Irish Council for Civil Liberties
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (Irish: An Chomhairle um Chearta Daonna) is an Irish non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the civil liberties and human rights of people in Ireland.
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| Formation | 30 June 1976 |
|---|---|
| Founder | |
| Type | NGO |
| Headquarters | Dublin, Ireland |
Chairperson | Dr Muiris O'Ceidigh |
Executive director | Liam Herrick |
| Website | http://www.iccl.ie |
History
Founded on 30 June 1976 by future President Mary Robinson, Kader Asmal and others.[1] Their primary role is in campaigning for civil rights as well as networking with other civil rights groups both nationally and internationally.
During the divorce campaign of the 1980s and 1990s, the ICCL was among others who established the Divorce Action Group which campaigned to support the legalisation of divorce which had previously been prohibited in the Constitution. In 1995, this was successfully passed.
The ICCL are a member organisation of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH).
The ICCL has repeatedly sought the abolition of the Special Criminal Court, and in 2009 opposed its expansion from a narrow focus on state security-related trials to also include organised crime.[2]
In October 2011, the ICCL said the information provided to voters in advance of polling in two constitutional referendums on the Twenty-ninth Amendment and Thirtieth Amendment was "tardy and inadequate".[3] and advocated a 'no' vote on the proposed Thirtieth Amendment.[4] The Thirtieth Amendment was subsequently rejected by 116,000 votes.[5]
In January 2020, the ICCL criticised management at CBS Kilkenny for attempting to implement facial recognition technology to record and process the biometric data of children and staff in the school. The implementation was postponed as a result.[6]
In May 2020 ICCL suggested that Gardaí using spit hood during the COVID-19 pandemic might be "inhumane and degrading".[7]
Freedom of Speech
THE ICCL has expressed support for the curbing of hate speech in Ireland, but called for definitions of "hate" and "incitement", to "ensure we are protecting against only the most extreme forms of hate speech", so as not to place undue limitations on freedom of expression. The ICCL also called for the freedom of expression defence in the legislation to be strengthened, observing the precedence set by European courts which stresses that while content may be shocking or offensive, it is not necessarily hateful.[8]
References
- ICCL (17 December 2021). "Celebrating 45 years of change". Irish Council for Civil Liberties. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
- MacGuill, Dan (10 February 2016). "FactCheck: Who wants to get rid of the Special Criminal Court?". thejournal.ie. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
- Edwards, Elaine."Referendum information 'inadequate' - ICCL", The Irish Times. 27 October 2011.
- "Legal groups join call for no vote in referendum". IrishExaminer.com. 21 October 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
- "Citizens 1, Government 1". IrishTimes.com. 31 October 2011. pp. Opinion & Analysis. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
- "School puts plans for facial recognition pilot on hold over GDPR". Business Post. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
- Irish Council for Civil Liberties [@ICCLtweet] (13 May 2020). "Spit hoods, like all full hoods forced over someone's head, could constitute inhuman or degrading treatment. If gardaí were taking human rights principles into account as they say in this article, then they would not be using them at all" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- Duffy, Muireann (28 May 2023). "State cannot over-rely on legislation to tackle hate speech — ICCL". Breaking News. Retrieved 10 July 2023.