Tag: Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch critical of UK


HRW’s World Report for 2024 critical of the UK on several fronts

January 2025

It comes as a shock when a respected international human rights organisation produces a report containing a number of criticisms of the UK government over its human rights record. There are some in this country who think that our role in developing the Universal Declaration in 1948 and incorporating that into the Human Rights Act fifty years later, somehow gives us some kind of moral status as champions of rights. HRW’s report disabuses us of that. The UK is a cause for concern on several fronts it says.

There are others who think the opposite and consider the act to have gone too far, enabling murderers, rapists and terrorists not getting their just deserts presenting spurious arguments based on the act. The Conservative government has in its various manifestos promised to abolish it and more recently has suggested it wants a bill of rights to replace the act. There has been a concerted press and media campaign over many years arguing for it to be abolished and which has, arguably, engendered in many people that the idea that the legislation is somehow against them. The positive benefits of the legislation are seldom mentioned.

There are still many who want the UK to come out of the European Convention including the MP for East Wiltshire, Danny Kruger.

The World Report discusses several areas of concern where it considers the UK to be falling short on human rights issues.

Poverty

Poverty means people are less able to live fulfilling lives, have poorer health outcomes, and often cannot afford to heat their homes adequately. The UK has the one of the highest levels of income inequality in Europe. It notes that the Labour government has not abolished the two-child limit a factor driving up child poverty. There is a cost of living crisis. It often means people cannot pursue their rights in the courts, not only because the system is hideously expensive and legal aid has all but vanished, but because of years of delay before a case can be heard.

It notes that 7 years have passed since the Grenfell Tower fire yet no one has been brought to justice. It might also have noted that years have gone by following the publicity concerning grooming gangs – more accurately called rape gangs – with little sign of serious action and no one brought to account. And there is the Post Office scandal and what has happened in the Anglican church and the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There has been a spate of hospital scandals.

Curtailment of freedoms

Several laws introduced to curtail freedoms. They point to the 2023 Public Order Act and the 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act which have increased police powers of arrest. They express concern about increasing surveillance including of peaceful protests. Facial recognition is being introduced apace amounting to mass surveillance of the populace. We are more like China than perhaps we like to think. They draw attention to the UN rapporteur’s concerns about clampdown on environmental protests.

There are other matters of concern in the UK and these can be seen in the full report starting on page 505. The past year has once again highlighted an often-disregarded reality: liberal democracies are not always reliable champions of human rights at home or abroad.

They discuss the role of the United States in connection to Gaza and note that “US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy has demonstrated a double standard when it comes to human rights, providing arms without restriction to Israel despite its widespread atrocities in Gaza, while condemning Russia for similar violations in Ukraine, and failing to address serious rights abuses by partners like the United Arab Emirates, India, and Kenya. Donald Trump’s return to the White House not only threatens rights within the US but will also affect, by commission and omission, respect for human rights abroad. If the first Trump administration’s attacks on multilateral institutions, international law, and the rights of marginalized groups are any indication, his second term could inflict even greater human rights damage, including by emboldening illiberal leaders worldwide to follow suit.”

This is probably the key message of the report as a whole. The promise of the Universal Declaration and the hope of ‘never again’ seems to be dead in the water. If countries like the US and the UK cannot give a lead, acting honourably and taking full account of human rights both at home and in their foreign policies, there is slender hope that countries led by a variety of despots will take any heed. As we noted in our last post on arms sales, the selling of arms to whomsoever causing death and terrible harm to millions seems to matter over any kind of moral consideration. The HRW report is a sober read.

0

Starmer denies apartheid report


Sir Keir Starmer – leader of the UK Labour Party – does not accept the Amnesty report on Apartheid in Isreal

Sir Keir is quoted today* saying that ‘he did not accept the findings of the Amnesty report that Israel is an apartheid state’. This was said in connection with a visit by representatives of the Israeli Labor party in London.

Amnesty is not the only organisation to find that Israel is running an apartheid state. In January 2021, B’Tselem – an organisation based in Israel – produced a detailed report which concluded the same thing. This was followed by Human Rights Watch in July who also produced an extremely detailed report which also concluded that Israel was an apartheid state. Then there was the Amnesty report in February this year closely followed by the UN special rapporteur’s report in March. Four trusted organisations, all of whom producing factual and detailed reports and all concluding that Israel was indeed running an apartheid state as far as the Palestinians were concerned. Exactly as in South Africa, rights were removed, homes were demolished, movement restricted and two sets of laws created for Jews and Palestinians.

