Tag Archives: human rights

Robin Lynn

Opinion: Rearguard action and damage limitation are poor substitutes for a coherent Liberal Democrat strategy on Equality and Human Rights.

By Robin Lynn | Mon 29th April 2013 - 3:25 pm

The Government’s partial U-turn on Section 3 of the Equality Act needs to be seen against a backdrop of other changes to the equality and related social justice legislation. These include:

•          New restrictions on the ability to challenge the state with restrictions to judicial review

•          Tribunals fees of up to £1,200 coming in this summer

•          An Increase of the general unfair dismissal qualification from 1 to 2 years

•          Reductions in the consultation period for redundancy

•          The end of crucial protections in discrimination such as questionnaires and protection from 3rd party harassment

•          Legal aid providers and face to face legal advice slashed …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 12 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink… Nick Clegg…Human rights: we won’t be silent

By NewsHound | Mon 15th April 2013 - 10:55 am

Over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free, Nick Clegg marks the publication of the Foreign Office’s 2012 Human Rights and Democracy report with an article stating that promoting human rights has never been more important.

He writes that many countries choose authoritarian capitalism over liberal democracy and this represents the “most serious challenge to our values since the end of the Cold War,”  especially as power transfers from west to east.

But, he says, younger populations and easily available technology make people more aware of their rights and less likely to accept authoritarian rule:

In the Middle East two-thirds of the population are

…

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Caron Lindsay

Secret Courts..what does the party do now?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 5th March 2013 - 2:02 pm

Its’s not been the easiest 24 hours to be a Liberal Democrat. It was very hard to watch the majority of our MPs vote to remove the right to a fair trial in civil cases where national security is deemed to be a factor.  Just seven MPs voted in favour of amendments advised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The fact that the JCHR had a different view from the Government should surely have raised a huge red flag. An even bigger signal that our MPs were on the wrong course was the fact that Labour were voting in …

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Eric Avebury

Eric Avebury writes…We must heed the cries of the Hazaras

By Eric Avebury | Tue 26th February 2013 - 8:55 am

Just over a week ago a massive bomb was detonated in a packed bazaar on the outskirts of Quetta, killing at least 92 people and seriously injuring more than 200.

Last month a double suicide bombing on Alamdar Road, Quetta took the lives of 108 people

These were the latest in a crescendo of genocidal attacks on the Shia Hazara community in Pakistan since the turn of the century, which was considered in a packed meeting I chaired at the House of Lords yesterday, February 25.

According to published accounts, these atrocities have left over 1,100 dead and 1,300 injured. In fact the …

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Caron Lindsay

Hussein-Ece and Brinton on stalking, under-representation of women and gender-based violence

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 3rd December 2012 - 2:28 pm

November 25th saw the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This occasion was marked by a debate in the House of Lords last Thursday.

Just reading the Hansard account of the debate made me feel sick. There was a former surgeon describe the hours of surgery it took to reconstruct one woman’s face after a violent attack by her partner. There were descriptions of how girls as young as 12 were subjected to Female Genital Mutilation in this country despite laws against it. Where is the worst place in the world to be a woman? Reputedly …

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Eric Avebury

Bahrain – time for Britain to take a lead

By Eric Avebury | Fri 23rd November 2012 - 8:51 am

On November 5, thirty-one Bahrainis were deprived of their citizenship arbitrarily, without notice and without judicial process, contrary to customary international law. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that everyone has the right to a nationality and no-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality. The victims can appeal these decision, but there is no point. The king has absolute power to grant or rescind citizenship, and the courts wouldn’t dream of overturning his decisions.

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Richard Wingfield

Opinion: Prisoner voting and the rule of law

By Richard Wingfield | Tue 20th November 2012 - 11:25 am

Liberal Democrats have always been proud defenders of the rule of law. As our manifesto stated in 2010, the values of ‘fairness and the rule of law’ lie at the heart of our foreign policy. However, just as we call on other states such as Burma, Belarus and Zimbabwe to respect the rule of law, so we must be ever vigilant that there is no weakening of this fundamental principle at home. The Liberal Democrat policy on the Justice and Security Bill at conference in September was a powerful reminder to the leadership on how seriously we, as a party, take this issue.

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Opinion: The Arab Spring – a liberal paradox?

