Human Rights at 60

Just a brief mention of the 60th anniversary of that fantastic document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights text here and presented in a great animation on Youtube.

Obviously the declaration came out of the terrible realisation of the depths that humanity can descend to but also ways that human rights are violated in smaller ways as well that tend to undermine the rule of law and equity between human beings.

The UDHR is a document well worth celebrating and has spawned a number of human rights frameworks and initiatives (regional and national human rights laws for instance including the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights).

And amidst all the talk of the need to include responsibilities as well as rights it is instructive to note they are referenced at different points in the Declaration.

Lots of stuff on the 60 anniversary of the UDHR on the EHRC's website including a speech by Gordon Brown.

After 60 years we are only just starting to put human rights into practice.

Evangelicals - where do they fit in?

This post is prompted by moves afoot to protest the appointment of Joel Edwards to the post of Commissioner with the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

At the time of his appointment there was a big and predictable broohaha, especially from the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement who produced this diatribe against his appointment. I say diatribe (defined as meaning "a bitter critical attack") as it goes on and on about the personal evils of afore mentioned Joel Edwards as if he has been personally directing the whole show. Of course, that is not likely to be the case. In many particulars the quotes are taken somewhat out of context and some things are attributed to Joel Edwards and the Evangelical Alliance when they oughtn't to be. This is unfair.

Again at the time there was a wait and see approach from Ekklesia who saw a significant potential for evangelicals to address equality, human rights and discrimination issues through bodies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission stating

Evangelicals who recognise that equality ought to be a key part of the Christian
message have been slowly coming out of the closet, and even the Evangelical
Alliance's sceptical opinions on this issue have been expressed much more
temperately of late.

I must say I tend to agree.

My reading of Joel Edwards is of him being moderate whilst at the same time being true to his evangelical beliefs (which I personally have no objection to although I don't personally share them). I could of course be wrong on this but the politics of systematic suspicion leads to a bad place for all of us.

Of course, the Commission as a whole are open to public scrutiny as are its appointees as members of public bodies.

The Commission has broad duties laid upon it to promote equality and human rights (set out in the Equality Act) , including on the grounds of sexual orientation and has published an Equality Scheme laying out its approach to equality work in different areas as well as having as its role the support of different strands of equality legislation.

We all have a responsibility to hold the Commission to be effective in its role and also to make it clear that we oppose any hierarchy of discrimination. We also have a role to play in scrutinising the activities of Commission members and highlighting any thing that raises concerns.

One of the principal problems that we face now is the problem of alienationa and paranoia as a propaganda tool.

We definitely saw this is the debate over Goods and Services (and Joel Edwards was one of the very few evangelical voices to ward against this trend - especially in his 'Letter to leaders of Alliance member churches' on the subject).

Getting non-paranoid evangelical leaders onto the EHRC can be very valuable in ensuring that the more outlandish statements don't in the future get credance. We have also seen exaggeration and paranoia being out to good use in the debates over the Mental Health Bill - it's now a well recognised political tool.

In addition to this, religious communities do have (sometimes legitimate) concerns about human rights like freedom of religion and belief, freedom of expression and so on where there is a tension between equality provisions and human rights and it is probably better to have some faith representatives on the EHRC to be part of the solution as well as being part of a clear analysis that can address their concerns (which I acknowldege) in a realistic way and also calm down the more exaggerated claims of organisations in the 'Religious Right' such as Anglican Mainstream and so on that I have added to my blog lists as being 'ones to watch'.

Finally I believe in tolerance, pluralism and social dialogue in a way that not everyone does. This means accepting diversity of views and being political about them, not demonising your opponents.

For me this is part of our multicutluralism whilst balancing this with provision for human rights for all and making sure they are an indispensable part of our national culture.

Christian communities in the UK are not (in my view) under threat. The protection of gay people from discrimination is in my view a core right that crosses all communities and all communities have a role in ensuring that that happens.

On balance I think that we'll make further progress with the likes of Joel Edwards (who has expressed support for the principle of protecting gay people from discriminaiton through the law) on board.

I am sure that this is the right way to go but I welcome comments of dissent.

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Singapore retains criminalisation of homsexuality

Report on the BBC.

A petition had been presented to Parliament to include same sex acts in the repeal of heterosexual sodomy laws but the Parliament voted to retain the current legislation.

This is just one country amongst many where sex between men is still made into a criminal offence and shows how much progress there is to be made.

Meanwhile the report on 365gay.com details the many restrictions to freedom of association and expression which are occuring in Singapore under the current laws.

See also the letter from IGLHRC to Singapore's Prime Minister on this subject.

A positive report about the Archbishop of Canterbury

In a recent post I reported on a number of people syaing very uncharitable things about the current Archbishop of Canterbury and said I would write something positive as soon as someone was willing to put forward a positive opinion.