It is therefore extremely difficult for Sir Keir Starmer to deny the conclusions of the Amnesty report without also denying all the others. The Labour party was bedevilled by allegations of anti-Semitism during the Corbyn years a stain which still remains. Unfortunately, any criticism of the state is met by claims of anti-Semitism. All the above reports were so condemned.

Sir Keir is no doubt sincere in his desire to rid his party of any anti-Semitism. But he will not do that by denying the facts. If he does not accept the Amnesty report (and by extension all the others) he should rebut it item by item. It is disappointing that someone who wants to become leader of the country and import some integrity into our politics, should act so cravenly.

*Guardian 29 April 2022

Further link added 1 May 2022

0

Amnesty report on apartheid in Israel


Amnesty joins Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem in declaring Israel an apartheid state

Israel works hard to present itself as a modern, pluralist state and enjoys close links with its diaspora particularly in the USA. It enjoys favourable coverage in the UK with the majority of media who are either silent about these issues or are quick to condemn criticism of the state.

We have previously reported on two other reports by respected organisations which came to the same conclusions: one by Human Rights Watch and the other from within Israel by B’Tselem. Both reports go into great detail with many examples of how the apartheid system works in Israel.

The introduction to the Amnesty report says:

There is no possible justification for a system built around the institutionalized and prolonged racist oppression of millions of people. Apartheid has no place in our world, and states which choose to make allowances for Israel will find themselves on the wrong side of history. Governments who continue to supply Israel with arms and shield it from accountability at the UN are supporting a system of apartheid, undermining the international legal order, and exacerbating the suffering of the Palestinian people. The international community must face up to the reality of Israel’s apartheid, and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored.

From the Amnesty Report

The response by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs was ‘[the report was a] collection of lies, biased claims, and recycled reports from other anti-Israel organisations’.

The report (pdf) details the bases of the apartheid claim:

  • massive seizures of land and Palestinian property
  • unlawful killing
  • restrictions on the right [of Palestinian’s] to political representation
  • drastic movement restrictions
  • denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians.

Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights.

It is interesting to note the difference between how the treatment of Palestinians in Israel contrasts with things like the Berlin wall. There were regular features of the wall with film of people attempting to scale it and footage of border guards shooting at those seeking to escape East Germany. Film of the Israeli wall by contrast are rare. During the apartheid regime in South Africa, there was considerable coverage of civil disturbances and many companies decided to cease trading there. There is precious little sign of that in the UK media’s coverage of Israel. Indeed, in the Telegraph – a right wing newspaper in the UK – the coverage led, not on the report itself and a summary of some of the conclusions, but with the Israeli government’s response: Israel labels Amnesty International ‘anti-Semitic’ over ‘apartheid’ report leaving minimal coverage of what Amnesty said to a few short sentences at the end of the piece. They also featured a 6 minute video interview with the President of the Zionist Federation of Australia with no balancing footage [accessed 2 February]. Labelling any criticism of Israel as ‘anti-Semitic’ is an automatic response and is unjustified with any of the three reports mentioned.

Dr Agnès Callamard the secretary general of Amnesty said in response: “Amnesty International stands very strongly against antisemitism, against any form of racism, we have repeatedly denounced antisemitic acts and antisemitism by various leaders around the world.” Source: Times of Israel.

The report makes a large number of recommendations. With three detailed reports now published it is hard for Israel to ignore and deny the accusation of apartheid.

We have come across this video of a young girl who has made several videos and this one is worth watching. Janna Jihad video – Amnesty

3

Indonesia


Video from Human Rights Watch on the proposal by the Indonesian Government to move its capital and thus threaten the future of indigenous people and threatened species.

https://fb.watch/aGHoTjD-1k/

0

Israel accused of Apartheid


Damning report by human Rights Watch published

A damning report accusing the Israeli government of Apartheid was published today (27 April 2021). The 213 page report goes into copious detail about the wide range of actions by the Israeli government, which in the view of HRW amount to the crime of Apartheid. The report echoes the previous report published by B’Tselem in January alleging the same thing.

Apartheid as a policy of discrimination against an ethnic or racial group is closely linked to South Africa where the white settlers practised a wide range of discriminatory policies against the black population. The practice was defined in 1973 by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute (not ratified by Israel) to consist of three elements:

  • An intent to maintain domination by one racial group over another
  • A context of systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalised group
  • Inhuman acts.

The actions by the Israeli government against Palestinians are extensive and include systematic discrimination against them. A range of abuses are carried out the report says including sweeping movement restrictions, confiscation of vast swathes of land in the West Bank, forcible transfer of Palestinians out of their homes – thousands of which are demolished – denial of residency rights and the suspension of basic human rights to millions of Palestinians.

