French protestors' rights violations


An article in the Human Rights section of UN News discussed serious concerns among experts about the French government’s treatment of yellow vest protestors, citing excessive use of force as nearing violation of the protestor’s rights. They said of an additional law the French government wanted to pass to further restrict the protestors that it was “not in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which France is a Party.” Perhaps especially coming from a country founded on freedom of speech and assembly, it’s chilling to see these rights violated, especially in a first-world European democracy. While the government may argue that they have only resorted to measures as extreme as they have because of the violent nature of the protests, the article explained most experts agree the response is hugely disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the protestors. Seeing an argument so widely agreed to be false stand as defense on an international level is concerning, and seems to beg whether other countries are fulfilling their responsibility to protect. If, as it seems may be the case, France is getting a bit of a pass because of its strong ties, this becomes an issue not just of respect for citizen’s rights in France, but in much of the free world. Seeing Macron handle his country this way without too much consequence or pushback from other leaders raises questions about how other groups may in the future have their rights violated with exaggerated views of the threat they pose cited as the reason, especially those whose ends are at odds with those of their governments. Certainly governments ought to be able to step in to stop, say, gatherings of dangerous hate groups, but this example makes it clear there ought to be a line. While it may be tough to decide where that line may fall, it seems imperative that the decision be made in a clear way that may be referred back to as precedent, lest unjust violations of rights continue to occur.
"Rights of ‘gilets jaunes’ protesters in France, ‘disproportionately curtailed’, say UN independent experts", UN News, United Nations, 14 February 2019, news.un.org/en/story/2019/02/1032741

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Improving Environmental Stability in the United States

Connor Morley David Roddy IB Global Politics in a Historical Context 21 September, 2018 The Time is Now for Environmental Change Across America My fellow Americans: as the President of the United States, the time is now to begin reforming the very tenants of our well-being as a nation. One of the ways to do this is to address the environmental problems that so plague us and that eventually contribute to economic downfall and social regression on an unprecedented scale. At this point, we need to implement small steps that gradually coalesce into less and less water, wind, and electric energy waste. It is known that cities such as Houston, Texas, are known throughout the nation as important energy pipelines. Cities like these will be pressured to have cleaner energy production through my neoliberalist policies, which are steadily allowing more economic viability through more environmentally conscious business practices, which are already getting higher demand than eve
Read more

Zoey Weinstein Sustainability Blog

Zoey Weinstein Mr. Roddy Global Politics 9/19/2018 Sustainability Blog One of the major issues concerning women in America and all over the world today and for the past 88 years is the wage gap or gender pay gap. On average, nationally, women earn approximately 78 cents to the man’s dollar. The wage gap impacts women different ethnic backgrounds even more. According to the huffington post, Latina women earn 56% of what a white man makes and black women earn 64%. The first and most impactful thing the United States needs to do is pass equal pay legislation in all 50 states. Many states have enforced the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), an amendment that ensures that nobody faces discrimination based in their sex, especially in the workplace. This past May, Illinois became the 37th state to ratify this amendment. The first clause of the ERA is “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” This amendm
Read more

Combatting Light Pollution in Houston

       Environmental sustainability is a crucial part of maintaining well-being both now, and in the future. A large and important part of maintaining environmental sustainability is to combat pollution. There are many different types of pollution that are addressed in different ways. One type that is not often thought about, however, is light pollution. It is generally ignored, and not thought of as having the same negative, long-term effects on the environment as other types of pollution, but it does have important effects, and it is something that can be easily reduced at a local level.        Light pollution negatively effects most species of plants and animals, as well as humans. Before industrialization, plants and animals lived according to the sun's patterns for millions of years. They evolved to be this way. When you throw in huge cities that light up the sky for hundreds of miles around, nature is completely disrupted. Nocturnal species are unable to hunt the same way in
Read more