Posts Tagged ‘ human rights ’

Murder of David Kato

Letters to the Editor, The Irish Times, Saturday 29th January 2011

A chara,

The brutal killing of David Kato (World News, January 28th) is a crime born of such wretched ignorance and appalling bigotry as to demand the full and immediate focus of our outrage.

In a month that has already seen the killings in Tucson, allegedly prompted by the militant fulminations of the Tea Party media machine, Kato’s murder throws an urgent light on the role of media in conducting public opinion and the risks that are run when intolerance informs their agenda.

The editor of Uganda’s Rolling Stone newspaper, which published the names and addresses of more than 100 Ugandan homosexuals, including Kato, protested yesterday that he did not want the public to attack “people who promote homosexuality” – he just wants the government to hang them. Continue reading →

2011
01/29
CATEGORY
Letters
Opinion
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Conscience and the Civil Partnership Bill

Oireachtas votes on Civil Partnership Bill today

Fr Vincent Twomey (Opinion, The Irish Times, June 29) argues that the absence of a free vote over the Civil Partnership Bill in the Oireachtas is a violation of individual conscience. He goes on to state that, should the Bill become law, it will force citizens to collude in what they believe in good conscience to be morally wrong. He decries the criticism that greeted the statement issued by the Irish Bishops’ Conference which, he claims, “effectively claimed that the church – in particular in the wake of the Ferns, the Ryan and the Murphy reports – should remain silent”. These charges, and the manner in which he presents them, demand a response.

Bemoaning the oppressive forces of the Party Whip and the ‘liberal-progressive media’, Fr Twomey wheels out the tired example of Nazi Germany which ‘crushed the consciences’ of its citizens as being somehow analogous. Resorting to such hyperbolic rhetoric serves little purpose other than to undermine Fr Twomey’s argument.

Politicians, journalists and clergy alike are citizens of this State and members of their communities. Each carry out important social functions in ensuring the health of our democracy and the quality of life of its people. Irish people enjoy the important liberty of being able to decide which politicians to vote for (if any), which media to listen to (if any) and which churches to attend (if any). Continue reading →

2010
07/01
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Opinion
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Response to the Ryan Report

Letters to the Editor, The Irish Times, Thursday 25th June 2009

A chara,

Jim Beresford’s castigation of the shortcomings in the Ryan report (“Ryan taboo on warped sexual training of Brothers a cop-out”, Opinion, June 18th) made for compelling reading. Over the course of his article, he decries the commission’s failure to consider the reality of sadomasochistic sexuality, ritualised in the formation of Christian Brother novices, as a motivation for the appalling sexual violence committed against the boys of Artane, noting that “the authors of the Ryan report don’t even hint that there could have been a sexual motivation for such violence”. The low priority accorded by the commission to exploration of this phenomenon as a cause of abuse does, indeed, give cause for wonder.

Artane

One is inclined to conclude that rape is, by its nature, a crime which begins and ends in the sphere of sexuality – and that this would have been an obvious starting point for the commission’s search for answers.

Sociological inquiries by academics and human rights activists, however, suggest otherwise – in the case of all-male penal institutions, at least.

Continue reading →

2009
06/25
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