~ 2120 Tuesday 18 04 17 :-
The rotten heart of Europe
by Baroness Deech • 18/04/2017 •
Despite all the talk about the importance of maintaining our membership of the European Convention on Human Rights,
it is increasingly seeming to be a dead letter in other European countries.
Here is a very brief rundown.
(It is sad that space does not permit coverage of yet more appalling situations in member states of the EU).
Hungary – discrimination against the Roma; detention of migrants in containers; refusal to accept the EU-determined quota of migrants; closing the independent Central European University; a razor wire fence on the border with Serbia and Croatia.
Austria has built a fence on the Slovenian border; Bulgaria has built a fence on the Turkish border to stop migration; Greece has fenced off Macedonia; Slovenia has fenced off Croatia.
Croatia – discrimination against the Roma; journalists under attack.
Slovakia will take only Christian migrants
Poland – the media under control; it is being investigated for breaches of the rule of law by the European Commission; refuses Muslim migrants.
Romania – admitted corruption in the judiciary, business and tax.
Sweden – rising antisemitism.
In many European states, it is reported that intolerance, xenophobia, racism, domestic violence are on the rise. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/european-union. The European Parliament is calling for investigations into states’ complicity with rendition and torture. France has renewed her state of emergency for the fifth time.
And even more concerning is the fact that Germany, Italy and the Netherlands are among the European countries so heavily dependent on Russian oil (Gazprom) that there is no way they would contemplate sanctions against Russia for its actions in Syria or anywhere else. The Eastern European states still live in the shadow of their former Soviet oppression. So much for a united moral European foreign policy.
Why would any democracy with a real respect for human rights want to be in a union with these countries?
18/04/2017 at 7:55 pm
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Clear enough, baroness.
Taking your very informative report [‘though of necessity headlines only]
‘tail-end’ first, you “ask”:-
“Why would any democracy with a real respect for human rights want to be in a union with these -” [other sorts of ‘democracy’] “- countries ?”
“The world has never yet had a “24/7 peoples-participatory-democracy -” [Historians speaking, this is] –
“- the nearest is the “Three-Party State”
based upon a 5-yearly few minutes per elector
to silently and wordlessly mark a small piece of paper with a pencilled X for a “person”
rather than for a “needs-based-policy/manifesto” or “list of Needs and Rights” –
the Constitution and Parliaments should be based upon every-one-of-the-Peoples’ Needs
and NB please that “Rights” need to follow Needs,
because every-one needs a “right” to “satisfy”or meet each of their needs –
and to do so
***sustain-worthily***
(including sustainably, affordably, and peace-abiding-legally)
{Our de facto Pseudo-Democracy in turn narrows down to
firstly “two-party state (e.g. Tory versus Labour)”
and nextly to “Three-Party-State” {as under the recent British Coalition Tory-&-Liberal ‘versus’ Labour} –
which ultimately results in the dominant-numbers party “winning the day” –
in Britain namely at present the Tory Party and/or_
their Tory-party-internally-appointed “leader” or Prime Minister
(but again NOT a democraticly-elected Office and top-governance job).
——————– need to pause here, I think ——————
– but let it be recommended to take note
that it is also the United Nations itself
that continues failing to establish
(1) an Individual Human Development Programme and Index
(2) a Longest-Term Sustain-worthy Human-Race-on-Earth Purpose
and
(3) a United Aggregate Human Development Programme thereto.
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