Amnesty has issues

I spent all day Saturday at another conference, this one hosted by Amnesty International, which stays very busy in Northern Ireland. The four areas of focus:

Reproductive rights. Abortion in Northern Ireland is governed by a law from 1861 criminalising the provision of abortion. Pro-choice advocates don’t even hope to get the UK’s 1967 law legalising abortion adopted here. Right now they are advocating for abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest. They estimate more than 5,000 women go to Great Britain or Europe for an abortion each year.

Equal marriage. Again, N.I. is the only place in the U.K. that hasn’t legalised same-sex marriage. A bill doing just that made it through the assembly for the first time last year, however the Democratic Unionist Party (descendants of Scottish Presbyterians) vetoed the measure. The DUP is also virulently anti-abortion. In both areas, it is out of step with the majority of voters. One hopes it’s a matter of time until the DUP is forced to step into the 21st century.

Repeal of the UK Human Rights Act. David Cameron has threatened to do this to assert independence from the European Court of Human Rights. Human rights advocates fear retrenchment on a range of issues.

Legacy of the Troubles. I went to the break-out session on this topic. The party line among NGOs is that the government is protecting members of the British military and of members of the paramilitaries on both sides of the conflict. As a result, families who lost members in Troubles-related violence have never had their day in court. There are 3,200 unsolved Troubles-related murders. In a conversation with one of my workshop attendees, I learned that it isn’t fully the fault of the British army. The police force during the Troubles--the Royal Ulster Constabulary--was largely a rural police force that didn’t have the skills needed to prosecute sectarian murders. Added to which the IRA blew up the forensics laboratory, destroying a building full of evidence. My new friend said the police failed to solve many murders of police and army personnel. If they were going to solve any cases, they would have looked after their own, he said.

Another narrative is that the British army and MI5 had thoroughly infiltrated the paramilitaries, with “snitches” on the inside of the IRA and the Protestant militias: UDA, UDR, UFF, UVF, etc. According to that narrative, many murders were orchestrated by said snitches, who were beyond the reach of investigators/prosecutors/inquests. In true John le Carre fashion, many murders were fratricide (say an IRA snitch killing enemies within the IRA hierarchy), yet blamed on the other side.

It’s possible both narratives are true. It is amazing to me that 3,200 murders are unsolved. AI’s position is, even if no one goes to jail for these murders, they need to be thoroughly investigated and families informed about why they are not resolved.
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