radiofree.asia

Category: UK news

  • ‘Gay cake’ row: man loses seven-year battle against Belfast bakery

    ECHR says Gareth Lee’s case against bakery that refused to make cake with ‘support gay marriage’ message is inadmissible

    A man has lost a seven-year legal battle against a Belfast bakery that refused to make him a cake emblazoned with the message “support gay marriage” as the European court of human rights ruled that his claim was inadmissible, prompting disappointment from gay rights groups.

    On Thursday the ECHR, by a majority decision, said it would not reconsider the decision of the UK supreme court, which had overturned a £500 damages award imposed on Ashers bakery, which is run by evangelical Christians.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Jurors see the bigger picture: activists who were cleared in court

    Cases have included climate, environment, human rights and anti-war protests where damage to property was not denied

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Tory peer to lead boycott of Coca-Cola over role in Beijing Winter Olympics

    Exclusive: sponsorship unacceptable given concern about human rights in China, says Robert Hayward

    A Tory peer has vowed to lead a boycott of Coca-Cola products over the company’s sponsorship of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, saying its bid to profit from an event organised by the Chinese government was shameless.

    Robert Hayward, who was a founding chairman of the world’s first gay rugby club and a former personnel manager for Coca-Cola Bottlers, said it was unacceptable for firms to help to boost the use of the Winter Games as a propaganda exercise given concerns over the treatment of 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang province.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Removing British citizenship under the nationality and borders bill | Letters

    Security and borders minister Damian Hinds says such action would only be taken against the most dangerous people, such as terrorists, extremists and serious organised criminals

    I was disappointed to read Naga Kandiah’s comments on the removal of British citizenship (Like Shamima Begum, I could soon be stripped of British citizenship without notice, 15 December). Removing British citizenship on grounds of being “conducive to the public good” is used against the most dangerous of people, such as terrorists, extremists and serious organised criminals.

    It’s been possible for over a century. It comes with a right of appeal and is only used in exceptional circumstances in a small number of cases each year. The nationality and borders bill doesn’t change any of that – it’s only about how someone is notified.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Foreign criminals’ are just an excuse: the Tories are trying to take away rights from all of us | Daniel Trilling

    The idea that the UK is not deporting enough people is a convenient justification for overhauling the Human Rights Act

    Boris Johnson’s government is trying to chip away at your rights, but it wants you to believe that this is only a problem for other people. The police bill threatens the right to protest, but it is presented as a measure to deal with “extremist” political activists. The judicial review bill threatens to curtail the right to judicial review – a process that allows individuals to seek redress from public institutions that may have harmed them – but it is framed as an effort to reclaim power from “unelected” judges. The elections bill, which seeks to introduce voter ID, could effectively disenfranchise 2 million people, but the government claims it will address “fraud”.

    Each time the government wishes to push forward with measures such as these, it evokes a folk devil – a threatening outsider or internal enemy whose presence is used to justify the harsh new reform. These folk devils are more myth than reality, but they can cause great social damage if left unchallenged. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the government’s most recent initiative: its wide-ranging plans to overhaul the Human Rights Act, which were announced last week.

    Daniel Trilling is the author of Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Human rights are being attacked by the government, not fine-tuned | Letters

    Nick Moss says the struggle to defend and extend our rights has to be conducted on the streets, as well as in parliament and the courts. John Robinson fears that we are facing an existential attack on our democracy

    I agree with Martha Spurrier that this government is constructing for itself a legislative armoury that is intended to be a “rewriting of the rules so only the government can win” (Who will stop human rights abuses if the government puts itself above the law?, 14 December). There is, though, a flaw in the European convention on human rights. The right to liberty and security (article 5), the right to a fair trial (article 6), the right to respect for private and family life (article 8), freedom of thought, conscience and religion (article 9), freedom of expression (article 10), and freedom of assembly and association (article 11) are all conditional rights.