By Charles Beaumont | Wed 3rd October 2012 - 4:25 pm

What should a liberal make of the Arab Spring as it becomes a bloody winter? The recent wave of violent protest at a mindlessly Islamophobic YouTube video is not an isolated incident. In Tunisia in June, hardline Salafists attacked an art gallery and a trade union office. Since Egypt’s revolution there have been regular attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. An Islamist-dominated panel reviewing Egypt’s constitution is likely to water down women’s rights, making child marriage easier and withdrawing from international conventions protecting women and children(£). Husni Mubarak, Egypt’s former President, must be wailing “I told you so” …

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Antony Hook

Opinion: Unelected Lords are against the spirit of the European Convention on Human Rights

By Antony Hook | Wed 8th August 2012 - 9:22 am

For as long as philosophers and political campaigners have asserted that certain rights are basic, universal or inalienable, the right to elect one’s legislators has generally figured in those rights.

England’s 1689 Bill of Rights protected the right to elect Members of Parliament without interference from the Crown.  In France the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man guaranteed the right to vote. In America, five separate Articles of the US Bill of Rights protect voting rights and both Houses are elected under the Constitution.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides:

Article 21

(1) Everyone has the right to take part

…

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Edward McMillan-Scott MEP

Edward McMillan-Scott MEP writes… Our voice on human rights is amplified by the EU

By Edward McMillan-Scott MEP | Thu 5th July 2012 - 11:54 am

The Coalition pledge to put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy is bearing fruit. Thanks especially to pressure from the European Parliament – where as Vice-President for democracy and human rights I have lobbied hard – and the Foreign Office, civil society, the EU’s 27 governments recently adopted a comprehensive new approach. Jeremy Browne, our excellent minister for human rights, and I co-authored a recent article published by the Independent explaining the background of the ambitious new EU Human Rights package.

Although the EU’s foreign ministers gave the green light to a new Strategy with an  associated …

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie says Salmond should meet Dalai Lama

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 20th June 2012 - 6:55 pm

First Minister Alex Salmond loves to meet international dignitaries and world leaders. Every chance he gets, he’s off playing a larger than life role on the international stage. Just last weekend, he was in Los Angeles promoting Scottish business and schmoozing with celebrities at  a film premiere.  It’s all the more surprising, then, that he can’t find a space in his diary to meet the Dalai Lama when he visits Scotland this week. This is in stark contrast to the reception the exiled Tibetan Spiritual Leader received in 2004 when he addressed the Parliament and met the then First …

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Caron Lindsay

Lynne Featherstone to reform Equality and Human Rights Commission

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 17th May 2012 - 12:53 pm

The Guardian reported on Tuesday that Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone is to reform the Equality and  Human Rights Commission, cutting its budget and removing some of its responsibilities, most notably its obligation to assess how Government policies would affect the poorest.

Now, if ever there was a quango in need of reform, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is that body. Dysfunctional seems to be the best word to describe the EHRC. Wasteful would be another. For three years running, the National Audit Office qualified its accounts. Last year was the first year since its formation in 2007 when it managed to …

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Issan Ghazni

Opinion: we can not allow ourselves to be used as scapegoats by the Tories

By Issan Ghazni | Wed 18th April 2012 - 3:25 pm

It was an amazing coincidence that Lady Warsi’s interview on BBC2′s Newsnight spoke so lamentably about the state of the coalition the evening before YouGov put the Tories 11 points behind Labour. The Conservative Party chairman without hesitation accused us of being immature and failing to accept collective responsibility within the coalition.

Patrick Wintour’s article in yesterday’s Guardian  highlights the despicable manner in which Lady Warsi, as a cabinet member showed no loyalty to her coalition partners by putting the boot in as soon as the going got tough and the Tories started struggling in the opinion polls.

The whole episode …

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Caron Lindsay

Edward McMillan-Scott  MEP “I’ve been helping Syrian rebels”

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 15th March 2012 - 7:28 pm

Edward McMillan-Scott, is one of our Liberal Democrat MEPs for Yorkshire and the Humber and a Vice President of the European Parliament with special responsibility for Human Rights and Democracy. I caught up with him for a quick chat at Conference in Gateshead.

Elected in 1984 to the European Parliament, he recently celebrated his second anniversary of joining the Liberal Democrats at the weekend. He came to us because of the way the Conservative Party had “abandoned its relationships with mainstream parties in the European Parliament. Rather than follow …

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Posted in Europe / International, News and Parliament | Also tagged , and | 3 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrat MEP McMillan-Scott gets European Parliament Human Rights portfolio

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd February 2012 - 5:57 pm

Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, Edward McMillan-Scott, re-elected as one of the European Parliament’s 14 Vice Presidents last month, has again been allocated the portfolio for Democracy and Human Rights.  He has also been given a new responsibility, for Transatlantic Relations. He was put forward by the Liberal Group (ALDE) and is only British MEP on the Parliament’s Bureau which is responsible for its management, organisation and finances.

