Human rights concerns (1)
01 January 1991
Human rights concerns
Amnesty International's (AI) latest report on the United Kingdom
sets out seven major areas of concern: ill-treatment by police
and prison officers; fair trial issues; arrests and detentions
on national security grounds; killings by security forces;
collusion between security forces and armed groups; derogation
from international Conventions; and the treatment of asylum
seekers.
The majority of documented cases of ill-treatment come from
Northern Ireland, and relate to the treatment by the RUC of
Catholic suspects, in which complaints of assault are
consistently high and have almost never resulted in disciplinary
action or prosecution against the officers concerned. In England
and Wales, the cases documented by AI include that of Mohammed
Hajiazim, awarded ¼25,000 damages in March 1991 as a result of
his claim that Metropolitan police officers had hit and kicked
him between the legs after his arrest for a parking offence,
resulting in his having to have a testicle removed.
AI expresses concern that unfair trials result from the denial
of legal advice to suspects and the use of uncorroborated and
contested admissions to secure convictions - features both
present in the Broadwater Farm cases of Winston Silcott, Mark
Braithwaite and Engin Raghip as well as in the Guildford Four and
Birmingham Six cases. Other concerns in this area relate to the
continued use of Diplock courts in Northern Ireland and the
special rules of evidence there.
AI is highly critical of the national security detentions and
deportations of Middle East nationals in 1990 and 1991. Some of
those detained and deported may, according to AI, have been
detained for their non-violent political activities, and as such
may have been prisoners of conscience. The procedure used during
the Gulf War whereby a panel of advisers reviewed national
security deportations is condemned as contravening international
standards of treatment.
Suspicions of extra-judicial executions by security forces in
Northern Ireland are, according to the report, exacerbated by
coroner's inquest rules and procedures which make it almost
impossible to get at the truth behind someone's death. AI is also
extremely critical of the handling of leaks by the RUC to
loyalist paramilitary groups of detailed information on IRA
suspects, including addresses, which pointed to official
involvement in sectarian killings. It criticises, too, the
government's derogation from the European Convention of Human
Rights in response to the Human Rights Court's finding that the
detention of suspects for seven days under the Prevention of
Terrorism Act violated the Convention.
Finally, the report condemns the illegal removal of asylum-
seekers, the lack of disciplinary action against immigration
officers who behave illegally, and the lack of a UK right of
appeal against the refusal of asylum. The report was published
before the Home Secretary's announcement of changes to refugee
procedures, and since its publication AI has added its voice to
the condemnation of those further restrictions on refugees' human
rights.
United Kingdom: Human Rights Concerns. Amnesty International,
June 1991
Statewatch no 4 September/October 1991