Human Rights – Page 9 – Slugger O'Toole

Panorama on collusion: Does Trevor Ringland support coverup?

Brian Walker on May 30, 2015, 8:06 pm

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Trevor Ringland’s criticism of Darragh MacIntyre’s Panorama on collusion for rewriting history with a political slant is misguided. The documentary gave examples of a spectrum of collusion ranging from loose handling of informers to covering up agents who were multiple repeat killers, sometimes with the foreknowledge of their handlers. Much of the material is in the de Silva report, the published Stevens reports and elsewhere in the public domain. As he hinted in the programme, Denis Bradley was given brief privileged access to …

Qualms about Asher’s Law but none over the gay marriage referendum: spot the difference

Brian Walker on May 21, 2015, 9:09 pm

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Forgive me if I take a new post to reply to Mick on Asher’s Law. I think he stretches the point about law and politics too widely. Let’s unpick this a bit. The sexual orientations order was passed under direct rule, by Peter Hain, not the Assembly. That makes it no less law. But it was one of those measures foisted on our politicians to try to force them to do the deal on restoring the Assembly. The message was, …

Game of Thrones vs real life: 5 ways fact is worse than fiction

Soapbox on April 9, 2015, 5:14 pm

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Guest blog by Anna Neistat, Senior Director for Research, Amnesty International The long-awaited fifth season of Game of Thrones begins on Sunday 12 April. Filmed in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere) and broadcast in 170 countries, the show shocks viewers and generates controversy with graphic violence, especially against women. Yet many aspects of real life around the world today are worse than the mythical Game of Thrones world of Westeros. [spoiler alert: reveals plot lines up to the end of season 2!] …

O’Loan calls Stormont House Agreement ” an insult” as Labour promises a Pat Finucane inquiry

Brian Walker on February 25, 2015, 11:32 am

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Amnesty International are not alone in finding the resources allocated in the Stormont house Agreement inadequate for dealing with the past. At a meeting of RightsWatch in Westminster last night, the first Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan was scathing, describing the allocation of £150 million over 5 years to deal with all the issues of the past, as “a joke and an insult to the people of Northern Ireland.” The Historical Investigations Unit was “totally inadequate”. She also said Attorney …

After the Stormont House Agreement, will the latest initiative to bring state actors to account become the one that succeeds?

Brian Walker on February 18, 2015, 4:26 pm

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The UK government stands accused of continuing to cover up state misbehaviour in a humdinger of a Report just published by the legal experts of the Committee on the Administration of Justice. The report is the supporting analysis for renewed pressure on the authorities who have pledged to set up “ new mechanisms” in the form of an Historic Investigations Unit under the Stormont House Agreement. The CAJ report adopts a sharper tone and levels more direct criticism at the government …

Signs of real politics emerging from Stormont House Agreement

Brian Walker on February 11, 2015, 12:13 pm

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Be grateful for small mercies. With less than a hundred days to go before the election, implementing the Stormont Hose Agreement has had the effect of postponing the worst kind of dog-eat -dog sectarian campaigning – so far. Sinn Fein like the rest of them have had to swallow the basics of the Welfare Bill in the interests of political reality. Syriza type resistance has collapsed. To ask a different question: are there any signs at all of left-right politics …

Spreading the word in the Irish language requires a new beginning

Brian Walker on January 18, 2015, 12:57 pm

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I thought I’d tiptoe into the minefield of the “Irish Language Act”, an area where the massed ranks of persuadables risk getting wasted by the zealots, but here goes. Concubhar is right, there should be a mature discussion. I’m one of those who shrugged off Gregory Campbell’s leaden humour and hoped that most language supporters felt secure enough to do likewise. I can be as mildly irritated by Sinn Fein’s little chants of Irish phrases as I am at one with …

It’s the economy, stupid. Not a federal Ireland

Brian Walker on January 3, 2015, 8:53 pm

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In the Irish Times Paul Gillespie floats the idea that the North might benefit by a federal deal with the south. He invokes the useful hand played by the Republic in the recent Stormont House agreement. Certainly Charlie Flanagan waxed more eloquently than Theresa Villiers but that isn’t saying much. I discern a much bigger hand played by HM Treasury in setting the financial deal and in monitoring future Executive performance. This is surely appropriate as they put up such …

NI Human Rights Festival (8-13 Dec): drones, lectures, libel and Snowdon #NIHRF

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 5, 2014, 11:26 am

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Some highlights from the programme of Northern Ireland’s third Human Rights Festival which is running next week from 8th to 13th December. Tuesday 9 December From War to Surveillance: Human Rights and Drones // 7-9pm // St Mary’s University College // Free // Professor Noel Sharkey (University of Sheffield) specialises in robotics and the ethics of military robotics. In his lecture, he’ll discuss what human rights commitments exist under conditions of war and conflict and the use of new technologies …

Chief Constable at #DignityAndRights conference: Delay increases hurt & erodes trust in PSNI’s ability to deal with past

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 4, 2014, 4:21 pm

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What is Northern Ireland’s vision for progressing and protecting human rights in Northern Ireland in the years ahead? How do the principles of participation, accountability, transparency, dignity and equality underpin human rights? Dignity and Rights: A framework for the future is a two day conference running in the Stormont Hotel in East Belfast, jointly hosted by a variety of organisations who have worked on human rights and equality issues in Northern Ireland for many years: Age NI, CAJ, Children’s Law …

