News In Focus
23 December 2005
End of the road for Human Rights Centre
The Scottish Human Rights Centre, which has been in the forefront of promoting human rights issues for the last 35 years, has been forced to close due to lack of funds.
The Centre, which has struggled in the face of diminished funding in recent years, yesterday admitted defeat and that it was only days from bankruptcy. It will now be dissolved and its two paid staff, who work alongside eight volunteers, laid off.
Solicitor John Scott, chairman of the Centre, said its workers were determined to find new ways of promoting human rights in Scotland. He asked how it was that no public money was available for the Centre when the Executive was legislating for a Scottish Commission on Human Rights, for which the group had long campaigned.
He claimed that while the Commission was a very important development, it would not take on the range of work of the Centre.