“Denying millions of Palestinians their fundamental rights, without legitimate security justification and solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish, is not simply a matter of an abusive occupation. These policies, which grant Jewish Israelis the same rights and privileges wherever they live and discriminate against Palestinians to varying degrees wherever they live, reflect a policy to privilege one people at the expense of another” Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, HRW.

The report draws on years of human rights documentation, case studies, and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials and other sources. HRW wrote to the Israeli government in July 2020 but received no reply. Even during the Covid-19 crisis, twenty times more Jewish people have received vaccination in comparison to Palestinians.

Inhuman acts include expropriation of land and property, creation of separate reserves and ghettos, and the denial of a right to leave and return to their country.

The Israeli government has acted with continuing impunity safe in the unwavering support it receives from the USA. It has repeatedly denied access to the UN Commission on Inquiry into Gaza. It also denies access to Amnesty and other human rights organisations researching allegations of war crimes during the various conflicts.

Human Rights Watch argues that this report, and others, should prompt a re-evaluation by the international community into the nature of its engagement with Israel. They should adopt a more human rights centred approach rather than continue to cling to the stalled peace process. Arms sales and security equipment should be conditional on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps to ending the commission of the crimes described in the report. Countries persist with viewing the occupation as temporary whereas in reality, the oppression of Palestinians has reached a permanence which meets the threshold of apartheid and persecution.

The Israeli government dismissed the report as ‘preposterous and false’ but did not respond to any of the central assertions within it. (Sky News, 27 April)

Sources: Amnesty International; Guardian; Human Rights Watch; B’Tselem; Sky News

UPDATE: We have added Israeli Campaign Against Housing Demolitions to the list of contact addresses at the bottom of this site (30 April). This followed a presentation at a SCIP meeting (29 April).

2

Human Rights Watch report


This is an extract of the HRW 2020 report for Europe focusing on the UK.  Seeing all the issues grouped together in this way makes for shameful reading.

The UK’s planned exit from the EU (Brexit) strained democratic institutions and put human rights and the rule of law at risk.  In September, the government was forced by parliament to publish a key planning document outlining potential impacts of the UK leaving the EU without an agreement (known as “no-deal” Brexit).  Its publication raised serious rights concerns including those related to access to adequate food and medicine, fuel shortages, interruptions to social care for older people and people with disabilities, possible public disorder, and the risk of increased dissident activity in Northern Ireland. The government accepted that a “no deal Brexit” would have the greatest impact on economically vulnerable and marginalized groups.

In September, the Supreme Court ruled unlawful the government’s five-week suspension of parliament earlier the same month, leading to parliament’s recall.  The government was forced by law adopted by parliament in September to seek an extension to the UK’s membership of the EU aimed at avoiding a no-deal Brexit.  Government sources criticized the Supreme Court ruling and threatened to ignore the binding law requiring an extension request.

The extension was granted by the EU27, and the Brexit date at time of writing was the end of January 2020 (now taken place).  Parliament was dissolved in November after opposition parties agreed to a December 2019 general election (which had yet to take place at time of writing).

In May, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty published a report on the disproportionate negative impact of austerity-motivated spending cuts, combined with social security restructuring, on the rights of women, children, older people, and people with disabilities living on low incomes.

Reliance on emergency food assistance grew.  The country’s largest food bank charity network, the (Salisbury based)Trussell Trust, reported distributing 1.6 million parcels containing a three-day emergency supply of food across the country.  The Independent Food Aid Network reported that, at time of writing, at least 819 independent centres were also distributing food aid.

The UK continued to detain asylum seeking and migrant children.

In October legislation passed by the UK Parliament to decriminalize abortion and provide for marriage equality in Northern Ireland in 2020 came into force when the region’s devolved government failed to reconvene having been suspended since January 2017.

More than two years after the deadly Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 71, there has been little accountability for the deaths or the fire.   In October, the findings of the first phase of the public inquiry into the fire were published, focusing on the day of the fire.  A criminal investigation was ongoing at time of writing.

In February, a new counterterrorism law entered into force, including measures that criminalize viewing online content, overseas travel and support to terrorism and could result in human rights violations.  UK authorities continued to exercise powers to strip citizenship from UK nationals suspected of terrorism-related activity.

