What are human rights?

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever

our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin,
color, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally
entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These
rights are all interrelated, interdependent and
Indivisible.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
In 539 B.C., the armies of Cyrus the Great, the first king of
ancient
Persia, conquered the city of Babylon. But it was his next
actions that marked
a major advance for Man. He freed the slaves, declared that all
people had the right to choose their own religion, and
established racial equality. These
and other decrees were recorded on a baked-clay cylinder in the
Akkadian
language with cuneiform script. Known today as the Cyrus
Cylinder, this
ancient record has now been recognized as the world’s first
charter of human
rights. It is translated into all six official languages of the
United Nations and
its provisions parallel the first four Articles of the Universal
Declaration of
Human Rights
The Spread of Human Rights
From Babylon, the idea of human rights spread quickly to India,
Greece
and eventually Rome. There the concept of “natural law” arose,
in
observation of the fact that people tended to follow certain
unwritten laws in
the course of life, and Roman law was based on rational ideas
derived from
the nature of things. Documents asserting individual rights, such
as the
Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628), the US
Constitution (1787),
the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
(1789), and
the US Bill of Rights (1791) are the written precursors to many
of today’s
human rights documents.
The Magna Carta: 1215
The Magna Carta, or “Great Charter,” enumerates what later
came to be thought of as human rights.
Among them was the right of the church to be free from
governmental
interference, the rights of all free citizens to own and inherit
property and to
be protected from excessive taxes. It established the right of
widows who
owned property to choose not to remarry, and established
principles of due
process and equality before the law.
Petition of Rights: 1628
next recorded milestone in the development of human rights was
the Petition of Right, produced in 1628 by the English Parliament and sent to
Charles I as a statement of civil liberties. Refusal by Parliament to finance the
king’s unpopular foreign policy had caused his government to exact forced
loans and to quarter troops in subjects’ houses as an economy measure.
Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for opposing these policies had produced
in Parliament a violent hostility to Charles and to George Villiers, the Duke of
Buckingham. The Petition of Right, initiated by Sir Edward Coke, was based
upon earlier statutes and charters and asserted four principles: (1) No taxes
may be levied without consent of Parliament, (2) No subject may be
imprisoned without cause shown (reaffirmation of the right of habeas
corpus), (3) No soldiers may be quartered upon the citizenry, and (4) Martial
law may not be used in time of peace
Declaration of Independence 1776
On July 4, 1776, the United States Congress approved the
Declaration
of Independence. Its primary author, Thomas Jefferson, wrote
the Declaration
as a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to
declare
independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the
outbreak of the
American Revolutionary War, and as a statement announcing
that the
thirteen American Colonies were no longer a part of the British
Empire.
Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several
forms. It was
initially published as a printed broadsheet that was widely
distributed and
read to the public. Philosophically, the Declaration stressed two
themes:
individual rights and the right of revolution. These ideas
became widely held
by Americans and spread internationally as well, influencing in
particular the
French Revolution.
The First Geneva Convention (1864)
In 1864, sixteen European countries and several American states
attended a conference in Geneva, at the invitation of the Swiss
Federal
Council, on the initiative of the Geneva Committee. The
diplomatic
conference was held for the purpose of adopting a convention
for the
treatment of wounded soldiers in combat. The main principles
laid down in
the Convention and maintained by the later Geneva
Conventions provided
for the obligation to extend care without discrimination to
wounded and sick
military personnel and respect for and marking of medical
personnel transports and equipment with the distinctive sign of
the red cross on a white background
The United Nations (1945)
 We Have 30 Basic Human
Rights: Do You Know Them?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
1. We are all free and equal. We are all born free. We all have our own
thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in the same way.
2. Don’t discriminate. These rights belong to everybody,
whatever our differences.
3. The right to life. We all have the right to life, and to live in
freedom and safety.
4. No slavery – past and present. Nobody has any right to
make us a slave. We cannot make anyone our slave.
5. No Torture. Nobody has any right to hurt us or to torture us.
6. We all have the same right to use the law. I am a person
just like you!
7. We are all protected by the law. The law is the same for
everyone. It must treat us all fairly.
8. Fair treatment by fair courts. We can all ask for the law to
help us when we are not treated fairly.
9. No unfair detainment. Nobody has the right to put us in
prison without a good reason and keep us there, or to send us
away from our country.
10. The right to trial. If we are put on trial this should be in
public. The people who try us should not let anyone tell them
what to do.
11. Innocent until proven guilty. Nobody should be blamed
for doing something until it is proven. When people say we did
a bad thing we have the right to show it is not true.
12. The right to privacy. Nobody should try to harm our good
name. Nobody has the right to come into our home, open our
letters or bother us or our family without a good reason.
13. Freedom to move. We all have the right to go where we
want in our own country and to travel as we wish.
14. The right to asylum. If we are frightened of being badly
treated in our own country, we all have the right to run away to
another country to be safe.
15. The right to a nationality. We all have the right to belong
to a country.
16. Marriage and family. Every grown-up has the right to
marry and have a family if they want to. Men and women have
the same rights when they are married, and when they are
separated.
17. Your own things. Everyone has the right to own things or
share them. Nobody should take our things from us without a
good reason.
18. Freedom of thought. We all have the right to believe in
what we want to believe, to have a religion, or to change it if we
want.
19. Free to say what you want. We all have the right to make
up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think,
and to share our ideas with other people.
20. Meet where you like. We all have the right to meet our
friends and to work together in peace to defend our rights.
Nobody can make us join a group if we don’t want to.
21. The right to democracy. We all have the right to take part
in the government of our country. Every grown-up should be
allowed to choose their own leaders.
22. The right to social security. We all have the right to
affordable housing, medicine, education, and child care, enough
money to live on and medical help if we are ill or old.
23. Workers’ rights. Every grown-up has the right to do a job,
to a fair wage for their work, and to join a trade union.
24. The right to play. We all have the right to rest from work
and to relax.
25. A bed and some food. We all have the right to a good life.
Mothers and children, people who are old, unemployed or
disabled, and all people have the right to be cared for.
26. The right to education. Education is a right. Primary
school should be free. We should learn about the United Nations
and how to get on with others. Our parents can choose what we
learn.
27. Culture and copyright. Copyright is a special law that
protects one’s own artistic creations and writings; others cannot
make copies without permission. We all have the right to our
own way of life and to enjoy the good things that “art,” science
and learning bring.
28. A free and fair world. There must be proper order so we
can all enjoy rights and freedoms in our own country and all
over the world.
29. Our responsibilities. We have a duty to other people, and
we should protect their rights and freedoms.
30. Nobody can take away these rights and freedoms from
us.