International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

October 8, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

In focus

UK Covid policy on care homes violated human rights

Amnesty International has published a report As if Expendable which shows that the UK government adopted policies that “directly violated the human rights of older residents of care homes in England”. The report specifically highlighted the decision, in the early days of lockdown, to send elderly patients out of hospital and into care homes without being tested, putting other elderly care home residents at risk. This, Amnesty said, violated their rights to life, health and non-discrimination and, as one care home manager expressed, treated people who had made contributions to society throughout their lives as “expendable”.

More than 18,000 care home residents died with Covid-19, and Amnesty is calling for a public enquiry to start immediately in order that urgent lessons can be learned. Donatella Rovera, the author of Amnesty’s report told Channel 4 that the government “forgot about care homes” and that elderly patients were released from hospitals at very short notice into care homes which did not have mechanisms in place to support a protective environment for the most vulnerable. “Care home managers were unable to obtain PPE” and staff were not trained to deal with the crisis. She

The report also discovered that a number of care homes across the country were asked to insert Do Not Attempt Resuscitation (DNAR) forms into residents’ files as a “blanket approach”. One care home manager was told by the local Care Commissioning Group, “none of your patients over the age of 75 will be admitted to hospital”. Amnesty International UK’s Director, Kate Allen, said “The Government made a series of shockingly irresponsible decisions which abandoned care home residents to die”, calling it “a scandal of monumental proportions”.

Though, in theory, visits to care homes by families were allowed to begin again in July, access is still severely restricted due to lack of available testing, meaning that elderly and vulnerable people remain isolated. One dementia charity, John’s Campaign says care homes in England are still refusing face-to-face visits, which are essential for those with severe dementia. 70% of care home residents across the country have dementia, a neuro-degenerative disease that erodes a person’s sense of self and maintaining family connections are crucial for their survival. The charity understands the need for caution, but there are other risks besides Covid-19 and dementia sufferers needs should be taken into account.

In a separate case, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is supporting Cathy Gardner in her action against health Secretary, Matt Hancock, seeking a judicial review into the government’s failure to protect care home residents. Mrs Gardner, who lost her father during the pandemic , is a member of the group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK , the same group Boris Johnson refused to meet in late August.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said “From the start of the pandemic, we have been doing everything we can to ensure care home residents and staff are protected”, adding “This includes testing all residents and staff, providing over 228m items of PPE ring-fencing over £1.1bn to prevent infections in care homes and making a further £3.7bn available to councils to address pressures caused by the pandemic – including in adult social care.” Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat Leader, Sir Ed Davy commented on the report, saying it was “an utterly damning indictment of the way in which this Conservative government has treated some of the most vulnerable in our society”.

International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

September 16, 2020September 17, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Pauline Canham

In Focus

UK government considers human rights ‘opt-out’ to speed up asylum seeker deportations

The UK government is currently resisting requests by Brussels to give a formal undertaking to adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as part of Brexit negotiations. The areas of ‘opt-out’ being considered would, as well as making it easier to deport refugees and asylum seekers, protect British troops from legal action, following operations overseas.

The government also pledged, in the Conservative Party manifesto, to “update the UK Human Rights Act” , following Brexit, and claim the issue is a matter of UK “sovereignty”. Meanwhile, evidence presented to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, this week, from ClearView Research, showed that 75% of black people in the UK “do not believe their rights are equally protected compared to white people”, 85% do not trust the police to treat them equally and 60% don’t feel that their health is equally protected by the NHS.

Human Rights Watch have said that the UK’s refusal to agree to respect European human rights law “risks EU cooperation on security and criminal justice” that helps to protect British citizens. Civil rights organisation, Liberty, said that the government’s intention to ‘update’ the Act is “dangerously misguided” and is heading to an environment of “some rights for some people some of the time”

Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, dismissed the reports that the UK is planning to opt out of the ECHR, saying “such suggestions are for the birds”, adding that we should be focused on ‘streamlining’ our own laws. David Lammy slammed the idea, saying that abandoning human rights would “make life in Britain less secure and hold our country back on the world stage”.

