I wanted to clarify my stance on Human Rights after a recent discussion on the apparent UN Investigation into yet to be confirmed accusations of possible breaches of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

OK, I have been involved with the Council of Europe Youth Directorate since the 1990s, and its Human Rights education programme. I really value Human Rights has the backbone of a civilised society. Basic Human Rights are ‘basic’ and I believe they are something within an international context, it is something the general public should not need to worry about. 

I am not suggesting there is ever no issues on human rights in the UK, but we must acknowledge the quality of life, and legal protection afforded to British Citizens is far higher than in many countries.

I believe human rights were envisaged in the late 1940s, to avoid the appalling treatment people experienced in World War 2. But sixty years on, the basics of human rights are being re-interpreted and bend fit into the agendas of individuals and organisations.

Therefore I have not doubt that this UN investigation is politically motivated, because I do not feel this government’s actions will be judged in comparison to the high standards in terms of disability it has set in the world, and the appalling treatment disabled people face in so many other countries./

The apparent double standard demonstrates how the UN is like many organisations, paper pushing and making judgements on the lived experiences of disabled people based on the viewpoint of a unknown complainant on matters that I believe will be reported in a misleading year, like the number of disabled people being affects by the bedroom tax, which will be smaller than portrayed, or the apparent ‘inhuman’ treatment from ATOS without a single police report or documented evidence, other than hurt feelings. The fact the investigation is in secret is an insult to the principal of ‘nothing without us’ and those who defend this should seriously question their morals.

If the UN was serious about human rights of disabled people, it was allow itself to become a political weapon for a militant attack on the welfare policies, where disability issues have been hijacked and terms to an argument for socialism, as oppose to improving the lives in disabled people on the ground. Like most big charities, the welfare reform is just a game to many organisations and institutions with dinner table politics.

Why is the UN not challenge the begging in New York or the many countries who have absolutely no support systems for disabled people? And what would the report achieve other than simply be used to permit socialist groups for further terms disability into one issue, poverty of the working class. Meanwhile the live experiences of the majority of disabled people is ignored, totally, as our twelve needs is reduced to one, money. I feel the UN is being used to upheld the principles of exclusion based on medical model prejudices.

Whatever problems SOME impairment groups are experience, particularly in terms of crisis related poverty, can only be solved by major changes in how we see sick and disabled people, and the mechanisms we put in to lift people how of poverty by truely valuing their capabilities and assets, not this current tokenism peddled by the institutions who profit from keeping disabled people disempowered.

Getting the UN to smack the government little botty like a naught child for upsetting a few disabled people who are stressed with the hardships so many people have to get on with, because to pulls the heart strings and moral indignities for a prejudiced chattering classes, is unlikely to achieve anything positive. Instead, it is more like to make the government did it heels in and keep the hostile environment created by both sides, ensuring sanctions and the rest of it will stay, whether its a Tory, Coalition or Labour government.

We need to celebrate human rights but also acknowledge our responsibilities to society, family and community. If human rights is used to overturn democracy as a new secret international government, it will be distrusted and this will play into the hands who those who want to scrap the basic human rights that we value by not having to worry out them.