    Variously, these are all – to a greater or lesser extent – subject to exceptions that are “necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic wellbeing of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Labour urged to vote down ‘draconian’ changes to crime bill

    Call for opposition to counter ministers’ ‘cynical attempt to bypass parliamentary scrutiny’

    The Labour party has been urged to take advantage of a unique opportunity to vote down a raft of last-minute amendments to an already controversial crime bill, which human rights activists have described as “a dangerous power grab”.

    The 18 pages of amendments to the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill were introduced by government peers in November, on the day nine members of the protest group Insulate Britain appeared in court charged with contempt.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Windrush: high court rules claimants’ human rights breached by Home Office

    Minister could have applied discretion when considering citizenship applications, says judge

    Members of the Windrush generation had their human rights breached when the Home Office refused to grant them citizenship, the high court has ruled.

    Eunice Tumi and Vernon Vanriel were refused citizenship after being told by the home secretary they did not fulfil the residence requirement of having been in the UK on the date five years before they made the application for citizenship, the court heard.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Like Shamima Begum, I could soon be stripped of British citizenship without notice | Naga Kandiah

    Clause 9 in the nationality and borders bill will strike fear and uncertainty into the hearts of black and Asian Britons

    At first glance, Shamima Begum and I don’t have much in common. She fled Britain when she was a schoolgirl to join Islamic State. I came to the UK from Sri Lanka in 2005 and qualified here as a public and human rights lawyer. I became a British citizen in 2015.

    Begum was born in the UK as a British citizen on the basis of her parents’ immigration status. She was stripped of her citizenship using a controversial power introduced after the 2005 London bombings, which allows the government to remove British citizenship from dual nationals if doing so is “conducive to the public good”. The use of this power increased from 2010 and further increased in 2014.

    Naga Kandiah is a solicitor at MTC Solicitors

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Who will stop human rights abuses if the government puts itself above the law? | Martha Spurrier

    Dominic Raab’s attempt to hollow out protections and stifle judges will make state abuse of power unpunishable

    Today Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, announced plans to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act, bring in a new British bill of rights and, as he put it, “restore common sense” to our laws. In reality, he is making real his long-held dream to weaken vital human rights protections, make justice conditional on good behaviour and insulate the state from accountability.

    Raab’s plans make for grim reading. They include stripping away the right to family and private life. This is being done under the guise of the deportation of “foreign criminals”, a proposal that goes hand in hand with the government’s determination to use the revoking of citizenship as a punishment, creating instead a tiered system of rights protection based on your immigration status. But human rights are universal – take them from one group and you take them from all of us. And of course the right to a private and family life goes a lot wider than immigration. If the government hollows out these protections, we won’t be able to protect our private data, fight evictions, demand LGBT equality or resist mass surveillance.

    Martha Spurrier, a British barrister and human rights campaigner, is the director of Liberty

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Who will stop human rights abuses if the government puts itself above the law? | Martha Spurrier

    Dominic Raab’s attempt to hollow out protections and stifle judges will make state abuse of power unpunishable

    Today Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, announced plans to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act, bring in a new British bill of rights and, as he put it, “restore common sense” to our laws. In reality, he is making real his long-held dream to weaken vital human rights protections, make justice conditional on good behaviour and insulate the state from accountability.

    Raab’s plans make for grim reading. They include stripping away the right to family and private life. This is being done under the guise of the deportation of “foreign criminals”, a proposal that goes hand in hand with the government’s determination to use the revoking of citizenship as a punishment, creating instead a tiered system of rights protection based on your immigration status. But human rights are universal – take them from one group and you take them from all of us. And of course the right to a private and family life goes a lot wider than immigration. If the government hollows out these protections, we won’t be able to protect our private data, fight evictions, demand LGBT equality or resist mass surveillance.

