A brief look at human rights violations: (part 2) in Canada and UK

Reports and statistics from various national and international organizations and news agencies show that Human Rights is still more a dream than reality. Violations exist in every part of the world. In this report we take a glance at some human rights violations in Canada and the UK in April and May. There are full of shortcomings in their policies and rules that ultimately compromise the rights of their citizens and of human rights in general.

Canada
1- A University of Toronto human rights and Internet research group has criticized a Canadian-based company for allowing its technology to be used by countries for questionable practices against their people, including censorship. They found that this technology is being used to block access in these ten countries to a wide range of digital content protected by international legal frameworks, including religious content in Bahrain, political campaigns in the United Arab Emirates, and media websites in Yemen. The international deployment of this Canadian-made filtering technology raises a number of human rights, corporate social responsibility, and public policy concerns and questions.

2- Hundreds of frustrated Iranians living in Canada and abroad are urging the federal government to explain why their permanent-residency applications have faced what they describe as unreasonable delays. They are concerned the Canadian government is holding up Iranian immigration applications after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a travel ban on people from Iran last year.

3- Members of the United Nations Human Rights Council are urging Canada to improve its treatment of Indigenous people, in particular women and girls. Canada is still "failing millions of Canadians by denying them an equal chance to succeed and thrive”. Said Marie-Claude Landry, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The United Kingdom
4- UN human rights experts have expressed serious concerns over the deaths of a disproportionate number of people of African descent and of ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom as a result of excessive force by State security. Failure to properly investigate and prosecute such deaths results in a lack of accountability for those individuals and state agencies responsible, as well as in the denial of adequate remedies and reparation for the families of the victims.

5- The UK government has received warnings not only from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the cross-parliament joint committee on human rights, but also from a recent briefing co-produced by the Oxford Human Rights Hub and the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, that equality rights will be weakened as a result of the EU (Withdrawal) bill. The main problem stems from the government’s decision neither to bring the EU charter of fundamental rights into UK law after Brexit nor create a UK equivalent.

6- Online intimidation against prominent journalists and the threat of state regulation has left the UK in 40th place in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index which was compiled by Reporters without Borders. The UK has fallen 18 places since the index was first published in 2002 and is below South Africa (28), Lithuania (36) and Trinidad and Tobago (39).

7- According to Human Rights Watch a scandal has emerged over the fate of "Windrush" children, Commonwealth citizens who came to Britain from the Caribbean with their parents decades ago, but are now incorrectly being told they are here illegally. Some have lost their jobs and homes, while others have been deported, despite living lawfully in the United Kingdom for nearly all their lives. Windrush children have lived in Britain perfectly happily for decades: working hard, paying taxes, and raising families. After their valuable contribution to society, it is a terrible injustice that their legal status is now being threatened by immigration officials.

8- Female NHS staff in England earn nearly a quarter less than their male colleagues, figures show. The data covers more than one million workers in England from doctors and managers to nurses and cleaners. It raises serious questions for the NHS and government.

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