Human Rights

On December 10, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations. This was largely in response to the atrocities which were uncovered during and in the aftermath of WWII.

The Articles of the Human Rights have certainly been proclaimed around the world, but what do they mean, in a nutshell so to speak, for the ordinary people of the world.

Basically they state that all people deserve to be treated fairly and not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, age, sex or gender, language, politics, religion or caste. All people have the same fundamental rights.

• Right to equality
• Right to press and/or publication
• Right to liberty and freedom
• Right against preventive detention
• Right to criminal justice
• Right against exile
• Right to property
• Right against exploitation
• Right to information
• Right to culture
• Right to education
• Right to religion
• Right to privacy

All people should have all of these rights, but what happens in the real world? What happens when the human rights of one individual can compromise a whole nation? What about prisoners? Should those who violate the human rights of others have their own human rights withdrawn? This really does open up all sorts of questions, many of which have been argued over ever since.

Human Rights Organizations

There are many organizations around the world that are responsible for monitoring the human rights of the people. These organizations collect and document evidence of human rights abuse and apply force to the relevant governments to enforce the basic human rights laws. Groups like:

• Amnesty International
• Human Rights Watch
• International Federation of Human Rights
• World Organization Against Torture

Work tirelessly to protect the human rights of people all around the world. The most serious of violations against human rights, according to their reports are due to wars of aggression and crimes against humanity during wars including genocide. According to these groups there are very few countries in the world who actually do not commit violations of human rights. These are largely the Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark and Iceland) but also includes the Netherlands the Costa Rica. Simply closing a country or geographical region to freedom of movement by journalists actually violates (or at least raises suspicion of violation) of human rights.

Human Rights for Prisoners

According to many human rights activists, the death penalty is a direct violation of the prisoners’ human rights. This is, as earlier stated, an extremely contentious issue and one which has been discussed and debated a lot during the last fifty years. The torture and cruel punishment of prisoners which is found to be degrading or inhuman is also prohibited by human rights.

Human Rights on Abortion

Fetal rights defend the ethical and legal rights of human fetuses. This is often brought up in the abortion debate in support of the pro-life campaigners.

Human Rights and Homosexuality

In more than 70 countries around the world, homosexuality remains a criminal offense, and is even punishable by execution in 6 or 7 of those countries. The human rights campaigners advocate that this is a serious violation of human rights and strive to decriminalization the act of homosexuality.