May 5, 2024

The UN has criticized harsh penalties for climate blockers in Great Britain

DNot only is the British government at odds with United Nations immigration policy, it is also at odds with its actions against traffic jams by climate activists.

Addressing the Home Office in London, Ian Fry, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on human rights issues in climate change, asked why the sentences against two English activists who blocked a motorway bridge over the River Thames a year ago were significantly harsher than previous sentences. A cases. Demonstrators who disrupted traffic on the London Ring Road one day were sentenced to three years and two years and seven months in prison; Her appeal was unsuccessful.

Fry also opposed new restrictions on street protests, which had been enshrined in the British “Public Order Act” since the summer; They are apparently a “direct attack on the right to peaceful assembly”. The UK’s special rapporteur told the BBC on Monday that the UK Home Office had yet to respond to his written concerns pointing to the current government’s “general disregard for human rights issues”. However, the Home Office responded to Fry saying that peaceful protest is an important part of a democratic society and has a long tradition in the UK, “provided it is within legal limits”.

Cameron doesn’t want to cancel the convention, but he wants to ignore it

According to the human rights organization Civicus, the restrictions on the right to demonstrate, which include, among other things, the imprisonment of chained to objects and the expulsion of demonstrators with suspected criminal records, are so extreme that freedom of movement poses a civil risk, putting Great Britain on a par with countries such as El Salvador or East Timor. Civicus is a global network based in South Africa; Categorized based on data collections from 200 countries.

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There is a public dispute in the Conservative ruling party over the future course of immigration policy after the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that it is illegal to deport asylum seekers smuggled through the English Channel to Rwanda without trial. Sacked Home Secretary Suella Braverman last week publicly called for refugees to be exempted from any human rights requirements in order to save the Rwanda project, while her successor, former Foreign Secretary James, has wisely resisted calls for the country. Leave the European Convention on Human Rights and ignore the United Nations human rights record. One of the provisions apparently to be repealed is the National Human Rights Act, which refers to a sort of British list of fundamental rights.

After the Rwanda plans failed in the Supreme Court, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed to continue the deportation plan “no matter what it takes”. A proposed new law for this purpose is not yet available. Not only has the Home Secretary wisely, but the new Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, also announced his opposition to calls from the party’s right wing to end the European Convention on Human Rights. Cameron said it was possible not to be bound by decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, whose rulings are based on a convention backed by the Council of Europe. As head of government, he once ruled that certain British prisoners should not automatically be deprived of their right to vote.