Britain is such a lover of horses that we race them, keep them as pets and occasionally make a pie from them but the one we love most is the high one that we clamber upon regularly to shout at other countries for their human rights record.
While we like to hit places like China and Iran over the heads regarding how they treat their own and other peoples citizens, we don't like to mention that sometimes it is our disregard for human rights that get a closer look at, such as this week when the UK faced some uncomfortable from a UN panel who decided the UK's human rights record since 9/11 deserved some closer scrutiny.
Charges of complicity in abusive interrogation, renditions to Libya, the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and the enquiry into the treatment of terrorism suspects that has been kicked into the long grass all came under the microscope although we did our best to delay things by a few years by dragging our feet submitting the requested evidence.
Once it got underway the Chinese diplomat complained that the UK delegation's responses were evasive and gave non-answers to his questions and the Italian committee member became angry and accused the British government of perverting the UN convention against torture to evade its legal responsibilities.
There were also questions about the enforced removal of Sri Lankan asylum seekers who were then subsequently tortured and doubted the impartiality and independence of a Ministry of Defence enquiry into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and the attempt to have legal claims by veterans of Kenya's 1950s Mau Mau insurgency struck out on time-limitation grounds to be contrary to international law.
The committee is due to publish its conclusions later this month which should make interesting reading and if a copy finds it's way to China or Iran then the next time we mention human rights to them our high horse may not look quite so lofty.
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