Line

A Pint of Unionist Lite highlights everyone's favourite quangocrat, Monica McWilliams, doing whatever she wishes - accountability is for other people after all. 

Chief

Leave aside the moment why there are two such bodies but why does the larger Equality Commission only require a part-time Chief Commissioner but the smaller Human Rights Commission's is a full-time role?

Torture

On my desk I have a McCain presidential campaign baseball cap.  (I was not want of these who fell for the Obamamania.  Obama always looked like a empty suit to me and has now spent two years provided evidence for my first assessment.)  One of the stances that attracted me to McCain was his opposition to the use of torture, including the practice of waterboarding.  It was one of the policies instituted by Bush I considered a fundmental mistake.

While judicial activism and the rights industry trying to turn ever interest groups concerns into a list of rights has improperly warped the proper understanding of human rights, this should not blind us to the central importance of classic human rights as the basis of our democractic life.  Within those the right not to be tortured is crystal clear:

"Article 3 – Prohibition of torture

No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

There are no caveats on this right unlike for example the right to life.  This issue has once again come into focus following President Bush's claims about how the use of torture saved lives.  Others have chosen to praise Bush's comments.  Both are wrong.  The defence of "saving lives" is a questionable one. The alleged success of one technique does not preclude the possibility of another approach being equally successful.

This August Belfast saw its last Victory over Japan Day parade by 14 veterans, some who paraded with the help of family members.  Allied troops who fought in that Far East campaign were subjected to the waterboarding torture by Japanese soldiers.  After the war some of those soldiers were tried, convicted and hung for this war crime.  We did not subject them to the same treatment as they meted out.  This is part of the suffering of servicemen the poppy campaign remembers.  Perhaps those who wear a poppy but advocate torture should reflect on that contradiction. 

We were better than the totalitarians of the past and are better than their modern manifestation, Islamic extremism. We should act accordingly.

Who do you think you are?

So arrogant worth highlighting twice.

Consequence

The NIHRC has criticised police in Londonderry for releasing photographs of children suspected of being involved in crime.  They cite a number of concerns about privacy, right to a fair trial etc.  However, for me there is an inherent contradiction in how the human rights sector wishes childrens rights to evolve.  In cases were a child has been irresponsible they seek to protect children from the consequences.  However, in other decision-making they wish children to be empowered to make their own choices on key elements of their life.

AG takes on the pyjama mamas

Northern Ireland's Attorney General has criticised those using human rights arguments to oppose the imposition of dress codes namely pyjamas:

"Mr Larkin said the cause of human rights in Northern Ireland was in danger of being trivialised by misuse.The campaign was evidence of a "contemporary malaise" and misunderstanding of the term, "human rights","

He also argued for changes to civil court cost arrangements to ensure the poorer have greater access to justice.  The libertarian in me leans towards letting them wear what they wish but the social capitalist would see it as a human version of broken window syndrome.  He was speaking at the NIHRC's annual conference which the Commission used to breathe new life into the dead horse of a separate Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

Feeding perception

There have been allegations that the human rights lobby has become dominated by a leftward bias and even captured by the anti-capitalist movement.  This morning I wandered down to the Lower Shankill and Lower Falls to photograph two new recent murals developed by Amnesty and the local communities.

The Lower Shankill mural - larger image here. (I also thought the choice of dollar signs on the money coming out of the machinery exhaust a bit odd.  The name written on the mural is of a man recently murdered in the area by the UVF).

The Lower Falls mural - larger images here, here, here and here.

For the weekend

In the relationship between the state and the individual should it be:
a) Islands of individual rights surrounded by a sea of government power
b) Islands of government power surrounded by a sea of individual rights