UK needs prompt action on human rights record, UN panel warns
Source: The Guardian
The British government's human rights record since the attacks of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq is facing ferocious criticism from a United Nations panel, which warns that prompt action is needed to ensure the country meets its obligations under international law.
In a report published on Friday, the UN Committee against Torture recommends more than 40 separate measures which it says will need to be taken if the UK is to be given a clean bill of health.
While the committee has focused on the failure to hold to account those responsible for human rights abuses in the so-called war on terror, and for the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq, it also raises a series of other serious concerns over matters that include the controversial Justice and Security Act, the forced removal of failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, and the failure to hold a public inquiry into the state's involvement in the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.
The report – which will doubtless make uncomfortable reading across Whitehall – contains the harshest criticism that the committee has yet made of a British government. It is the first substantial criticism since 1992, when the UK was told that were it not for the mistreatment of terrorism suspects in Northern Ireland, it would have been found to have "met in virtually every respect" its obligations under the UN convention against torture.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/may/31/uk-human-rights-record-un-panel