In July, the government refused to establish a judicial inquiry into UK complicity in the CIA-led torture and secret detention.  At time of writing, no one in the UK had been charged with a crime in connection with the abuses.  In November, a media investigation found evidence of a cover up by UK authorities of alleged war crimes by UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Human Rights Watch)

0

Theresa May’s visit to Bahrain


Prime minister’s trip to Bahrain gives a hint to what will happen to human rights after Brexit

Picture: Express

The prime minister, Theresa May, is on an official to Bahrain amid controversy about the poor state of human rights in the kingdom.  It is really quite difficult to grasp quite what the Prime Minister means when she says the ‘UK must not turn our back on the human rights abuses of foreign countries’ as she prepares to sign various trade deals which does precisely that.  There is a growing hint of riddle like statements from her including the meaningless ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

There now seems to be a desperate urge to secure trade deals ahead of our departure from the EU and the Gulf states are fertile ground.  She is quoted in the Guardian (5 December 2016)

There will be some people in the UK who say we shouldn’t seek stronger trade and security ties with these countries because of their record on human rights.  But we don’t uphold our values and human rights by turning our back on this issue.  We achieve far more by stepping up, engaging with these countries and working with them.

So the argument is that Bahrain has a questionable human rights record and that by working with them, and doing business, we can exert some kind of influence to encourage them to stop torturing or otherwise mistreating their people.  Since we have been trading there for some time, we would expect that the country would be slowly improving as a result of our influence.  The problem is that it isn’t.  As Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have said:

Bahrain’s 2016 “reform” agenda has consisted of an assault on core elements of civil society and jailing or deporting government critics.  Last month, Amnesty International accused UK Ministers of acting like “overexcited cheerleaders for Bahrain’s woefully inadequate reforms.”

On December 4, Human Rights Watch and others wrote to Prime Minister May to complain about the British government’s ‘abject failure to exert any positive influence’ in Bahrain.  We didn’t call on the UK to end trade or security ties, but rather to use the UK’s influence to help put a stop to an orchestrated attack on rights that has badly undermined any prospect of the reform that the UK claims to support.

What exactly “working with” Bahrain to “encourage and support” reform amounts to, remains to be seen.  But one thing is clear – human rights will not be at the center of the UK’s relationship with Bahrain.

This is especially worrying in the context of the post Brexit world.  The UK will be in a tough position trying to develop trade outside the EU.  We will not be in a position to exert any kind of influence on countries like Bahrain if we want to continue to sell them weapons.  There will be lip service of course and meaningless phrases from the prime minister and other ministers to assure us that persuasion has been applied to improve human rights.  The reality is we will have to accept what’s on offer and be thankful for it.  In the context of the Gulf states for example, we export more to them than to China, a situation unlikely to change anytime soon.

Ministers cannot quite bring themselves to say that in reality, there is little they can do and often little they want to do.  We must remember also the ‘revolving door’ through which ministers, senior civil servants and top military brass, pass to secure lucrative directorships with the very companies doing the deals in countries like Bahrain.  There is little incentive to upset the apple cart.

See also College of Policing.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, @salisburyai

7

Select Committee reports on Yemen


Damning criticism of government’s blind eye to arms sales to the Saudi Arabians
Recommends suspension of arms sales to the Saudis

Picture: mintpressnews.com

Followers of this blog will be aware of the attention we have been drawing to the war in Yemen and our government’s role in it.  It started by accident with a letter to our MP Mr John Glen who forwarded a bland reply from a Foreign Office Minister, Tobias Ellwood.  The answers began to unravel quite quickly when it was revealed that, for example, far from reigning in the Saudi’s, we were promoting their membership of the UN’s Human Rights Council.

Now the International Development and the Business, Innovation and Skills Committees have produced a lengthy report which is extremely critical on several different levels.  The chair’s summary remarks were:

The UK led the way in establishing international humanitarian law to govern the sale of arms. The conflict in Yemen has raised serious concerns that we are not showing equal determination in ensuring that these are respected.

During this inquiry we have heard evidence from respected sources that weapons made in the UK have been used in contravention of International Humanitarian Law.  The Government can no longer wait and see and must now take urgent action, halting the sale of arms to the Saudi-led coalition until we can be sure that there is no risk of violation.

We call on the Government to continue the UK’s long-standing commitment to IHL and lead the international community in establishing a strong, independent inquiry. The circumstances surrounding incidents in Yemen, such as allegations of the use of cluster bombs, must be firmly established and send a clear message to all combatants in Yemen that human rights must be respected.

The current system for overseeing the sale of arms must be improved.  At present we do not have sufficient transparency to hold licensing decisions to account or the confidence that the benchmarks ensuring human rights law is respected are high enough. This must be addressed immediately.

