Europe must not turn its back on human rights just to please UK

To get what they want in the Council of Europe, British politicians are willing to sell human rights protections down the river across Europe - warns Amnesty International

This week, ambassadors from the 47 member states of the Council of Europe are meeting behind closed doors in Strasbourg to discuss proposals put forward by the United Kingdom - to reform the European Court of Human Rights. Masquerading as reforms to improve the court's effectiveness, many of these proposals will reverse years of progress in access to justice for individuals across Europe. The UK holds the chairmanship of the CoE until May, and has made plain its intention to use this position to stem the power and scope of the court. In the leaked draft of the document being negotiated - the Brighton Declaration - the British government set out ways in which the court could be changed and its powers reduced. 

On examination of the proposed reforms, it is clear that the UK government is thinking exclusively of the decisions which have gone against it and is lashing out to prevent the court from further perceived interference - with a view to satisfying the domestic political lobby. In fact, the court only rarely overturns the decisions of British courts. But in order to satisfy the critics at home, the British government is prepared to champion changes which could have a devastating effect on the future of the European human rights system - which provides vital protection for 800 million people 

The court's job is to enforce the European Convention on Human Rights. It hears cases which arise in any of the CoE's 47 member states. Cases from Britain account for only 2.4 per cent of those reviewed by the court. More than 25 per cent of cases come from Russia. Collectively, Russia, Turkey, Italy, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Poland and Bulgaria account for more than 50 per cent of its caseload. For individuals from those countries, the court provides the only means of redress for millions of people. This February, the court found Russia responsible after police took a man from his cell into a forest where they beat, kicked and throttled him to force a confession to murder. The court also held Ukraine responsible for a police beating, which left a man disabled. In both cases, the authorities failed to investigate police crimes and to bring those responsible to justice. 

A lese totu d'artiklu visiter www.publicserviceeurope.com, multu danku!

© 2012 Amiki d'Eulingu

Eksplorer Juger Y Partiziper! :-)

Estun "Amiki d'Eulingu", un komunitu d'populi kel amer Europu y si lingi y kulturi. Estun developer Eulingu, un projektu d'lingu y un konzeptu simplus a uner Europu in "un tongu". Estut aver interesu in Eulingu? Estun chercher-tu a partiziper in developu d'Eulingu. Kontakter-nu in grup d'Eulingu y/o in grup d'Amiki d'Eulingu in Facebook. Multi danki!

We are the "Friends of Eulingu", a community of people which love Europu and its languages and cultures. We develop Eulingu, a language project and a simple concept to unite Europe in "one tongue". You are interested in Eulingu? We are looking for you to participate in the development of Eulingu. Contact us in the Eulingu group and/or the Amiki d'Eulingu group on Facebook. Many thanks!

© 2011 Amiki d'Eulingu

PM Enda Kenny adreser populi iris

Lo ministro primos d'Iru, Enda Kenny, adreser li populi iris. Estu lu adresu primus in 30 ani. In su parlu, esto eksplaner lu krisu irus, li impakti in lu ekonomu y presenter su "konzeptu d'eskapu".

© 2011 RTE

Justizu Por Meredith?

Perugia. Amanda Knox is due to fly home to the US after her conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher was overturned.

Miss Knox, 24, and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were released from prison on Monday night after the acquittals. The American, who wept with relief in court when the verdict was read out, will now fly home from Rome to the US. She had been serving a 26-year sentence and Sollecito 25 years for the murder of Meredith, a British student, in Perugia in November 2007. The 21-year-old was discovered semi-naked with her throat cut in her bedroom of the house she shared with Miss Knox.

Her parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, who have regularly travelled from their home in Seattle to Italy to visit her over the past four years, hugged their lawyers and cried with joy. Speaking outside court soon after the judgment, Miss Knox's family said the "nightmare was over". Her sister Deanna Knox said she was "thankful", adding: "(Amanda) has suffered for four years for a crime that she did not commit."

But some of the hundreds of observers gathered outside shouted "Shame, shame!" when they heard the verdict. One bystander shouted: "Run off back to America on your private jet."

Miss Knox, 24, who has been in prison since November 2007, was found guilty of the murder of 21-year-old Miss Kercher two years later, despite protesting her innocence. Although she has been acquitted of murder, the judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman upheld her conviction on a charge of slander for accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of carrying out the killing. She was given a three-year prison sentence, all of which she has already served. Miss Knox was told she must pay 22,000 euros (£18,792) in compensation to Mr Lumumba. Mr Sollecito, 27, Miss Knox's Italian ex-boyfriend, had been serving a 25-year jail sentence over the killing of Miss Kercher.

The court decision means Miss Knox will now almost certainly strike a $1m deal with an American TV network as all the main stations have been frantically trying to secure rights to her first interview. In Seattle, about a dozen Knox supporters were overjoyed that she has been cleared of the murder conviction. At a hotel where they watched the court proceedings on TV, they shouted: "She's free!" and "We did it!". Meanwhile, Miss Kercher's mother Arline did not show a great deal of emotion.

She remained seated in the courtroom with her other children Lyle and Stephanie, who comforted each other. Miss Knox was acquitted "for not committing the act", the judge said, adding the evidence was not reliable, as he read out the ruling after 11 hours of jury deliberations. Although Miss Knox, her family and friends will be delighted with the decision of the judge and his jury of five women and one man, it means the heartbroken Kercher family still have no clear picture of what happened to their daughter. Key to the latest verdict was an independent court ordered report into hotly disputed DNA evidence.

Two forensic professors from Rome's La Sapienza University Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti had poured scorn on the original police forensic investigation of the crime scene, producing a damning conclusion of techniques and methods used. Key to the case was a 30cm kitchen knife retrieved in Mr Sollecito's flat and on which the original trial heard was found DNA from Miss Kercher on the blade and that of Miss Knox on the handle. Prosecutors confusingly said it was "not incompatible" with the murder weapon - which has never been found - while defence teams argued it was too big to have caused the wounds on Miss Kercher's throat. In addition the report also said that no blood was found on it and the DNA of Miss Kercher was so low is should be ruled inadmissible - in fact there was such a small amount it could not even be re-tested.

Por mori informazoni visiter SkyNews

German Unity Day

Wikipedia. The Day of German Unity (German: Tag der Deutschen Einheit) is the national day of Germany, celebrated on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates the anniversary of German reunification in 1990, when the goal of a unity of Germany that originated in the middle of the 19th century, was fulfilled. Therefore, the name addresses neither the re-union or union but the unity of Germany.

Before reunification, in West Germany the "Day of german Unity" (Tag der deutschen Einheit, without capital D) was 17 June, remembering the failed Uprising of 1953 in East Germany against the Stalinist government. The revolt was crushed with Soviet aid; the exact number of fatalities is unknown, but estimated at somewhere above 100. In East Germany, the national holiday was 7 October, the "Day of the Republic" (Tag der Republik), commemorating the founding of the German Democratic Republic in 1949.

An alternative choice to commemorate the reunification could have been the day the Berlin Wall came down—November 9, 1989, which coincided with the anniversary of the proclamation of the German Republic in 1918 and the defeat of Hitler's first coup in 1923. However, 9 November was also the anniversary of the first large-scale Nazi-led pogroms against Jews in 1938 (Kristallnacht), so the day was considered inappropriate as a national holiday. Therefore, 3 October 1990, the day of formal reunification, was chosen instead.