Human Rights Violation

Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights worth the paperit’s written on?In 1948 the United Nations unveiled the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights to protect the rightsof every person in the world from a repeatof the tragedy of the Second World War.This declaration was to serve as the “foundationof freedom, justice and peace in the world”.A person’s rights were now protected bythe international community from any governmentor state. Sixty years on, almost half of the world’spopulation has one of the 30 articles laid outin the Declaration violated on a daily basis.Millions of people die of easily preventable and curablediseases, more than a billion people earn a dollaror less a day and the same number do not have accessto clean drinking water.Meanwhile the repression of fundamental freedoms,torture, death penalty, discrimination and violenceon kids and women continue to be tools for socialcontrol and keeping power.The human rights laid out in the declaraion are oftenattacked by the very people who should be defendingthem – our governments. Why?

Terrorism cannotbe defeated with human rights violation.

Terrorism cannot be fought with arbitrary arrests, disappearances, trial detentions or torture. The condition to achieve global security is respect for human rights. If the banning of torture and mistreatment is violated, what are the chances of protectingany other human right?Believing that torture can be justified in some circumstances, means to believe that the aim always justifies the means. This line of argument is very similar to what terrorists often say to justify their attacks.War on terrorism is the excuse for many governments to continue to practice undisturbed, good old repression. More over, tolerance or indifference against human rights violations is growing when the final aim is cited as fighting terrorism. The only way to face this situation is to set standards prohibiting any kind of inhumantreatment. We can’t defend what we support by subverting our moral values. And we can’t fight terrorism using state terror.