Human Rights – Page 8 – Slugger O'Toole

The Irish in GB are offered Brexit reassurances. Do they really need them?

Brian Walker on October 6, 2016, 10:11 am

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The Times (£) is carrying a story ” Irish NHS staff reassured over hard Brexit” reporting that Irish nurses and doctors will remain a key part of the NHS in England, ” despite plans to make the “British” ( sic – they mean English) health service self sufficient within ten years.” This is typical of stories in the London press which are confused about devolution and lump together Irish immigrants with others as foreign. Much of officialdom is ignorant about …

Message for the divided politicians. Read the long list. This is what really matters over Brexit.

Brian Walker on September 3, 2016, 6:53 pm

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Divisions in the Executive and the Assembly contributed to the lack of scenario planning for the referendum outcome and are inhibiting the development of a clear Brexit strategy. These are among the conclusions in a comprehensive briefing paper prepared for the Centre for Peace Building and Democracy ( chair Lord Alderdice) by Queen’s academics Professor David Phinnemore and Dr. Lee McGowan, entitled Establishing the Best Outcome for Northern Ireland. ‘Notoriously, similar strictures apply to Whitehall and Westminster, But party divisions …

Martin McGuinness’s challenge should be accepted. Offer immunity in exchange for disclosure to those who took decisions on both sides of the long war

Brian Walker on August 29, 2016, 10:50 am

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Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt has mounted “a stinging attack” on Martin McGuinness for saying he would have “ no difficulty “ in disclosing his own role as an IRA leader in dealing with the past. An outsider would be taken aback at the vehemence of Nesbitt’s reaction. On the face of it, McGuinness’s offer sound interesting if not original, particularly with regard to timing. Is something stirring over dealing with the past as outlined in the abortive Stormont House …

Revived plan to scrap the Human Rights Act adds fuel to the fires of Brexit controversy

Brian Walker on August 23, 2016, 11:13 am

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The surprising recommitment of the new UK Justice Secretary Liz Truss to a new British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act adds a new complexity to the Brexit debate. If there are disagreements over the legitimacy of applying the Brexit referendum result to Northern Ireland and Scotland, there can be none about the central importance of the HRA to the Good Friday Agreement. Yes it’s true that the HRA is not part of the EU but EU …

Ireland is not abandoned. Britain does give a damn but in its own way

Brian Walker on July 7, 2016, 11:23 am

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“The Brexiteers – (meaning the ascendant strain in the Conservative party -) don’t give a damn about Ireland” is a common reaction from Martin McGuinness to Fintan O’Toole. It’s quite an irony to hear Irish nationalists complain about nationalists of the English persuasion. But the cry is as much plaintive as enraged. After all that reconciliation stuff Why Have You Done This To Us? But it wasn’t that, friends. it’s just that England (sic) takes priority in a zero sum …

Kingsmill, Loughinisland, Stakeknife. New disclosure on collusion has begun that the State can’t control and must answer. The time has come for proper explanations

Brian Walker on June 11, 2016, 7:51 pm

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Hints are constantly being dropped that the Executive are close to agreement about setting up the new institutions to deal with the past, basically as laid out in the Haass report two years ago. After last week, it can’t come quick enough. A draft Bill to set up new legacy bodies is ready and waiting. A flood of consequences emerged from some of the worst incidents of the Troubles, lining up to be tackled. 70 murders connected to Loughinisland. …

The Birmingham story is also about the IRA record. It’s time to reveal it, Gerry

Brian Walker on June 2, 2016, 12:20 am

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“One person killed in England is worth 10 ( or is it 20 or 30?) in Ireland.” This was the notorious IRA judgement of propaganda value. And with 50 IRA attacks in England in 1974 that felt true at the time. The calculation was still valid in November that year when everything went horribly wrong for all sides over the Birmingham bombs. Reaction in Northern Ireland to the prominent coverage today will probably be rueful. We are more case hardened. …

The time is overdue for the two governments to tell what they know about the Dublin-Monaghan and the Birmingham bombings

Brian Walker on June 1, 2016, 10:40 am

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Consider the latest developments about two atrocities, the Dublin and Monaghan UVF bombs in May 1974 and the Birmingham IRA pub bombs of November the same year. What they have in common is knowledge of the identities of what we must call the alleged perpetrators. The deep frustration caused to individuals and states has not gone away. Kieran Conway now a Dublin solicitor, then the IRA’s “director of intelligence.” has again confirmed what is so well known, that the identities …

Ten years after Cory: has the human rights case been lost?