Backbench committees do valuable and largely unsung work in the House of Commons and provide an opportunity for members to question government activities more closely than they are able to do in the House itself.

Background

The background situation in the Yemen is dire.  The UN categorises it as a level 3 crisis which is the most severe.  UNICEF say that 1,211 children have been killed and 1,650 injured, both are likely to be under-estimates in view of the difficulty in reporting.  The economy and health care systems are on the verge of collapse.  Over a million people are internally displaced.

Britain however continues to profit from the war by supplying huge amounts of weaponry to the Saudis.  Between April and December 2015 we supplied £1.7bn worth of aircraft and a further £1bn of air-Image result for cluster weaponsdelivered bombs.  More shockingly is that, although we are no longer supplying cluster munitions, previously supplied ones have turned up on the ground.  These weapons kick out tens or hundreds of sub-munitions which saturate an area the size of several football fields.  Duds can be dangerous to children especially who can lose limbs or be blinded if they pick them up.

Both Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have provided evidence to the FCO about the use of these weapons.

The report

The report makes interesting reading most particularly concerning the UK government attitudes to the conflict.  It contrasts the FCO’s attitude to the documented evidence it is presented with on the Yemen by NGOs including Amnesty and HRW, which it ignores, with that from Syria where evidence is accepted.  David Mepham, the UK director of HRW said in evidence:

I was at a meeting with [the Foreign Secretary] several months ago when I gave him copies of our report and said, “These are the GPS coordinates; these are the strikes; these are the markets and schools that were hit.” Therefore, he has that evidence. The Foreign Office has had that evidence for months. It is extraordinary that the line comes back that they do not have evidence, when that evidence has been shared with them for a considerable period of time.

Picture: the Independent

The line from the government is that the UK has ‘the most robust arms control export regimes in the world’.  The committee heard evidence of how long this robust arms control regime took to make its decisions: a matter of days.  The hundreds of licences take around 20 or 25 days to approve.  In comparison with other government decision making, this is merely the blink of an eye.  It seems fairly obvious that little control is exercised.  No licence has been refused.

In the face of the hundreds of incidents of schools, marriage ceremonies, factories and hospitals being hit by bombing, the UK government accepts the answers given it by the Saudi government.  The committee was sceptical at FCO reliance on Saudi assurances and said:

We are not convinced that Saudi Arabia is best placed to investigate reports of IHL breaches and their lack of progress with reporting findings only confirms our concerns that they are obstructing progress.  Of 185 incidents reported by UN, HRW and AI, only 9 investigations have taken place

UK personnel

Our involvement is not just limited to supplying weapons but military and civilian personnel are also involved in the control centre and elsewhere.  The claim is that they are not directing the actual bombing.  The committee were not convinced by this argument.

It is impossible, on the basis of the evidence that is before us to claim plausibly that the United Kingdom is not involved.  We provide the aircraft and the bombs.  This level of involvement without being party to a conflict is unprecedented.  This is an area where there is much confusion and greater clarity is needed.  (para 75)

Human Rights

The committee considered our political role in this conflict and our supposed commitment to an international rules based order.  We were now in a tricky position.  UK’s support for the Saudi led coalition primarily through the sale of arms and in the face of violations of International Humanitarian Law is inconsistent with our global leadership role in the world.  The very rules the UK championed – represented by the Arms Trade Treaty – are at risk of unravelling.

The committee heard evidence that the arms companies were a huge source of employment and that if we did not supply the weapons, others would.  An argument which could easily be applied to slavery.

Summary

For the sake of weapons sales, the government has become ensnared with a war which is fast becoming a humanitarian disaster.  Our involvement is much to close for comfort and attempts to dissemble and hide the truth are at risk of unravelling.  We also risk losing the moral argument as well.  It is difficult for us to criticise the Russians and Syrians for their barbaric activities in Aleppo and elsewhere, when we are only slightly removed from doing the same things in Yemen.  So far the government has been lucky: all eyes are on Syria and there are few reports emerging from Yemen.  But this report is a welcome spotlight on the unsavoury and ultimately foolish activities by our government in that country.  They recommend ending arms sales to the Saudis.

On 26 October the House of Commons debated the question of withdrawing support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.  The intention was to send a message to the government that MP’s do not want to support a war without a UN investigation into breaches of international humanitarian law.  Labour MPs did not attend and the vote was lost.  Mr Glen voted against the motion.  So the carnage continues.

The full report

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook – salisburyai

 

 

 

2

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