Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire
Promoting human rights from Salisbury UK
July 2022
It will be down to two candidates by tonight (20 July 2022) but the review by EachOther of the human rights records of the four candidates is instructive. We already posted the worrying record of Rishi Sunak, currently in the lead. This link adds more detail.
July 2022
The group minutes for July 2022 are attached and thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them. They are longer than you would expect from ordinary meeting minutes and serve more of a newsletter with reports on the death penalty, current UK government bills which are causing the human rights community some alarm, and a report on refugees.
July 2022
Rishi Sunak is, at the time of writing (15 July 2022), in the lead in the race to become the new prime minister of the UK. Asking about his attitude and voting record in connection with human rights is therefore of considerable interest. It doesn’t look good.
They Work for You, the site which analyses MP’s voting records shows that Sunak ‘generally votes against laws to promote equality and human rights’. He voted against retaining the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. He is in favour of repealing the Human Rights act which has been Conservative party policy for some years now and a draft Bill of Rights is awaited.
When asked about withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights he is quoted as saying (vaguely) ‘all options [were] on the table’.
He has voted consistently for policies to increase mass surveillance.
He is in favour – despite being the grandson of an immigrant from Africa – for sending immigrants to Rwanda.
Altogether a grim collection of negative attitudes and there seem to be no speeches or much information about his attitudes or likely policies on this important subject. There was nothing in his manicured promotion video. It very much looks like we shall get the existing policies carried forward unchanged. He seems to be part of the party which is hostile to human rights, wants to see them rolled back and to detach the country from European norms and treaties.
He is supported in the election by the MP for Salisbury Mr John Glen who likewise has a record of voting against equality and human rights issues according to They Work for You.
Sources: Open Access Government; LBC; Metro; They Work for You [we carried out an extensive search for any other relevant material but were unable to find any]
July 2022
Following the frenetic events of the last week, it is probably worth taking a moment to see where we stand on the refugee front, 60 years after the first Commonwealth Immigrants Act began the process of legislating against incomers. The Nationality and Borders Act has now brought into force more of its provisions, including a Home Office explanation of ”differentiation” between different types of refugee (the proposed two-tier system). The effect is that it will take longer for some arrivals to be granted residency and harder for them to bring family to join them, but the changes are not huge, according to human rights lawyer, Colin Yeo, who commented:
The policy exemplifies Priti Patel’s modern Home Office. It pretends to be tough as old boots but in reality it creates genuine but fairly minor problems for very vulnerable people with no likely policy outcomes achieved. What it does do is make more work for officials, thereby worsening the backlogs in the asylum system. It is not just pointless; it is actually counterproductive.
However, AI has commented in its monthly report to local groups the effect of the government’s effective withdrawal from the UN Refugee Convention (See foot of page).
The Afghanistan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), which had opened in January, and is meant to take 20,000 refugees, has now added guidance on those seeking to come via Pathway 3 (mostly employees of UK organisations in Afghanistan). Three groups have been established; those who had places allocated, but missed out (who will be assisted); those who came via the UNHCR (who can now begin to be referred) and those others at risk, such as women and girls (1500 places allocated).
In May, 2,871 migrants were apprehended crossing the Channel by small boat compared with 1,627 in May 2021, a 75% increase. Similarly, during the first three months of 2022, 4,540 people were detected arriving by small boats compared with 7,432 during the last half of April, May and June after the MoD took over. The Navy is said to be keen to be let off enforcing control f the Channel, a policy on which they were not consulted.
By mid-June 77,000 Ukrainian refugees had entered the UK and 135,000 visas issued. It may be noted that Germany has so far taken 700,000 refugees.
Although the courts have not yet decided whether offshoring asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful, the Home Office plans further flights. The HO said “No court has actually ruled that this partnership is unlawful and that includes the ECHR.” Thanks are due to group members Peter and Lesley for protesting the planned flight from Boscombe Down and subsequent press appearances.
On the subject of tagging claimants, a 12-month pilot scheme is planned to test its value as a monitor and for collecting data – it is already in use for those on bail.
