By Frank Jordans
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:56 a.m. June 19, 2007
GENEVA – Members of the U.N.'s new human rights watchdog agreed in principle Tuesday to a compromise on how to launch investigations into some of the world's worst rights offenders, sparing the body from the potentially embarrassing prospect of failing to set its own rules.
The Human Rights Council, which was formed last year to replace the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, has faced widespread criticism from activists who say it spends much of its time singling out Israel and fending off criticism of countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe.
The European Union, which played a key role in the negotiations, said it remained to be seen how the council can perform on the basis of the agreement.
“The package is certainly not ideal, but we have a basis we can work with,” said Ambassador Michael Steiner of Germany, which currently holds the EU presidency. “The package must prove its value in practice.”
The U.S. – which is only an observer to the council – has been skeptical since the beginning.
The council's members had negotiated for a year on setting the ground rules for how it will operate. But just as a compromise package appeared likely to be approved at a council meeting in Geneva late Monday, the deal was held up by China's last-minute attempt to raise the threshold for resolutions criticizing countries over their human rights record.
China said approval by two-thirds of the council's 47 members should be required before a special investigation of alleged rights violations is launched. The current requirement is a simple majority.
Shortly after a midnight deadline expired, council president Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico said members had agreed to a new proposal that says resolutions against a country should have “the broadest possible support” – preferably from at least 15 members – before being submitted to the full council for approval.
The new proposal will be put before the council for formal approval when it meets for a brief session later Tuesday.
“We have all made compromises, it is not a perfect text. Negotiations never achieve a perfect text,” de Alba told reporters.
The council membership is heavily weighted toward Asia and Africa, with 13 members in each group. The EU has eight members.
Although many developing countries object to naming and shaming countries over their human rights records, they make an exception for Israel, the only government explicitly criticized so far by the body. Censure by the council brings no sanctions beyond international scrutiny.
Among the proposed changes to its rules is the establishment of a “universal periodic review” mechanism under which all countries will have their rights record examined regularly, so as to remove any accusation of bias.
De Alba's proposal also aims to safeguard annual reports on a number of specific human rights hot spots, including Haiti, Somalia, Congo, Sudan, Myanmar, North Korea and the Palestinian territories. But it would cancel long-standing mandates to investigate Cuba and Belarus.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2101835,00.html
Human rights law applies in Iraq killing, lords rule
Matthew Weaver
Wednesday June 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The House of Lords today delivered a resounding blow to British conduct in the war in Iraq by ruling that human rights law applies in the case of an Iraqi civilian who died in UK custody after alleged torture.
The law lords decided that the UK was obliged to conduct an independent investigation into the death of Baha Mousa, who died after sustaining 93 separate injuries in Basra in 2003.
In a four-to-one verdict, the lords ruled that the UK's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights applied to the conduct of British troops in Iraq.
They upheld a court of appeal ruling of December 2005 that the UK authorities had "extra-territorial jurisdiction" concerning Mr Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel worker.
But the families of five other Iraqi civilians killed in different incidents in Basra, but who were not in detention, were told their cases were not covered by UK human rights law.
The families will now take their cases to the European courts.
Lawyers for Mr Mousa's family and civil rights campaigners said a full inquiry should now be conducted into the circumstances of his death.
Before the hearing they released pictures and records detailing the 93 separate injuries to Mr Mousa, including a fractured nose, four broken ribs and a ligature mark around his neck.
They dismissed suggestions that a full investigation had already been conducted at a court martial into whether seven soldiers had abused Mr Mousa and others.
Six of the men were cleared of all charges.
Today's ruling means that anyone held in custody abroad by the British Army, will be protected by the Human Rights Act. As such they will have a right to life, a right not to be tortured and the right to access to a fair trial.
The ruling therefore strengthens Mr Mousa's family case for compensation against the British Army.
It also means where a death in custody occurs, a public inquiry will have to be held. But it is unclear whether the government is obliged by the Lords' ruling to hold an inquiry in Mr Mousa's death, because the court martial may be deemed sufficient.
The director of the civil rights group Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, hailed today's ruling as a "landmark decision".
She said: "Our law lords have today ensured that there can never be a British Guantánamo Bay. The British will never be able to build a prison anywhere in the world and say it is a legal black hole.
"As a result of this landmark decision the Human Rights Act protects anyone detained by the British government."
She said ministers and military officials should now be held to account for the death of Mr Mousa.
"Individual soldiers cannot be ... scapegoated for the failures of the British government and the military high command. It is too easy to blame it on a few rotten apples."
She added: "This decision means there must be a full, independent and public inquiry into how this scandal occurred."
Phil Shiner, the lawyer representing Mr Mousa's family, said Mr Mousa and others had been "hooded, stressed and sleep-deprived" - practices all outlawed by the government of Edward Heath in 1972.