International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

August 11, 2020August 11, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Pauline Canham

In focus

Police violate human rights in their use of facial recognition technology

Three senior judges in the UK Court of Appeal have ruled that Police in South Wales violated the right to privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights, through the unlawful use of facial recognition technology. The ruling comes after a legal challenge by civil rights group, Liberty, who took up the case of a man whose face was scanned as he was Christmas shopping in Cardiff in 2017 and attending an anti-arms protest in 2018. Mr Bridges, who is a civil rights campaigner, had argued that his human rights were breached when his biometric data was used without his consent.

Facial recognition identifies people through distinguishable features on the face, and compares them with identities on watch lists such as criminal suspects, missing persons or people of interest. Bridges had lost his original case at the High Court, but the Court of Appeal held that his right to privacy, under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, was violated as the police had been allowed too much discretion in applying the technology. The Court also found that South Wales Police had failed to investigate racial and gender bias in their facial recognition algorithms.

Mr Bridges, who is a former Liberal Democrat councillor for Gabalfa in Cardiff, said that he did not set out to make a case on the issue, but after the protest at an arms fayre at Cardiff International Arena, where he felt the police were surveilling people to intimidate protestors, he decided to get in touch with Liberty. The 37 year old, who used crowd-funding to pay for the legal costs, said “We have policing by consent in this country”.

Liberty lawyer Megan Goulding described the judgment as a “major victory in the fight against discriminatory and oppressive facial recognition” and civil rights campaign organisation, Big Brother Watch said it “should deter police from lawlessly rolling out other kinds of oppressive technologies”. The Surveillance Camera Commissioner, an independent appointee of the Home Office, welcomed the judgement, saying the “use of this technology will not and should not get out of the gate if the police cannot demonstrate its use is fair and non-discriminatory.”

Meanwhile, South Wales Police, are playing the judgement down, reiterating their commitment to the “careful development and deployment” of the technology but Daragh Murray, Senior Lecturer here at the Essex Human Rights Centre, has said “It means that any use of facial recognition must be stopped until an appropriate legal basis is established.”

Human Rights in Asia Conference 2020

July 15, 2020July 15, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Alana Meier

Last week the 12^th annual Human Rights in Asia Conference took place in the form of two virtual panel discussions. Originally scheduled to happen in person at the University of Essex 21 March, the event was postponed due to the sudden COVID-19 outbreak. However, the students pushed through to find a new way to bring this important event to light.

The Origins of the Essex Human Rights in Asia Conference

Despite ongoing violations and the need for a stronger focus on human rights, Asia is a region often overlooked in western human rights education. The absence of a regional human rights mechanism for Asia is one of the reasons often attributed for this. Yet, this absence actually compounds the existing challenges faced by human rights defenders and practitioners in the region.

To compensate for this gap, postgraduate students from the University of Essex launched the Human Rights in Asia Conference in 2009. This now annual conference is predominantly student run, with the support of Dr. Sanae Fujita and the Essex HRC Events and Communication team. Each year a specific country situation or thematic area is chosen. Past years’ themes included development and human rights in Asia, natural disasters and human rights, human rights in Myanmar and human rights in South Asia.

A Focus on Human Trafficking

The inspiration for this year’s theme – Human Trafficking – came following the heartbreaking and horrific incident that occurred on 23 October 2019 whereby 39 people were found dead in a lorry container in Essex. The victims included ten teenagers, the youngest of whom were two 15-year-old boys, are believed to have come from Vietnam. The driver of the lorry has since been charged with 39 counts of manslaughter as well as human trafficking and immigration offences, and five other have been charged in connection with the investigation on ground of conspiring to assist unlawful immigration.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2018 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons indicated that the overall number of identified and reported trafficking victims has increased. Their research found these numbers are most pronounced in the Americas and across Asia; a reality which is illustrated in the Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC) global map on victims of trafficking data. This could mean more people are being trafficked, but it could also be because countries have increased their capacities to detect this crime and identify victims in addition to the international community’s focus on in developing standards for data collection.

Most of the victims detected across the world are female – the majority of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and 35 per cent of those for forced labour are female. These are also the two most common forms of exploitation associated with human trafficking taking place across Asia.

The Human Rights in Asia conference offered attendees an opportunity to learn more about the different patterns of trafficking that have emerged in the respective countries in which each of the panelists live and/or work. As well, different areas of research interest and approaches to combating human trafficking – from policy implementation to grassroots prevention- were explored.

