Write for Rights display now on at the Methodist Church in Salisbury
We are pleased to say that the Methodist Church in Salisbury has agreed to host a display of four cases from our current ‘Write for Rights’ campaign and this display will be in place until 14th of January. Visitors to the church will be able to read the cases and if they wish, send a card which is available from the coffee shop. The church is open from 10 in the morning and often for much of the day. They serve coffee (which is very good value and can be recommended!).
A YouTube video about the programme can be seen here (2 mins).
Dark day for democracy and free speech. Government gets ‘the most extreme powers ever’
The Investigatory Powers Bill became law this week and it is a dark day for democracy, not just in the UK, but the signal it gives to the rest of the world. That one of the oldest democracies in the world should want to garner for itself, a whole set of powers to pry into peoples communications and to find out journalists’ sources is a matter of shame. It will provide increased encouragement to regimes around the world to clamp down further on their citizens.
The wonder of it is that so many people are so relaxed about it. Although over 130,000 people protested, the government took little notice.
Picture: 5pillarsuk.com
The state needs to have a security apparatus. When the nation is under threat either in the time of war or by terror groups, it must have the means to investigate. This is likely to mean eavesdropping in some form or other.
There is also the issue of secrecy and confidentiality. People in government should have the means to discuss ideas and float policy ideas without it being published in the media – to start with at least.
Technology has provided a means now to invade individual’s private space with ease. Technology has surpassed the law in this regard. Nearly all the key technologies are operated out of Silicon Valley in the USA over which we have no control. Is it not interesting that Britain voted to come out of the European Union and one of the key reasons was sovereignty. Yet in this regard, sovereignty is in California.
The Guardian reports:
The new surveillance law requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to the data.
It also provides the security services and police with new powers to hack into computers and phones and to collect communications data in bulk. The law requires judges to sign off police requests to view journalists’ call and web records, but the measure has been described as “a death sentence for investigative journalism” in the UK. (29 November 2016)
The increasing ability to intercept communications has and is having an effect on free speech. It is described as having a ‘chilling effect’. Journalists working on these topics have to go to extraordinary lengths to cover their tracks. Material has to be hidden abroad for protection from the security services. Some other issues are more open to debate.
In case of war and terrorist attacks, the media quickly falls into line and the normal business of tackling government ministers is forgotten. It quickly becomes a matter of supporting ‘our boys’ and even questions of the quality of kit for example do not get asked.
The crucial issue is one of power and control. The very business of being able to pry into anyone’s private affairs gives the state enormous powers. As citizens we should expect that these powers are used when necessary; are subject to control wherever possible (like the controls on searches); are subject to close scrutiny, and are in accord with properly laid down laws. Controls on operational matters should not be in the hands of politicians who cannot on the whole be trusted with secrets of this nature. The level of intrusion should be matched by the degree of scrutiny.
As usual, supporters of snoopery will trot out the old adage that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. This is, in its most fundamental way, true. But the trouble is that as with all these moves what we are seeing is only the thin end of a very long and dangerous wedge. Most law-abiding people have no reason to worry about other people knowing what websites they have visited. But once you give the authorities the ability to do this history tells us that this ability will, inevitably, end up being abused. (Daily Mail)
In the 3 or so years that the ‘Snooper’s Charter’ has been debated, it is often stated by members of the public that they are not concerned and if the security services want to listen in to their conversations with their auntie they are free to do so – ‘I’ve got nothing to hide’ is the frequent refrain. Yet if police and security services arrived at their front door and searched their house and computer without a warrant or reason to do so, they would be outraged. Is the difference just that one is visible and the other isn’t?
Likewise, if you asked these same members of the public ‘do you trust our politicians?’ they would think you were a little mad. Yet they are happy to allow them or their agents to intrude into their affairs. The current Home Secretary is Amber Rudd and readers of Private Eye and the Daily Mirror will have read several revelations about her less than honest business affairs involving dodgy companies and diamond mines. Questions have also been asked about her tax affairs. To her, the nation entrusts its secrets.
To come of course is the promised withdrawal from the European Court and the threatened repeal of the Human Rights Act.
