British human rights record in NI criticised

THE Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) said that Britain had been censured in a BUS administration document examining…

THE Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) said that Britain had been censured in a BUS administration document examining its human rights record in Northern Ireland.

The document, which is one of the State Department's "country reports", highlights concerns, about British government practices raised by the UN's Human Rights Committee, Committee Against Torture, and Committee on the Rights of the Child.

It states that the UN Human Rights Committee last year urged the British government to end emergency legislation in the North - which it did not do. The report referred to the release after four years of Private Lee Clegg who had been convicted for killing a "joyrider" in west Belfast in 1990.

It states that the Northern Ireland Life Sentence Review Board's guidelines generally require prisoners to have served at least 10 years before their cases are even considered.

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The report says that while more, than 350 people have been killed by the security forces in Northern Ireland - many in disputed circumstances - Private Clegg was only the fourth British soldier to be convicted after an incident.

The document also covers human rights abuses by the paramilitaries. The bodies of at least 14 people believed to have been abducted and killed by the IRA have not been returned, it notes.

The report states that the British government has ignored the FUN Human Rights Committee's call for Castlereagh Interrogation Centre in Belfast to be closed.

Mr Martin O'Brien of the Committee on the Administration of Justice said the report provided "a comprehensive and disturbing catalogue of human rights abuses".

An NIO spokesman said the report acknowledged ongoing terrorist intimidation last year. He welcomed its favourable comments on government measures to protect human rights over the years.