An event in 2 virtual parts…

The first event of the two-part series took place Tuesday 7 July and focused on broader international and legal perspectives on human trafficking in Asia. The panel was moderated by Dr Marija Jovanovic and featured presentations by:

Professor Parosha Chandran – Human Rights Barrister and Professor of Practice in Modern Slavery Law at King’s College London
Sarah Mount – Senior Program Officer for Freedom Fund’s Thailand and Ethiopia hotspots.

The second panel occurred Thursday 9 July and offered approaches at a more national level with a focus on Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal and India. It was moderated by post-graduate LLM and MA students, Anila Baskar and Alana Meier. The conference organisers aimed to have representation from working in difference regions and disciplines such as non-governmental organisations, journalism, and academia. The speakers included:

Hannah Bondi – Community Human Rights London’s SDG 8.7 Programme Officer
Veerawit Tianchainan is Executive Director of The Freedom Story, Thailand
Dr Shovita Dhakal Adhikari – Lecturer in Criminology and Joint Programme Lead for BA Sociology and Criminology Programme at Bournemouth University
Giang Nguyen – News Editor at BBC Vietnamese World Service

Overall, the conference had another successful year providing the platform for over 200 attendees to deepen their understanding of human rights in Asia. Recordings of both events will soon be made available by the Human Rights Center. Additionally, the report for this year which will be published in coming weeks, as well as access to past year’s reports, can be found here.

Statues are falling: The case of HM Stanley – an erasure of history or a necessary revision?

July 13, 2020July 13, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

by Sinéad Coakley

All around the world, we are seeing the removal or modification of tangible cultural heritage, either by forceful means or by government action. This global debate was triggered by the abrupt and harrowing murder of George Floyd in the USA at the hands of a man employed by the state to protect him. It provoked mass protests around the world highlighting the much overdue need to adequately address systemic racial inequality, institutional racism and controversial heritage.

The statues at the centre of this debate across Europe are predominantly statues of men involved in Europe’s much-celebrated imperial exploits. Figures such as Cecil Rhodes, Robert Milligan, and Winston Churchill have come under intense scrutiny across the UK following the dramatic removal of Edward Colston from a plinth in Bristol. We, as a society, now find ourselves at a time of reckoning as we question the statuary on our streets. We need to consider the role that cultural heritage has within our communities and whether removing these statues is a removal of history.

Cultural heritage is an expression of the ways of life of a community, which is passed on from generation to generation. Tangible heritage such as statues and monuments denotes the physical representation of the values, beliefs and traditions of that community. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have reiterated that cultural rights are essential for the maintenance of human dignity and positive social interaction between individuals and communities.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) further affirm that cultural heritage should be recognised and acknowledged for the benefit of present and future generations. Thus, ideally the statues in the public realm should reflect, and be a source of, communal bonds in which all members of the community (local communities and the wider state) can identify with and protect. So what should we do with controversial heritage – cultural heritage that does not promote human dignity and social cohesion?

Two communities having this dialogue at the moment are Denbigh and St Asaph in North Wales. Both have had to consider the fate of two statues commemorating a lesser-known historical figure – ‘Denbigh’s Son’ – Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley has come under scrutiny due to his involvement in colonialism as he explored central Africa and worked as an agent of King Leopold II (whose own statue was removed in Antwerp for his genocidal policies in Africa). Both statues are surprisingly recent only having been created in 2011 in the hope to attract tourism.

At the time there was a letter of protest against the erection of the statue arguing that his expeditions have shaped the racial inequality still rife in todays society. Despite this, the statues were still commissioned and displayed. Local artist, Wanda Zyborska, holds an annual protest of the Denbigh statue by re-veiling it in black rubber; the rubber is particularly symbolic given the exploitation of rubber in the Congo. During the recent Black Lives Matter protests, protesters turned their back to Stanley and “took a knee” (a symbolic protest now synonymous to the BLM movement first initiated by Colin Kaepernick in 2016).

On 24^th June both councils decided the fate of these statues. Despite persistent pressure from the community to remove them both councils effectively voted to keep the statues in place (for now). St Asaph Council, whose statue depicting Stanley is an obelisk portraying his life, opted to modify the obelisk with a plaque depicting a more neutral explanation of history.

