Promoting human rights from Salisbury UK
We are pleased to attach the current monthly death penalty report prepared by group member Lesley. Contains a lot of information: Iran, Saudi, Belarus, Canada, Egypt and the US. Note that China – the world’s largest executioner – is absent because details of its massive execution activities are a state secret.
This is to let you know that on Thursday a Pakistani Court acquitted Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, the Christian couple, who had been sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy in 2014, and ordered their release from prison. The resolution stated that the evidence against the couple was ‘deeply flawed’ as, since both were ‘illiterate’, they would have been unable to send the text. It called for them to be released immediately and unconditionally, and for their death sentences – and those of all others on death row for allegedly violating the Country’s ‘draconian’ blasphemy laws – to be speedily reviewed.
May 2021
In recent years some members of the Conservative party seem to have a problem with the Human Rights Act and some would like to see it abolished. Far right newspapers typify the act as being a means by which terrorists, murderers and others escape justice because the act provides lawyers with a range of loopholes to get their clients off. They call it a ‘criminal’s charter’. Many of the stories, on closer examination, turn out not to be true or wanton exaggerations.
The current corpus of human rights law started life after the Second World War and there were a number of Conservative politicians who were active proponents, including Sir Winston Churchill and David Maxwell-Fyfe.
Since 2015, the tone has changed and in the manifesto of that year, David Cameron promised to scrap the act. Little happened and by the time of the 2019 manifesto, ‘scrap’ had gone and a review was promised. What is to be reviewed and how a new act would look and what it would contain has never been clear. At the time, the Salisbury group raised the matter with our MP Mr John Glen, but we were not much clearer what they wanted it replaced by. The review of the act is currently underway.
A new book has just been produced by a group of backbench Conservatives called Common Sense: Conservative Thinking For a Post-Liberal Age. In it, is a chapter written by the Devizes* MP Danny Kruger entitled Restoring rights: Reclaiming Liberty.
His chapter contains odd reasoning and some curious logic. His first claim is that the European Convention on Human Rights, drafted by British Lawyers after World War II [lawyers from other countries were involved so it is incorrect to say ‘British lawyers’] ‘sits uncomfortably with the English tradition of preventing tyranny’. This will come as something of a surprise to the millions of people who were enslaved and were worked to death in the sugar plantations or those who worked in fearful conditions in nineteenth century factories. The acquisition of Empire also has many horror stories. Quite where this ‘prevention of tyranny’ was taking place is not made clear.
Human rights are misnamed he claims. ‘The rights we really need, and the only ones we really have, derive from something higher and something lower than mankind. They derive from the idea of God, and from the fact of nations: from a Christian conception of law …’ It would be difficult to locate in the Bible many of the principles enshrined in the ECHR or HRA if only because these ideas and principles were a long way from a society colonised by the Romans and where practices like slavery were common. There are many favourable references to slavery in the Bible for example. The ‘lower than mankind’ element is not explained.
He quotes approvingly of the American author Patrick Deneen who wrote Why Liberalism Failed (2018). Many do not agree with Kruger’s admiration of Deneen’s book regarding his blame of a huge range of society’s ills on excessive liberalism to be odd not to say ridiculous.
His analysis seems to go seriously awry however with the following passage:
“And so, from an early stage we came to think of rights as the means by which we are set free from external pressure, set free from obligations to others; and from there it is a small step to the hypocritical assumption that rights confer obligations on others to satisfy us” (p49).
It is incorrect to say that requiring the state to act in a lawful and reasonable way towards its subjects is in anyway hypocritical. What is hypocritical about requiring the State not to torture us? What is hypocritical about having a fair trial? Nor is it true to argue that rights set us free from external pressure. This seems to go to the heart of the objections raised by some Conservatives about the HRA, and the attempts to weave in duties. The argument seems to be you only deserve these rights in limited circumstances and in a conditional way.
This argument is further developed in this passage:
“This conception of rights must be rooted in the existence of a community – a real community, not the abstraction of ‘humankind’. A real community entails reciprocal duties, situated in institutions that can enforce them and mediated by the conventions of people who know each other and share a common culture. This is the nation. We derive our rights from our citizenship (or more properly, our subjectship)”. p52 (our italics)
The problem all along with the objections to the HRA is trying to tie them down to specifics. In an earlier Conservative document Protecting Human Rights in the UK, the examples seem to be stuck on deporting foreign criminals as an example of obligations.