We have not lived in a state such as existed in East Germany, Romania or the Soviet Union where the degree of control was extreme. Thus people in the UK are not aware of the harmful effects of giving too much power to those in power.
Finally, is it even sensible in its own terms? Someone once said that hunting for terrorists was like ‘hunting for a needle in a haystack’. Is it wise then to increase the size of the haystack?
The College of Policing is involved in fresh controversy today concerning their training of police in countries that regularly use torture. In the summer it was revealed that they had training large numbers of Saudi and Bahraini police and that this training has aided them to arrest protestors who were then tortured.
On the BBC’s World at One radio programme there was an interview with a woman who’s husband had been arrested and disappeared for a month. She alleges he was “subjected to the worst kind of physical and psychological abuse”, they beat him brutally and concentrated these beatings on his genitals.
Reprieve has published a report detailing the allegations against Mohammed Ramadan. It now appears that the release of the information and documents about the College of Police’s activities was not meant to have happened and was as a result of ‘human error.’ From now on, details of the College’s activities will not be disclosed.
The Foreign Office maintains that the best way to improve human rights in these countries is by engagement and that we should not criticize from the sidelines. Crispin Blunt MP, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee said:
Human rights assessments are quite bleak [in these countries] and it is going to reinforce the arguments of those who are against engagement
Quit so. So the worse it is, the better the justification for our engagement. This might be fine of course if by ‘engagement’, there was some kind of visible or tangible improvement. But it seems our involvement makes matters worse not better. As Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve comments on their website:
It is scandalous that British police are training Saudi Arabian and Bahraini officers in techniques which they privately admit could lead to people being arrested, tortured and sentenced to death
Earlier in the year, the Home Affairs select committee strongly criticised the College of Policing and the secretive way they had gone about this work. The Chief executive had apparently been told by the Foreign and Colonial Office not to answer questions for reasons of commercial confidentiality and security.
The argument that closer integration with unpleasant regimes yields positive benefits could have some merit. If by trading, cultural contacts, training schemes, and other contacts – social or economic – good behaviour (however defined) rubs off onto the regime then that can be claimed as a benefit.
But the suspicion with the College of Policing and other commercial activities in the region, is that it is profit and money driven with little more than lip-service given to ethics and human rights. It is all of a piece with our arms sales to the Saudis which are causing such devastation in Yemen.
One would have expected that the College of Policing of all organisations, to have ethics and human rights at the top of their agenda. The police have some ground to make up following a number of scandals like Hillsborough. Helping repressive regimes to be more efficiently repressive hardly fits the bill. Making it secret is a tacit admission that they have something to hide.
Sources: Sputnik; The Guardian; Reprieve; World at One (BBC)
The Human Rights Act is under threat by the Conservative government and they want to withdraw from the European Convention which we helped found. It is timely therefore that we celebrate the achievements of the ECHR which receive too little attention by our media and by politicians such as the prime minister and our local MP Mr John Glen.
As we wait to see what the government brings forward to replace the Human Rights Act it seeks to repeal, a book was recently published which is recommended to all those who believe in human rights and – despite its faults – that the HRA is a major step forward in granting rights to its citizens. The book is called On Fantasy Island* by Conor Gearty who, amongst other things, is professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at LSE. He has written several other books including the Struggle for Civil Liberties (2000)
The HRA has come under sustained attack in the media particularly but not exclusively at the tabloid end of the market with regular stories of criminals and terrorists escaping justice because of it. Positive aspects of the Act including use by the media themselves to protect sources, seldom get a hearing. A recent example from the Daily Mail gives a flavour of the type of reporting which is common at that end of the media market:
Folly of human rights luvvies: As actors fight plans to axe Human Rights Act, how thousands of foreign convicts use it to stay in Britain
Number of foreign offenders on UK’s streets has spiralled to a record high
Includes killers, rapists and paedophiles who have avoided deportation
Left-wing luvvies lining up to oppose plans to scrap the Human Rights Act
Benedict Cumberbatch and Vanessa Redgrave condemn Tory proposals
25 June [accessed 31 October 2016]
Conor Gearty methodically discussed the history of rights in the UK and tackles head on some of the absurdities regularly reported in papers like the Mail and the Sun. Myths abound and include the case of Abu Qatada; the murderer of Philip Lawrence outside the school and Denis Nilsen’s request to access pornography and write a book. In each case, the HRA is in the frame when it was either irrelevant or the event complained of was not going to happen anyway. Perhaps the most famous instance was the absurd statement by Theresa May at the Conservative Party conference in 2011 about a Bolivian student who could not be deported because of a cat. ‘I’m not making this up’ she said: problem was she did make it up and had grossly exaggerated a small part of the case.