"How is it that at the highest level - even after Mousa had died - there was ignorance of the fact of the 1972 ban?" he asked.
Martyn Day, the personal injury lawyer for Colonel Mousa, Baha's father, said: "The British army will now always be held to account for their actions when people are bought under power. There will be no difference whether this happens in Birmingham or Basra."
He also issued a statement from Colonel Mousa who said: "I hope that, as result of this judgement, the truth will come out and that no other family should have to experience what me and my grandchildren have gone through."
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=826472007
The Scotsman (Edinburgh)
28 May 2007
MoD trains Sudanese soldiers linked to genocide in Darfur
JAMES KIRKUP POLITICAL EDITOR
BRITAIN has been providing military training for members of the Sudanese armed forces, even while condemning the African country's government for the genocide in Darfur.
The revelation has unsettled aid agencies and left ministers facing questions about the consistency of its policy towards Sudan.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million more been made refugees by ethnic violence in Darfur in western Sudan. Western governments, including Britain, believe the Sudanese regime is supporting the Arab Janjaweed militias, blamed for much of the violence against the black population of Darfur.
Only last week, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, warned the Sudanese government to stop the violence in Darfur or face tougher United Nations sanctions, possibly including a no-fly zone to keep Sudanese military aircraft out of the area.
But the Ministry of Defence has admitted that as recently as last month
it was training Sudanese military officers at British establishments.
The MoD said training had been offered to support a 2005 peace deal
between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, which waged a long civil war in southern Sudan but has now joined the Khartoum regime.
Some 11 "mid and senior ranking members" of the Sudanese forces have attended British military colleges since 2005, nine of them in 2006-7. They have followed courses on "managing defence in a democracy and collective training," the MoD said in a written parliamentary answer slipped out last week as the Commons rose for a recess.
Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the House of Commons international development committee, yesterday said he was concerned about the issue. "On the
face of it, this would seem to be inconsistent: Britain has called for sanctions against the government of Sudan and accused the Sudanese military of taking part in the violence in Darfur," he said.
"It may very well be that this training is the result of an earlier agreement that has been overtaken by events, but if Britain wants to
send a clear and unequivocal message, it would be right to say to Sudan that there will be no such comforts until they comply on Darfur."
James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, which campaigns
to prevent genocide, said: "It is ironic that the British government
is training members of the Sudanese army in managing defence in
a democracy when Sudan's dictatorship is using that same army to
conduct ethnic cleansing in Darfur."
Aid agencies were reluctant to comment openly about the situation as
their access to Darfur relies on the tacit consent of the notoriously sensitive Sudanese government. But one agency source privately described Britain's military assistance as "very troubling".
In November, it was revealed Sudan's intelligence chief, General Salah Abdallah, was allowed into the UK for medical treatment twice last year.
The MoD did not respond to efforts to obtain comment about the training yesterday.
###
A British lawyer is to bring a group action involving up to 5,000 people in Ivory Coast who claim they were injured by "toxic waste" from a UK-based firm.
Martyn Day was given permission to bring the case by a High Court judge.
Trafigura, which has offices in London, has denied the waste it disposed of was toxic, and has begun a libel action against Mr Day's firm.
Ten people died and thousands fell ill after the waste was shipped there and left around the city in August.
A team of six lawyers from the London-based law firm Leigh Day & Co will travel to Ivory Coast, for the second time, on Monday.
Mr Day said he believed 4-5,000 victims in Abidjan would be able to join the claim, provided that they could meet the criteria set out by the judge.
The question is, are there any long term implications?
Martyn Day, lawyer
He gave credit to Trafigura for their assistance.
"They have entered into this process in a co-operative spirit which I hope will ensure that the case is brought to a speedy conclusion," he said.
The British lawyers will spend two weeks in the African country, meeting victims at each of the sites where waste was found. With the help of experts they will assess whether people are suffering from long-term damage, said Mr Day.
Most suffered a "grim" few weeks of diarrhoea, vomiting and bloating, he said. Tens of thousands were treated in hospital for nausea, breathing problems and nosebleeds, and many animals in the area died.
"The question is, are there any long term implications?" he told the BBC News website.
He added that they "looked forward" to fighting the libel case brought against them by Trafigura.
Slops
Trafigura's director of operations Graham Sharp, said in a statement:
"We were proactive in proposing and agreeing the terms of today's Court Order as we see this as the most expeditious method of dealing with these claims, although we continue to maintain that they are without foundation.
"Trafigura did not 'dump' any waste product in Abidjan where the Company has traded for 10 years and has employees, facilities and long term investments.
"The 'slops' from the Probo Koala's waste tanks were offloaded into road tankers operated by an accredited local contractor under the normal supervision of port, customs and environmental authorities."
