Eyes of world turn away as internal exile regime goes unchecked

NEWTON'S OPTIC:I KNOW what you're thinking. You're thinking, with all this stuff going on in Libya, how can I stand in front of a UN human rights committee and moan about quango cuts in Ireland? Isn't it petty, tasteless and even a bit sickening to cry over a few dozen office jobs when hundreds of people are dying for freedom?

So let me set the record straight. Here at the Blackrock Anti-Racism Foundation (Barf) we are committed to rights for all. Nothing about Barf is in any way nauseating.

Allow me also to put Libya into context. Yes, some people have had their right to life withdrawn but Colonel Gadafy remains a hero of the anti-imperialist struggle, so he has a strong balancing rights argument.

Besides, his West African mercenaries are probably blacker than the people they shot so this is hardly a racist issue.

If only the same could be said for State terror in Ireland. Over the past three years, the Dublin regime has engaged in naked harassment of human rights activists, forcing them into internal exile under the so-called “decentralisation programme” and even ordering them to merge administrative functions. You will note that “merge” sounds very much like “purge”, which of course is the real agenda.

That is why we have gone to Geneva to plead our case before the UN Committee on Lifetime Employment (Uncle). Perhaps you think this is just another rights quango stuffed with exactly the sort of people who complain to it, so let me assure you that nothing about Uncle is in any way nepotistic.

We will be asking the international community, comprising five foreigners who agree with us, to condemn Ireland’s human rights record in the strongest possible terms.

Specifically, we will be drawing Uncle’s attention to the fact that there are no laws banning racial profiling by the police and no laws punishing racially motivated offences more severely.

If you think this is a call for racial profiling by the courts instead, you are entirely mistaken. It is a call for mind-reading by the courts, consistent with Article 9 of the UN charter – “the Right to a Clairvoyant Trial”). In our judgment, anyone questioning this is motivated by racism and should be sentenced to an extra long, hard look at themselves.

We will also be telling Uncle about the plight of Travellers in Ireland, who are not treated equally in some situations or differently in others.

The State must pass an equality law and a separate diversity law making it clear that people are equal except where diversity makes them separate. How can anyone say this might cause complications?

We have further concerns about confusing immigration rules. Ireland is the only country in the world with confusing immigration rules and failure to simplify them is a breach of the right to non-insane asylum.

Finally, we should have time to mention budget attacks on rights and anti-racist organisations but only because we care so deeply about the thousands of people helped by our leaflets and posters.

If funding is not restored, this year’s Anti-Racism Week may be cancelled and Ireland would be disgraced before the international community.

However, if our rights-abusing State will not do any of that, could it at least put me forward for a job in Geneva?