Published: November 2nd 2011 - at 2:30 pm

Two weeks to speak up for human rights in the UK


by Robert Sharp    

I attended an event run by the British Institute of Human Rights today, encouraging the charity and voluntary sector to submit to the UK’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations. Every country in the UN has its human rights record examined every four years, and the UK will be reviewed again in 2012.

The key message from the seminar was that the UPR process relies on the evidence submitted by NUGOs. However, during the last review in 2008 only 19 civil society organisations sent submissions to the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). This seems incredibly low to me.

Crucially, the Universal Periodic Review has to base it’s report on the evidence submitted – it doesn’t go out looking for issues to examine on its own initiative. It is therefore essential that all those who campaign for any aspect of human rights in the UK, send their evidence into the OHCHR.

There are plenty of human rights abuses in the UK, many of which are reported here on Liberal Conspiracy: child poverty, human trafficking, child detention, and the unfair deportation of asylum seekers, to name but a few.

Surely the British charitable and voluntary sector can muster more than 19 submissions to the UPR, this time around.

Submissions are due by 21st November 2011. More information is available on the BIHR website.


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About the author
Robert Sharp designed the Liberal Conspiracy site. He is the Campaigns Manager at English PEN, a blogger, and a director of digital design company Fifty Nine Productions. For more of this sort of thing, visit Rob's eponymous blog or follow him on Twitter @robertsharp59.
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Story Filed Under: Blog ,Civil liberties


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Reader comments


1. Rob the crip

Welfare Reforms, ATOs and the abuse of both Labour and the Tories forcing people back to work, no thought not.

2. Rob the crip

Have I been placed under moderation because sod all of mine is being placed on here any more.

3. Rob the crip

hello

4. Dollar Whore

How about these rights?

What? No fucking article you supposed liberals?

Cause not! Fucking Muslims again. No news here then….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15550350

“”"The offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris have been destroyed in a petrol bomb attack.

It comes a day after the publication named the Prophet Muhammad as its “editor-in-chief” for its next issue.”"”

5. Leon Wolfson

@4 -

“Mr Charbonnier, also known as Charb, said he did not see the attack on the magazine as the work of French Muslims, but of what he called “idiot extremists”.”

Great, thanks for proving you’re a bigot, though. And hey, an unjustifiable attack on the press? Well, the French should back off on unjustifiable laws against personal freedoms.

@1 – The database is acting funky. Comments can take up to an hour to appear. They are ALL appearing, though.

I suspect Dollar whore would even make the BNP blush

I am not intentionally being contrary, Robert. Being contrary to get a rise or a few laughs does not excite me.

@OP: “Surely the British charitable and voluntary sector can muster more than 19 submissions to the UPR, this time around.”

Or serious arguments about ambitions?

If you can’t present a serious argument, you should not be considered as a player in the game.

8. Dollar dancer

Muslims blow up a newspaper and yet the criticism on here is aimed at anyone but Muslims and anywhere but Islam!

If the EDL had blown up a newspaper office because of jokes about the English you hypocrites would need extra bandwidth to handle the flood of articles!!

9. Chaise Guevara

@ Dollar whatever

Is the concept of reading an article before commenting on it completely beyond your mental capacity? I realise that you and people like Davey Boy (whoops! All the same troll!) think the internet is basically only there to allow you to express your hatred of Muslims on as many webpages as possible, but when you jump on a page that has nothing to do with the subject and immediately start ranting about Islamic extremists it does kinda make you look obsessive and, well, very fucking stupid.

10. Leon Wolfson

@6 – Well, yes, sure – he missed off the “true perpetrators” behind it all from the rant.

(That’s the Jews, for reference)

Members of a branch of C18 were arrested on suspicious of making bombs about two years ago. This time it wasn’t true, but it most certainly has been in the past. There’s a European network of them working against the “Zionist Occupation Government”.

No, I’m not kidding. Incidentally, some of the Tories European allies in Poland have expressed sympathy for that idea, too. Conspiracy theorists…

11. Dollar dancer

Yes Leon criticising Muslims and Islam is really an attack on Jews!

You dumb fuck.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    Just 2 Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights in the UK (by @robertsharp59) http://t.co/ocTLdQko

  2. robertsharp59

    Hey @BIHRhumanrights, I hope this helps -> RT @libcon Just 2 Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights in the UK http://t.co/rZ5qkMzw

  3. English PEN

    We'll report on #LibelReform & #UKvisas RT @libcon Just 2 Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights http://t.co/2Oo82xg3 by @robertsharp59

  4. LadyRoisin

    RT @libcon: Just Two Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights in the UK http://t.co/35nHj87G

  5. Ian Williams

    Just Two Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights in the UK http://t.co/iVw16gy9

  6. Gods & Monsters

    Important human rights review needs evidence: http://t.co/Vj4Nx39p

  7. Janet Graham

    Just 2 Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights in the UK (by @robertsharp59) http://t.co/ocTLdQko

  8. BIHR

    Just 2 Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights in the UK (by @robertsharp59) http://t.co/ocTLdQko

  9. Ms C

    RT: @libcon: Just 2 Weeks to Speak Up For Human Rights in the UK (by @robertsharp59) http://t.co/yQjX9l3f

  10. Stanislaw Derlatka

    RT @libcon: Two weeks to speak up for human rights in the UK http://t.co/lARx2jxq

  11. human rights law

    Two weeks to speak up for human rights in the UK:
    http://t.co/QuCHYXN4

  12. Nivedita S

    Two weeks to speak up for human rights in the UK:
    http://t.co/QuCHYXN4

  13. pat elsmie

    Two weeks to speak up for human rights in the UK:
    http://t.co/QuCHYXN4





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