What's new

Welcome

If you already have an account, please login, but if you don't have one yet, you are more than welcome to freely join the community of lawyers around the world..

Register Log in
  • We don't have any responsibilities about the news being sent in this site. Legal News are automatically being collected from sources and submitted in this forum by feed readers. Source of each news is set in the news and a link to its source is always added.
    (Any News older than 21 days from its post time will be deleted automatically!)

Jurist Inter-Parliamentary Union warns UN conference of rising political violence against lawmakers

Status
Not open for further replies.
  • Thread starter
  • Staff
  • #1

Dadparvar

Staff member
Nov 11, 2016
10,597
0
6
Martin Chungong, head of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), warned delegates at a UN conference Thursday that growing public hostility toward lawmakers could have “major implications for democracies, parliaments and human rights worldwide.”

In an UN News interview, Italian MP Valentina Grippo described the pressures lawmakers face when speaking publicly, saying that if an MP’s message is not “perfectly in line” with what an audience wants to hear, “then you have multiple attacks.”

Their remarks came alongside the release of a IPU report, which compiles responses from parliamentarians across 85 countries and presents in-depth case studies from Argentina, Benin, Italy, Malaysia and the Netherlands.

The report finds that intimidation is now a widespread feature of parliamentary life. According to the IPU, 71 percent of respondents reported experiencing violence from the public, with most of it heavily concentrated online. Between 65 percent and 77 percent of MPs in the five case study countries reporting online abuse, which intensifies around elections and polarizing political issues.

The IPU further reports that many MPs believe the situation is worsening. In Argentina and the Netherlands, 8 out of 10 MPs reported an increase in violence over the past 5 years. There is also a gender gap in exposure, where 76 percent of women MPs reported exposure to violence by the public compared with 68 percent of men, with women more likely to face gendered and sexualized attacks.

The IPU attributes much of the violence to individual perpetrators rather than organized groups. In the online context, anonymous users were identified as the main perpetrators by around 9 out of 10 MPs in Argentina, Italy, Malaysia and the Netherlands.

The report calls on political and parliamentary leadership to define and enforce boundaries for acceptable public discourse so intimidation does not succeed in silencing dissenting and minority voices. The IPU warns that these trends can erode democratic representation, discourage diversity and weaken parliaments over time. It also recommends strengthening reporting and support mechanisms within legislatures, including access to legal counsel and psychological support and, given the prevalence of online abuse, specialized digital safety units to help MPs monitor threats and coordinate with law enforcement when risks escalate.

The post Inter-Parliamentary Union warns UN conference of rising political violence against lawmakers appeared first on JURIST - News.

Continue reading...

Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top