Human rights are a major part of all Western constitutions. As such they are cherished and protected... at least in most cases. For the occasion that a country doesn't grant its citizens those basic rights, there are international institutions that a meant to provide justice. In Europe the European Court of Human Rights reviews the cases of Europeans that feel robbed of their human rights by their country. I have always thought that it's great to have such an institution and I still believe it is neccessary since it helps people that cannot turn to anybody else.
However, my belief in the complete righteousness of the ECHR has been shattered by one of their yesterday's decisions.
Basically, there was this guy in Bulgaria, who made a living (quite a good one) from stealing cars (many, many cars!) and selling them. He managed to hide very well for three full years despite being pretty high on the wanted list. He managed to avoid/escape from 3 spec-ops operations that aimed to catch him during this period.
Well, but four is a magical number. The fourth operation against him was kept as secret as possible to prevent corrupt cops from selling out information. However, when the spec-ops approach him, he sees that something's fishy. So he does what every self-respecting criminal would do and goes GTA style. He and his buddies get into two of their cars and try to escape: Full-speed, ignoring red lights through the some of the main streets of the Bulgarian capital. Oh, and of course they had their AK-47s (and a few other less impressive weapons) with military ammounts of ammo, which they put to full use against the cops.
After about 30 minutes our hero sees that there is little hope of fleeing with his car after one of the tires is shot by the police. He abandons his AK-47 in the car, but takes both his pistols as he tries to run away. Mr. Awesome (after emptying one of his guns at the police) actually manages to run for quite some time and finally hides in a building. The police is about to give up the chase, but a witness tells them where the guy is hiding. A few minutes later Mr. "Badass Rampage in the big city" is carried out of the building with his hands cuffed behind his back and a hole gaping from his head.
Now the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he was denied his right to life. Are you serious!? Mr. "I'm the fucking king of the world" drove like crazy through a densely populated area and emptied several magazines of AK-47 as well as a clip of handgun endangering thousands of people. One of the complaints of the ECHR is that the police did not try to negotiate with him before shooting him. WTF??? Negotiating? He had 3 years time to give up if he wanted to. He has escaped 3 times in past operations aimed at him. And during his last chase he had 90 minutes to decide that he wants to give up! Well, he didn't. Instead he went GTA / Rambo style.
Now his parents are supposed to recieve €30.000 as compensation for their loss. On various forums, people have expressed their opinion that they would gladly pay their taxes for such compensations if this is what it takes to get the scum off the streets.
To be honest I have bigger concerns about the whole human rights charter. Nothing to do with specific cases or anything, but it seems a bit weird for any group of people to dictate the what are considered the fundamental rights of anyone anywhere... especially when organisations like Amnesty etc.
I dunno, echoes of colonialism or something.
I understand it's a good and wholesome thing, it just seems weird.
Following his entry into the residential building, the whole area had been sealed off by the police who had had at the time complete control of the situation. While it had not appeared that Gancho could have successfully escaped, the police had not even attempted to minimise, as much as possible, recourse to lethal force.
There is no right to kill someone who is not CURRENTLY a threat to someone else's life. Killing people is only permitted to protect the lives of other people. Nothing else. Well maybe this doesn't hold in some countries, but it certainly does in the EU.
Hmm that's pretty ridiculous yeah, the guy was engaged in a shootout with police, what did he or anyone else expect the end result to be? Case should have been instantly laughed out of any sensible court.
I doubt your presentation of the facts coincides with the truth... the ehcr have no motive to rule this way have they? so unless theyre completely incompetent they know something you don't.
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
On July 09 2010 22:27 nayumi wrote: When a person decides to break the law, in my opinion he's already given up all of his rights.
Do you really want this rule to be applied for you?
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
Regardless of moral values, it is a very economical approach. What's the value of one human life? Calculating in the risks? As seen an individual defending themselves? As seen by a country defending itself?
On topic: Without further evidence in the case, I'd say it is a preposterous conclusion by the human rights court. I have no idea if the guy was still armed when he got shot and if he has been addressed on surrendering or not. Edit: I read, it said there were no negotiations. It includes stuff on psychic health which seems a questionable argument to me given the circumstances.. why even introduce that topic.
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
On July 09 2010 22:27 nayumi wrote: When a person decides to break the law, in my opinion he's already given up all of his rights.
Do you really want this rule to be applied for you?
Sure why not?
