Human rights under threat

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has announced that the Conservative Party will enter the next General Election campaign promising to change human rights law. It is not clear what change Mr Grayling envisages – and, of course, he has to persuade his Party (or at least its leader) to agree to the new policy. However, if Grayling gets his way the Conservative Party will probably be promising to remove the Human Rights Act from British law: this would mean that the Human Rights Convention could not be enforced in the British Courts and UK citizens would have to go to European courts to pursue cases. However, the Party may go further and threaten to withdraw the UK from the Convention itself, in favour of a British Bill of Rights.

Amnesty International has already criticised the Minister’s statement. UK Director Kate Allen said: “This constant drumbeat of threats to pull out of Europe’s main human rights treaty is hugely damaging to the reputation of the UK as a country that cares about human rights. Instead of throwing their toys out of their prams like this, government ministers should be seeking to improve the workings of the Strasbourg court where they can. But most of all, Britain should be a strong advocate of a convention that rightly outlaws torture and unfair trials everywhere from Vladivostok to Galway.”

Just days later, the importance of a human rights approach was vindicated when news came of the first execution in Indonesia since three of the men involved in the 2002 Bali bombings were executed in late 2008. Adami Wilson, a 48-year old Malawian national who was convicted for trafficking 1kg of heroin in 2004, was executed by firing squad in Jakarta. The use of the death penalty for drug-related offences does not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” as prescribed under international law.

The Indonesian Attorney General, Basrief Arief, said that the authorities planned to execute at least a further nine death row inmates this year (there are thought to be 130 people on death row in Indonesia).

Amnesty International’s Indonesia Researcher Papang Hidayat, said:
“This is really outrageous news. We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, but Indonesia’s long period without executions and the pledge to put even more people to death, makes this even more shocking.

“This is an incomprehensible statement from the Attorney General – carrying out even more executions now would be hugely regressive. We urge the Indonesia government to immediately halt any plans to put more people to death.”
“What makes this so disappointing is that we have really seen the Indonesian government sending progressive signals on moving away from the death penalty in recent years.

“The last year has seen many other countries in the region, including Malaysia and Singapore, taking steps to limit the use of the death penalty, including for drug-related offences. We expected Indonesia to be leading this trend – not dragging the region backwards.”

For more information, visiti www.amnesty.org.uk