Mass killer's rights

Lurkio

Fleawuss wrote: »

That would actually depend on how society decided to construct the thing. He falls into the category of mass killer. Does he have a claim to political status? iz he unique? Remember that it is Norways to decide: the globalism of the UN declaration and the particularism of the EU human rights regime ( or whatever entity applies) are relevant only to the extent that Norway chooses to accept them.

They've signed the EU act and ratified it, so they'd be hemmed in by it as far as I understand things.

K-9

As distasteful as he is to put it mildly, he should be treated the same as similar prisoners, it has to be consistent. Joke of a case though.

Fleawuss

Lurkio wrote: »

They've signed the EU act and ratified it, so they'd be hemmed in by it as far as I understand things.

And there lies the breaking. If Norway decides to repudiate for a good it deems greater then it repudiates. What sanctions might be applied by others? I don't know. But the "hemming in" has failed justice. The hemming in has no supreme moral authority. It serves no good.

_Brian

This type of case puts my moral compass spinning...

If I try to think like a civilised human I know that he needs to be afforded whatever rights prisoners in Norway get, prison is about rehabilitation and the punishment is having his liberty taken from him for a very long time

However, I then put myself in the place of the parents who lost children and I know full well I'd be planning to be there when he's released and I'd want to hack the cunnt to little, little, bloody pieces just like he deserves , I think there's bad acts in any of us given the appropriate circumstances.

Podge_irl

_Brian wrote: »

However, I then put myself in the place of the parents who lost children and I know full well I'd be planning to be there when he's released and I'd want to hack the cunnt to little, little, bloody pieces just like he deserves , I think there's bad acts in any of us given the appropriate circumstances.

Absolutely and if one of them did something to him I'd frankly hope they get away with it.

But that's essentially why we have these laws and why it's important to apply them even to the worst of people. And yes, I would feel differently if I were one of the parents - but what kind of argument is that? Human rights aren't supposed to be subjective depending on who is asked.

osarusan

topper75 wrote: »

These rights can be forfeited. Breivik forfeited them himself through his own actions. The laws weren't made up after his deed.

The rights of the murdered to their lives trump his right to liberty always. We call this ancient and noble convention "justice". Are you uncomfortable with that?

Which rights mentioned under the European Convention did he forfeit?

biko

Norway has a standard of rights they need to follow, be you a small time thief of a mad mass-murdering good-for-nothing scumbag.

Norway isn't like the US, that stores prisoner offshore so they can torture them as much as they like.

gramar

_Brian wrote: »

This type of case puts my moral compass spinning...

If I try to think like a civilised human I know that he needs to be afforded whatever rights prisoners in Norway get, prison is about rehabilitation and the punishment is having his liberty taken from him for a very long time

However, I then put myself in the place of the parents who lost children and I know full well I'd be planning to be there when he's released and I'd want to hack the cunnt to little, little, bloody pieces just like he deserves , I think there's bad acts in any of us given the appropriate circumstances.

That's the issue I have with it. In cold blood and in a premeditated fashion he took 77 lives, people with ambitions, dreams, futures. He caused immeasurable grief, trauma and suffering for their families and friends that they will be burdened with for the rest of their lives.

Yet in jail he has the right to complain that he gets handcuffed when moved around or that he is in isolation because his rights are being infringed upon. He has shown no remorse for his actions but has remained defiant. It is very difficult to reconcile his having rights with what he has done.

wes

Wasn't the isolation regime for his own protection? They should of course stick to the rules, but he is a special case, where a lot of people would be happy to kill him, so I think some of what there doing is certainly justified to protect him. After all, Norway has one of the most civilized prison regimes in the world, that from everything I have read works for the vast majority of prisoners and results in low rates of recidivism.

In this case, he will hopefully spend the rest of his days in prison, and hopefully after he has exhausted all his antics to stay relevant, he will be forgotten.

odyssey06

gramar wrote: »

Yet in jail he has the right to complain that he gets handcuffed when moved around or that he is in isolation because his rights are being infringed upon. He has shown no remorse for his actions but has remained defiant. It is very difficult to reconcile his having rights with what he has done.

If he was innocent, he would also show no remorse and remain defiant.
If it's very difficult to reconcile his having rights, how can we be reconciled to his being still alive after such atrocities?
Either he should have been lined up against a wall and shot, or else we have to consider the possibility (however remote) of innocence.
That's the only way I can be reconciled to his being still alive, and then it logically follows, his having rights.