If i decided to piss on the whole society by massacring a family, would i even care about the consequences any more? I don't think so.
When someone decides to put another person's life at risk , I see no reason why his life should be protected either.
Pack your bags, you're going to guantanamo bay for pirating movies online. If you're alive after five years of torture (which you should be considering how much worse the chinese kind is) we'll let you out.
You should rephrase what kind of laws need to be broken to give up all of one's rights.
Hard to make this call. No system is perfect, you can only find one that works for MOST of the situations. Personally, I don't think his family deserves any compensation. However, you can't let the cops change the rules for certain situations even if it seems right. It's a very slippery slope that they shouldn't be allowed to do or else thing's can get more ugly. It's really tough being a cop. Take G20 in toronto. Those fuckfaces were destroying my city. From the vids, there were like 16-30 year olds throwing bricks and breakiong windows. These people are bitching about capitalism but imo, most of these morons havent even gotten a job yet to pay their taxes. If it was me, I'd shoot them all in the face with real bullets to help increase the average IQ. You can tell, they were instigated stuff with the cops, but the cops had to obey the law or else you have ppl screaming that they aren't following the law and are ignoring human rights (which is exactly what happened). Too many stupid ppl in this world.
I'm thinking of buying a province and only let ppl who have an IQ higher than 130 to live there.
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
On July 09 2010 22:27 nayumi wrote: When a person decides to break the law, in my opinion he's already given up all of his rights.
Do you really want this rule to be applied for you?
Sure why not?
If i decided to piss on the whole society by massacring a family, would i even care about the consequences any more? I don't think so.
When someone decides to put another person's life at risk , I see no reason why his life should be protected either.
Pack your bags, you're going to guantanamo bay for pirating movies online. If you're alive after five years of torture (which you should be considering how much worse the chinese kind is) we'll let you out.
You should rephrase what kind of laws need to be broken to give up all of one's rights.
He did say that human rights should not apply to people "who put other people's lives at risk" >_>... He specified completely what situations would consitute a criminal giving up his rights to life. Now you may disagree that breaking the law equates to loss of rights (and maybe rightfully so), but what you said there, with regards to pirating movies leading to loss of rights, is irrelevant, because that is not even what he was suggesting.
I personally agree with the statement, but would like to add that you have to be sure that you are fully aware of the criminal's situation (i.e their motives for their crimes are maybe understandable, such as theyre forced by gang bosses, or that they have a family to take care of, etc) when an institution, e.g law enforcers such as the police, decides to ignore somebody's right to life.
I believe, however, neither I nor the person your comment was addressed to advocates putting somebody in Guantanamo Bay and depriving them of their rights just over pirated movies though. Please keep your hyperbole down to a meaningful level, or everything sensible you may have meant are void.
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
On July 09 2010 22:27 nayumi wrote: When a person decides to break the law, in my opinion he's already given up all of his rights.
Do you really want this rule to be applied for you?
Sure why not?
If i decided to piss on the whole society by massacring a family, would i even care about the consequences any more? I don't think so.
When someone decides to put another person's life at risk , I see no reason why his life should be protected either.
Pack your bags, you're going to guantanamo bay for pirating movies online. If you're alive after five years of torture (which you should be considering how much worse the chinese kind is) we'll let you out.
You should rephrase what kind of laws need to be broken to give up all of one's rights.
oh i thought it was obvious what type of crime we were referring to here ... my bad then :/
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
Regardless of moral values, it is a very economical approach. What's the value of one human life? Calculating in the risks? As seen an individual defending themselves? As seen by a country defending itself?
On topic: Without further evidence in the case, I'd say it is a preposterous conclusion by the human rights court. I have no idea if the guy was still armed when he got shot and if he has been addressed on surrendering or not. Edit: I read, it said there were no negotiations. It includes stuff on psychic health which seems a questionable argument to me given the circumstances.. why even introduce that topic.
He was armed and he did use his pistol in the building. However, when the crime scene was investigated, they found that he had only 3 bullets left (which however nobody could have known).
On July 09 2010 22:33 nttea wrote: I doubt your presentation of the facts coincides with the truth... the ehcr have no motive to rule this way have they? so unless theyre completely incompetent they know something you don't.
Here is the funny part They do not know for sure if he was actually killed or if he shot himself! As stated hereand here (e.g. last paragraph) Either way they said that the police is at fault either because they shot him althought it was not "absolutely necessary" or because they failed "to take all necessary means to avoid autoagression".
