Chancellor Dr Irene Khan – Installation Speech

Chancellor Dr Irene Khan – Installation Speech I am deeply honoured and moved by this honorary degree from Salford University. As this award is a prelude to my becoming part of the Salford University family, I want to begin by acknowledging the presence in this room of my own family – my husband, Josef and daughter, Soraya. They have played a big part in my achievements, and it gives me great pleasure to share this moment with them and to bring my Salford family and my own family together. My link with Salford is relatively new but my link with this region is not. I graduated from Manchester University as you know and it was in the greater Manchester area in the mid-1970s that I first cut my teeth as a human rights activist. I had just come out a bloody war that led to the creation of my country, Bangladesh. I knew what it meant to fight for freedom but it was as a law student at Manchester University that I learnt about the relationship between freedom and the rule of law. I still remember the lively debates we had at that time about whether or not the UK should adopt a Human Rights Act. More than thirty years later I am saddened that some politicians are talking about amending the Act, some would even want to repeal it. I am delighted that Salford University will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Human Rights Act with a major conference next June. But it was not only in the lecture halls and seminar rooms that I honed my understanding of human rights. Like so many students at that time, I joined the boycott against Barclays Bank and refused to eat Outspan oranges, convinced that my gesture would somehow bring the apartheid regime in South Africa to its knees. I joined demonstrations in the centre of Manchester to protest against military dictatorship in Portugal. Through my interaction with students and the local population, I really learnt about human rights activism. I was pleased to open … today – it will precisely that kind of physical facilities that create the social capital of a student community and allow students to get the most of their education, not just in the classroom but in real life. It was precisely in buildings like that when I was a student I spent hours arguing about social injustice when I should have been reading about legal justice. It didn’t do much for my grades but it did teach me that law was not just text to interpret in courts and make a living through that, it was about values, concepts and principles with which to protect the weak from the strong and to build a fairer and more just society. It was that realization that led me eventually to become a humanitarian worker and a human rights activist. I want to share some thoughts on human rights today and although I will speak from my international experience, I hope you will find some resonance in what I say with what is happening locally here in Salford and the northwest, and in this country. Two dominant trends are casting long shadows on the human rights landscape: insecurity and inequality. We are living in a world that is not only made dangerous by violence, but also deeply divided by poverty, inequality, and marginalization of large groups of people. On the one hand the threat of terrorism has raised the fear factor to such an extent that even we who live in democratic societies are too ready to give up some of our liberty in the false hope that it will help us gain more security. On the other hand, patterns of economic growth has made the world a fundamentally insecure place – both because too many people are being excluded from the benefits of growth or even deliberately impoverished to sustain the wealth and privilege of others, and because the patterns of growth are unsustainable and threatening the very existence of our planet. Security Eleanor Roosevelt, the key architect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, once said: “where … do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.” Working for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and then for Amnesty International I have had the privilege to travel many such small places. The time today is too short to tell you about the child I met in a hospital in Burundi who was the sole survivor of an ethnic massacre in her village – she could not remember her family name but she could describe to me how she watched her mother, father and baby brother being bayoneted to death and when I asked the President the next day what he would do to stop such massacres he replied – “Madam you do not understand – the army is fighting to preserve national security”. Or the old woman I met in Darfur, who told me how her village was attacked, how all the men were killed so that there were none left to bury the dead and she and the other women had to bury the dead. Or about the sixteen year old girl in the women’s prison in Kabul who told me she was abducted and raped and when she ran away from her oppressor the police put her in prison to keep her safe from her own family who would kill her because she has destroyed their honour. I do not know what has happened to that child, or that girl or that woman – what I do know, sadly, is that there are far too many people like them today that the world is failing. Governments torture people and lock them up without charge and trial, and say that they are fighting terrorism to make the world a more secure place. Meantime, the real sources of insecurity go unaddressed: whether it be the arms trade that feed conflicts, corruption, police brutality, gun violence, discrimination, gender violence, poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and climate change. Around the world the security of the state is trumping the security of people and the security of the planet. With the Bush Administration’s war on terror policies now discredited and President’s Obama decision to close Guantanamo, an important page has been turned but the chapter is far from coming to an end. And I say that not only because there has still been no true accountability for what went wrong and what wrongs were committed in the name of counter-terrorism in the US or in many European countries. But also because the erosion of civil liberties in the name of counter-terrorism still persists with impunity in many parts of the world. Governments have a duty to protect people from such attacks. But they must do so within the framework of human rights and the rule of law. Security and human rights are not two conflicting sets of obligations, one to be traded against the other. They are complementary and inter-dependent. Compromising human rights does not serve the struggle against terrorism. On the contrary it plays into the hands of terrorists by destroying the values of open, democratic societies. Human rights are for the best of us and the worst of us, the guilty as well as the innocent. If we are not willing to protect the rights of those we believe to be guilty, we weaken our ability to protect those who are innocent. That applies not just to counter-terrorism strategies but also to the debate on criminal justice in this country when politicians and media seem too ready to sacrifice legal and judicial safeguards in the name of public security. Discrimination Compromising human rights is dangerous for many different reasons, not least because it feeds mistrust and suspicion between communities which in turn undermines multiculturalism and tolerance for diversity. For instance, discrimination and racial profiling have become an accepted element of anti-terrorism strategies in many countries. According to the British Transport Police statistics, an Asian male is five times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white man. That can only alienate minority communities. When your security is at the expense of my liberty, how can you expect me to feel that we have a common stake in our society? Or take the way in which the hijab and the niqab are being blown out of all proportions in public policy and public debate. Most Western governments are ready to turn a blind eye to attacks on women’s human rights in Islamic countries in the interests of foreign policy or economic interests. In too many countries, laws, policies and practices discriminate against women. In too many societies, social roles reinforce the power of men over women’s lives and their bodies. Too often, religious practices, tradition and custom tolerate and sometimes even encourage violence against women. Few perpetrators are brought to justice and even fewer convicted. Rape has the lowest conviction rate among serious crimes: worldwide it is only about 10%. That should be of great concern to both Muslims and non- Muslims in this country and around the world. Yet, what do we hear most about: the banning of headscarves! Let’s get things into perspective. It is wrong for women in Saudi Arabia or Iran to be forced to put on the veil.

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