our eyes.

“In order for any of us to be assured of our rights, everyone must have them.

“It was deeply disappointing to see the Labour leadership abstain from the vote on these dangerous clauses in the Bill yesterday. We strongly urge all parties to make a vocal commitment to repealing all human rights carve outs should they be in Government after the next election.”