Following his entry into the residential building, the whole area had been sealed off by the police who had had at the time complete control of the situation. While it had not appeared that Gancho could have successfully escaped, the police had not even attempted to minimise, as much as possible, recourse to lethal force.
There is no right to kill someone who is not CURRENTLY a threat to someone else's life. Killing people is only permitted to protect the lives of other people. Nothing else. Well maybe this doesn't hold in some countries, but it certainly does in the EU.
First of all, let's not forget that this guy was not much into talking. He had already escaped three times from the police. Also, by the time he died, he had been on the run for 1 hour and 30 minutes, in which he had more that enough opportunities to give up. How about this: When you get out of your car after its tires are shot by the police, you could either surrender laying down on the ground or you can take both your pistols, continue shooting at the police and continue fleeing. Luckily he left the grenades in the car (yes he was carrying a bunch of grenades around) And it is also questionable how the court decided that he was not an imminent threat. He was armed and he was in a residential building in the middle of a residential area.
Let's summarize: We have a reckless, trigger-happy asshole that dies. He is either shot by the police or he kills himself. The court still determines that it is somebody else's fault that he has a gaping hole in his head.
And people wonder why the police is often indecisive, slow and ineffective in critical situations...
On July 09 2010 22:09 SirJolt wrote: To be honest I have bigger concerns about the whole human rights charter. Nothing to do with specific cases or anything, but it seems a bit weird for any group of people to dictate the what are considered the fundamental rights of anyone anywhere... especially when organisations like Amnesty etc.
I dunno, echoes of colonialism or something.
I understand it's a good and wholesome thing, it just seems weird.
if westerners really cared about human rights wouldn't they be boycotting more chinese slave labour goods?
they don't really care about them that much so long as they get their goods cheap
I don't understand why people bitch and moan about a few bad people who get lucky and are protected by civil or human rights authorities when far more good people are being denied these same rights on account of coercion, corruption, extortion. etc.
Your priorities are way out of order if human rights groups are high on your shit list.
Well, given their conclusion he probably was assassinated by the police. Not that I would complain about it. I am sure there are better things for human rights groups to focus on...
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
Regardless of moral values, it is a very economical approach. What's the value of one human life? Calculating in the risks? As seen an individual defending themselves? As seen by a country defending itself?
A country defending itself from a single kidnapper? You've got to be kidding. Value of a human life? Infinitely more than anything that guy could have asked for unless it involved harm to other people.
On July 09 2010 22:23 jello_biafra wrote: Reminds me of this + Show Spoiler +
This was incredibly stupid. The boy could have been harmed if the guy had noticed what was going on. And honestly, if you would risk the life of an innocent child over some "3 demands", then I am actually out of words. Not out of nice words though.
On July 09 2010 22:27 nayumi wrote: When a person decides to break the law, in my opinion he's already given up all of his rights.
Do you really want this rule to be applied for you?
Sure why not?
If i decided to piss on the whole society by massacring a family, would i even care about the consequences any more? I don't think so.
When someone decides to put another person's life at risk , I see no reason why his life should be protected either.
Are you sure that you never broke the law before? By your initial statement I would assume that you forfeit all your human rights. It's unlikely that you happen to the one person on earth who has never broken any law (knowingly or unknowingly). Have you ever driven a car? Whenever you are driving you are by default putting other's lives at risk. If you are not aware of that you should stay out of cars. So, should everyone with a driver's license lose his rights?
On July 10 2010 00:43 mmp wrote: I don't understand why people bitch and moan about a few bad people who get lucky and are protected by civil or human rights authorities when far more good people are being denied these same rights on account of coercion, corruption, extortion. etc.
Your priorities are way out of order if human rights groups are high on your shit list.
I wouldn't say that he got lucky... he is dead.
The issues you address are predominantly neither in the country I live in nor anywhere in the EU. The ECHR cannot do anything about human rights' issues in Africa or Asia, but they can very well, stop wasting time and money on stupid stuff.
Another thing I am concerned about is the fact that the harsh police actions are being prosecuted on almost every occasion. This causes the police to become unable to act appropriately in critical situations, which poses a danger to all people in the country. It's not like this is the first time harsh police actions have been deemed wrong, although they face a possible threat and the situation is pretty difficult. For example, there was a border patrol officer, whose patrol had stopped a trafficking boat, upon entering that boat one of the sailors pulled a gun, was shot by the officer and died. This officer was put in jail afterwards... I oppose police brutality and arbitrariness, but I also believe that at least in critical moments the police should be able to do what seems right and not have to fear consequences for actions are not driven by brutality and arbitrariness.