A working party will be set up to draft the wording that would better reflect today’s climate. This is something that Bristol Council tried in 2018 to address Colston’s role in the slave trade. However, this caused further controversy as it was felt the plaque laundered Colston’s enslavement of black people. Denbigh Council, on the other hand, voted (6-5) that the statue depicting Stanley standing with an outstretched hand would not be removed, but would open up the debate to a public consultation. This consultation will take place once lockdown restrictions are lifted in Wales. Both decisions here have the opportunity to promote much needed dialogue. St Asaph Council has the power to enable the community to decide collectively what is an appropriate and accurate explanation of history. Denbigh Council also has the opportunity to start dialogue and reassess whether the statue has a place within their community.

Other communities have already made attempts to address these questions. The University of Liverpool has agreed to rename a building named after former Prime Minister William Gladstone, for his links to the slave trade. The statue of slave owner Robert Milligan was removed by the Canal and River Trust in London as a way of recognising the wishes of the community. Throughout America, statues of Confederates have been removed. Likewise, Alaskan and Australian communities are deciding the fate of statues of Captain James Cook for his links to colonialism. In London, a commission will be set up to review and improve diversity across London’s public realm to ensure that the landmarks suitably reflect the capital’s achievements and diversity.

The removal of these statues has been met with severe opposition in certain quarters. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has argued that the removal of any further statue is the erasure of our history. This is the predominant argument that underpins a lot of the discussion surrounding these statues and it is something that needs addressing.

Firstly, arguing that the removal of these statues is an erasure of our history implies a role that statues do not necessarily achieve. As David Olusoga correctly states, statues are not particularly good at telling us our history. History is complicated. Pure objectivity does not exist in accounts of the past and there are many interpretations of it. Resisting the removal of these statues is resisting the realities of the new (more objective) understanding of the past. By removing the statues we are no longer giving legitimacy to a history that they infer. British exceptionalism has allowed us to portray our history in a whitewashed manner – ignorant to the mass oppression of minority groups.

Secondly, in some instances the intentional destruction of cultural heritage can indeed be to erase history. Throughout history, cultural heritage has been destroyed in this way because it is an identity marker of a group of people. It is an assault upon a peoples’ identity in an aim to demoralise, disenfranchise and humiliate them, as seen during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. In some cases, the destruction of heritage is part of a broader plan of genocide – to erase the very existence of a group of people and remove them from the annals of history.

However, this is not what is happening here. This is not an assault upon our cultural heritage but a call to acknowledge present day racism and structural inequality by reconsidering the past. There have been calls for the removal of these statues for years. They are not being removed with the intent to erase history or to culturally cleanse a people. Instead, people within the community are demonstrating that there is no space for these symbols of intolerance and hate within the fabric of their community and they reject them. Regardless of the reasoning behind the creation of these controversial statues, we must focus on the message they send in the present day.

It is a message – seen by many of – endorsing colonial iconography and white supremacy. It validates a history of intolerance and grave violations of human rights. By removing these statues of the likes of Colston and Stanley local communities are not removing them as historical figures, nor are they removing them from the historical record – they are simply removing the idea that they are worthy of celebration within the fabric of our culture.

The on-going global pandemic has gifted us with the ability to stop and evaluate the way in which we live our lives at an individual level but also as a community. We need to take this gift and ask ourselves these difficult questions in an open, inclusive dialogue. There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to how communities deal with their past. This is apparent in the different approaches taken so far across the UK (and the wider world). Whilst the blanket removal of some statues is welcome, it does stifle the opportunity for much needed dialogue.

I believe dialogue is needed in all communities. It will enable communities to collectively understand their history and cultural heritage exposing why these particular statues are symbols of intolerance and oppression. Cultural heritage is supposed to outlive many human generations and as a result, in considering the public setting in which these statues are placed, communities should be focusing on what message they want, as a community, to send to future generations. We need to consider why we celebrate the figures that we do and whether they merit our reverence – a dialogue Denbigh and St Asaph have been afforded at the moment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sinéad is currently a PhD candidate at The University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on transitional justice responses to the intentional destruction of cultural heritage in post-conflict states. Her research interests include: minority rights, cultural rights, cultural heritage, transitional justice and international humanitarian law.