On the vexed issue of the actual ages of asylum seekers, the Home Office is recruiting 40 social workers to help assess claimants’ ages using “scientific” methods.
Clearly, asylum seekers are far more likely to be granted residence now than in earlier years, but are subject to far longer waits for the process to complete. Whether the new Act will alter this is open to debate.
The Napier Barracks, which became notorious as an inadequate location for prospective arrivals, has been deemed to have improved since the original aim. No immigrants now will spend more than 90 days there.
A Lords Committee looking into the document “Life in the UK”, prepared for those seeking settlement or citizenship, have described it as a “random election of obscure facts and subjective assertions.”
Refugee Week was held in late June this year, but passed with disappointingly little media coverage. AI supported a number of events under the umbrella.
Amnesty’s comment on the new refugee legislation:
On 28th June, the UK’s interpretation of the definition of a refugee and the rights to which every person who is a refugee is entitled will significantly change from that required by the Refugee Convention. What does this mean? It means the government is unlawfully rewriting its shared obligations under international law. To the extent, it is dangerously undermining what our country, not only agreed to, but helped draft and negotiate in 1951.
These changes are lawless and reckless. Its consequences directly contradict our values of shared humanity and compassion and have been rightly rejected by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, leading lawyers, and former senior judges in the UK.
Andrew Hemming
We are pleased to attach the latest death penalty report thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling this. There is a lot this time about Ukraine and as usual, the USA and its tortuous processes especially in the southern states. Note that there is no report on China which is believed to execute more of its citizens that the rest of the world combined but where information is a state secret.
July 2022
There is mounting concern that the tide of legislation currently in the process of enactment, will shift power away from the people and give greater powers to the police and the government itself.
Enacted legislation:
Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Act 2022
Elections Act 2022
Nationality and Borders Act 2022
Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022
Serious Threats from current bills
Bill of Rights
National Security Bill
Online Safety Bill
Public Order Bill
Lesser Threats – collectively Important
Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill
Brexit Freedoms Bill
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
Modern Slavery Bill
Draft Victims Bill
Data Reform Bill
Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Bill
Conversion Therapy Bill
Draft Mental Health Act Reform Bill
Energy Bill
Private Renters Bill
Social Housing Regulation Bill
Schools Bill
Possible Threat – under consideration
Locking On
The above is just a list. Below we provide a little more explanation and a brief summary of what they are about.
Some do not attack Human Rights directly. Rather they undermine our access to our human rights or circumvent them altogether so although we may have in law a ‘right’ we cannot, or will not be able, in some circumstances enforce them or rely on them for protection.
What is important is their collective impact. They each chip away here and there at our rights, and some expressly bypass Human Rights legislation (whether the HRA of Bill of Rights). Secondly, they demonstrate the little importance the current governments attach to our liberties, freedoms and our right to express our opinions. Thirdly, the very clear trend they represent to ever greater centralised government control. If they are all enacted and become law then the government will have increased their control significantly. The National Security Bill and the Public Order Bill combined could result in a Police State.
