Vagaries of human rights

✒ I AGREE with your letter correspondent Kevin Hill on so many things, and it is a relief to have at least one person in Bristol with similar views – but his recent letter asking ‘do we think more of football than human rights,’ relating to the World Cup in Qatar, implies that we should withdraw our national team from the competition.

I cannot agree with this because of the vagaries of the concept of ‘human rights.’

One could argue that the people of Qatar have the right to determine their own laws and visitors should respect them when visiting the country.

Who are we in the supposedly enlightened liberal west to pass judgment when protesters in Bristol can carry out criminal damage, watched by the police and then be cleared because they are deemed to have a just cause, or others be paid compensation by the police, who incredibly haven’t admitted liability and the protesters were clearly breaking Covid rules at the time?

It is they who should be paying as a different police force enforced those same rules and helped to bring down a prime minister.

I’m sure that Kevin wouldn’t condone this, so why inflict the punishment of missing out on a World Cup tournament on professional footballers and fans when none of them chose the venue or the laws of the host country.

Isn’t that denying them their human rights?

D Scadding

Bristol