12 July 2001 Edition
Sinn Féin calls on UN to act on abuses
In a 40 page document presented to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Sinn Féin is calling on the human rights body to take the British government to task on a range of human rights abuses in the North.
In its submission, the party is accusing the British of violating European and international human rights charters through discrimination, state violence, excessive RUC powers and curbing freedom of expression.
The issues raised by Sinn Féin include a call for the banning of plastic bullets as well as an acceptance that the weapon has killed people in Ireland and that the new form of the bullet can, according to a Defence Scientific Advisory Council report, lodge in a person's skull if fired `head on'.
The party also calls for the release of the Stevens Report into collusion between crown forces and loyalist killers and an independent inquiry into 103 cases.
The submission also says that the British government must comply with a recent European Court of Human Rights ruling on the ``unlawful killings `` by the crown forces and loyalists of 14 nationalists and an acceptance that the investigations into those deaths were unsatisfactory.
It also calls on the UN to support independent judicial inquiries into crown forces involvement in the assassinations of lawyers Pat Finucane in February 1989 and Rosemary Nelson in March 1999.
The need for an independent inquiry into the death of Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill, killed by a loyalist mob in April 1997 as the RUC sat nearby in a Land Rover is also raised in the submission.
The Sinn Féin document also demands that retrospective powers of inquiry be given to the `Police' Ombudsman's Office to investigate human rights abuses by the RUC and the updating of equality legislation.
Given that in its current form the law does not tackle job discrimination against women, particularly nationalist women.
The submission calls for an end to the constitutional imperative that the British monarch must be Protestant and the insistence that MPs must swear an oath of allegiance to the British King or Queen.
In its submission, the party is accusing the British of violating European and international human rights charters through discrimination, state violence, excessive RUC powers and curbing freedom of expression.
The issues raised by Sinn Féin include a call for the banning of plastic bullets as well as an acceptance that the weapon has killed people in Ireland and that the new form of the bullet can, according to a Defence Scientific Advisory Council report, lodge in a person's skull if fired `head on'.
The party also calls for the release of the Stevens Report into collusion between crown forces and loyalist killers and an independent inquiry into 103 cases.
The submission also says that the British government must comply with a recent European Court of Human Rights ruling on the ``unlawful killings `` by the crown forces and loyalists of 14 nationalists and an acceptance that the investigations into those deaths were unsatisfactory.
It also calls on the UN to support independent judicial inquiries into crown forces involvement in the assassinations of lawyers Pat Finucane in February 1989 and Rosemary Nelson in March 1999.
The need for an independent inquiry into the death of Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill, killed by a loyalist mob in April 1997 as the RUC sat nearby in a Land Rover is also raised in the submission.
The Sinn Féin document also demands that retrospective powers of inquiry be given to the `Police' Ombudsman's Office to investigate human rights abuses by the RUC and the updating of equality legislation.
Given that in its current form the law does not tackle job discrimination against women, particularly nationalist women.
The submission calls for an end to the constitutional imperative that the British monarch must be Protestant and the insistence that MPs must swear an oath of allegiance to the British King or Queen.