Summaries of what some of the bills and acts contain:
| Serious Threats | |
| Bill of Rights | A government power grab. It is a much weakened version of the 1998 Human Rights Act. |
| National Security Bill | Ministers and UK officials cannot be charged for crimes they order or encourage overseas – ordering assassinations or the commission of war crimes. It puts the government above challenge, undermines our right to hold government accountable, giving us less say, and government becomes more authoritarian and closer to becoming a dictatorship. |
| Online Safety Bill | Intended to protect the right of free speech and expression, prevent the circulation of misinformation, threats and unsavoury content, particularly in social media, but it will not apply to the government and those in public office. Gives more control to the government. Could be used to stop criticism of the government. |
| Public Order Bill | An extension of the Police and Crime Bill. It has been described as authoritarian and repressive. It gives the police wide discretion and greater powers, introduces control orders and enables stop and search without reason. |
| Lesser Threats | |
| Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill | Not compatible with Human Rights. Bypasses police, courts, protections and enables substantial government interference in the process of law and the right of defence/protection. |
| Brexit Freedoms Bill | Getting rid of and remaining EU protections. |
| Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill | Prevents Universities and Student Unions blocking [no-platforming] speakers thus enabling ‘objectionable opinions’ to be validated. Especially Far-Right, anti LGBT and racism views. |
| Modern Slavery Bill | |
| Draft Victims Bill | It doesn’t protect personal data, from excess police intrusion or provide sufficient support for marginalised groups. |
| Data Reform Bill | Scraps GDPR ‘red tape’ and lowers barriers to restrict access to personal data. |
| Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Bill | Complex. BDS is an Israeli/Palestine issue. The wider context is about using BDS to control ‘overseas’ issues. The bill gives greater central control to government. |
| Conversion Therapy Bill | |
| Draft Mental Health Act Reform Bill | We have a right to good mental health, and to be treated with dignity and respect. Questionable protections under the Bill of Rights. |
| Energy Bill | Undermines the right to affordable energy, safe energy good for the environment, climate, not to be cut-off, not to be forced to have repayment meters. |
| Private Renters Bill | Conflicts with HRs and gives government Renters Ombudsman opportunity to ignore HRs (peaceful possession/occupation). Complex overlapping with property law. Could be good for renters but shifts final say away from HRs to the government decisions. Renters will not be able to use HRs to challenge Ombudsman decisions. |
| Social Housing Regulation Bill | Gives central government greater control, the discretion to side step HRs |
| Schools Bill | Gives Government great control over education to FE level. Has the potential to remove teachers/schools not following an agreed narrative. To close schools without notice or appeal. |
| Possible Threat | |
| Locking On | Making Locking-on a specific criminal offence. |
Mike Hodgson
Even a scholar who opposes the label says, “Israel does not have a case against apartheid.” That is the power of the apartheid framing. The label for Israel has gained broad acceptance because of the widening awareness of the death of the Two State Solution — that Israel never really wanted a legitimate, contiguous Palestinian state.…
Israeli Apartheid: The power of the frame, the shame of the name — Mondoweiss
TEXAS EXECUTION SCHEDULED FOR CRIME AT 18
Texas has executed more people than any other state in the Union and five times as many as Oklahoma, the next heaviest user of the penalty. If the method is a deterrent which is so often claimed, why the need for its continuing use?
Below we attach a draft letter to the Governor which you can adapt to your own circumstances. Note that the cut off date is 13 July.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Office of the Governor
PO Box 12428, Austin
Texas 78711-2428
USA
Dear Governor Abbott,
Ramiro Felix Gonzales (TDCJ #999513) is scheduled to be executed in Texas on 13 July 2022.
Ramiro Gonzales was 18 years and two months old at the time of the murder of Bridget Townsend in 2001. He was emerging from a childhood of serious neglect and abuse. A neuropsychologist testified at trial that he “basically raised himself”, had the emotional maturity of a 13- or 14-year-old, and in her opinion was likely in the top 10% of emotionally damaged children.
I do not wish to minimize the consequences of violent crime, but I am disturbed by your state’s use of the death penalty, including against young adult offenders. Over 13 per cent of all those executed in Texas between 1982 and 2022 were 18 or 19 years old at the time of the crime.
When banning the execution of under 18-year-olds in 2005, the US Supreme Court noted that “the qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not disappear when an individual turns 18” and made clear that the death penalty be “limited to those offenders… whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution”. I urge you to consider how a death sentence imposed on a severely emotionally damaged 18-year-old meets this requirement.
I urge you to stop the execution of Ramiro Gonzales and to ensure that his death sentence is commuted.
Yours sincerely,
Additional information
In October 2002, Ramiro Gonzales pled guilty to the abduction and rape of a woman in September 2001 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Soon after he began this sentence, he admitted to the murder of an 18-year-old woman committed in January 2001 while robbing the home of the person who supplied him with cocaine (a drug he had already consumed that day). At the time of the murder, Ramiro Gonzales was 72 days past his 18th birthday.