The government – now led by Theresa May – is apparently preparing a British Bill of Rights. Gearty discusses this and says:
…attentions shifted to the Human Rights Act. Here we find uppermost the fantasies that drove the much of the first part of this book – you cannot change a law for the better if it has never been what it you have claimed it to be in the first place. (p189f)
He sets the context of hostility to the Act in terms of a deadly combination of the nostalgic and the negative. For a country which until the recent past, ruled a large part of the world and whose power and influence was supreme, we now have to form partnerships and accept that our writ no longer runs as it once did. Strasbourg is just one of the elements of this. Nostalgic because were we not the inventors of common law so who are these overseas people interfering in our law making? The role of the media is discussed and a fuller account of the media’s role in ‘monstering‘ the HRA is provided by Adam Wagner of RightsInfo.
Human rights offer a route to a society where all are equal before the law and where each of us has a chance to engage in political activity on a level playing field if we so wish.
Several years have gone by since the Conservatives announced their desire to abolish the act and we are still waiting to see what happens. The new Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, has reaffirmed that and of course Theresa May is now prime minister. We wait and see … Our Local MP, John Glen, is on record in the Salisbury Journal as someone who agrees with abolition so we wait and see when the time comes.
Conservatives and right wing press exult over plans to remove the services from the Human Rights Act
The plan by the government to enable the armed forces to derogate from the Human Rights Act have been greeted with great glee by newspapers like the Mail and the Telegraph. The Conservatives at their annual conference in Birmingham have also been delighted by the announcement by the Defence Minister Michael Fallon.
The media has presented it in a lurid fashion. Lawyers are described as ‘parasitic’ and ‘money grubbing’; the claims are ‘vexatious’ and that there is an ‘industry’ of people pursuing our soldiers. The overall impression created by various generals, politicians and elements of the media is of service men struggling to do their best in extremely difficult and dangerous conditions only to find a lawyer presenting them with a summons for entirely spurious reasons (that is, to make money for themselves). Here is former head of the Army General Dannatt for example in the Daily Mail:
It also frees up soldiers from limitations under the act on their ability to hold detainees, so they can get on with their job. [he] said: ‘I very warmly applaud this imaginative and bold move by the present Government. It will go some way to reassuring our armed forces personnel that they can operate in future without looking out for lawyers over their shoulder. Daily Mail [accessed 4 October 2016]
Theresa May said at the conference:
And what we’ve seen is human rights legislation being used to generate all these vexatious claims and troops finding themselves in some difficultly in worrying and concerned about the future as a result of that.
‘So I think it’s absolutely right that the Government should say to our troops: “We are on your side”. (ibid)
The only problem with it is that it is largely untrue. We have to start by asking why are we at war in the various theatres? The answer is because we are seeking to put in place civilised values. We went to Iraq, not just on the spurious grounds that there were weapons of mass destruction, but because Sadam Hussein was a tyrant and abused the rights of many of his subjects. There were similar reasons in Afghanistan. Behind our military activities is this belief in a better world and that countries run by despots are not stable or fair on their citizens. We believe that the democratic process is superior and countries should be run by the rule of law. The very same people who were cheering in Liverpool are the same folk who talk about ‘British values.’
So if our soldiers are engaged in torture or abusive actions against prisoners, this is contrary to the reason why they are there in the first place and is also contrary to our values. It is these abusive actions which are the cause of a great deal of the claims made against the MoD.