International Human Rights Weekly News Roundup

July 7, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

This week’s stories in focus:

A ‘weapon of repression’: China’s national security law:

by Bethany Webb-Strong

On the 30^th June, China announced a new national security law which grants Beijing sweeping powers over semi-autonomous Hong Kong, representing a colossal threat to Hong Kong’s sovereignty. The security law details 66 articles which criminalise secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security. Suspected individuals, including non-residents accused of violating the law on Hong Kong territory, may face penalties as severe as life imprisonment and complex cases can be sent to mainland China for trial. The law grants increased police powers, allowing for searches of homes and electronic devices without a warrant and restriction upon residents travelling overseas.

The national authorities have explicitly passed the legislation in reaction to escalating protests and violence in the city since last year; Chief Executive, Carrie Lam declared ‘these acts have crossed the ‘one country’ red line and called for resolute action’. Although Lam asserts the new law will not undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, the legislation will take precedence over Hong Kong law in cases of disparity. Critics have denounced the law as ‘the end of Hong Kong’ and Joshua Rosenzweig, the head of Amnesty International’s China Team, has proclaimed that the law ‘represents the greatest threat to human rights in the city’s recent history’.

It is predicted the measures will be used by China to quash dissenters, threatening the rule of law and fundamental freedoms including the right to freedom of expression. High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet has reiterated that implementation must comply with China’s human rights obligations and cannot criminalise ‘conduct and expression that is protected under international human rights law’. Amnesty International have highlighted the speed with which the new law was passed, suggesting this is an ‘ominous signal’ that the security law may be used against pro-democracy candidates in the upcoming Hong Kong elections in September.

More than 370 individuals have already been arrested since protests against the new law began on the 1^st July, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return from British governance to Chinese role. Many journalists and lawyers in Hong Kong are concerned over whether the broad provisions will affect their work and stifle the reporting of pro-democracy protests as the city grapples with the new measures. Mere hours after the legislation was enacted, the pro-democracy party led by Joshua Wong, Demosisto, disbanded. Tik Tok is the first company to declare it’s exit from Hong Kong and is amongst several other social media and technology firms who have expressed disquiet about the impact of legislation upon their operations. Facebook, Twitter and Google have suspended the processing of Hong Kong government requests for user data until they can assess the full implications of the new legislation.

The new security law has triggered debates in the UN Human Rights Council, with Cuba representing 53 states who have announced their support of the draconian measures. The UK led a statement in opposition to the new legislation, backed by 26 other states. Boris Johnson has criticised the law for breaching the Sino-British joint declaration, promising in response that the UK will provide Hong Kong residents with British national status with a route to citizenship. New UK human rights sanctions legislation is due to be published in the coming weeks which will allow for sanctions to be imposed against individual perpetrators of human rights violations. However, it is unclear whether Chinese officials will be amongst those named on publication. Although not party to the Human Rights Council, the US has also stood publicly in opposition against the new law; the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo announced the US would ‘not stand idly by while China swallows Hong Kong into its authoritarian maw’. With all eyes fixed on Hong Kong this week, the new national security law has undoubtedly polarised the international community.

UK announces sanctions under new human rights regime:

by Lauren Ng

On July 5^th, the Secretary of State, Dominic Raab, announced that the UK will be imposing new human rights sanctions against individuals accused of the “most notorious human rights abuses” in recent years:
“Today this government and this house sends a very clear message on behalf of the British people that those with blood on their hands, the thugs of despots, the henchman of dictators will not be free to waltz into this country.”

The measures will be effective immediately and will affect 49 individuals and organisations from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Myanmar and North Korea. This is the first time the UK has imposed human rights sanctions on human rights violations and abuses, independent of the UN and EU. Notable implicated cases include the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 by Saudi Arabian officials. The sanctions will comprise of asset freezes and travel bans for those named and penalised.

While the sanctions have been largely favoured by MPs, concerns were raised with regards to the absence of Chinese targets on the list. Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, noted that no Chinese officials involved in the repression of Uighur Muslims were included. In addition, a growing number of MPs have since called for the Hong Kong chief executive, Carrie Lam, to be incriminated as well for her support of the new security laws in Hong Kong enforced by Beijing.

It has also been recognised that the sanctions will inevitably cause further tension in the geopolitical relationship between the UK and Russia. A day after Raab’s announcement, the Russian Embassy retaliated, stating that Moscow reserves every “right to reciprocate” and will likewise be imposing sanctions against the UK.

