Have Fun • Do Good: What Does Human Rights Mean to You?

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

What Does Human Rights Mean to You?

Today is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' 60th anniversary. As part of the 60th anniversary celebration, everyhumanhasrights.org is holding an Online Rally for Human Rights. You can participate in several ways:

1. Sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. Send the message below to your network of friends and family via text, Twitter and/or email:

Today is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' 60th anniversary.

I believe that Every Human Has Rights: www.everyhumanhasrights.org

3. Change your profile photo on your social networks to a photo of you with the message, "Every Human Has Rights," or to the campaign badge above which can be downloaded here.

4. Join the Every Human Has Rights Cause on Facebook.

5. Blog about what human rights means to you, and your commitment to uphold the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Send Every Human Has Rights the link to your blog so they can link back to you.

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What does human rights mean to me? That's a tough question isn't it? One of the articles I feel the most strongly about is Article 5, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Torture isn't exactly the easiest thing to talk about, or to get people excited about working against. It's the dark side of our human natures that we don't like to acknowledge because, as the Stanford Prison Experiment showed, under certain circumstances we are all capable of it.

Amazingly, a couple years ago Amnesty International made a funny (yes, funny) 1:36 min video to raise awareness about extraordinary rendition (moving prisoners to other countries to be tortured). You can watch Is It Okay To Torture? on YouTube.

As part of my commitment to uphold the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I looked for an action I could take against torture on Amnesty International's site. There are three campaigns that need support. I'm going to pick one to get involved with:

Protect Three Victims of Police Brutality in Mexico (UA 330/08)
Protect Syrian Prisoner From Torture (UA 328/08)

Prevent Torture of Prisoner in Syria (UA 326/08)