At the sentencing phase of his 2006 trial, the prosecution presented a psychiatrist who testified that Ramiro Gonzales would likely commit acts of violence in prison. He acknowledged that the American Psychiatric Association viewed such predictions of “future dangerousness”, a jury’s finding of which is a prerequisite for a death sentence in Texas, as unscientific and unreliable. Such predictions have long been shown to be grossly inaccurate, even if seen as effective for the prosecution’s pursuit of a death sentence. While Ramiro Gonzales has had some minor disciplinary infractions on death row, all have been non-violent.
When the US Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that states could continue executing individuals for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17 years old, the four dissenting Justices noted that “many of the psychological and emotional changes that an adolescent experiences in maturing do not actually occur until the early 20s”, and that “adolescents on death row appear typically to have a battery of psychological, emotional, and other problems going to their likely capacity for judgment and level of blameworthiness.” When the Court in 2005 banned the death penalty against individuals who were under 18 at the time of the crime, it expressly recognized young people’s immaturity, impulsiveness, poor judgment, underdeveloped sense of responsibility and vulnerability or susceptibility to “negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure”, as well as their potential for reform. This time the majoritynoted that “the qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not disappear when an individual turns 18”.
Sixty per cent of the USA’s executions of those under 18 at the time of the crime occurred in Texas. Of these 13 individuals, nine were Black (8) or Latino (1), and six of these nine (67%) were convicted of crimes involving white victims. While not subject to the categorical international and constitutional law prohibition relating to under 18-year-olds, the execution of those who were 18 or 19 at the time of the crime has followed a similar geographic and racial pattern. More such individuals have been executed in Texas than in any other state; indeed, only four other states have executed more people of any age than Texas has executed individuals who were 18 or 19 at the time of the crime. Seventy-seven of the 574 people (13%) put to death in Texas from 1982 to June 2022 were 18 or 19 at the time of the crime. Of these 77 people, 48 were African American (62%), 34 of whom (71%) were convicted of crimes involving white victims. Since 2014, Texas has executed nine people for crimes committed when they were 18; four were Black, three were Hispanic, and two were white. Ramiro Gonzales is Hispanic. The victim was white.
Two of the 13 federal executions carried out in the USA between July 2020 and January 2021 in the USA were of two Black men convicted of the murder of a white couple committed when they were 18 or 19. They were convicted in federal court in the same District of Texas in which Ramiro Gonzales was tried at state level. As the second of the two federal executions approached, the federal prosecutor who defended the death sentences on appeal revealed that she had changed her mind. She noted that “science has established that the structures of the brain are not fully developed in young men until they are 25 or 26” and that “18-year-olds are no different from 17-year-olds in both immaturities and potential for rehabilitation.”
There have been seven executions in the USA this year, one in Texas, which accounts for 574 of the 1,547 executions in the USA since 1976. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally.
PREFERRED LANGUAGE TO ADDRESS TARGET: English.
You may also write in your own language.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: 13 July 2022
NAME AND PRONOUNS: Ramiro Gonzales (He/his)
Additional TARGETS
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
Clemency Section
8610 Shoal Creek Boulevard
Austin, Texas 78757, USA
Fax: +1 512 406 0945
Email: bpp-clemency@tdcj.texas.gov
Salutation: Dear Presiding Officer Gutiérrez and Members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles
Ms Jane D Hartley
U.S. Embassy
33 Nine Elms Lane, London SW11 7US
Human rights are about power, who has it, who wields it and the effects on those without it. These rights have been struggled over for centuries. Once it was kings (and the occasional queen) who wielded absolute power. Gradually, it was wrested from them and parliament achieved supremacy after 1688 and the Glorious Revolution. It was a rather more bloody affair a century later in France.