Unless he's some sort of x-men type mutant with powers and the Norwegians are keeping it quiet, the security regime they have in place uniquely for him is indefensible.

The King of Moo

Can anyone who believes that human rights can be forfeited give a little detail about how that would work practically?

If someone forfeits their rights (it'd be nice to know what crimes lead to forfeiture by the way), does that mean anyone is free to kill them at any time in public?

If I beat Larry Murphy to death could the police arrest me for that?

Could someone who's thought this through in detail explain please?

topper75 wrote: »

These rights can be forfeited. Breivik forfeited them himself through his own actions. The laws weren't made up after his deed.

The rights of the murdered to their lives trump his right to liberty always. We call this ancient and noble convention "justice". Are you uncomfortable with that?

Which article is that?

One eyed Jack

gramar wrote: »

A court in Norway has upheld a claim that Anders Breiviks' human rights were violated by his treatment in prison. This violation consisted of

'his isolation from other prisoners, frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed while moving between the three cells at his disposal violated his human rights"

Not only was the ruling in his favour the government has to pay his court costs of about €35,000.

Surely a mass murder the like of which was committed by Anders Breivik should mean a complete waiver of your human rights? I would have no sympathy for his case and given his actions and complete lack of remorse and can see no justification for allowing him even to live let alone pander to his human rights.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for Anders Brevik, none, which is why I wouldn't condone his actions by giving him the satisfaction of seeing us turn into what he is - an amoral bastard who doesn't deserve to be executed. We would only be allowing him to turn us into what he is, if we treated him as less than human by denying him his rights as a human being.

It may look like he's able to thumb his nose at the system and have the government pay his costs of €35k, but I don't blame Anders Brevik for that. I blame the people who gave in and treated him as less than human. He is a vile and despicable human being, but we're no better than him if we allow ourselves to become anything like him.

threeball

Throw him in with general population where they will have the right to slit his fcukin throat.

smurgen

They should stop showing him making the right handed salute.he doesn't have the right to make political statements or show defiance in anyway in my eyes.

The King of Moo

threeball wrote: »

Throw him in with general population where they will have the right to slit his fcukin throat.

They won't though.

The King of Moo

They should travel back in time and sterilise his parents before his conception. He doesn't have a right to have ever existed.

Lurkio

Fleawuss wrote: »

And there lies the breaking. If Norway decides to repudiate for a good it deems greater then it repudiates. What sanctions might be applied by others? I don't know. But the "hemming in" has failed justice. The hemming in has no supreme moral authority. It serves no good.

Though unfamiliar with the Norwegian legal system I'd be amazed if singling out an individual would be possible. As regards "good" - this is a somewhat abstract concept and thus cannot be clearly defined and used as a tool or guide to decision making. As a result, the perpetrator of a crime is punished according to his crimes as opposed to some assessment of character.

Sanctions for breaching the human rights act are largely financial, as far as I recall, but presumably further breaches might have consequences as regards trade interactions with the EU and its members.

Arghus

A certain basic level of human rights shouldn't depend on the severity of your crime, it should be a given, regardless whether you're a purse-snatcher or a mass murderer. Being guilty of the worst of crimes doesn't mean that you've stopped being a human being.

Breivik is a despicable and pathetic individual, but that doesn't make him sub-human. If anything, to allow him a certain level of dignity of is a sign of a mature society, that will still uphold principles of individual rights, even in the face of severe provocation. He may have partially won his case today, but, honestly, to deny him his basic humanity would probably be a moral victory of sorts for him.

The state has to at least aspire to a higher level of respect for people than the level that is held by terrorists and mass-killers. People like Brevik, who kill others en-masse, surely must partly be able to do it because they find it easy to disregard their victims as people. If the forces of law decide that in certain cases the normal rules regarding human rights no longer apply, then I think people who oppose them - such as Breivik, who really have no regard for human life and individual rights - can claim a moral equivalence of a sort, and could argue that when push comes to shove the high standards that democratic societies talk about, of upholding fundamental human rights and respecting individual dignity, are nothing more than just lip-service.

It's a slippery slope when we start saying things like, "such a guy doesn't deserve to live" or "he's not entitled to rights". You have to accept that human rights exist all the time or not at all. A situation where they can be tuned on and off like a tap sounds pretty dicey to me: Who and What do we decide is beyond the pale? And how do we decide upon it?

Inalienable rights are an idea that have taken generations to come into being. To call them an invention isn't totally wrong but let's be thankful they exist.