It is also presented in terms of claims against our service people by foreigners. In fact, many of the claims are by service people against the MoD. These claims arise because of poor treatment of soldiers by their commanders on training exercises which can lead to their deaths, for example in the Brecon Beacons. Or they arise because of inadequate equipment which means service people are needlessly at risk and are injured or lose their lives. The ill-equipped land rovers in Afghanistan are an example. These actions are seldom mentioned by the right wing media.
There is something depressing in the glee of the conference goers and sections of the media about the decision. There seems not an inkling of pride in the fact that we fought a war to defeat tyranny and that afterwards, we were the key players in setting up the Convention of Human Rights in Europe led by a conservative prime minister. That just seems to have been forgotten. If there were solid reasons for doing so that would be fine. But the arguments are selective and ignore the fact that the MoD has paid out something like £20m in compensation, not because the claims were spurious, but because they were genuine.
Will it in fact happen? The court in Strasbourg may well see things differently as Conor Gearty argues in the Guardian and we may not be successful in the derogation as we hope and as has been promised (The Tories are using the army to take a shot at human rights, 5 Oct 2016).
Also forgotten is the effect this will have overseas. We are currently watching the horror of Syria with either the Syrians or the Russians deliberately bombing hospitals and civilian targets generally. If one of the leading architects of the European Convention and one of the members of the Security Council, decides to ignore the actions of some of our soldiers with prisoners, what influence do we have left?
And not a word about our activities in the Yemen where we are supplying weapons to the Saudis to enable them to carry on a terrible war there.
The last word goes to Liberty:
The Convention on Human Rights isn’t just a document whose origins lie in the brutal lessons of 20th century wars. It is directly relevant today. Our Government has a duty not only to implement it during its own military operations, but to uphold its standards as an example to others – both friends and foes.
To save the Ministry of Defence from the shame of having to admit that civilians suffered abuse on its watch, ministers are prepared to rob our soldiers of this sensible legal framework that both clarifies their use of force and offers them redress when their own rights are breached. For a supposedly civilised nation, this is a pernicious and retrograde step that will embolden our enemies and alienate our allies.
Conor Gearty’s book On Fantasy Island, published by OUP has just been published
The march was a huge success and was attended by at least 15, 000 people. A fuller report and pictures will be posted soon.
March in London on Saturday 17 September to support refugees
Source: Wikimedia
Women, men and children around the world are fleeing war, persection and torture. They have been forced into the hands of smugglers and onto dangerous journeys across the sea in rickety old boats and dinghys. Many have lost their lives. Those who have made it often find themselves stranded in makeshift camps in train stations, ports or by the roadside.
And still, politicians across Europe fail to provide safe and legal routes for people to seek asylum.
Meanwhile, ordinary people have responded with extraordinary displays of humanity and generosity. They’ve been moved to act after seeing thousands of people drowning in the Mediterranean, the continuing misery of camps in places like Calais, and images of the brutal conflicts across the world.
We need to tell the Prime Minister Theresa May that we want to help.
The UK government must do more – let’s call on them to:
Lead the way towards a more human global response to the millions fleeing conflict
Offer safe passage to the UK for more people who have been forced to flee their homes
Do more to help refugees in the UK rebuild their lives
The march starts at 11:30 outside Green Park station and ends in Parliament Square.
Liz Truss announces that the British Bill of Rights is back on the agenda
The new Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss, said in an interview that the abolition of the Human rights Act and its replacement with the British Bill of Rights is back on the agenda. On the 10 August, The Times had suggested that it was not going forward. As we speculated on this blog a while ago, the sheer amount of work needed to negotiate new trade agreements with the world and our exit from the EU, is going to consume parliamentary effort and ministerial time on an enormous scale. Will they have time and energy to spend time haggling with the Lords over a new bill with all the rest that is going on? Then there are the complex relations with Scotland and Northern Ireland to consider. This pledge has been around for 10 years now yet Liz Truss gives no timetable.
We are committed to [abolishing the Human Rights Act]. It is a manifesto pledge. We are looking very closely at the details but we have a manifesto pledge to deliver that Liz Truss
Liz Truss – picture gov.uk
The result will at best be a modest change in the law unless we are going to withdraw from the European Court itself. This will have widespread effects especially in eastern Europe where the Court’s activities has had a positive effect on human rights.