With the first measures for the newfound global British human rights regime in place, only time will tell as to how the new measures will affect the wider diplomatic relationships between countries.

Spotlight on Clive Stafford Smith OBE

June 22, 2020June 22, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

Part 1 of 2

Each month, the HRC Blog features a significant figure from the Human Rights community to go under the Spotlight, answering questions put by students from the University of Essex. This month, we feature Clive Stafford Smith OBE. This is part 1 of 2.

About Clive

Clive Stafford Smith is the founder of ‘Reprieve’ and a well known human rights lawyer. He has spent his career fighting against the death penalty in America, only taking cases of those who could not afford a lawyer, assisting in the representation over 400 prisoners and preventing their execution in 98% of cases. Clive is also known for his work in representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay, successfully suing the US government to gain access to the facility, and helping to secure the release of some 80 detainees to date, with seven clients still there. In addition to visiting and representing the detainees, Clive tracked down the families of ‘disappeared’ prisoners across the Middle East, prompting some unwelcome ‘interest’ from US allies, including the Jordanian Secret Police, who detained him in 2004. In 2000, Clive was awarded an OBE for ‘humanitarian services’ and has won a raft of awards in the field of human rights.

Students’ Questions Answered

Clive was gracious enough to allow the students at Essex an opportunity to send him some questions about his experiences and ongoing work in the field of human rights. Clive answered questions on a range of topics. This first part focuses on the Death Penalty and the impact of COVID 19

DEATH PENALTY

Q: Due to the racial bias in its administration, historic links have been made comparing the death penalty in the US to lynching methods previously used in the South. From your experience working on capital punishment within the US criminal justice system, in what ways would you agree that the death penalty is a “direct descendant of lynching”, and in what ways would they differ?

A: First, it must be said that the US has a direct form of lynching today, which is the assassination programme, a simple case of “execution without trial” (which is what lynching was). The archetype of this is the case we have pending of Bilal Abdul Kareem, an African American comedian-turned-war-correspondent who is in Syria, and who the US has tried to killed five times to date. So there is more than one form of US death sentence.

But in terms of the death penalty as it is more commonly conceived, it is only a system of societal control, the same as lynching. The underpinnings of lynching involve a racism that seeks to play poor white people (the KKK and their ilk) against (primarily) poor black people to prevent them seeking common cause – a demand for equality. Likewise, it is ludicrous to think that the death penalty solves anything. Instead, it is a way to pretend that we are solving the manifest problems in society (crime, which is mainly rooted in poverty, the proliferation of guns, drugs, and a lack of healthcare) by blaming a small number of disproportionately black ‘criminals’ and executing them. Of course, this does nothing to solve the problems.

At the same time as with lynching, where the ‘victim’ was generally a white woman (who might only have been the object of a cat-whistle, but might have been raped by someone), we use the death penalty to value people differently. As Justice Brennan wrote in his dissent in the McCleskey case:

At some point in this case, Warren McCleskey doubtless asked his lawyer whether a jury was likely to sentence him to die. A candid reply to this question would have been disturbing. First, counsel would have to tell McCleskey that few of the details of the crime or of McCleskey’s past criminal conduct were more important than the fact that his victim was white. Petitioner’s Supplemental Exhibits (Supp. Exh.) 50. Furthermore, counsel would feel bound to tell McCleskey that defendants charged with killing white victims in Georgia are 4.3 times as likely to be sentenced to death as defendants charged with killing blacks. Petitioner’s Exhibit DB 82. In addition, frankness would compel the disclosure that it was more likely than not that the race of McCleskey’s victim would determine whether he received a death sentence: 6 of every 11 defendants convicted of killing a white person would not have received the death penalty if their victims had been black, Supp. Exh. 51, while, among defendants with aggravating and mitigating factors comparable to McCleskey’s, 20 of every 34 would not have been sentenced to die if their victims had been black. Id., at 54. Finally, the assessment would not be complete without the information that cases involving black defendants and white victims are more likely to result in a death sentence than cases featuring any other racial combination of defendant and victim. Ibid. The story could be told in a variety of ways, but McCleskey could not fail to grasp its essential narrative line: there was a significant chance that race would play a prominent role in determining if he lived or died.

I was privileged to represent Warren in his last appeal, and it is indubitably true that he died because the US could not face the fact that he was being killed due to the colour of his skin.