StudentDad

Human rights are woven into the law to protect us the citizens from the coercive power of the state. Whether we like it or not he's still a citizen protected by law from other citizens and the State. As an earlier poster pointed out Human Rights either exist or they don't. We remove them at our peril.

SD

RDM_83 again

gramar wrote: »

A court in Norway has upheld a claim that Anders Breiviks' human rights were violated by his treatment in prison. This violation consisted of

'his isolation from other prisoners, frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed while moving between the three cells at his disposal violated his human rights"

What rights are being infringed in this case, if one can be incarcerated/deprived of liberty does one have a right to contact with the peers of ones choosing (I am guessing he doesn't want to go into the general population), does one have a right not to be shackled between cells considering he has shown himself to be extremely dangerous, the strip searching I sort of get if its depriving him of sleep though (sleep deprivation = torture)

PressRun

Deciding that certain people are not entitled to a basic level of human rights or declaring that those rights can be stripped if someone has done something bad enough to warrant it is a very slippery slope.

Not to mention, Breivik is the sort of fascist who would love to see certain people stripped of their human rights. Society refusing to take the shape of the kind of world he'd like to live in is a message in itself.

long range shooter

gramar wrote: »

A court in Norway has upheld a claim that Anders Breiviks' human rights were violated by his treatment in prison. This violation consisted of

'his isolation from other prisoners, frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed while moving between the three cells at his disposal violated his human rights"

Not only was the ruling in his favour the government has to pay his court costs of about €35,000.

Surely a mass murder the like of which was committed by Anders Breivik should mean a complete waiver of your human rights? I would have no sympathy for his case and given his actions and complete lack of remorse and can see no justification for allowing him even to live let alone pander to his human rights.

One of the reasons he has been in isolation is because fellow inmates have threatened to kill him.

Fleawuss

StudentDad wrote: »

Human rights are woven into the law to protect us the citizens from the coercive power of the state. Whether we like it or not he's still a citizen protected by law from other citizens and the State. As an earlier poster pointed out Human Rights either exist or they don't. We remove them at our peril.

SD

They exist to the extent that the state agrees they exist. It is a fiction to say that they adhere to humanity because we are human. The universalism claimed for them is simply seeking to extend a view of humanity world wide. I am not saying that they are bad or shouldn't but simply that human rights do not adhere to our dna.

Breivik removed them from others by removing their capacity to hold them ie killing them. It is quite possible for a society to say that a particular act or set of actions has removed someone from the set of people who are entitled to full rights. In fact this is already done with prisoners where the right to freedom is circumscribed. It is a matter for Norway to decide if it wants to tackle the fiction that human rights trump everything else. It's past time that Europe recognized the post war formulations of rights needs urgent revision.

Fleawuss

PressRun wrote: »

Deciding that certain people are not entitled to a basic level of human rights or declaring that those rights can be stripped if someone has done something bad enough to warrant it is a very slippery slope.

Not to mention, Breivik is the sort of fascist who would love to see certain people stripped of their human rights. Society refusing to take the shape of the kind of world he'd like to live in is a message in itself.

Certainly true if rights are only seen to adhere to certain types of people. But it is possible to see rights as capable of being limited or lost by certain actions. The distinction I'm making us that the act can impact on the capacity of the person to be allowed a right.

wakka12

gramar wrote: »

A court in Norway has upheld a claim that Anders Breiviks' human rights were violated by his treatment in prison. This violation consisted of

'his isolation from other prisoners, frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed while moving between the three cells at his disposal violated his human rights"

Not only was the ruling in his favour the government has to pay his court costs of about €35,000.

Surely a mass murder the like of which was committed by Anders Breivik should mean a complete waiver of your human rights? I would have no sympathy for his case and given his actions and complete lack of remorse and can see no justification for allowing him even to live let alone pander to his human rights.

Yes he's an awful disgusting human being but he is human and its immature and stupid to say that some people don't deserve basic human rights anymore . Where do you draw the line? How many people do you need to kill? How malicious do the murders need to be? What if I accidentally cause a fire that kills twice as many people as anders did?
You see, it is vital that all humans, no matter what they have done, be granted basic human rights. I think that is one of the main reasons why Society has progressed so quickly since world war 2.

timthumbni

If I saw correctly he has a tv in his room/cell. Why would a mass killer such as him be given a tv in his cell? Is this part of his human rights? Why would any prisoner no matter the offence expect luxuries such as TVs in their cells?

