Traveller rights being abused, claims UN adviser.

THE BRITISH government is failing in its international obligations to house Travellers, despite promoting democracy and the protection of human rights in other countries, a United Nations adviser complained yesterday during a visit to the Dale Farm Travellers’ site in Essex.   Council workers continued to make preparations yesterday, including the laying of a temporary road across a field, for the evictions of up to 80 Traveller families from the site outside Basildon yesterday, scheduled to begin early next Monday.  UN adviser Prof Yves Cabannes said the local council was infringing international human rights in three key areas – the right of ethnic minorities to be protected, the right to have adequate housing and security of tenure and the right to be protected from forced evictions…