human rights

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Foreshore review dead-on

Written By: - Date published: 3:16 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 106 comments

The Foreshore and Seabed review panel have reported back with the recommendation that the law be scrapped and people be allowed to attempt to prove ownership rights over the foreshore and seabed in court as they can with any other land. Good. Ever since the Government issued a proclamation in 1872 to stop the Native […]

Crusher crushes rights

Written By: - Date published: 5:33 pm, May 26th, 2009 - 86 comments

Collins has given us a little teaser of what’s in her car-crushing law. As any fool could have predicted the fascist in her couldn’t stop just at crushing the cars of repeat traffic offenders who don’t pay their fines. A new penalty for illegal street racing would allow vehicles to be seized and destroyed. Vehicles […]

Not my Leaders

Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, May 6th, 2009 - 2 comments

Hide and Banks do not strike me as the kind of men you feel safe about having too much power. They never have been and they never will be. Yet so far the ongoing review of the so called ‘Supercity Plan’ has suggested it’s only weakness is that the Lord Mayor wouldn’t have enough power. Instead, […]

Memo: Re: Torture

Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, April 21st, 2009 - 7 comments

“You know what is in room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in room 101” The release last week of four memos from the legal team of the George W Bush administration confirmed what many already knew. That they were using torture. Anyone who has read those memos cannot deny that and be taken seriously. […]

Turning a blind eye

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, April 18th, 2009 - 16 comments

Unlike some of the other Standard writers, I don’t usually find Fran O-Sullivan too bad but her reporting of Key’s trip to China has been disappointing. Here’s how she describes Key’s failure to stand up for human rights: “Key is also quite pragmatic on human rights. He did not seem bothered enough on China’s record […]

Tories bulldoze human rights, your rights

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 pm, February 18th, 2009 - 43 comments

The Attorney-General, National’s Chris Finalyson, has declared that the ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ Bill that National/ACT (and Finlayson himself) are about to vote for violates human rights. From Finlayson’s report: What does that mean? Finlayson is saying that giving a life sentence to a person who is on their third strike for an offence that […]

Imperfect but far better than the alternative

Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, January 14th, 2009 - 11 comments

It’s good to see Kiwipolitico taking a critical view of the Left from the Left – it’s certainly better than any critiques we see from the Right. And, naturally,  within the Left we disagree at times, which is all good and healthy. In that spirit, I thought I would respond to two posts on Kiwipolitico […]

Social Report shows Kiwis better off

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 31 comments

MSD released its Social Report today, an annual publication that collates a wide variety of standard of living measures, and produces this awesome graph. The circle represents the status quo in 1995-97 each spoke represents a different measure (income, crimes per capita etc). If the spoke is longer than the circle than the measure has improved between 1995-97 […]

Petition: sign the Enforced Disappearance Convention

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, August 13th, 2008 - 12 comments

In December 2006, the United Nations adopted a major new human rights treaty, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance aimed at preventing and punishing ‘enforced disappearance’ – the kidnap and murder of political opponents by governments. 73 countries have signed the convention, 4 have ratified it. 20 ratifications are […]

Freedom Week

Written By: - Date published: 6:28 pm, July 30th, 2008 - 9 comments

Amnesty International does some great campaigning and human rights work around the globe and this week is Freedom Week, their annual fundraising and awareness drive. Most people will be familiar with Amnesty’s work, especially with the spotlight they’ve helped to shine on China’s appalling human rights record in the leadup to the Olympics. What’s often […]