The Human Rights Act, brought in following cross party consensus – and falsely characterised as ‘Labour’s Human Rights Act’ – represented a significant shift in power. Ever since the Norman conquest, power rested with the elites: the king, the barons and gradually the landowners and aristocracy. Concessions were drawn from them as a result of unrest, riots or events such as the Peterloo massacre. Magna Carta sought to restore some of the rights enjoyed during Saxon times. The ‘Glorious Revolution’ brought further changes. The Great Reform Act some more.
We were subjects not citizens. The HRA changed that and gave citizens a range of fundamental rights (some of which are conditional). It would appear that for a small number of Conservative backbenchers in the Common Sense group this is troubling. Yet Mr Kruger’s chapter never gives solid reasons for change, only rather nebulous arguments which crumble away on close reading.
*Devizes is a small town 25 miles north of Salisbury.
A recent report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission highlights a lack of UK government progress on human rights: It concludes that no progress has been made in the category of ‘political and civic participation, including political representation’ and its ‘equality and human rights legal framework’. This is due in part to the New Immigration Act, Police Crime Bill and the reviews of the Human Rights Act and the legal process of Judicial Review.
The report also covers the topics of ‘educational attainment’, ‘hate crime and hate speech’, ‘human trafficking and modern slavery’ and ‘mental health’. It concludes that: “Women, ethnic minorities and disabled people remain under-represented in politics and diversity data is inadequate. Candidates sharing certain protected characteristics are disproportionately subject to abuse and intimidation, and long-term funding is needed to ensure disabled people’s equal participation.”
The EHRC considers that there has been a severe regression of human rights with The Coronavirus Act and the removal of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights from domestic law after Brexit.
The United Kingdom is signed up to seven UN human rights treaties. The EHRC’s report clearly demonstrates the UK government’s lack commitment to ensure its citizens’ rights are properly protected. The EHRC’s full report: Check on UK Government progress | Human Rights Tracker
This is an urgent action for a couple in prison in Faisalabad for the crime of blasphemy. They face the death penalty and have been in prison since 2014. They are Shafqat and Shagufta and further details can be found on the link below from Amnesty International. The problem is that the ‘crime’ of blasphemy is very hard to prove and is based often on hearsay. The allegation can be made as part of a feud. If you have time to respond to the action it would be appreciated. Previous actions have been successful in gaining the release of people accused of this so-called crime.
Amnesty International celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and the local group braved the inclement weather to take a group shot to mark the occasion. The Salisbury group was established a few years after AI was formed and is still going strong. The need for human rights organisations is even stronger than ever with many examples around the world of people’s rights being infringed.
In Yemen there is the continuing war and bombing of civilians continues unabated; the genocide of Rohingya in Burma (Myanmar); Syria; wars in the Horn of Africa are just some examples.
In the UK we remain concerned at government attempts to stifle freedoms of assembly, the Judiciary and their long term desire to curtail or abolish the Human Rights Act.
If you live in the south Wiltshire area and would like to join us, you would be very welcome.
We are pleased to attach minutes of our May meeting via Zoom thanks to group member Lesley for preparing them. The government’s treatment of refugees occasioned a lot of discussion. We hope to be able meet in person later in the summer.
We attach the death penalty report for April – May 2021. Note the report does not include China which is believed to execute thousands of its citizens but the statistics for which are a state secret.
This is a report of a Zoom meeting on 28 April 2021, organised by Young Legal Aid Lawyers on the subject of protecting our human rights. Young Legal Aid Lawyers (YLAL) is a group of lawyers who are committed to practising in those areas of law, both criminal and civil, that have traditionally been publicly funded. YLAL members include students, paralegals, trainee solicitors, pupil barristers and qualified junior lawyers based throughout England and Wales. We believe that the provision of good quality publicly funded legal help is essential to protecting the interests of the vulnerable in society and upholding the rule of law.
We are grateful to group member Mike for preparing this post.
The panel of speakers were:
Ciara Bartlem, Barrister (Chair); Michael Mansfield QC (HR Specialist); Audrey Mogan, Barrister; Katy Watts, Solicitor, Liberty; Chai Patel, Policy Director, JCWI; Shami Chakrabarti, Barrister, House of Lords.
Two questions posed were: a) is government becoming increasingly authoritarian, and b) what can be done to curb the progression towards authoritarianism?