Q: Your decades’ long work seeking to counter the death penalty in the US will have exposed you to the depth and extent of racism in the United States. How do you think the human rights community can contribute to the struggle to denounce and overcome racism in the US?

A: First, British people should take a look in the mirror. At least the US talks about racism and tries to confront it. The British don’t, and the comments I have heard from British people in the past BLM-weeks have been sad. “I believe all life matters,” is a refrain you would never hear in the US, any more than you would go to the funeral of someone’s child and hear someone say, “I believe the life of my own child matters too.”

Also, the British legal system is rife with racism yet nobody talks about it. At current rates, it would take 100 years for there to be proportional BAME parity among QCs and judges (and 50 years for women). Almost three quarters (74%) of judges went to private schools.

That said there are real problems in the US, a country that was built on slavery (much as the wealth of Britain was made, in large part, on the same dreadful practice). Yet at least in the US we have the tools to combat it. We can question jurors about racism (Turner v. Murray) – there is no questioning at all in the UK. We can challenge racism in all the stages of the legal process (Rose v. Mitchell, McCleskey v. Kemp) – it is unheard of in the UK. We can challenge the racial decision making by jurors (Tharpe v. Sellers) – it is a crime to speak to jurors about their service in the UK. And so forth.

But the real issue is that we need people who are making the effort. That means you.

Q: What kind of practical obstacles have you faced in your journey of bringing justice to those facing the death penalty?

A: There are many. Some of the rules of the US Supreme Court are just fatuous for their failure to take into account reality.

Marita and Kris Maharaj

When I started doing capital trials, I had just graduated Columbia Law School, and most of my colleagues had gone to firms on Wall Street where they were paid $1,000 an hour to waste their lives representing corporations over money. We were paid $1,000 for an entire capital case. And when the clients were on death row, they were meant to represent themselves – they could only have lawyers if they had volunteers…

And then there is the issue of innocence – the US Supreme Court has held that “mere” innocence is not enough to release someone from death row (Herrera v. Collins). This is why Kris Maharaj – my British client sentenced to death 33 years ago, now 81 years old – remains in prison despite the magistrate judge finding that he is innocent by “clear and convincing evidence” last September 13^th – nine months ago.

But there are many other reasons. One is the standard of proof. While people say they must find a person guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”, my not very scientific studies suggest that judges think this means around 83% sure – which we may translate as saying they are aiming to convict one innocent person in every six cases, or one million of the 6 million Americans who are in prison or facing it. (As Robin Hood reminds us, if you aim that low, you always miss.)

Sad to say, similar problems permeate the British system too.

Q: How does the approach to working on behalf of detainees in certain black sites/ secret prisons differ from cases of prisoners facing the death penalty and is one more challenging than the other?

A: Part of the problem with black sites is that you cannot get to your client, there is no rule of law, and they have no legal rights. So that is much more challenging. But at the same time, we have got 740 of the 780 people out of Guantánamo largely through publicity, as generally public opinion favours those being held without trial more than it favours those being held on death row after an unfair trial.

COVID 19

Q: How has the COVID19 pandemic, considering government responses to the outbreak in particular, impacted upon detention centres like Guantánamo Bay and US death row prisons?

A: Prisons are, in the words of the Washington Post, “petri dishes of the virus.” My clients cannot “social distance” from anyone. The best example is Kris Maharaj: 81 years old, held now in a dormitory with 45 other old men, locked in their in “quarantine” now they have had 4 men test positive, which means you are locking him in with the virus, in beds that are 3 feet apart, 24/7. We got him off formal death row in 2002, but now the State of Florida is intent on executing him by Covid 19, before we can get him out of prison.

Q: Do you think lockdown measures have caused attitudes to change towards detention or have helped to raise awareness about the conditions experienced by detainees?

A: No. I think people think they have had it like prison which is nonsense.

Q: How has Reprieve’s work been impacted by the COVID19 pandemic?

A: I can really only speak for myself. It is busier than ever and actually I have generally found I waste lots of time travelling when I can get much more done by staying home. The only thing I really miss is being able to go to Guantánamo and see the clients in person, but at least I can talk to them regularly on the phone.

Part 2 of our Spotlight with Clive Stafford Smith OBE will cover the topics of counter-terrorism, The US Criminal Justice system and the ‘de-mystification’ of the curriculum.