    Martha Spurrier, a British barrister and human rights campaigner, is the director of Liberty

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Raab’s human rights proposals condemned as ‘blatant power grab’

    Justice secretary is facing a number of calls to row back on plans to strengthen power of the state

    Plans to overhaul the Human Rights Act are a blatant power grab with the aim of putting the government above the reach of the law, pressure groups and opposition parties have said.

    Launching a three-month consultation on a new bill of rights in the Commons, Dominic Raab faced a number of calls to row back on plans to strengthen the power of the state against the rights of the individual.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Raab to claim overhaul of human rights law will counter ‘political correctness’

    ‘Dangerous’ reforms to create a new bill of rights criticised as ‘blatant, unashamed power grab’

    Dominic Raab is to outline a sweeping overhaul of human rights law that he claims will counter “wokery and political correctness” and expedite the deportation of foreign criminals.

    The highly controversial reforms, to be announced on Tuesday – which will create a new bill of rights – will introduce a permission stage to “deter spurious human rights claims” and change the balance between freedom of expression and privacy.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Dominic Raab’s paper seen as fulfilment of quest to destroy Human Rights Act

    Analysis: critics think man who once said ‘I don’t believe in economic and social rights’ is reaching goal of 12-year campaign

    It may bear the unassuming title of a “consultation paper”. But critics believe that the document released by Dominic Raab’s department on Tuesday is the culmination of a steady 12-year campaign by the justice secretary to rip up the Human Rights Act.

    Footage of Raab from 2009 shows the then backbench MP looking into the camera and saying: “I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I don’t believe in economic and social rights.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • NHS trusts criticised over system that films mental health patients in their bedrooms

    Oxevision system, used by 23 NHS trusts, could breach privacy rights, charities say

    NHS trusts are facing calls to suspend the use of a monitoring system that continuously records video of mental health patients in their bedrooms amid concerns that it breaches their human rights.

    Mental health charities said the Oxevision system, used by 23 NHS trusts in some psychiatric wards to monitor patients’ vital signs, could breach their right to privacy and exacerbate their distress.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • New rules on UK arms trade make it ‘easier’ to sideline human rights

    Experts say changes could allow ministers to ignore abuse concerns when deciding on international weapon sales

    The government has brought in new rules for the arms trade that experts fear will make it easier to ignore human rights concerns when deciding whether to allow international sales of UK-made weapons.

    The revised Strategic Export Licensing Criteria could also make it harder for critics to challenge any deal in court, warned Martin Butcher, policy adviser on conflict and arms for Oxfam, who said the changes “would reduce accountability and transparency and will lead to more UK arms being used to commit war crimes and other abuses.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Fresh evidence on UK’s botched Afghan withdrawal backs whistleblower’s story

    MPs’ inquiry given further details of Britain’s mismanagement of Afghanistan exit with ‘people left to die at the hands of the Taliban’

    Further evidence alleging that the government seriously mishandled the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been handed to a parliamentary inquiry examining the operation, the Observer has been told.

    Details from several government departments and agencies are understood to back damning testimony from a Foreign Office whistleblower, who has claimed that bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, and a lack of planning and resources led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Julian Assange can be extradited to US to face espionage charges, court rules

    WikiLeaks co-founder’s lawyers say they will seek to appeal, as Amnesty International says decision is a ‘travesty of justice’

    Julian Assange can be extradited to the US, according to the high court, as it overturned a judgment earlier this year and sparked condemnation from press freedom advocates.

    The decision deals a major blow to the WikiLeaks co-founder’s efforts to prevent his extradition to the US to face espionage charges, although his lawyers announced they would seek to appeal.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Uyghurs subjected to genocide by China, unofficial UK tribunal finds

    Independent report says crimes include torture and the systematic suppression of births

    Uyghur people living in Xinjiang province in China have been subjected to unconscionable crimes against humanity directed by the Chinese state that amount to an act of genocide, an independent and unofficial tribunal has found.