The panel all agreed that government is becoming more authoritarian. Michael Mansfield QC said that activist lawyers are now Home Office targets with the Home Secretary tending toward aggressive oppression. He referred to May’s total dislike of the ECHR as well as other examples.
The main concerns are the three Acts that we have already identified: CHIS, Police Crime Bill and Overseas Trade. The UK HR Act is not under immediate threat though it is under review but the panel agreed that the three acts do undermine our HR and the trajectory is increasing.
While the Police Crime Bill does not directly make protesting illegal, it provides the police with huge powers to determine when a protest is causing a ‘disturbance of the peace of others’; it gives ‘guilty’ protestors a criminal record and excessive sentencing powers to the courts. ‘Disturbing the peace of others’ is not specified and could be about noise, inconveniencing shoppers to holding up traffic.
Shami Chakrabarti was particularly scathing about CHIS and how it can be used in conjunction with the Police Bill. She warned of agent provocateurs being used to create/encourage violent protests thereby giving the police powers to act, and the courts powers to sentence ‘undesirable’ protestors.
They all agreed that these, and the general trend, is a back door threat to our freedoms and towards an increasingly authoritarian government.
There was also a lengthy discussion about the ending, or curtailing, of Judicial Reviews. Judicial Review is the ability for courts (lawyers) to challenge the legality of a government action (or a government agency such as the police). Either in the three Acts or elsewhere the government wants to end (restrict) the process of Judicial Review, thereby rendering government unaccountable to the law. There has been an continuing debate as to whether judges, enabled in part by the Human Rights Act, have expanded their reach into what some consider to be inherently political areas of decision making. Judicial Review is subject to a review at present.
Sadly, what can be done was far more directed towards lawyers and actions in the court than activists. They talked about the increasing importance of using Legal Observers at protests.
Though an interesting and simple suggestion was: get ready to use your mobile phone, learn how to video quickly. The George Floyd case in America was blown open by video. We are unlikely to see a lot of such incidents in Salisbury, but the inference is to stop abuse in the streets before it gets to the courts.
The panel also recommended two videos:
The Brink: [trailer] Steven Bannon in the US and his involvement in UK, particularly, Brexit politics.
The 13th: [trailer] after the emancipation of slaves the 13th amendment was used to criminalise black people.
The Salisbury group is concerned – along with many others – about the government’s stated desire to abolish the Human Rights Act. Curtailment of liberties, including the right to protest and Judicial Review, is part a drip, drip of actions the government is engaged in.
This is an extract from Amnesty’s annual death penalty report for 2020 which, overall, is good news with a decline in the use of the penalty around the world. It excludes China which executes thousands of its citizens but does not publish figures which are a state secret.
Once again the number of known executions has fallen (by 26%) and at 483 is now at its lowest for 10 years. The number of known death sentences imposed has also fallen. Much of the fall in execution numbers has been driven by significant reductions in Saudi Arabia (down 84%) and Iraq (down over 50%). However, these falls have been offset by a tripling of executions in Egypt to at least 107.
The five countries that executed the most people are China (1,000s), Iran (at least 246), Egypt (at least 107), Iraq (at least 45) and Saudi Arabia (27). In the USA the picture is mixed with state executions significantly down but this was negated by a surge in federal executions ordered by the outgoing Trump administration. The USA remains the only country in the Americas to execute people.
The number of known death sentences handed down has also fallen from 2,307 to 1,477 although some of this reduction appears to be due to delays in proceedings in response to the pandemic.
18 countries are known to have carried out executions in 2020, a reduction of 2 since 2019. Chad and the US state of Colorado abolished the death penalty and Kazakhstan committed to its abolition. On the other hand executions were resumed in India, Qatar, Oman and Taiwan.
Some of the more disturbing trends in 2020 included the following:
Asia-Pacific countries were notable for imposing death sentences for crimes not involving intentional killing, which is in violation of international law. This included drug offences in China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam, corruption in China and Viet Nam and for blasphemy in Pakistan. In the Maldives five people under the age of 18 at the time of their offences remain under sentence of death.
Nevertheless the trend remains positive. 144 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. 123 countries supported the UN General Assembly’s call for a moratorium on executions. In the USA the state of Virginia recently became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty and several bills to abolish it at federal level are pending before Congress.
Amnesty continues to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and will continue to campaign until the death penalty is abolished everywhere for good.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 