by Denis MacEoin • April 27, 2018
at 5:00 am
- The United Nations
Human Rights Council (UNHCR) itself has become a prime
motivator and enforcer of the rejection of human rights.
- The other charters
of human rights are to be found exclusively in the Muslim
world. Anything that falls within Islamic shari'a law is a
human right; anything that does not fall within shari'a is not
a human right.
- "For us the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights is nothing but a
collection of mumbo-jumbo by disciples of Satan". — 'Ali
Khamene'i, Iran's current Supreme Leader.
- "The underlying
thesis in all the Islamic human rights schemes is that the
rights afforded in international law are too generous and only
become acceptable when they are subjected to Islamic
restrictions". — Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human
Rights: Tradition and Politics.
Pictured:
Eleanor Roosevelt holding a Universal Declaration of Human Rights
poster in Spanish, in 1949. (Image source: United Nations/Flickr)
The history of human rights, albeit fragmented, is a
long and often honourable expression of religious and civic endeavour.
The scriptures of most religions refer to the ways in which we
should treat our fellow man, from the Bible in antiquity to the
broadly liberal Baha'i scriptures written in Persian and Arabic in
the late nineteenth century. Religious precepts have served to
protect human beings from arbitrary mistreatment in Hinduism,
Buddhism, and other faiths.
Modern human rights declarations and legislation
developed in a secular context, above all as an expression of
democratic values, and informed by Judaeo-Christian ethics. The
earliest formulations of secular human rights legislation are to be
found in the 1789 French Declaration on the Rights of Man and the
Citizen and the 1791 US Constitution, the first 10 amendments of
which form the Bill of Rights.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment