Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 7

Article 7.

    * All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

The following defines equal protection under the law. It is: n. the right of all persons to have the same access to the law and courts and to be treated equally by the law and courts, both in procedures and in the substance of the law. It is akin to the right to due process of law, but in particular applies to equal treatment as an element of fundamental fairness. The most famous case on the subject is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) in which Chief Justice Earl Warren, for a unanimous Supreme Court, ruled that "separate but equal" educational facilities for blacks were inherently unequal and unconstitutional since the segregated school system did not give all students equal rights under the law. It will also apply to other inequalities such as differentials in pay for the same work or unequal taxation. The principle is stated in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: "No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

In this and other countries, (see comment from November 1st blog post) equal protection is at best something that is paid lip service. In fact, women, minorities, refugees, the poor, and those who are very ill or disabled do not have equal protection before the law. For example, the racial composition of prisons in the United States would indicate that people of racial minority status are more often charged, convicted, and receive harsher sentencing than those who are of caucasian origin. In the U.S., people who are gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered face discrimination in the military, are not allowed to marry (in most states) their partner, and face job discrimination if their GLBT status becomes known.

In many countries, First Nation peoples are discriminated against. And, in many parts of the world, women are not entitled to the same degree of education, and human rights as are men. Almost everywhere, as a wise man once told me, "poverty is a crime" and is punishable by misery, illness and even death, while those who are wealthy are respected, receive health care, live longer and are treated better in their legal systems than those who are poor.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 6

Article 6.

    * Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Recently, a friend sent me a much-forwarded email titled, "I am a person." It was a pictorial account of the struggle for women to get the vote and to be accounted as a person in our own right before the law.

I am grateful to all the women who worked, struggled, demonstrated, suffered imprisonment or beatings and yet stood firm until our rights as persons were recognized.  I am grateful that I can vote. I am grateful that I can run for political office, own property, manage my own money, and determine for myself whether I will seek employment, start my own business, or take early retirement. 

My hope is that everyone everywhere will be able to exercise these rights.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 5

Article 5.

    * No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

I remember many years ago as a school child first hearing about torture in the context of the Spanish Inquisition. I was horrified! Later, as a middle school and high school student I read books about how the communists tortured people in southeast Asia. Again, I could hardly believe that human beings would do such things. Later, I heard about the School of the Americas, (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), and could not understand how my government could support torture in other countries, and actually teach the methods of torture. And, finally, the torture memos, the photographs from Abu Graib, and the reports coming out of Guantanamo have shown me that my government definitely has engaged in torture in violation of this human rights declaration, treaties, the Geneva Conventions and more.

A Wikipedia article defines it.  Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:

...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

—UN Convention Against Torture^[1]

Amnesty International works for human rights and justice around the world. Their website has a section on countering terror with justice, in which they call upon the United States government to stop using torture:

COUNTER TERROR WITH JUSTICE

In the name of the "war on terror," the U.S. government has subjected people who have not been charged with or convicted of any crime to:
• Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment

• Abductions (known as extraordinary rendition), "disappearances," and secret detention

• Illegal and indefinite detention in Guantanamo, Bagram, other U.S. facilities, and secret CIA sites

• Denial of legal rights, including fair trials and habeas corpus--the right to challenge the legality of one's detention

Additionally, the U.S. government has employed companies that have been implicated in cases of killings, torture, and rape, and has failed to adequately investigate and prosecute abuses.

 I am deeply saddened by this participation of my government in such violations of human rights. I feel like a German in the late 1930's, or a Russian in the late 1940's, watching my government act out of control, often in secrecy from its own citizens, refusing to pay attention or to listen to the voices raised against such actions.  I can only hope that our current governmental leaders will take the necessary steps to bring to justice those who authorized, justified and committed torture.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 4

Article 4.

    * No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

For some time I've been hearing and reading bits and pieces about a resurgence of slavery and human trafficking worldwide. A few years ago, there was much talk of China's violations of human rights amidst charges that China was using slave labor in some of its manufacturing plants. More recently, a spate of articles about young people sold into slavery and working in the United States have appeared in the national press.

Here is a quote from a Fact Sheet from a United States government agency directed at schools:

What Is the Extent of Human Trafficking in the United States?
Contrary to a common assumption, human trafficking is not just a problem in other countries. Cases of human trafficking have been reported in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and some U.S. territories. Victims of human trafficking can be children or adults, U.S. citizens or foreign nationals, male or female.

According to U.S. government estimates, thousands of men, women, and children are trafficked to the United States for the purposes of sexual and labor exploitation. An unknown number of U.S. citizens and legal residents are trafficked within the country primarily for sexual servitude and, to a lesser extent, forced labor.