    Hundreds of thousands and possibly a million people have been incarcerated without any or remotely fair justification, the tribunal’s chairman Sir Geoffrey Nice QC said as he delivered the tribunal’s findings in London. “This vast apparatus of state repression could not exist if a plan was not authorised at the highest levels,” Nice said.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • China says Australia, UK and US will ‘pay price’ for Winter Olympics action

    Beijing accuses nations of using Games ‘for political manipulation’ amid diplomatic boycotts

    China has said that Australia, Britain and the US will pay a price for their “mistaken acts” after deciding not to send government delegations to February’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, in the latest warning demonstrating China’s escalating diplomatic tensions with the US and its major allies.

    The US was the first to announce a boycott, saying on Monday its government officials would not attend the February Games because of China’s human rights “atrocities”, weeks after talks aimed at easing tension between the world’s two largest economies.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Home Office urged to stop housing asylum seekers in barracks

    Housing survivors of torture or other serious forms of violence in barracks ‘harmful’, all-party report says

    A cross-party group of parliamentarians is calling on the government to end its use of controversial barracks accommodation for people seeking asylum, in a new report published on Thursday.

    The report also recommends the scrapping of government plans to expand barracks-style accommodation for up to 8,000 asylum seekers. It refers to accommodation, including Napier barracks in Kent, which is currently being used to house hundreds of asylum seekers, as “quasi-detention” due to visible security measures, surveillance, shared living quarters and isolation from the wider community.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Pretty extreme’: readers respond to UK proposals to target ‘lifestyle’ drug users

    Six readers share their views after the government says ‘middle-class’ drug users could lose passports

    “Lifestyle” users of class A drugs will be targeted as part of the government’s strategy as it argues that their demand for drugs fuels exploitation.

    The proposal to target “middle-class” drug users by taking away their passports or driving licences has been met with criticism by campaigners, who view the focus on punitive sentences as regressive.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Observer view on Priti Patel’s fake migrant crisis | Observer editorial

    The home secretary fans rhetorical flames on asylum seekers and refugees, but the numbers disagree

    Home secretaries from both main parties have scapegoated asylum seekers in attempts to endear themselves to voters in recent decades. But none with the fervour of Priti Patel, who in her two-year tenure at the Home Office has announced a series of initiatives to put people off seeking asylum in the UK. Wave machines in the Channel, flying asylum seekers to inhospitable islands thousands of miles away to be processed, criminalising those who rescue people drowning at sea: all are recent measures proposed by the home secretary regardless of their compatibility with international law and Britain’s moral obligations.

    Patel gives the impression that there is an escalating crisis in terms of the numbers of people arriving in the UK and trying to illegitimately claim refuge. This is not true. There is absolutely a crisis for asylum seekers trying to reach British shores by making the treacherous Channel crossing in small boats and dinghies. The British government should be doing all it can to clamp down on the people traffickers making a fortune by charging desperate people to attempt the crossing. But the number of people coming to the UK to claim asylum fell by 4% last year and stands at less than half what it was in the early 2000s. Britain receives a fraction of the asylum applications of Germany and France and fewer per resident than the EU average. Low-income countries host nine out of 10 displaced people worldwide.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • New bill quietly gives powers to remove British citizenship without notice

    Clause added to nationality and borders bill also appears to allow Home Office to act retrospectively in some cases

    Individuals could be stripped of their British citizenship without warning under a proposed rule change quietly added to the nationality and borders bill.

    Clause 9 – “Notice of decision to deprive a person of citizenship” – of the bill, which was updated earlier this month, exempts the government from having to give notice if it is not “reasonably practicable” to do so, or in the interests of national security, diplomatic relations or otherwise in the public interest.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Winter Olympics top sponsors ‘silent’ over China’s human rights record

    Human Rights Watch says it only received one reply after writing to 13 companies involved in Beijing Games

    Corporate sponsors of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics have been accused of “squandering the opportunity” to pressure China to address its “appalling human rights record”.