The shame of it is that the public anger about the ‘terrorist’s charter’ and other nonsenses are fostered by the media and few of our MPs and Ministers seem to have the courage to stand up to them. The Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express are often loud in their criticisms but connection to actual facts is often weak. But even periodicals like the Spectator – a venerable political weekly – is not above publishing tendentious material. The hostility to the act is in part we argue, due to the privacy clauses which give some protection to those who have suffered press intrusion for no good reason other than boosting newspaper sales.
Abu Qatada is frequently produced as evidence that the act doesn’t work and meant, allegedly, that we were not able to deport him. Firstly, if he was such a terrible man, why was he not arrested and prosecuted here? Secondly, the failure of the Home Office and the then Home Secretary Theresa May to deport him was not the HRA but treaties we have which prevent us returning people to countries where torture is routine (as well as the HRA). Qatada would not have had a fair trial in Jordan because, at the time torture, was common there.
We often read that duties and responsibilities are to be added as there are many – not just on the Conservative back benches – who are unhappy with ‘rights’ and feel that such rights should only be available to those who act responsibility. How this would work is not explained. Who’s to judge what ‘responsible’ means? A police officer at the time of arrest feels that the person behaved irresponsibly and therefore decides not to allow the person access to a lawyer – a provision in the HRA? Some rights are absolute and do not depend on good behaviour. Other rights are qualified anyway.
It is hard not to see a parallel with the Brexit debate. Years were spend denigrating the EU and then when it mattered, those like the previous prime minister, David Cameron, wanted to persuade country to Remain, he lacked conviction. He was hoist by his own petard, or more colloquially, ‘stuffed’.
A concerted campaign has been waged by the media against the act and stories produced which only occasionally have any relation to the truth. We have suggested before to refer to Rights Info to get the background and a sober assessment of some of the fictions.
Whether the BBoR ever sees the light of day remains to be seen. It is likely that this is a rash statement by the new Lord Chancellor which may quietly drift into the background when the difficulties and disadvantages are explained. But it will continue to lurk until a sufficient number of MPs – like those in the Runnymede group – stand up and speak positively about the act and the benefits it has brought to thousands of ordinary citizens who have used it to secure basic rights, stories that rarely find their way into print.
Salisbury MP, John Glen is among those who have publicly called for the act to be abolished.
It is alleged that this is a commercial arrangement between the two organisations which somehow omits any mention of human rights. The College of Policing’s site is full of stuff about ethics and integrity and says:
We are committed to ensuring that the Code of Ethics is not simply another piece of paper, poster or laminate, but is at the heart of every policy, procedure, decision and action in policing.
The code itself is 23 pages long. The College has earned £8.5m from its international word since its formation in 2012. The Home Affairs Select Committee has criticised the College for its ‘opaque’ affairs and it has taken a leak to enable us to see some of the details of what was agreed.
At one level there is an argument that encouraging police officers to work in the country to raise standards is perfectly acceptable. If by a combination of training and encouragement they are able over time to reduce the incidence of poor treatment, people denied lawyers and all the other things the Bahrain government is accused of, so much the better. This is indeed the Foreign Office’s line. However, there is much to improve – in the words of Human Rights Watch:
Bahrain’s human rights climate remains highly problematic. The country’s courts convict and imprison peaceful dissenters and have failed to hold officials accountable for torture and other serious rights violations. There is evidence that the security forces continue to use disproportionate force to quell unrest. Human rights activists and members of the political opposition face arrest and prosecution and dozens have been stripped of their citizenship. Bahrain restricts freedom of speech, and has jailed and fined Bahraini photographers. Migrant workers in Bahrain endure serious abuses such as unpaid wages, passport confiscation, unsafe housing, excessive work hours, physical abuse and forced labor.