The all party Human Rights Act in 1998 – a fact rather overlooked by some ministers who characterise it as ‘Labour’s’ act – incorporated the European Convention into British law and marked a sea change in the relationship between the people and the government and agents of government. It set out a series of rights which enabled the ordinary subject to challenge government decisions, negligence or criminal acts. Notable successes include the Hillsborough disaster where the police attempted to shift blame onto the supporters but after years of campaigning – using the HRA as a key lever – the surviving families were able to achieve measure of justice and highlight police failings as a key factor in the tragedy. Other scandals have involved hospitals and other police miscarriages where victims have been able to bring to light serious failings in these institutions.
Despite being such a step forward, many in the Conservative party and a major parts of the press, have waged a remorseless campaign against the act. The Conservatives have pledged to reform or abolish it in all their recent manifestos. The press have published story after story along the lines that the act prevents criminals getting their just deserts, it helps terrorists escape justice and most recently, preventing asylum seekers from being exported to Rwanda. Many of the stories are exaggerated or have nothing to do with the HRA. For readers of this material, the decision by Dominic Raab to publish the Bill of Rights this week (June 2022) cannot come too soon and will enable they believe, proper justice to return to the UK. ‘Lefty lawyers’ will be put in their place and before long, plane loads of asylum seekers will be jetted off to Africa. The power of the judiciary to intervene will be reduced.
To understand these actions, as we said above, you have to start with power. If power is exercised fairly, with the rewards of society evenly disbursed, then the holders of power have little to fear. If the leaders have the trust of the people, they are unlikely to feel threatened. But when the divide in the nation between the haves and the have-nots gets wider and wider, when the poor get ever poorer and the nation’s leaders lose the trust of the led, then they will feel threatened. The life of easy privilege will be under threat. It is tempting in these circumstances to clamp down on the means of protest, to close off avenues of redress and to curb the means by which the ordinary person can assert their rights. Hence the spate of bills and the desire to end the HRA, the very means by which the ordinary person can assert their rights against the power of the state.
In addition to the power question, we have to look at some of the other doubtful reasoning behind this bill. In an earlier post we discussed the book written by Dominic Raab and two of his cabinet colleagues arguing for the end of the act. One element was the notion of liberty and it was this which enabled Britain to become a wealthy nation they argue. Laws and regulations have hampered this liberty and thus removed our ability to be properly wealthy. Get rid of these restrictions and we will regain our prosperity.
The argument overlooked slavery which provided the money for investment, imperial preference which stifled competition, and the terrible state that ordinary people lived in, the squalor, the slums, disease and malnutrition. Indeed, they, like many other people, have forgotten the ‘recruits crisis’ where losses in the Boor war at the end of the nineteenth century were hard to replace because the physical, malnourished and unhealthy state of volunteers was so poor.
The Bill of Rights, should it become law – together with the other legislation to limit protest, enhance the powers of the police and to limit judicial oversight – will be a backward step in the development of our society. It will shift yet more power to the government and its ministers. It will drastically reduce the power of the citizen to right wrongs. It is a retrograde step.
We and others will be working to oppose its passing.
For American readers, the Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crush of people during an FA Cup football (soccer) match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, on 15 April 1989. With 96 fatalities and 766 injuries, it remains the worst disaster in British sporting history. Initially, the supporters were blamed but after decades of campaigning, using the HRA as we’ve said, police failings were eventually recognised.
The first flight scheduled to take refugees to Rwanda as part of the government’s refugee policy designed, it is claimed, to deter boat crossings in the Channel, was switched from Stanstead to Boscombe Down in Wiltshire. The airfield is close to Amesbury. It may have been done to make protests difficult to organise because of the distance between the two.
Two members of the local group managed to get to the perimeter of the airfield which gave a view of the runway. There was a large police presence and about half a dozen camera crews as well. The charter flight could be seen in the distance. At one stage the landing lights were switched on and take off was expected. There was considerable vehicle activity on the airfield and around the aircraft. Then the lights were switched off and sometime later the flight was cancelled following a last minute intervention by the ECHR. This is likely only to be a temporary respite however.
The photos show part of the media activity, Amnesty banners and the charter flight in the distance. We apologise for the poor quality due to the low light level.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 