United Nations DID have information about human rights abuses. But was it read?

Last Updated: February 14, 2017By

The story in The Canary (below) is bad. But it could, in fact, be much, much worse.

The allegation is that Disability Rights UK withheld links between ‘welfare’ reforms and the deaths of disabled people by failing to send letters by coroners to the DWP that linked the Work Capability Assessment to the deaths of people with mental health conditions.

Maybe that is true. Maybe DRUK didn’t send that information to the United Nations investigation into human rights abuses against people with disabilities.

But I did.

It was part of a very large amount of information I sent to the UN’s Jorge Araya on October 27, 2015 – only a few days before the investigation was due to be closed to submissions from the public.

Included in this were links to articles I had published on the subject.

So perhaps the operative question is: Did the United Nations fail to go through all the evidence that was submitted?

The issue of the 590 suicides is more difficult. The research that made this claim, by Oxford University and Liverpool University, was published on October 26 that year.

Was DRUK obliged to send this to the United Nations? Or should the researchers themselves have done it?

Considering the late date at which it was published, it seems likely that the omission was either a genuine mistake, or it was simply too late to be included in the evidence.

Comments are, as ever, invited.

A damning UN report on the UK government’s human rights abuses was missing crucial evidence about “barbaric” violations. The “mistake” could have critical implications for the report’s findings. And it exposes the utterly callous nature of the Conservative government.

But it’s now emerged that the UN had not even seen some of the most disturbing evidence available.

Now Disability News Service (DNS) reports that three groups including Disability Rights UK (DRUK) withheld information from the UN. Specifically, they failed to show it the links between welfare reforms and the deaths of disabled people.

DNS said they left out letters sent by coroners to the DWP. These linked the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to the deaths of people with mental health conditions. And also missing were:

“A DWP freedom of information response which showed how ministers deliberately loosened regulations… [designed to] protect people with mental health conditions whose lives could be at risk if forced into work… and government-funded research… [showing] the WCA was linked to 590 suicides in just three years.”

Source: REVEALED: the true extent of Tory human rights abuses is even worse than we thought | The Canary

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7 Comments

  1. Jenny Hambidge February 14, 2017 at 3:10 pm - Reply

    Here’s interesting. DRUK under its former name RADAR has long claimed to speak for disabled people in the UK. In fact it is not a disabled persons organisation as it is not run and controlled by disabled people. RADAR stood for Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation which gives us a clue that it has roots firmly in the medical model of disability. The government regularly consults with the organisation and certainly used to give it grants and contracts. It is anathema to the DPos around the country. In Wales and Scotland Disability Wales and Inclusion Scotland are the organisations the Government should be consulting with,England has not similar Social model Disabled people run organisations.

    I am not a bit surprised DRUk left out the information and links.Woulldnt be surprised if Gov’t told it it to do so.

  2. Lauretta Pearson February 14, 2017 at 3:14 pm - Reply

    And I did.

    • Mike Sivier February 14, 2017 at 4:10 pm - Reply

      I suppose we could write to Jorge Araya and ask exactly what happened..?

  3. jeffrey davies February 14, 2017 at 4:46 pm - Reply

    ah druk the government stool pigeon

  4. Linda February 14, 2017 at 6:22 pm - Reply

    I also wrote to Jorge Araya on 28th September 2015 regarding my brother Tim Salter who committed suicide on 25th September 2013 after being left destitute after he was deemed fit for work and his benefits were stopped. I did have correspondence from them but even though I had taken my complaint through the DWPs complaint system and finally the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, they told me that I had not “exhausted all available domestic remedy, meaning that the claims brought to the attention of one of the committees must have been brought first to the attention of the relevant national authorities, up to the highest available instance. Once all available judicial and administrative remedy has been exhausted, and in case you still wish to submit youor complaint to the committee, you will have to specify which articles of the convention have been violated, following the guidelines that we sent you in November, on how to submit an individual communicatio to the committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.”
    At this stage I just gave up. I could not afford to take this through the courts and didn’t have the energy to do so. They just make things so hard for the average person.

  5. Sandra Harvey February 14, 2017 at 10:05 pm - Reply

    Jenny

    What about DPAC? They started life in Birmingham protesting outside the Tory conference andd have groups all across England. They too sent reports to the UN.

    http://dpac.uk.net/

  6. Sven Wraight February 15, 2017 at 3:16 am - Reply

    According to this report, Disability Wales and Inclusion Scotland were also inadequate: http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/national-dpos-forced-to-withdraw-report-sent-to-un-over-benefit-deaths-evidence/

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