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Category: UK news

  • Your lives are in danger, police warn Pakistani dissidents in UK

    Exiles advised to keep a low profile as hitman is convicted in London

    Pakistani exiles seeking refuge in the UK are being advised by counter-terrorism police to keep a low profile following warnings that their lives may be at risk after criticising Pakistan’s powerful military.

    Counter Terrorism Policing, a collaboration of UK police forces and the security services, has told possible targets that they need to inform police if they intend to travel within the UK.

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

  • Johnson likes to dress up as a mini-dictator. But is he really up to that job? | Zoe Williams

    The prime minister seems temperamentally unsuited the demands of his own increasingly authoritarian agenda

    “Creeping authoritarianism” is the wolf of the left, and we cry it all the time: I remember, almost nostalgically, thinking David Cameron was a creeping authoritarian for outsourcing punitive benefits initiatives to private companies; and that Theresa May was one when she earned the dubious accolade of politician least likely to answer the question in a broadcast interview. However, there is no ignoring or denying the vastly more anti-democratic manoeuvres of Boris Johnson’s government.

    The elections bill, currently in the Lords, features mandatory photo ID, which is well known to disfranchise younger and lower-income voters. It poses a direct threat to the reach and independence of the Electoral Commission, has serious implications for who can and cannot campaign at election time, and extends the perverse first-past-the-post voting system to the election of mayors and police commissioners. Beyond the explicit restriction of democracy, there is no plausible rationale for the bill; and unsettlingly, very little attempt has been made to produce one.

    Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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

  • I was engaged to an undercover police officer – everything in the relationship was a lie

    To me, Carlo was the activist who swept me off my feet. Only years later did I discover that nothing he told me had been real – and that he was a spy cop and already married

    It’s September 2015 and my mum and my sister have come by train from Scotland to visit me at home on the Kent coast, hoping to catch the last of the autumn heat. They live in the rainiest part of the UK, and I’ve moved to the corner with the most sun.

    I close the kitchen door on my twin daughters playing in the living room, shushing the dogs away.

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

  • Activist deceived into relationship with Met officer wins £229,000 compensation

    Award made to Kate Wilson after tribunal rules police grossly violated her human rights

    An environmental activist who was deceived into a two-year intimate relationship by an undercover police officer has been awarded £229,000 in compensation after winning a landmark legal case.

    Kate Wilson won the compensation after a tribunal ruled in a scathing judgment that police had grossly violated her human rights in five ways.

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

  • £262bn investor says it will target bosses who fail on climate or human rights

    Aviva Investors says voting at AGMs will be influenced by policies on climate, human rights, biodiversity and executive pay

    Aviva Investors, an important UK asset manager, has put the directors of 1,500 companies on notice that it is willing to seek their removal if they fail to show enough urgency in tackling issues including the climate crisis and human rights.

    The firm said the way it votes on the re-election of company board members in the upcoming AGM season would be heavily influenced by its four key stewardship priorities for the year, which also include biodiversity and executive pay.

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

  • Kill the Bill and period protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

    A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Costa Rica

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

  • NCA says end-to-end encryption poses challenge for law enforcers on child abuse

    Agency responds after ICO says encryption plays an important role in children’s online safety

    The National Crime Agency has said that end-to-end encryption risks “turning the lights out” for law enforcers trying to prevent child abuse, after the UK data watchdog said failure to introduce strongly encrypted messaging poses a risk to children.

    The NCA said referrals from social media companies led to 500 arrests and safeguarded 650 children every month in the UK, but that will become “much more challenging” to achieve under widespread use of end-to-end encryption.

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

  • Only two UK Covid briefings were led by a female MP, report finds

    2022 Sex and Power Index, which analyses gender representation across Britain’s top jobs, shows equality is still ‘decades off’

    Only two of the government briefings held at the height of the coronavirus pandemic were led by a female politician, and in both cases it was the home secretary, Priti Patel, a report into gender representation across the UK’s top jobs has shows.

    The 2022 Sex and Power Index, compiled by the Fawcett Society, a charity campaigning for women’s rights, showed equality is still “decades off”, as men continue to dominate the top ranks of law, politics and business.

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

  • Which is more dysfunctional – the US or the UK? I’ve created a Global Embarrassment Index to figure it out | Arwa Mahdawi

    Living in the US, I have always seized every opportunity to insist things are better in Blighty. But now both countries look ludicrous

    For years now I have been living with a chronic condition that I’ve finally been able to diagnose as Privileged Immigrant Derangement Syndrome (PIDS). Let me explain: more than a decade ago I left my native Britain to go and work in New York. I wasn’t fleeing persecution, poverty, or life in a failed state; I just wanted to live in the US. There were more opportunities, I didn’t have to navigate the suffocating class system, and, most importantly, my English accent gave me a competitive edge. Women swooned at my vowel sounds (I’m not making that up: they swooned … OK, I promise at least one woman swooned) and everyone assumed I was on tea-drinking terms with the Queen.

    Anyway, that’s the PI bit of PIDS. The D bit is this: when you spend extended time away from your home country, it’s easy to build up a romanticised version of it in your head. I became a cheerleader for all things British; I even bought a pair of union jack wellies, and wore them with pride whenever it rained. As my long-suffering American wife can attest, I seized every opportunity to say how much better things were in Blighty than Stateside. We had a superior healthcare system; we weren’t gun-nuts?; our infrastructure was better; our political system wasn’t as drenched with money, and was less corrupt. Even our rain was better. On and on I went about how the UK was infinitely superior to the US.

    Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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

  • Leading campaigner urges UK to target wealth of Kazakhstani elite

    Bill Browder, who pushed for Magnitsky law, says anti-corruption laws should be used in response to deaths of at least 164 protesters

    One of the architects of the UK’s updated sanctions legislation has called for the government and crime agencies to target the wealth of the Kazakhstani elite following the deaths of at least 164 people during unrest.

    Bill Browder, an American investor turned campaigner, said the British government could use anti-corruption legislation to target the rulers of Kazakhstan on the grounds of human rights abuses.

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

  • Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

    A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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

  • Report critical of police treatment of Cornish G7 activists withdrawn

    Decision calling Project Servator intimidatory and oppressive fell afoul of ‘quality assurance process’

    Environmental activists who accused police of intimidation and harassment have had a review decision in their favour withdrawn in controversial circumstances.

    The decision, produced by the office of the police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, was particularly critical of Project Servator, a national anti-terrorism strategy, describing it, “increasingly being used as an intimidatory and oppressive national policing tactic”.

    Project Servator is “apparently increasingly being used as an intimidatory and oppressive national policing tactic”.

    While police witnesses were interviewed about the incident those visited by the police were not. “There appears to have been a quiescent acceptance of the police account of their actions by the [police] professional standards department.”

    Potential misconduct by police officers who visited the quarry and boatyard should also be considered.

    The matter should have been referred to the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) “given the politically sensitive and national implications of such disproportionality in a protest situation”.

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

  • ‘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.

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    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

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    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.

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    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.

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    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

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    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.”

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    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.

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    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.

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.”

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    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.

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    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.”

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    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”.

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    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.

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