Getting killed in a shootout doesn't mean you're robbed of your right to live, what the hell is wrong with those people... I'd say I'm on the left regarding those things but this is pretty ridiculous =P
There is a good reason to be harsh with the police. Otherwise they might start pulling the trigger too quickly. What "seems right" might just be horribly wrong. Also, policemen are trained better than the average criminal so they don't have to shoot everyone who might harm them.
Usually a policeman isn't even punished too hard. I suppose that every officer is aware that he might be ranked down if he shoots someone and misjudged the situation, and if he worries about that too much then maybe he isn't suitable as a cop.
The case you describe with an officer being put in jail sounds extreme. Either it was a misjudgement by the court - which happens for all kinds of people - or there is more to it than you tell us.
On July 10 2010 02:11 Djzapz wrote: Getting killed in a shootout doesn't mean you're robbed of your right to live, what the hell is wrong with those people... I'd say I'm on the left regarding those things but this is pretty ridiculous =P
Check the link, the situation was supposedly under control, which imo implies that there wasn't any gunfire for a significant amount of time. The shootout was already over.
Hey OP, I know you managed to write a fairly elaborate synopsis of what you claimed happened but trying to turn this into a movie action sequence isn't exactly a full story.
Either you forgot to mention or don't know if anyone was killed during this whole event. You've made plenty of reference to the guy being extremely reckless and dangerous but given the situation you depicted you would have thought that someone actually managed to get injured.
EDIT: Read the link, not the OP's post. The police sealed off the building and had complete control of the situation. It's definetely a case of excessive force.
From the link: Right to life: use of force (Article 2)
The Court noted that Gancho had been fatally wounded during an attempted police arrest. Following his entry into the residential building, the whole area had been sealed off by the police who had had at the time complete control of the situation. While it had not appeared that Gancho could have successfully escaped, the police had not even attempted to minimise, as much as possible, recourse to lethal force. As it had not been established that there had been any danger or urgency justifying the use of firearms for Gancho’s arrest, the Court found that the police could have attempted to negotiate with him to surrender, or at least to warn him of their intentions to fire. Instead, apparently without considering any other alternative action, the special squad officers had rushed into the building firing their guns. The Court concluded that the arrest operation had not been adequately planned and that, in those circumstances, the force used had not been absolutely necessary, as required by the Convention. There had therefore been a violation of Article 2.
Right to life: investigation (Article 2)
The Court observed that the Bulgarian authorities had undertaken a number of investigative acts. However, it was struck by the fact that they had failed to collect a crucial piece of evidence, namely statements from the special squad officers who had been directly involved in Gancho’s arrest. Those officers appeared to have been unconditionally exempted from their duty to testify in criminal proceedings, something for which there could be no excuse given the authorities’ obligations under Article 2 to conduct effective investigations where suspicious deaths were at stake.
Further, the reliability of the psychiatric report carried out after Gancho’s death was seriously questioned by the Court. In addition, unlike the prosecutor’s affirmation, the Court found the evidence gathered to have been inconclusive, leaving open both possible explanations for Gancho’s death: suicide as well as manslaughter. The discontinuation of the investigation, without identifying first the officers who had taken part in his arrest, indicated a deplorable lack of accountability of the police before the law. Finally, the investigation was found to have been incomplete, a number of important investigative acts never having taken place. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the investigation into Gancho’s death lacked the necessary thoroughness and objectivity, and was not effective, in violation of Article 2.
the twisted logic of this reminds of cases when burglars break into a house and hurt themselves by cutting themselves on the glass they broke...and then sueing the homeowner and winning....i kid you not this has happened many times and i don't understand it at all
On July 10 2010 03:54 Offhand wrote: Hey OP, I know you managed to write a fairly elaborate synopsis of what you claimed happened but trying to turn this into a movie action sequence isn't exactly a full story.
Either you forgot to mention or don't know if anyone was killed during this whole event. You've made plenty of reference to the guy being extremely reckless and dangerous but given the situation you depicted you would have thought that someone actually managed to get injured.
EDIT: Read the link, not the OP's post. The police sealed off the building and had complete control of the situation. It's definetely a case of excessive force.