The fight for equality starts at the local level

June 17, 2020June 18, 2020 / hrcessex / Leave a comment

By Myriam Naoual

While we often talk about the role of international entities and NGOs in the fight against discrimination, local not-for-profit organisations and charities do not receive such recognition or attention. However, these organisations are usually the ones contributing more directly to promoting equality within the local community. My organisation, Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE), is one of them. Its main purpose as a Charity is to support individuals and organisations in the local community to understand the nature and extent of inequality in fields such as the criminal justice system, housing, employment, education, health, and social care.

ISCRE is one of the very few remaining local Racial Equality Councils. It was created in 1977, a time when Racial Equality Councils were being implemented all over the country in response to the overt discrimination and violence against minority communities at the time. It was set up following the Race Equality Act 1965, the very first piece of legislation outlawing racial discrimination in public places in the UK. The principal reason for the creation of ISCRE in Suffolk was to address a number of problems faced by the BAME community locally, notably with regard to housing, education and the police force. At the time, cases of discrimination were prevalent in Ipswich. Local authorities were pushing black minorities to establish themselves in only three areas of the town and were making it difficult for them to live elsewhere. In schools, the BAME community was left behind in the curriculum and black children were made to feel inferior. In policing, racial discrimination was pervasive as black people were often being stopped for no apparent reason. In this climate of inequality, ISCRE was there to improve relations between public bodies and racial minorities by raising awareness about the challenges they faced.

Nowadays ISCRE still provides a platform for BAME communities to engage with mainstream service provision. However, it has now expanded to cover all aspects of equality. We work across all public services, including in the provision of criminal justice, prisons, schools and the health sector. We focus on the communities which are hard to reach or isolated, including individuals with disabilities and people who need cultural or religious support. We do not aim to speak on behalf of the communities, but rather we engage with them to establish where services are not responding appropriately to their needs. As an organisation, we are working to eradicate inequalities by challenging decision makers. More importantly, we scrutinise service providers to ensure that when providing their services, they understand and take into account the different cultural backgrounds of the people living in Suffolk.

The cover of the ISCRE Annual Report – a painting of 2 of their colleagues and 2 trustees

A good example of our current work is our prison project. The purpose of this project is to look critically at the relationship between crime and race, by working both with those currently in prison and with police officers. In prison, there is often no space for men to talk about how their cultural experience is related to ethnicity or religion, and how each individual’s challenges differ depending on their cultural backgrounds. It is often believed that people commit crime because of their race, whereas in reality it is mostly because BAME individuals come from the poorest communities. Police officers do not yet have the adequate training to understand the challenges faced by people from the BAME community and how they are disproportionately affected. ISCRE aims to challenge common misconceptions and to start a discussion about disproportionality in the prison setting. We try to give men a safe space to discuss their cultural experience. We help them understand why they are in custody and how beyond prison they can make more informed decisions. We also seek to create a positive relation with police officers by informing them and raising awareness about the diversity of backgrounds.

In addition to providing a platform for local communities to address discrimination in their public services, ISCRE also devised a way to raise awareness at the local level to prevent discrimination, as well as to ensure access to legal help for individuals who have been discriminated against. In 2013, the project ‘Tackling Discrimination in the East’ (TDE) was born. TDE provides free legal advice, assistance and representation to anyone experiencing unlawful discrimination whilst living and/or working in Suffolk (and to a lesser extent Norfolk). The project’s main tools are public legal education, awareness raising, leaflet guidance, public scrutiny and legal casework. TDE is now part of Suffolk Law Centre, a charity which was set up by ISCRE in 2018 and which also provides a general Legal Advice Clinic for individuals from vulnerable backgrounds.

Working for ISCRE and Suffolk Law Centre has made me realise how important local work is. While it is often assumed that those who can really make a change in the fight against discrimination are lawmakers and politicians, I believe that the fight for equality starts at the local level, where it is led by affected communities themselves. By working alongside members of the community on a day-to-day basis, I can see the positive impact of the work we do on people’s lives here in Suffolk, especially for the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, most local charities do not get the level of recognition they deserve for challenging disadvantage and promoting equality for everyone. We hope that the current Black Lives Matter movement and the newly acquired consciousness of society will raise awareness about all the work achieved locally to prevent discrimination and challenge inequalities.