Argentine leads UN report critical of UK

A UNITED Nations report expected to order Britain to give prisoners the vote, to be published today, has been overseen by an Argentine critical of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

Fabian Salvioli gave a controversial interview to an Argentinian newspaper in which he said Britain’s victory in the 1982 Falklands War “does not give any political rights to … decide over sovereignty”.

He dismissed the rights of the Falkland islanders to determine their own status as British citizens, insisting the dispute over the islands was “simply about territorial sovereignty”.

The UN Human Rights Committee, chaired by Mr Salvioli, is expected to criticise a range of human rights issues in Britain when its report is published in Geneva later today.

Among the issues likely to be scrutinised are votes for prisoners and the Government’s plans to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.

A previous report by the committee said the UK should “review its legislation denying all convicted prisoners the right to vote”. Other members of the UN committee come from countries including Algeria, Uganda and Egypt, whose human rights records have been roundly criticised by Amnesty International and other watchdogs for activities such as torture, repression of gay people and corruption. In an interview with El Mensajero

Diario in 2012, Mr Salvioli said: “[The Falklands’] territorial integrity was violated by force in 1833, when the United Kingdom invaded the island violently.” He then described the 1982 war as the “foolish action of the dictatorship” which led to his country’s “military defeat”.

“The military victory does not give any political rights to fix limits or decide over sovereignty,” he said.

Henry Smith, the Conservative MP for Crawley, said: “Having just celebrated the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta we don’t need lecturing on a proud tradition of human rights in this country.

“We certainly don’t need to be told to give prisoners the right to vote when there are real and greater injustices being perpetrated round the world.”