 The State Department issued a Trafficking in Persons Report in June of 2009. 

Secretary Clinton (June 16, 2009): "The ninth annual Trafficking in Persons Report sheds light on the faces of modern-day slavery and on new facets of this global problem. The human trafficking phenomenon affects virtually every country, including the United States. In acknowledging America’s own struggle with modern-day slavery and slavery-related practices, we offer partnership. We call on every government to join us in working to build consensus and leverage resources to eliminate all forms of human trafficking." -Full Text 

And, from the National MultiCultural Institute, a quote on the extent of the issue in terms of numbers of people who are enslaved:

The number of people held in slavery worldwide is estimated to be between 12-27 million, more than at any time in world history.(International Labor Organization and United Nations) Each year, according to the United Nations, between 700,000 – 900,000 people fall victim to trafficking across international borders and are bought, sold, transported and held against their will worldwide. The U.S. Government estimates that between 14,500 17,500 victims are trafficked into the United States annually and that there are currently 200,000 people in this country who have been trafficked. A large proportion of the victims are women and children.

One of the undersides of globalization, human trafficking exists in at least 127 countries and has become a highly lucrative business. Not only is it the second most lucrative illicit enterprise in the world after drug trafficking, it is also the fastest growing, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The International Labor Organization estimates global profits from human trafficking at $44.3 billion USD per year.

Go to the links to learn more about human trafficking and slavery in the 21st century. If you are in a position to meet victims of human trafficking, do what you can to identify whether a specific person is  a victim of human trafficking, and make appropriate referrals to helping agencies and advocacy groups. All of us can become more informed, express our outrage to elected officials and work together to cut off the supply of money that feeds those who traffic in human lives.

 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 3

Article 3.

    * Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Image from the documentary film "The War Tapes"

Most people in the United States will agree in theory to Article 3. Yet day to day living in some of the poorest areas of any large city would give lie to such agreement, as protections for these rights is limited at best. Police protection, and even fire protection, are often less available and less prompt than in more wealthy parts of the city. In metropolitan areas, if one is African-American, Latino, or Native American, just driving through a high-end suburb could result in a traffic stop and search, with the implicit threat of being beaten or worse. And, in war zones, no one's rights to life, liberty or security of person are protected.

Bill Moyers Journal, the PBS television show, devoted last night's edition to "The Good Soldier." I was able to watch the last half of the program in which four men from different wars, World War II,  the Viet Nam War, and  the current Gulf War, talked about their experiences of war. They revealed its aftermath in their lives upon returning home, and the years of recovery needed after they participated in killing. They discussed their current commitment to end wars. It touched my heart to see men confess what they had done, and then talk about what the effects of their experiences and actions in war were on their own lives. It was the killing of innocents and the deaths of friends that haunted them. Feeling himself turn into an "animal," as one man named it, required years of therapy and self-inquiry, plus a public commitment against war, before he could live more easily with himself. I was encouraged by their articulation of the many reasons to stop the current U.S. wars and avoid warfare in the future.

Article 2 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

* Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Everyone, everywhere on earth, is entitled to the rights and freedoms others have, without exception because of who they are or where on this earth they are. How amazing!  Most often, it seems that those with greater means are thought to deserve more rights than others, more freedoms. But here this document, signed almost 61 years ago, shows that at one time the nations of the world agreed that human rights and freedoms do not depend on accidents of birth, place, or gender, nor on choices made regarding opinions, religions and so on.

If these values were to truly govern international law, I do not think humanity would tolerate making retroviral drugs freely available in the United States, but not in developing countries. I do not think humanity would tolerate the selling of arms and munitions to dictators to use against their own people or to start wars with others.

Women, men and children with HIV/AIDS in Africa, Southeast Asia and other places in the world deserve access to lifesaving medications.  Stopping the sale of weapons to organizations and countries that would use them against their own people or their neighbors would prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, either from direct assault or from the losses associated with warfare, such as no breadwinner, having to flee, not being able to plant crops and so on. Think for example of Afghanistan, where someone is selling weapons to the Taliban, to Al Quaeda, to war lords, etc. Think of the policies of the United States using drone planes to drop bombs, sometimes on the basis of bad information, that kill civilians. The implication is that such civilian lives are worth less than the lives of American soldiers.

And, now think of Greg Mortenson, who wrote the book, Three Cups of Tea, about working in Afghanistan to build schools that would teach Afghan girls. This is an example of someone living out the commitment to see that the rights and freedoms to which some are entitled are also there for those who have far too often been denied them.

More on Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

* All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."


