A brief look at human rights violation: (part 11) Canada and the UK

With regard to the human rights situation on the ground, human rights violations in different countries are concerning. In this article we take a look at human rights violations in Canada and in the United Kingdom during May 2019.

Canada
1- Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was denied her constitutional rights when she was detained for three hours at the Vancouver airport in December before her arrest at the request of U.S. authorities, her lawyers said. Meng’s detention amounted to an “abuse of process,” according to her lawyers, who are seeking to delay U.S. attempts to extradite her on fraud charges over dealings with Iran. Her lawyer also said comments by President Donald Trump about the case amounted to “political abuse.”
China has accused Canada of abetting "a political persecution" against its biggest technology company and has demanded the release of Meng.

2- A group of Canadian women’s organizations has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to withdraw controversial changes to asylum laws in his government’s omnibus budget bill because of the harm they would cause to women targeted by harsh U.S. immigration policies.
Last year, the United States said it wouldn’t accept asylum claims based on fleeing domestic violence. Canadian organizations that help vulnerable women said the American decision would mean any woman whose asylum claim was denied in the U.S. would also be denied full access to Canada’s refugee determination system under the Liberals’ budget bill.
“The proposed amendments are a step backward from Canada’s current refugee determination system, which has long recognized domestic violence as a basis on which women may seek Canada’s protection,” said Amanda Dale, director or the Feminist Alliance for International Action. These amendments have the result that women who experience domestic violence will not benefit from the full and fair process to which refugee claimants are entitled under law.

The UK
1- According to a report by The Guardian, at least five people have been killed in Jamaica since March last year after being deported from the UK by the Home Office. Despite strict rules prohibiting deportations to countries in which an individual’s life may be in danger, the killings took place after the men were sent back to Jamaica – which has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world. The government does not routinely monitor what happens to people who have been deported.
Some of the men had convictions for violent and drug-related offences. But Naga Kandiah, a public law solicitor at MTC & Co – which deals with many Jamaican deportation cases – said the government’s human rights obligations were not dependent on past behavior.

2- Britain’s record on immigration detention, rendition and prison overcrowding has become under intense international scrutiny at a meeting of the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Geneva. The high-profile examination of the UK’s human rights standards came in the wake of the “hostile environment” policies aimed at migrants and critical parliamentary reports on complicity in torture of jihadi suspects.
Before the regular country review, held by the UN every five years, a coalition of more than 80 civil society groups has submitted combined evidence highlighting what they believe are failures to protect basic rights. The report notes that the UK is the only European country with no time limit on immigration detention. In England and Wales, prisons remain extremely overcrowded, the coalition’s report states.
The UK prides itself as a global leader in the fight against torture. But as this report makes clear, a culture of tolerance to ill-treatment and even torture has developed in the last five years, and the situation has got worse, not better.

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