Mr. Colm O'Gorman:

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan made a very critical point that as long as the rule of international humanitarian law and human rights law is disregarded by states, we will continue to see many ignoring the rule of law completely. It is interesting for Amnesty. I understand completely that tone is important, but when we talk about international human rights law, it is important for us to remind the public and, at times, some governments that Amnesty and human rights organisations or activists did not write international human rights law. It was written by states and voluntarily adopted by them. When we campaign for states to live up to the obligations they voluntarily accepted in international rights law, we often have to remind people that we are talking about minimum standards. The two major covenants - the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - set out minimum standards that were adopted as international law in the 1960s. As members of the committee and parliamentarians will be aware, it is not a code of law that is generally enforceable through courts. The only international court is the International Criminal Court and it deals only with very specific grave crimes under international law. Because that is the system that states have designed, we are dependent upon states voluntarily respecting and fulfilling the obligations they signed up to.

Obviously, the grave concern post-9/11 was of states undermining that. Up until that period, Amnesty had started to recognise that we needed to talk much more about the indivisibility of rights. The movement was gearing up very much to focus on indivisibility and the violation of economic, social and cultural rights that were intrinsically linked to violations of civil and political rights, especially in the global south where violations are linked to poverty. A lot of the arguments internationally about civil and political rights were well advanced but post-911 we have seen states that were traditional champions of civil and political rights become some of the most egregious violators of those rights. It is in everything we have seen since and I think the presentation we gave references a number of occasions in particular. In consequence, we have seen an increase in the use of torture, particularly in states where there were already concerns about human rights violations. We have seen the justification of grave and systemic abuse of civil and political and other rights on the basis of state security or guaranteeing peace and security. For example, a young Irish citizen has spent almost two years in prison for simply and peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly. I refer to the case of Ibrahim Halawa. There are 41,000 people in prison in Egypt who took part in or were judged in some way to have taken part in protest. The adoption of the protest law in Egypt was set out in a briefing document we sent to the committee a number of days ago. The consequences of the application of that particular law are a huge issue. This is why we have such a strong focus at all times on accountability and urging governments to strengthen accountability measures and mechanisms at international level.

This is why we are always looking to encourage states to sign up to optional protocols to the convention, so we can strengthen accountability mechanisms. If states are allowed to simply and routinely ignore their obligations under international rights and humanitarian law, then that gives licence to the most egregious violations to continue and to do so with impunity. Impunity is our biggest problem.

The persecution of religious minorities has been a particular concern for Amnesty for a long time. Members referred to the Baha'i. The committee will be aware of the case of Asia Bibi in Pakistan who is facing the death penalty for blasphemy. It is difficult to imagine a better example of a human rights violation than sentencing somebody to death, or imposing any other sentence for that matter, for expressing a belief, even if that opinion is offensive or someone else's beliefs.

We know that Islamic State, in particular, persecutes religious minorities. One of my colleagues, Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty senior researcher, has spent much time on the ground in northern Iraq documenting human rights violations that Islamic State has carried out against populations there, many of which are religious minorities. This remains a grave concern.

The breakdown in the rule of law is the big issue in Libya. It is now so lawless it has become a major push-off point for human traffickers, who herd people into vessels in appalling condition and pushing them out into the Mediterranean. The rule of law again is a significant issue from our perspective.

We are regularly contacted about individual cases in Maghaberry Prison. However, as was rightly pointed out, the prison is in Northern Ireland and we have to communicate these issues to our international office. We do this regularly and will communicate the Deputy’s concerns too.