StudentDad

Fleawuss wrote: »

They exist to the extent that the state agrees they exist. It is a fiction to say that they adhere to humanity because we are human. The universalism claimed for them is simply seeking to extend a view of humanity world wide. I am not saying that they are bad or shouldn't but simply that human rights do not adhere to our dna.

Breivik removed them from others by removing their capacity to hold them ie killing them. It is quite possible for a society to say that a particular act or set of actions has removed someone from the set of people who are entitled to full rights. In fact this is already done with prisoners where the right to freedom is circumscribed. It is a matter for Norway to decide if it wants to tackle the fiction that human rights trump everything else. It's past time that Europe recognized the post war formulations of rights needs urgent revision.

In the context of Human Rights, the likes of Brevik and their ilk are a perfect example as to why we need The European Convention on Human Rights. The provisions outlined are a protection against knee jerk, revenge action against individuals such as Brevik. They say more about us than they do about him. He chose to act the way he did. That is no reason for us to do so. Sure, Norway could tell the Council of Europe to sod off and renege on its commitments under the Convention, but that would be a damning indictment of Norway. Something I don't see happening. The likes of Brevik need to have their rights upheld for the very same reason that everyone else needs theirs protected. In the same way we don't have drumhead trials and summary justice. As the old adage goes, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

SD

Fleawuss

StudentDad wrote: »

In the context of Human Rights, the likes of Brevik and their ilk are a perfect example as to why we need The European Convention on Human Rights. The provisions outlined are a protection against knee jerk, revenge action against individuals such as Brevik. They say more about us than they do about him. He chose to act the way he did. That is no reason for us to do so. Sure, Norway could tell the Council of Europe to sod off and renege on its commitments under the Convention, but that would be a damning indictment of Norway. Something I don't see happening. The likes of Brevik need to have their rights upheld for the very same reason that everyone else needs theirs protected. In the same way we don't have drumhead trials and summary justice. As the old adage goes, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

SD

The real protection against knee jerk revenge reactions is that the justice system is seen to be just: you use the adage but miss the point. There is a sense that Justice has not been done in this case and I believe many others in Ireland. Justice demands that the lives lost be answered for. I believe they haven't but then Norway, as I said above, is free to choose its own way.

StudentDad

Fleawuss wrote: »

The real protection against knee jerk revenge reactions is that the justice system is seen to be just: you use the adage but miss the point. There is a sense that Justice has not been done in this case and I believe many others in Ireland. Justice demands that the lives lost be answered for. I believe they haven't but then Norway, as I said above, is free to choose its own way.

No, I haven't missed the point. He was given a fair trial, due process and all that and he is serving his sentence. If the State failed in its duty to him as a citizen he is entitled to redress.

The days of the judge donning the black cap are gone. When the State seeks vengeance society as a whole loses. Vengeance against this man only validates the message of hate that he's peddling and makes a martyr of him in the eyes of anyone who subscribes to his beliefs. As it stands it looks like he'll spend the rest of his natural life, or close to it, watching the world go by from a high security prison. A nice warning to anyone who would choose to emulate his behaviour. Executing him (if that's the kind of redress you are referring to) makes a martyr out of him for his followers, gives him a nice easy way out and compromises the principles laid down by the justice system.

SD

Fleawuss

StudentDad wrote: »

No, I haven't missed the point. He was given a fair trial, due process and all that and he is serving his sentence. If the State failed in its duty to him as a citizen he is entitled to redress.

The days of the judge donning the black cap are gone. When the State seeks vengeance society as a whole loses. Vengeance against this man only validates the message of hate that he's peddling and makes a martyr of him in the eyes of anyone who subscribes to his beliefs. As it stands it looks like he'll spend the rest of his natural life, or close to it, watching the world go by from a high security prison. A nice warning to anyone who would choose to emulate his behaviour. Executing him (if that's the kind of redress you are referring to) makes a martyr out of him for his followers, gives him a nice easy way out and compromises the principles laid down by the justice system.

SD

The whole point of this thread is that many people feel that Justice has not been done. What has been seen to be done is the following of procedure circumscribed by a vision of human rights which effectively hamstrings any of the measures taken in prison. Breivik deserves the bare minimum of rights: shelter and food. And I don't support the death penalty simply because errors are made and death is irreversible. Breivik deserves to be kept alive and spend the rest of his life in jail. No parole. No pardon. None of the luxuries of western liberalism. No comforts. Handcuffs when prison decides. Searches when prison decides. His existence monitored constantly. Justice for those who died and their families who live on without them demands that in my view. Justice by the state is organized vengeance.