The company has said the 480 tonnes of non-toxic "chemical slops" from its gasoline tanker contained spent caustic soda, gasoline residues and water.
The gasoline residues contained high levels of mercaptan - a smelly non-toxic chemical added to natural gas to make it easier to detect leaks, said the firm.
Defence
Mr Sharp said they wanted to work with the Ivorian authorities to find out what happened to the waste, which Trafigura said was given over to an accredited company in the city's main port.
He said it was not known whether the waste had been dealt with properly.
When asked if it was possible the waste had later caused ill health among the city's inhabitants he said: "We cannot know ourselves, so in that case it must be possible."
The Ivorian government's slow reaction to the crisis so enraged Ivorians that the cabinet was forced to resign and the government reshuffled.
Local senior officials have also been accused of negligence and corruption.
Trafigura has been ordered to file its defence by 29 June and the case should go to trial early next year.
In light of the ever-increasing focus upon the Muslim community in Britain, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, in conjunction with Arani Solicitors, has published new and updated Know Your Rights Leaflets. The new leaflets fold down to the size of a credit card and can easily fit in your wallet.
IArani Solicitors and IHRC have prepared this brief guide for people affected by anti-terrorist laws and policies. It deals with your rights if contacted by MI5, Special Branch or other parts of the security apparatus in the UK or if you are arrested or your premises are searched.
If you wish to order the new leaflets, kindly contact us on 0208 9044 222 or info@ihrc.org with your address and the number of leaflets you require and we would be happy to post it to you.
Please report incidents of harassment to us by phone or email or by using our on-line incident reporting form at http://www.ihrc.org.uk/incidents
The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) has decided to conduct an inquiry into the human rights issues raised by the treatment of asylum seekers in the UK.
The inquiry will consider any significant human rights concerns relating to the conditions of life for asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers in the UK, focusing in particular on those relating to:
(i) access to accommodation and financial support;
(ii) the provision of healthcare;
(iii) treatment of children;
(iv) the use of detention and conditions of detention and methods of removal of failed asylum seekers
(v) treatment by the media.
The human rights issues raised in asylum procedures and the determination of claims are outside the scope of this inquiry, except insofar as they directly affect the treatment of asylum seekers.
Access to accommodation and financial support
Inadequate levels of welfare benefits for asylum seekers, or inadequate provision of housing, will engage rights under Articles 9 and 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In extreme cases, inadequate levels of welfare benefits or inadequate provision of housing for asylum seekers will engage the right to freedom from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3 ECHR). A number of recent legislative provisions on asylum benefits raise particular human rights concerns. These concerns include the operation of:
- section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 which provides for the withdrawal of all welfare benefits from asylum seekers (with the exception of children) who have failed to claim asylum as soon as reasonably practicable after arrival in the UK, as well as from failed asylum seekers;
- section 9 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 which provides that failed asylum seekers with families will be ineligible for support following a certification by the Secretary of State that they have failed to leave the UK voluntarily;
- section 10 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 which allows the Secretary of State to make provision of "hard case" support dependent on participation in community activities.
The Committee raised human rights concerns about these provisions at the time the relevant legislation was passing through Parliament, and wishes as part of this inquiry to assess the extent to which those concerns have been borne out in practice, taking account of evidence of the impact of the provisions on asylum seekers as well as of relevant cases decided by the courts.
The provision of healthcare
Inadequate healthcare provision may breach ECHR rights to respect for private life and physical integrity (Article 8), freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3), the right to life (Article 2) and to freedom from discrimination (Article 14). It may also raise issues under Article 12 ICESCR, right to adequate health, taken together with the right to freedom from discrimination in the exercise of Covenant rights in Article 2.2 ICESCR. Regulations introduced in April 2004 to make people not lawfully resident in the UK liable for NHS hospital charges are said to have particularly affected failed asylum seekers. Department of Health proposals to exclude overseas visitors from eligibility for free NHS Primary Medical Services would, if implemented, effectively withdraw most free health care from failed asylum seekers.
Treatment of children
Children of asylum seekers are potentially subject to a number of breaches of their human rights and in the past the JCHR has criticised the reservation entered by the Government to Article 22 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which secures the applicable rights of the Convention to children seeking refugee status, whether accompanied or unaccompanied. In this inquiry the Committee would welcome evidence on human rights problems faced by asylum-seeking children, including in relation to education.