    The Games’ top level sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Procter & Gamble, Intel and Visa, were on Friday accused of ignoring China’s alleged “crimes against humanity against Uyghurs” and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as well the repression of free speech in Hong Kong.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Asylum seekers in UK housed in converted hostel with prison cells

    Experts say Home Office risks traumatising refugees by housing them in courthouse turned into hostel

    Asylum seekers are being housed by the Home Office in a former courthouse turned hostel which promised nights in “an authentic prison cell” to backpackers.

    Hundreds of people are understood to be in the facility – which appears to have been a form of court and prison cell “theme park” accommodation – including some who were imprisoned in the past in their home countries, including Libya.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Abortion was legalised in Northern Ireland in 2019 – so why are we still waiting for it? | Elizabeth Nelson

    The Northern Ireland Office move to uphold our human rights is welcome. But it shouldn’t have come to this

    • Elizabeth Nelson is a writer and activist based in Belfast

    Just over two years ago I was in a pub in Belfast celebrating the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland. This heady day of vindication came after decades of campaigning by countless activists. There was a feeling of relief, not only for campaigners, but for those who have endured the trauma of being forced to travel to access basic healthcare that was readily available throughout the rest of the UK. The end was finally in sight. Our fundamental human rights would be enshrined in law, though it had taken Westminster to step in where our own government would not. At last, free, safe, legal, local abortion was imminent.

    But the promises of that day have yet to materialise. For two years the Northern Ireland Department of Health has failed to commission abortion services. Access to abortion in Northern Ireland remains piecemeal, with much of the support delivered by charities like Informing Choices NI. When they had to stop their work due to excessive pressure on resources, access to abortion again became practically nonexistent in Northern Ireland. In the midst of a once in a generation pandemic, people needing abortions – UK citizens and residents – are still forced, at personal and financial cost, to travel to Great Britain for care.

    Elizabeth Nelson is a writer and activist based in Belfast

    Continue reading…

  • Allow us the option of a humane, painless death | Letters

    Readers share their perspectives on Baroness Meacher’s assisted dying bill

    Jane Campbell says disabled people need more help to live, not to die (22 October). As a disabled person myself, with a condition which will continue to deteriorate but which won’t kill me, I say we need both.

    We do need help to live and we may need help to die, if that’s what we want. People talk about dying with dignity; help with living doesn’t always include dignity. Having your arse wiped by someone else, whoever they are, isn’t very dignified and that is one of the aspects of my own future I don’t look forward to. What we need in help with living and with dying is humanity, kindness and, certainly for me, humour.
    Kathryn Hobson
    Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Why the witch-hunt victims of early modern Britain have come back to haunt us

    The women killed as witches centuries ago are starting to receive justice. But let’s not glamorise the murder of innocents

    Lilias Addie’s body was piled into a wooden box and buried beneath a half-tonne sandstone slab on the foreshore where a dark North Sea laps the Fife coast. More than a hundred years later, she was exhumed by opportunistic Victorian gravediggers and her bones – unusually large for a woman living in the early 18th century – were later put on show at the Empire exhibition in Glasgow. Her simple coffin was carved into a wooden walking stick – engraved “Lilias Addie, 1704” – which ended up in the collection of Andrew Carnegie, then the richest man in the world.

    It was no sort of burial, but from the perspective of the thousands of women accused of, and executed for, witchcraft in early modern Britain, Lilias’s fate had a degree of dignity.

    Continue reading…

  • Lawyers to submit Yemen war crimes dossier to UK police

    Key figures in Saudi Arabia and UAE accused of crimes against humanity include investors in Britain

    A group of human rights lawyers will on Wednesday file a legal complaint in the UK accusing key figures in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of being involved in war crimes relating to the war in Yemen.

    They plan to submit a dossier to British police and prosecutors alleging that about 20 members of the political and military elite of the two Gulf nations are guilty of crimes against humanity, and call for their immediate arrest should they enter the UK.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.