From the link: Right to life: use of force (Article 2)
The Court noted that Gancho had been fatally wounded during an attempted police arrest. Following his entry into the residential building, the whole area had been sealed off by the police who had had at the time complete control of the situation. While it had not appeared that Gancho could have successfully escaped, the police had not even attempted to minimise, as much as possible, recourse to lethal force. As it had not been established that there had been any danger or urgency justifying the use of firearms for Gancho’s arrest, the Court found that the police could have attempted to negotiate with him to surrender, or at least to warn him of their intentions to fire. Instead, apparently without considering any other alternative action, the special squad officers had rushed into the building firing their guns. The Court concluded that the arrest operation had not been adequately planned and that, in those circumstances, the force used had not been absolutely necessary, as required by the Convention. There had therefore been a violation of Article 2.
Right to life: investigation (Article 2)
The Court observed that the Bulgarian authorities had undertaken a number of investigative acts. However, it was struck by the fact that they had failed to collect a crucial piece of evidence, namely statements from the special squad officers who had been directly involved in Gancho’s arrest. Those officers appeared to have been unconditionally exempted from their duty to testify in criminal proceedings, something for which there could be no excuse given the authorities’ obligations under Article 2 to conduct effective investigations where suspicious deaths were at stake.
Further, the reliability of the psychiatric report carried out after Gancho’s death was seriously questioned by the Court. In addition, unlike the prosecutor’s affirmation, the Court found the evidence gathered to have been inconclusive, leaving open both possible explanations for Gancho’s death: suicide as well as manslaughter. The discontinuation of the investigation, without identifying first the officers who had taken part in his arrest, indicated a deplorable lack of accountability of the police before the law. Finally, the investigation was found to have been incomplete, a number of important investigative acts never having taken place. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the investigation into Gancho’s death lacked the necessary thoroughness and objectivity, and was not effective, in violation of Article 2.
I never said that anybody was injured. In fact as far as I know only two people were injured: The guy who died and one of his buddies, who was in the same car as Rambo and got shot by him, because our badass hero got paranoid and believed that his buddy was a traitor. The point is that this guy was reckless as hell and incalculable. On top of that he was armed and might have had grenades on him (turns out he left them all in the car, but how would you know). Wouldn't have been too much trouble for him to throw them out of the window.
Oh, and just a little hint. Before suggesting a source to support your claim, maybe you should read the source completely first. The official investigations had shown that he commited suicide. Basically the ECHR ruled that the investigations were incomplete and ignored them. Even in their final reasoning they state that there are two "possible explanations for Gancho’s death: suicide as well as manslaughter". One of the judges actually explains that if it was suicide, then the police failed to "to take all necessary means to avoid autoagression". The whole ruling is based on inclusive information.
when i saw this thread last night (i was banned... i couldn't post) and noticed all of the europeans' comments i was reminded of why everybody wants to live in america.
if you look back on the previous posts and compare countries, i think you'll notice that every american in this thread is singing pretty much the same song.
reading the op say "i'm all for human rights" and in essentially the same breath turn around and say "... BUT FUCK THIS GUY" is kind of like that old joke:
"would you have sex with a man for $100?" "lol no" "ok ... but would you have sex with a man for $1,000,000?" ... "meh... alright" + Show Spoiler +
"...>_>... well, now that we know what kind of person you are, its just a matter of negotiating price then, isn't it?"
PS: the vietnamese guy who said "don't treat him like a human being because if i did that i wouldn't care about humanity" is a moron.
Check the link, the situation was supposedly under control, which imo implies that there wasn't any gunfire for a significant amount of time. The shootout was already over.
Oh... -_-
Shouldn't try to pick up a story from the cover, it doesn't work well for me.
On July 10 2010 06:09 ggrrg wrote: Oh, and just a little hint. Before suggesting a source to support your claim, maybe you should read the source completely first. The official investigations had shown that he commited suicide. Basically the ECHR ruled that the investigations were incomplete and ignored them. Even in their final reasoning they state that there are two "possible explanations for Gancho’s death: suicide as well as manslaughter". One of the judges actually explains that if it was suicide, then the police failed to "to take all necessary means to avoid autoagression". The whole ruling is based on inclusive information.
If he committed suicide then too bad for the family, they shouldn't be paid. On the other hand if he was executed well, that's a whole other kettle of fish.