Use of detention and conditions of detention and methods of removal of failed asylum seekers
Detention of failed asylum seekers pending deportation is lawful under Article 5 ECHR unless it can be shown to be arbitrary, or to amount to unjustified discriminatory treatment under Article 14 ECHR, but concerns have been expressed that use of detention for certain categories of asylum seekers is in practice arbitrary and can therefore be considered to breach the right to liberty. There are also concerns that asylum seekers who have been subject to torture in their countries of origin are being detained, contrary to Home Office guidelines, and that some asylum seekers are being detained in prison, and not immigration removal centres, even though this practice has in theory been discontinued. Treatment of asylum seekers in detention will engage the State's positive obligations to protect a range of Convention rights. Criticisms of the methods used to remove failed asylum seekers have included suggestions that families and other vulnerable groups are being targeted and that unnecessarily heavy handed methods are used.
Treatment by the media
The treatment of asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers by the media raises questions about whether the State is fulfilling its positive obligations to protect them from unjustified interference with their right to respect for their dignity, private life, and physical integrity, and to secure their enjoyment of Convention rights without discrimination, consistently with the right to freedom of expression. The Committee would welcome evidence about human rights problems arising from the treatment of asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers in the media.
Memoranda of evidence addressing any or all of the above matters should be submitted to the Committee by 29 September 2006.
Submissions
Submissions should be addressed to:
Nick Walker
Commons Clerk of the Joint Committee on Human Rights
Committee Office
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London
SW1P 3JA.
Electronic submission is acceptable, but a signed hard copy should also be sent. In any event, witnesses are asked wherever possible to accompany hard copy by an electronic version, preferably in Word format, and e-mailed to jchr@parliament.uk.
Evidence becomes the property of the Committee, and may be printed or circulated by the Committee at any stage. You may publicise or publish your evidence yourself, but in doing so you must indicate that it was prepared for the Committee. Evidence published other than under the authority of the Committee does not attract parliamentary privilege.
Enquiries/further information:
020 7219 2797/2467
Fax: 020 7219 8393
E-mail: jchr@parliament.uk
Further information on the Joint Committee is available on its website at the address shown below.
http://www.parliament.uk/jchr
The members of the Committee are:
Mr Douglas Carswell MP (Conservative, Harwich)
Lord Bowness (Conservative)
Mary Creagh MP (Labour, Wakefield)
Lord Campbell of Alloway (Conservative)
Mr Andrew Dismore MP (Labour, Hendon) (Chairman)
Lord Judd (Labour)
Nia Griffith MP (Labour, Llanelli)
Lord Lester of Herne Hill (Liberal Democrat)
Dr Evan Harris MP (Liberal Democrat, Oxford West & Abingdon)
Lord Plant of Highfield (Labour)
Mr Richard Shepherd MP (Conservative, Aldridge-Brownhills)
Baroness Stern (Cross-Bencher)
Clerks of the Committee: Mr Nick Walker (House of Commons) 020 7219 2797 and Mr Ed Lock (House of Lords) 020 7219 3616
http://www.parliament.uk/jchr
Media Inquiries: Ms Jessica Bridges-Palmer: 020 7219 0724
End of Bulletin:
Source for this Message:
Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR)
This article from the Daily Mail shows how ridiculous things have gotten. As I've posted in USA Watch the US government is using the Patriot Act to bug the homes and offices of "suspicious" people with foreign names. Now people *in England* are being stopped as terrorist suspect because they listen to suspicious - albeit popular - music.
Article from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=382039&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=
'Playing The Clash made me a terror suspect'
by ANNE CAMPBELL, Metro 08:06am 5th April 2006
A mobile phone salesman was hauled off a plane and questioned for three hours as a terror suspect - because he listened to songs by The Clash and Led Zeppelin.
Harraj Mann, 24, played the punk anthem London Calling and classic rock track Immigrant Song in a taxi before a flight to London.
The lyrics to both tracks made the driver fear his passenger was a terrorist.
The words of the Clash track begin: "London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared and battle come down." And Led Zep's Immigrant Song goes: "The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!"
Mr Mann, of Hartlepool, Teesside, had boarded the plane at Durham Tees Valley Airport when the flight to Heathrow was stopped and he was arrested by police.
He said he was told he was being questioned under the Terrorism Act and his choice of music had aroused suspicions.
Mr Mann said yesterday: 'The taxi had one of those tape deck things that plugs into your digital music player.
"I played Procol Harum's Whiter Shade Of Pale first, which the taxi man liked. I figured he liked the classics so put on a bit of Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song - which he didn't like. Then, since I was going to London, I played the song by The Clash and finished up with Nowhere Man by The Beatles."
Mr Mann said he was 'frog-marched off the plane in front of everyone, had my bags searched and was asked 'every question you can think of'.
He added: "It turned out the taxi driver alerted someone when I arrived at the airport and had spoken about my music. He didn't like Led Zep or The Clash but there was no need to tell the police."
Durham Police said the action was taken 'as a result of information received' and the flight was stopped before take-off.