If on the other hand, the College is helping the security services in their various activities (with surveiilance and intercept techniques for example) then this is not an appropriate thing for them to do. Their legitimacy has also been queried as they are set up as a company limited by guarantee. DPG Law has queried whether the Home Office can outsource this kind of activity anyway. Certainly, the trend recently by the UK government is to encourage business activities and to play down human rights concerns as it may offend countries which regularly violate them. The absence of a human rights clause or statement in the contract is in line with this commercial approach.
NGO’s today sent an open letter to Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, raising urgent concerns over the poor human rights record of Bahrain’s ambassador to the UK, and asking him to raise their concerns.
[They point out that] The ambassador, Sheikh Fawaz bin Mohammad Al Khalifa, is a member of the Bahraini royal family and formerly the president of the Information Affairs Authority (IAA), the state’s media regulator and home of state media channels and websites, including Bahrain TV and the Bahrain News Agency.
This is a country where violence against peaceful protest, torture and other forms of mistreatment is the norm. It appears a British agency is assisting the Bahrainis in their activities rather than seeking to help them reform since the human rights situation there is getting worse rather than better. Even though the activity was commenced when our current Prime Minister Theresa May was the Home Secretary, let us hope that with the new broom in place, this dubious contract is ended.
Minister’s close association with this dreadful state
Azerbaijan is ruled by a dictator Ilham Aliyev and is renowned for being a brutal state where torture is common and human rights flagrantly abused. In the words of Human Rights Watch:
Azerbaijan’s government has escalated repression against its critics, marking a dramatic deterioration in an already poor rights record. In recent years , dozens of human rights defenders, political and civil activists, journalists, and bloggers have been arrested or imprisoned on politically motivated charges, prompting others to flee the country or go into hiding. Bank accounts of independent civic groups and their leaders have been frozen, impeding their work, or in some cases forcing them to shut down entirely. New legal regulations make it almost impossible for independent groups to get foreign funding. While criticizing the increasing crackdown, Azerbaijan’s international partners have failed to secure rights improvements.
The problem is that the country is rich in oil and so there is a rush by western and other governments to secure contracts. Hundreds of millions of dollars of the country’s wealth sit in overseas bank accounts controlled by the Aliyev family and they like owning large amounts of real estate in London as well. (Daily Mail 21 December 2012)
Where oil and money are concerned of course, it is too much for western countries including the UK, to concern themselves with human rights especially as we know that the emphasis now is on trade. Prince Andrew is a regular visitor to the country and Tony Blair was paid £90, 000 for a twenty minute speech. They have been using ‘sports wash’ to improve their image and hosted the recent Formula 1 race.
Another visitor is the Secretary of State for International Trade, the disgraced MP, Dr Liam Fox pictured left (Bing images). In the words of the New Statesman, ‘he is in the most literal sense, shameless and should never hold high office again.’ (23 December 2016) He was sacked for breaking the ministerial code.
According to the Observer (7 August 2016) he has been paid £5,700 for the right to translate his book Rising Tides into Azerbaijani. He was paid a further £3, 500 or so to fly out there to promote it. Few read the book in English and no other country has translated it. One passage from the book, referring to Burma, is interesting:
[…] freedom from fear and freedom of expression, including a free press and broadcast media and the right to dissent within the law. It requires an inclusive political solution that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict and takes into account the legitimate grievances and aspirations of all the people of a land. Until the rights, identities and hopes of all …, whatever their ethnic origins or religion, are treated as equal, peace and reconciliation will not be achieved.”
The reviewer of the Conservative Home site remarks:
A clear thread throughout the entire book is Fox’s emphasis on the values of liberty, democracy and human rights, and he makes a compelling case. He is not blindly idealistic, or reliant solely on the moral virtues of the argument – rather, he makes the case in terms of self-interest
It seems extraordinary that with these sentiments Dr Fox should consort with, and take money from, such a vile regime, beyond the needs of diplomacy. It fits with a government reluctant to tackle abuses in Saudi Arabia for example as we have commented frequently before. Final word to the Observer:
Dr Fox is a man for our debased times because his record with Azerbaijan shows the international trade secretary would not want to raise [human rights concerns] even if he could. Our future is not going to be proud and independent, but grubby and murky and filled with bad deals with worse governments; a future, in short, where the foxes rule the henhouse.
The 
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 