Well I'm not sure this counts but it's kind of positive and there's a good report of it on the Ekklesia website titled Archbishop of Canterbury says churches must be 'safe' for gays.

There is also further discussion on the Thinking Anglicans (is there any other kind?) website.

Some of the quotes are quite interesting as he appears to say that apart from churches being safe places for "gay and lesbian people" he also appears to both criticise certain Provinces who are actively in support of oppressive measures, notably in Nigeria, although he underlines the presence of hate crimes even in Western countries.

His support for the "proper liberties [freedom of association, assembly and expression perhaps?] of homosexual people" is clearly very important. You can see his statement here.

Here's a chunk of the statement (I underlined some bits):

“ The commitments of the Communion are not only to certain theological positions on the question of sexual ethics but also to a manifest and credible respect for the proper liberties of homosexual people, a commitment again set out in successive Lambeth Conference Resolutions over many decades. I share the concerns expressed about situations where the Church is seen to be underwriting social or legal attitudes which threaten these proper liberties. It is impossible to read this report without being aware that in many places – including Western countries with supposedly ‘liberal’ attitudes – hate crimes against homosexual people have increased in recent years and have taken horrifying and disturbing forms."

Just timed right for the release of the Yogyakarta principles - let's hope he's willing to sign up.

And while on the subject of the Yogyakarta principles I was pleased to see this article on the Comment is free (Guardian) site - Righting wrongs with some interesting discussion of how in previous UN debates countries who do not exactly have a shining record of human rights managed to block and vote down the Brazilian resolution on sexual orientation.

Yogyakarta principles launched

The 'Yogyakarta' Principles have been launched on Monday, 26th March. The website relating to these principles can be accessed here. The principles were adopted unanimously by a number of human rights experts in 2006 and are due to be launched officially during the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.

This comes after 54 member states supported the Norway statement on sexual orientation and gender identity in 2006.

The Yogyakarta principles are summaried as follows:

The Yogyakarta Principles address a broad range of human rights standards and their application to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Principles affirm the primary obligation of States to implement human rights. Each Principle is accompanied by detailed recommendations to States. The experts also emphasise, though, that all actors have responsibilities to promote and protect human rights. Additional recommendations are addressed to other actors, including the UN human rights system, national human rights institutions, the media, non-governmental organisations, and funders.

It will be very interesting to see how many churches and church organisations are able to sign up to these principles of international human rights law.

Joint Committee on Human Rights Report into Sexual Orientation Regulations

The Joint Committee on Human Rights (members both of Commons and Lords) was set up at the time of the passing of the Human Rights Act to seek to ensure that provisions of UK law were consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The 6th report of this session scrutinises the Northern Ireland Sexual Orientation Regulations from the point of view of compliance with human rights law.

Whilst our human rights law derives from the European Convention the International Covenant on Civil and Political (ICCPR) rights and other human rights instruments cover the same ground, in addition, for example, to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (text here ).

The 6th report can be found here and its summary and recommendations here.

The Joint Committee:

• expresses its support for the regulations, stating they are substantively part of human rights obligations
• support limited exemptions on doctrinal grounds for religious bodies but don't support wider exemptions
• support the inclusion of harassment (though with narrower definitions of harassment)
• support the inclusion of both the education sector as well as the school curriculum, asking the Government to clarify this with respect to the Northern Ireland regulations.

This is an important act of parliamentary scrutiny and goes to considerable lengths to derail the use by the religious right to seek to use human rights arguments to carve out exemptions the size of a bus within the regulations.

Regulations covering Great Britain are eagerly awaited.

Freedom of Assembly developments

Firstly this from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (which is connected to the European Convention on Human Rights) has issued this statement entitled "Ban on a Moscow demonstration by homosexuals - Written question No 497 to the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers" which is a question (as I understand it) to the Russian representative and thier reply. This is in relation to the violent suppression of the Moscow Pride event last year.

The clear involvement of the Parliamentary Assembly is particularly helpful givebn the ongoing difficulties facing Pride events in Latvia (a member of the EU) as well as Russia.

Second this in relation to the holding of Pride events in Moldova, also in relation to the obligations to allow freedom of assembly under the European Convention, upholding the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.

Again it is a welcome sign that national courts are making it clear that freedom of assembly cannot be curtailed in order to prevent Pride events from taking place.

Similarly proposed legislation in Nigeria would have as a consequence, not only the banning of any Pride event, but the banning of LGB people meeting together in a house or setting up a campaign organisation of any kind, in addition ot making a criminal offence with 5 years imprisonment for any positive portrayal of gay people in any media whatever or any same sex religious ceremony - a breech of freedom of assembly, freedomof expressiona nd freedom of religion, guaranteed under the African Charter on Human and People's Rights see arts 8, 9, 10 together with arts 1, 2 and 3.