He has a long record in campaigning for human rights and democracy support. He was the first outside politician to get to Cairo after the fall of Mubarak and has …

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William Jones

Opinion: Let’s get case for Alan Turing pardon debated in Parliament

By William Jones | Wed 4th January 2012 - 6:59 pm

Today, I ask you as fellow Liberal Democrats to sign the Grant Alan Turing a Pardon petition on the number 10 website.

The petition reads:

“We ask the HM Government to grant a pardon to Alan Turing for the conviction of ‘gross indecency’. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ with another man and was forced to undergo so-called ‘organo-therapy’ – chemical castration. Two years later, he killed himself with cyanide, aged just 41. Alan Turing was driven to a terrible despair and early death by the nation he’d done so much to save. This remains a shame on the

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Helen Duffett

LibLink | Nick Clegg: “Human beings need human rights – in Britain as well as Libya”

By Helen Duffett | Thu 25th August 2011 - 10:05 pm

Nick Clegg writes this evening at Comment is Free on the need for the British government to uphold human rights at home as well as abroad. He describes the strengths of British human rights laws, and reminds that the Liberal Democrats will continue to support them in the face of the Tories’ rhetoric or moves to renegotiate them.

Britain has a proud history of international leadership on human rights. It was our political leadership and legal expertise that led to the creation of the European convention on human rights in 1950, a convention modelled on centuries of English law.

…

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood MP writes: Facing up to human rights in China

By Martin Horwood | Mon 27th June 2011 - 1:53 pm

Premier Wen Jiabao of China arrived in Britain over the weekend for a series of events culminating in bilateral talks with the Prime Ministers today at Number Ten.

While the discussions will undoubtedly turn to the economy, trade agreements and further cooperation between our two countries, I hope the Prime Minister will also promote our greatest exports: our long held values of democracy, human rights and free speech.

These bilateral meetings offer the British government a chance to place human rights unambiguously on the agenda in our discussions with the Chinese. As William Hague wrote last year, “promoting human rights is …

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Opinion: Lib Dems promoting human rights abroad

By Jonathan Baldie | Sun 8th May 2011 - 2:23 pm

As a Liberal Democrat member*, I’m proud of the fact that our  party is in government, with ministers making tough choices about the UK.

While most attention is on electoral reform and tuition fees, I want to steer your attention towards foreign policy. In the Foreign Office there is one Lib Dem minister, Jeremy Browne MP. He takes the responsibility in the FCO for human rights policy among other things.

Mr Browne recently made an excellent Q&A video on YouTube last month, focussing on the UK’s action on promoting foreign policy abroad:

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Mark Pack

In other news… the NHS, human rights and levels of spending

By Mark Pack | Tue 22nd March 2011 - 5:54 pm

Liberal Democrats seek changes to health reform – The Observer on the aftermath of the party’s spring conference vote on the NHS.

“Nick Clegg has just won a powerful victory over the Conservatives, appointing a Bill of Rights commission which is certain to leave the ECHR intact” – The Spectator has the news.

And in The Independent, Dominic Lawson is unimpressed with some of the comments made about public spending:

As Dr Tim Morgan points out in his incisive Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet, Five Fiscal Fallacies, “No one should imagine that the Coalition’s plans amount to a major reversal

…

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The Voice

Coalition Government’s torture inquiry keeps Lib Dem manifesto pledge, spells “end to Labour’s shameful legacy on human rights”

By The Voice | Tue 6th July 2010 - 6:15 pm

The Guardian reports:

David Cameron today announced a judicial inquiry into Britain’s role in torture and rendition since the al-Qaida attacks of September 2001. … it would be expected to conclude its investigations with 12 months. …

A three-person inquiry panel will be headed by Sir Peter Gibson, a former appeal court judge who is currently commissioner for the intelligence services. He will be assisted by Dame Janet Paraskeva, the head of the civil service commissioners, and Peter Riddell, the former Times political commentator who is now a senior fellow at the Institute for Government.

Most of the inquiry will be held

…

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The Voice

Evan wins Secularist of the Year 2009

By The Voice | Sun 8th February 2009 - 6:46 pm

We may be only five weeks into 2009, but Lib Dem MP Evan Harris has already won an award – Secularist of the Year. The BBC reports:

The Liberal Democrat was named joint winner, with Lord Avebury, for their work in abolishing the blasphemy libel law in England and Wales. Dr Harris called the law “ancient, discriminatory and illiberal” as well as not compliant with human rights and against free speech. The offences of blasphemous libel and blasphemy were abolished last summer. …

Dr Harris has also campaigned to separate religion and the state claiming the current system has a number

…

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