Breakthrough idea of a judge-led inquiry system to break the logjam of The Past

Brian Walker on November 17, 2014, 2:18 pm

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At last the judiciary has come forward with a creative approach to dealing with the past. A debate should begin urgently on how to adopt it in the Hart talks and beyond. The Lord Chef Justice sir Declan Morgan has suggested that legacy cases should be taken out of the inquest system” to be dealt with in “a time-bound inquiry“. It would be similar to the powers and procedures of the Historical Abuses Inquiry . He made his suggestions when …

New GCHQ head takes on Google over the terrorist threat

Brian Walker on November 4, 2014, 5:20 pm

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In the FT today, (£) Robert Hannigan now the new head of GCHQ whom I knew well as the NIO director of communications, has opened a new chapter in the debate over privacy versus security in the digital world. He accuses the technology giants of being in denial about the internet as a command and control system for terrorists. Taking a bold initiative in a debate which is bogged down over where to draw the line between privacy and security, he …

Human Rights, Equality, and a call for a generous grace …

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on October 9, 2014, 9:33 pm

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Does Northern Ireland need a Bill of Rights? Is Equality a Biblical value? Are human rights all about me? These were some of the questions addressed at today’s The Church in the Public Square conference organised by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Focussing on the topics of Equality, Freedom and Religion it it was perhaps appropriate that as delegates arrived the music wafting up from the Spires shopping arcade underneath the conference venue was “I can’t get no satisfaction”! …

Hong Kong: the spirit of freedom

Patrick Corrigan on October 3, 2014, 9:50 am

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As far as the eye can see, young pro-democracy protestors have taken to the streets of central Hong Kong to demand the right to elect freely the next chief executive of the territory. The students’ speeches, songs and placards celebrate the freedoms they want to enjoy. Beijing has announced restrictions for the 2017 election – which effectively rule out any prospect of a democrat standing. The youth of Hong Kong are not happy with how their non-democratic future is shaping up. …

Gaza: listen to Warsi & UK could help wage peace, not war

Patrick Corrigan on August 10, 2014, 10:30 am

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Baroness Warsi’s hard-hitting resignation letter to David Cameron has served to focus attention on the UK’s policy on the carnage in Gaza. The former Foreign Office minister says her resignation was prompted by the government’s “morally indefensible” policy – one of arming the Israelis, while pressuring the Palestinian Authority not to seek justice through the International Criminal Court. Despite the Prime Minister’s dubious expressions of sympathy for the people of Gaza, a more one-sided UK policy could scarcely be imagined. …

EU statement on abstention from #UNHRC #Gaza vote

John Ó Néill on July 24, 2014, 9:36 am

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Even with no immediate end in sight to the violent Israeli assault on Gaza, one dimension of the post-ceasefire landscape is already clear. Despite the global connectivity offered by social media and the public platitudes of political ‘leaders’ it is clear (and has been for a very long time) that the international diplomatic architecture is simply not fit for purpose. The immediateness and intimacy the internet offers produces some extraordinary dissonances. The emotional response of communities across the world coming …

“Gay cake” case may prompt top level legal rethink

Brian Walker on July 12, 2014, 12:05 pm

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The life story of Andrew Muir, the mayor of North Down is part of Northern Ireland’s long journey towards civilisation – including the fact that as an openly gay person he made it to mayor at all. It was his Bangor reception that sparked the Great Cake Discrimination Case. Even so, the case may not be open and shut as it seems. The law is reckoned to be unsatisfactory. There is a legal debate which hinges on whether discrimination is …

Changing the conversation about liberties … no one had offered them a way out before #xss14

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 9, 2014, 9:00 am

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Many delegates wondered what the session on “liberties” would cover at the Xchange Summer School at the end of June. It felt like a clumsy word. Didn’t the organisers mean “freedom” or “human rights”? Liberté surely belonged with Égalité and Fraternité? Yet in the end, the four captivating speakers all brought difference perspectives and dimensions to the subject. Pádraig Ó Tuama was introduced as “poet, theologian, retreat leader and mediator”. He began by talking about a trip last year to …

Police win flag protest appeal

Pete Baker on July 1, 2014, 1:32 pm

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As the BBC reports, the Appeals Court has overturned a High Court ruling in April that the PSNI misdirected themselves in relation to policing the flag protests in Belfast – which “led to the situation in which the police facilitated illegal and sometimes violent parades with the effect of undermining the 1998 Act, in breach of their duties under section 32 of the Police (NI) Act 2000 and in breach of the applicant’s Article 8 rights.” From the BBC report …

For once Northern Ireland may be ahead of England over matters of faith

Brian Walker on June 10, 2014, 12:49 pm

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The affair of the Trojan letter shows secular England struggling to deal with a community whose daily lives are increasingly governed by religion. What Ofsted has exposed as a plot to subvert British values is to its protagonists no more than promoting the good life for the benefit of the overwhelming Moslem majority who attend the four schools in question. And by the way, they furiously deny supporting jihad. Politicians broke away from the anchors of religion long ago. Clearly …