Brian Walker on May 13, 2016, 12:58 pm

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The Committee for the Administration of Justice (CAJ) have just published a long delayed report on a conference held two years ago to review the state of accountability for covert policing for the controversial UK Investigatory Powers Bill, against the background of what went on during the Troubles. They began by noting that the UK national security and crime institutions MI5 the National Crime Agency operate in the province without specific accountability to the local institutions. This is hardly news. …

Time to admit the reduced role of dealing with the past

Brian Walker on April 10, 2016, 12:25 pm

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In the Sunday Times (£) a review by the historian and failed candidate for Canadian PM Michael Ignatieff of a book lets a little air into the deadlocked subject of Dealing with the Past, “ In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies” by David Rieff presents arguments to counter our prevailing orthodoxies of the over-riding claims for justice and healing is remembering. A great Irish historian once said that it would help heal his society if the Irish …

“This is not an abortion war, completely not”. Facebook trolls lay off

Brian Walker on April 6, 2016, 4:35 pm

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This is an exclusive interview with an Ulster woman of a very different character. Deborah McAleese’s interview in the Belfast Telegraph with a housemate of the young woman convicted of self aborting is searing, very hard to read. Oddly the impact was less in voice on the Nolan show ( substitute ) because the housemate was composed two years after the event. In Nolan style she was pressed repeatedly for her reaction but held her ground. Her line was ” You can’t …

Gay rights campaigner Tatchell switches to support gay cake appeal

Brian Walker on February 2, 2016, 7:56 pm

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Peter Tatchell no less, who is second only to Jeff Dudgeon as a gay rights campaigner, will have given some comfort to those who although they support gay rights have qualms about the legal finding against Asher’s the bakers. On the eve of the Asher’s appeal, Tatchell has changed his mind. Jeff had reservations about the case from the start. When it comes to Ashers and the cake, I don’t think there was ever any intention to start that dispute. …

What will be the followup to new police move on the Birmingham bombings?

Brian Walker on January 30, 2016, 1:22 pm

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(Kieran) Conway, who is a now a solicitor in Dublin specialising in criminal defence,, voluntarily spoke to detectives in connection with his memoir of life inside the IRA “South Side Provisional”. In the book, Conway revealed certain details about the Birmingham pub bombings to which the IRA has never officially admitted. No one has ever been convicted in relation to the atrocity in England’s second city… For decades the IRA never publicly admitted they carried out the atrocity but Conway …

The biggest losers in failing to come clean on the past is the reputation and authority of the state and its servants.

Brian Walker on January 28, 2016, 12:24 pm

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You don’t have to be a transitional justice zealot or a Provie fellow traveller to recognise that the heat is on the British government, the police and security authorities over dealing with the past. You can be a judge like Lord Justice Weir blasting the police and indirectly the government for the inordinate delays in producing inquest evidence, now that high court judges have taken over the coroner’s service. You only need to be a supporter the DUP or TUV, …

The scheme for gathering information on the Troubles ignores the public interest

Brian Walker on January 26, 2016, 12:42 pm

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News is dribbling out about the proposed cumbersomely- named Independent Commission on Information Retrieval on the Past – despite the fact that the proposals for dealing with the Past have not yet been agreed. Even without a flood of confessions from paramilitaries, this body may yet prove to be the most important in a complicated set -up which includes an Oral history archive. In the Newsletter Sam McBride and his headline writer splutter unnecessarily about Martin McGuinness’s role in making …

Soapbox: Is it time to consider giving Loyalists special group rights?

Soapbox on November 17, 2015, 7:00 am

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LEVELLING UP: Sophie Long argues that we should equip Loyalists with the necessary power and resources to compete as equal participants in Northern Irish politics. She advocates the fairly radical step of implementing special group rights, not only in order for Loyalism to flourish, but as a matter of justice for minority groups.

Why suffer allegations of involvement with the nutting squad? Because you’re worth it.

Brian Walker on October 31, 2015, 11:00 am

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EXPENSIVE INJUSTICE: The whole cat’s cradle of allegation and murder is getting more expensive by the day, The DDPs’ decision to reopen the entire Scappaticci file won’t make it any cheaper. See today’s Times (£) for the latest. Stand by for the inevitable public row.

In dealing with the past, both the state and its legal critics should stop playing games

Brian Walker on August 4, 2015, 1:55 pm

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“The UK is still in breach of international law for failing properly to investigate unresolved killings, especially and most controversially where state agents might have been involved”. So states Brian Gormally the director fo the legal lobby group the Committee on the Administration of Justice, quoting the UN Committee on human Rights, No doubt Nuala O’Loan agrees. The UK government does not take kindly to lectures from this committee. More potent pressure may come from the “ hooded men” case against the …

Abortion law is pawn in a Tory-SNP power game

Brian Walker on July 25, 2015, 10:12 am

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The Herald reports that the Conservatives are thinking about devolving abortion law to Scotland where a strong Catholic lobby is opposed to the 1967 Act. What the point of doing it unless the aim is to repeal it? Not necessarily apparently. It’s really about the power game between Westminster and Holyrood, not about little matters such as rights, ethics, women and embryos. Earlier this year, the Scottish Government quietly dropped a demand for new powers over abortion, saying it had other …

Conversations about the future require candour, not platitudes

Brian Walker on July 12, 2015, 2:48 pm

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Because of a clash of commitments I’m having to miss out on the Westminster launch on Tuesday of Uncomfortable Conversations: An Initiative for Dialogue Towards Reconciliation edited by the Sinn Fein chair Declan Kearney. It will follow a similar launch in the Linenhall Library in Belfast which Sinn Fein covered on YouTube in April. It is also the second bite of a cherry first produced as long ago as October 2012.The words “trust”, “genuine “ and “dialogue” figured prominently but specific …