While the words might change from country to country and are sometimes taken for granted, human rights represent one of the universally agreed upon ideas — that all people are born with basic rights and freedoms that include life, liberty, and justice. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.
Bloggers Unite For Human Rights challenges bloggers everywhere to help elevate human rights by drawing attention to the challenges and successes of human rights issues on May 15. What those topics may include — the wrongful imprisonment of journalists covering assemblies, governments that ignore the plight of citizens, and censorship of the Internet. What is important is that on one day, thousands of bloggers unite and share their unified support of human rights everywhere
The South African Bill of Rights is HERE
The United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights is HERE
I think it's a GREAT idea for bloggers worldwide to join in and draw attention to human rights issues but lets take the kid gloves off for a day huh? The writers of the website are SO obviously being politically correct by mentioning things such as "the wrongful imprisonment of journalists covering assemblies or censorship of the Internet".
I'm not negating that they ARE indeed human rights issues and journalists that have been imprisoned because they dared to speak out are any less important but come ON!!! Surely the fact that the Burmese government was/is refusing foreign aid for the MILLIONS of people that have been affected by the recent cyclone should be highlighted?
Ok - I'm going to leap off my soapbox now and Google "human rights successes"
2 comments:
Well said. Well said indeed.
Tumwi and Malan: I highly disagree. Obviously I am biased since I am a journalist, but if you're talking about press freedom, if there had been more press freedom in Burma leading to the Junta, or even more people more adamantly arguing for press freedom, the government would have been held more responsible and perhaps things wouldn't be as they are now.
I also disagree with the idea that freedoms have a hierarchy of urgency - that one is more important than the other. Is the right to eat more important than the right to shelter?
I think your views should be reconsidered. After all, if there weren't journalists trying to report on Burma, you wouldn't even know there had been a disaster.
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