“Europe’s” worst human rights violators

The European Court of Human Rights  (ECHR) covers all countries in Europe who are members of the Council of Europe, this is currently 47 countries with only 3 “European” countries not signed up which are: Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Vatican City.

Yellow: Founders. Blue: Members.

I say “European” because are Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan part of Europe? As with my previous post(s), I wouldn’t say so.

Every year the ECHR produces a report on the number of human rights judgements a countries have had against them.

From 2009 (at least) to 2012 Turkey and Russia have been the worst two violators of human rights. That’s right, the most consistently worst countries in Europe for human rights violations are not even proper European countries.

For Russia this is of less concern perhaps as Russia has no European Unions ambitions (either genuine or otherwise) however with Turkey being the number 1 worst country for human rights violations (in “Europe”) from 1959-2012 with a total 2870 judgements against them should the EU even be considering their application?

Turkey’s lack of democracy is highlighted as most violations from the country are due to the ‘Right to a fair trial’ which the government doesn’t give when people stand up against them (such as journalists).

Turkey has no place being in Europe or the European Union with its fight against secularism and constant disregard for human rights.

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European Court of Justice: Gender Ruling

A consumer group complaint to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) recently has led to a ruling that means insurers cannot charge different amounts on the basis of gender (gender discrimination).

Although this has just happened the law will not come into force throughout the EU till 21^st December 2012.

Of course, more equality and fairness is a great thing and should be law in all areas (such as equal pay between genders for doing the same job) but some people are not happy…

After reading an article on the ruling in the Guardian (online) there seems to be more people against this ruling than those who support it, the reason being is that it is suggested (and most likely correct in their assumption) that the price of car insurance will increase significantly for woman. People are using that argument to justify gender discrimination. So it seems discrimination is OK, as long as it means prices stay down.

It seems to have completely gone over peoples heads that the fact that insurance companies are ripping us off is a separate issue altogether. We should support equality and at the same time fight against these companies who are extorting money from us.

What if it was found that, for example, white people were more likely to be in a car accident than non whites so as the insurance industry works on risk assessments then they could charge white people more? There would be uproar! Yet somehow this is what is/was happening, the same principal being applied to gender, as men get charged more (or women get charged less) it’s OK!

The author of the Guardian article also, in what I can only see as typical UK ‘EU bashing’ accuses the ECJ of trivialising human rights! Despite the fact that it was not a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and that this was brought to the ECJ’s attention by a consumer group, not the EU itself just because it’s bored. Maybe said does admit though that jurisdiction of the ECJ and the ECHR is not always very clear.

Some of the responses have been the usual nonsense of “we must leave the EU”, why? Because they make rulings that discrimination is unacceptable? What kind of world do these people want to live in?