Cay: Insisting on the rights and freedoms of the individual

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in London has now admitted that the Cayman Islands Government prevented residents of this country from protesting abuses of human rights, according to documents obtained by Cayman Net News.

Melanie Tankard of the FCO’s Overseas Territories Department wrote in a letter dated 14 April to a UK citizen: “The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been extended to the Cayman Islands, although the right to individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, originally extended to the Cayman Islands, was not re-extended at the request of the Cayman Islands Government.”

Ms Tankard went on to say that, following a human rights workshop in Antigua in July last year, the FCO wrote to the Overseas Territories that do not have such a right, which includes the Cayman Islands, asking them to accept it. “We are still awaiting a response from the Cayman Islands Government, but Cayman Islands Ministers have indicated informally to the UK that they would like this right reinstated in the Cayman Islands.”

As local human rights attorney, Micki Jafa Bodden, explained, “Simply put, human rights that exist on paper but cannot be enforced are, in reality, no rights at all.”