Today, the "Racial and Religious Hatred Bill", yet another ill-thought-through piece of New Labour legislation, was presented to our poodle Parliament for rubber-stamping. At the same time, the Council of Europe reviewed our recent record on human rights. Unsurprisingly, it finds us wanting.
This quote from Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, struck a chord with me: -
"...human rights are not a pick-and-mix assortment of luxury entitlements but the very foundation of democratic societies..."
If he is right, we in Britain - with our Burmese-style house arrests, our recent abolition of habeas corpus and our "antisocial behaviour orders" - are building on unsafe foundations.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
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