Childrens Rights. Re: Holy Croos Primary School, Ardoyne

Children's Rights in a sectarian State

The rights of children to be educated is a fundamental human right guaranteed and enshrined in international law, it is the duty of state's and sovereign governments to ensure that this right is fully realised.

The right to protest is also a human right. However, in the Holy Cross Primary School situation the right to education of children by far outweighs any right to protest. There is no balancing act or competing rights in this particular instance. In fact the protest is immediately illegal once it became violent. Further to this there is also a fundamental failure on the part of the state to take appropriate measures both to ensure the safety and welfare of the children and their parents, as well as the right to be provided with safe unhindered passage to their place of education. On this basis alone and under public order/safety concern the parents could judicially review the decision NOT to deem the protest illegal.

  Setting aside international human rights conventions, i.e. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ICCPR, and the ECHR, the Good Friday Agreement states clearly that everyone has the right to live free from sectarian harassment and intimidation. And those who support the agreement now must defend in an unqualified way this part of the agreement as well as the international obligations.

What is also called into question is the nature of the policing tactics employed in this particular situation. In many past instances the RUC have simply opted for Public Order laws to re-route marches and curb assemblies.

Recently in Ardoyne excessive measures were taken to allow loyalists, some of whom are involved in the Holy Cross protest, to march past the nationalist part of Ardoyne en-route and also returning from their main march. Almost 50 plastic bullets were fired at people from Ardoyne, water cannons were used deliberately destroying property, and people were badly beaten. Far from advocating similar measures this merely highlights the double standards continually employed by the RUC. There has always been an inherent failure on their part to function impartially and this itself lies at the core of our wider problems.

Not for one minute wanting to draw comparisons between sectarian adult organisations and children going to school, but many observers are noting that emergency laws and policing methods usually employed to facilitate for re-routing marches and curbing assemblies, are conspicuously absent from this situation, when indeed if ever there was justification for them being invoked surely it is now.

What this raises is why, and who benefits from this on-going policing tactic? One could be forgiven for saying that the situation is being manipulated to provide a focus on the 'unenviable role' that the RUC have in the 'middle' of all this. Of course the alternative view to that continual sound bite is why not act to move an illegal protest? Why allow very sinister paramilitary elements who previously telephoned bomb warnings to the school close proximity to children especially after missiles and a bomb were thrown? Why is this risk continuing? Is this tactic more about the positioning of the RUC 'hopelessly in the middle of two irreconcilable forces' for propaganda purposes? The reality is that in any other society this protest would have immediately been deemed illegal and appropriate measures taken to prevent it from continuing.

There has also been much a do about the responsibility of parents entering the school. This too, along with unfounded allegations of being manipulated, is shifting the focus from both those protesting and the policing tactics. Rather than speaking out it would appear that many politicians and some church leaders are reluctant to face up to what is actually happening thereby contributing to the problem, and the children and parents becoming scapegoats. Others are silent. What is particularly depressing is that some even try to excuse the protesters. Attempts to set this in a context are as equally repugnant.

The right to education is a non-negotiable right. The attempts to draw parents into forums or talks create the false impression that this right can be negotiated. Any such proposals must be the task of community leaders and politicians not parents. Their issue stands alone, they are the victims and should no longer be held hostage.  If this were happening to minorities in Britain or elsewhere it would not be tolerated. It would appear that the sectarian state is still very much alive.