FURTHER to the article by Liz Thomson of Amnesty International (A human rights law must form key part of election pledges, Dec 10), I would make two points: (a) Human rights are not about migrants, they are about all citizens, including migrants. So an attack on human rights is an attack on all of us. (b) We do not need new legislation on human rights, what we need is to put existing UN human rights into Scots and English law.
In Germany in the 1930s, changes started to be made in the law which began to affect the human rights of the population, particularly, but not exclusively, the Jewish people. Initially the changes seemed minor. Jews were no longer classed as “citizens” they were termed “subject”, they were not allowed to sit on certain park benches, they were not allowed to use the local swimming pool. Eventually, as we all now know, this led to mass murder on an industrial scale.
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This undermining of people’s human rights was where the danger began, and after the war people were determined to ensure it did not happen again. This was why the UN set about defining human rights, and drawing up conventions that would ensure these rights were universally applied and that domestic law in any country, could not overrule UN human rights conventions. After all, that is exactly what the Nuremberg laws had done, and the UN was determined to prevent this happening again.
It is clear that our would-be colonial masters in the UK establishment are trying right now to undermine the UN conventions for the people in Scotland. I reported in a letter last week that five MSPs and a Scottish Government minister had prevented a petition signed by more than 7500 of the Scottish electorate from being considered by the Scottish Parliament. This is a direct attach on the human rights of the Scottish people, it is against international law and against the position of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. So are we going to allow this undemocratic, unlawful attack on our human rights to succeed? I sincerely hope that this blatant attach on our human rights will not be tolerated in Scotland.
Who is this UK establishment that wants to curtail our human rights? Is it the same establishment that had at least one operator working inside the IRA in Northern Ireland murdering innocent people in order to encourage sectarian conflict and divert people from their desire to have an independent country? Yes, it is that vile establishment. Now, why should a minority of elected “representatives” of the Scottish people act in this way in order to comply with the wishes of this vile UK establishment and against the interests of the Scottish people?
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Only these MSPs and this minister can tell us that, but it appears they are not keen to do that. Three of the MSPs were from Unionist parties based in England and led from there – only one of whom, Jackson Carlow, was directly elected to a constituency seat. The other two were put in place by their party in regional seats. That they should treat the Scottish electorate with contempt is not surprising, but what about the others? Two of them, Fergus Ewing and David Torrance, were elected as SNP representatives to constituency seats while the government minister encouraging them to support UK establishment policy was Angus Robertson MSP, also elected to a constituency as an SNP representative. I fail to see why anyone elected in Scotland to achieve independence could possibly agree with the UK that Scottish people should be denied their UN human rights, but that is what they voted for.
Now I expect that in a few months these same people will be asking the Scottish electorate to vote for them again after this betrayal. I challenge these people to write into The National and defend their actions on this important matter, and explain to us why the did not want the Scottish Parliament to even discuss this important petition. If they have the courage of their convictions they will do this, but if they haven’t they will hide away and hope we forget what they did.
Andy Anderson
Ardrossan
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