As part if the 76th Fine Gael Ard Fheis, Young Fine Gael will be hosting a session on Saturday afternoon on the topic of Human Rights. The session will discuss Human Rights at home and abroad. The Session will include discussion on how human rights should become central to our society and political system, the media treatment of human rights, children’s rights and the Children’s Referendum, and advocacy for people with disability. Speaking about the Session, Young Fine Gael...
The Campaign for Children will be holding a public meeting tomorrow, Wednesday 25th, at 6pm in the Geogrpahy Lecture Hall in UCC. It is part of a series of public meetings to inform people about the work of the campaign. The Campaign is chaired by Former Supreme Court Justice Catherine McGuinness. Its board also contains some influential people, including Fergus Finlay of Barnardos and Olivia O’Leary. The Campaign raises very important issues and more importantly has suggestions to how they should be solved....
I got this via email, and for those interested in the UN Human Right Council or Human Rights in Ireland should definitely attend these meetings. I am going to try and attend the Cork meeting and will try and tweet from it. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Alan Shatter T.D. and the Minister of State for Disability, Equality and Mental Health, Kathleen Lynch T.D. are inviting members of the public and organisations to take part in public consultation meetings to...
Image via Wikipedia The National Media and Infocommunications Authority Hungary (Nmhh) have published the Act on Media Services and Mass Media on their website in PDF format. It is nearly 200 pages long and is a tough read. Article 187 is what sets out the fines which has a lot of people worried (3) The Media Council and the Agency — with due heed to paragraph (7) — shall have the right to impose the following legal consequences: a)...
Image via Wikipedia It was has not been a great start to its Presidency, Hungary is now digging its heels in response to criticism of its controversial media law. “It isn’t necessary to change a Hungarian law just because it is subject to criticism from abroad,” Zoltan Kovacs, state secretary for communication, told national radio. “Before criticising, let’s wait and see how this law works. We are confident it will be up to the task,” he added. Source This...
Image via Wikipedia Radio Free Europe is reporting that the Government of Belarus has ordered the shut down of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe‘s (OSCE) office in Minsk. This was because it had fulfilled its mandate according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Savinykh. This is on top of the multiple arrests of activists and opponents of the Lukashenka administration. The OSCE has stated that Belarus is still “a considerable way” from holding a democratic vote. The...
Image by Ben Beiske via Flickr On the 1st of January a new era will dawn on Hungary. It will take over the Presidency of European Council for the first time and a new law on media freedom will come into effect. While the first thing is something for Hungarians to celebrate, the law on the other hand is not. It has been criticised by the OSCE Media freedom representative who wrote in a report that “Regulating print media...
Image via Wikipedia Today the European Court of Human Rights (not an EU body!) handed down its judgement on the case of ABC v Ireland on the issue of provision of Abortion in Ireland. As kind of expected the court declared A and B inadmissible as the existing prohibition on abortion in Ireland struck a fair balance between the right of the first and second applicants to respect of their private lives and the rights invoked on behalf of...
So as an editor over on bloggingportal.eu I have great access to a huge number of blogs and can help choose what goes on the front page. Unfortunately not everything I would like can go on the front page (there are others there also) I will do a regularish posting like this one to publicise some of the other things going on in the euroblogosophere, whether on the front page or not! Dont expect this daily or weekly mind...
The Elephant in the Room
Image via Wikipedia There is a very large elephant in the room in Irish politics. It is a very important issue and it cause fierce tensions and divides, but not only in Ireland. I blogged a few years back that Ireland needs an Abortion Act and recent events are making that point more necessary! The recent poll in the Irish Examiner showing that “60% of young people want abortion legalised here” shows that young people do care about this...
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