This is reminiscent of  "All men are created equal..." plus there is an acknowledgment that women and children are also born free and equal in relation to dignity and rights. Being "endowed with reason and conscience" human beings "should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." These are values embedded in most religious or spiritual traditions.

What would it mean to really hold to the idea that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights? Would it mean that we could ignore their deaths? Torture them? Kill them? Is this acting towards them in a spirit of brotherhood? Would we condemn such free and equal beings to lives of poverty and ignorance? Would we refuse to help them develop their reason and their consciences, or stand by while they were being abused by parents, peers, spouses, political adversaries, or police/militaries?

The news media are full of stories about people being attacked, assaulted, disrespected, going hungry, homeless, fleeing violence, fleeing environmental devastation. We collectively need to make these values real, to base our actions on these values, rather than paying lip service to them and then acting in ways that openly contradict what we pretend to profess.

Listening to Jim Wallis talking about the great divides in our nation and others, divisions of gender, race and class, I was impressed with his grasp of the need to state wrongs that have been done, apologize for them and make reparations. This reminds me of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, in which those who committed crimes during apartheid were allowed to confess these crimes publicly and given amnesty. That is a different story than the one I wrote about yesterday that is taking place in Argentina. The defendants have plead not guilty in spite of the fact that they were in power in the 1980's when thousands were killed, tortured, disappeared under their military government in Argentina.

May our respect for the dignity of each person be increased, may we acutely feel their pain when our actions rob others of their rights and dignity, may our consciences and reason speak to us loudly and may we act always in the spirit of brotherhood. May we acknowledge the wrongs we do to others, apologize and make reparations. May we who live in privilege understand that the price for our privilege was paid by others who had no choice but to do what benefited us far more than it did them. May we understand that we need to make reparations to them and/or their descendants for what has been taken from them.

Universal Declaration Article 1

"Article 1.

    * All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

The BBC News online today reported that the last military ruler of Argentina, Reynaldo Bignone, and five other retired generals are now on trial. The trial is expected to last at least until February, 2010.

The men are charged in connection with the alleged kidnapping, torture and disappearance of 56 opponents of the military government in the late 1970s.
The abuses are alleged to have taken place at the Campo de Mayo base on the outskirts of the capital, Buenos Aires.
Human rights groups say up to 30,000 people were killed or disappeared in Argentina between 1976 and 1983.

Obviously, torture and disappearances do not constitute "acting in a spirit of brotherhood." Nor do so many other instances over these last 30 years; the United States' "School of the Americas" is said to have taught torture methods to representatives of governments throughout South America.; From a Wikipedia article about those years in Argentina, "This generalization of state terror tactics has been explained in part by the information received by the Argentine militaries in the infamous School of Americas and also by French instructors from the secret services, who taught them "counter-insurgency" tactics first experimented during the Algerian War (1954-62).^" 

Imagine a world in which each child born is welcomed, loved, sheltered and nurtured into full adulthood, educated to make her or his unique contribution to the world.  Imagine a world in which no person is subjected to inhuman treatment, to torture, to being 'disappeared' or to being killed. May it be so.

United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

After posting on praying the news on another blog throughout October, I've decided to blog here about praying the news in relation to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I will be doing this at least through November. 

Here's a little background on this decision. One issue that appeared frequently in newspapers and blogs throughout much of September and October was the issue of health care reform. Many people were suggesting that "health care is a right," while others were claiming, "health care is not a right." I remembered that some time ago I had read in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that health care was one of those universal rights.

The United Nations Charter had acknowledged that there are basic human rights. According to this site the preamble to the U.N. Charter stated "We the peoples of the United Nations [are] determined -
.. to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small". 

As the cruelties against the Jews of Europe and against prisoners of war in Europe and Asia became widely known, it seemed necessary to specify what those fundamental human rights are, so there would be no possible misunderstanding.  The United Nations decided to establish a commission to accomplish the task. The UDHR was drafted by a commission Eleanor Roosevelt chaired. According to Wikipedia "The membership of the Commission was designed to be broadly representative of the global community with representatives of the following countries serving: Australia, Belgium, Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Chile,  China, Cuba, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Lebanon, Panama, Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. Well known members of the Commission included Eleanor Roosevelt of the United States, who was Chairman, Jacques Maritain and René Cassin of France, Charles Malik of Lebanon and P. C. Chang of China, among others." 

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration on December 10, 1948, with 48 in favor, no nation opposed, and eight abstentions.  It was the first time the nations of the world had mutually specified basic human rights to which all people are entitled.

Preamble
The Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:

• Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
• Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
• Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
• Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
• Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
• Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
• Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
• Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

How we need to heed these words now! Let us "keep this Declaration constantly in mind, ... and strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures...secure their universal and effective recognition and observance."