Human rights and minorities

The main points of my presentation about Human Rights and Minorities which I want to mention are:

- General things about Human Rights

- Amnesty International
- Minorities and their problems



Let's turn to the first point:



The Human Rights



The Human Rights were proclaimed by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948.

These say that every human being has equal rights in the human family and that the dignity of all human beings must be recognised.
The disregards of these rights have led to outrageous acts like torture and other violent treatments. So all members of the United Nation Organisation have promised to obey and to promote these rights by the rule of law and by teaching them.


The Human Rights are divided in 30 articles which contents I'm going to describe in the following summaries:

Article 1 - 21 :

Everyone has the equal rights without any differentiation of race, colour, sex, nationality, political idea, religion or any other property. The liberty, life and security of person of everyone is guaranteed.

Article 22 - 27 :

Everyone has the right of social and personal protection, the right to work and the equal right of education.

Article 28 - 30 :

Everyone has the duty to respect the mentioned rights and the freedom of others and to transmit them to the next generation.

Now the question appears whether the Human Rights are observed in reality.
It is obvious that many countries - even those who belong to the UNO - commit Human Right violations. In some cases it is very difficult to obey these rights exactly because if you do so others will be treated unfair or are disadvantaged.

But in cases where someone's life depends on the Human Rights no reason can be accepted. Every human being has the right to live so the death penalty for example which is applied in many countries of the world (some states in the USA, Japan, China, etc.) is an abuse of these rights.
As a result it must be clear that the death penalty is not supported and that every effort must be taken to forbid the use of it. But the reality shows that is not the only human right abuse which must be forced to quit, there are many more.

There are also many organisations on the whole world which are fight for Human Rights and one of them is the next point of this presentation:



Amnesty International


AI was founded by the London lawyer Peter Benson in 1961. His main idea was to encourage people to write letters to governmental offices in countries which held people in prison because of their political idea, religion, race or national origin demanding a fair trail, to end tortures and their release. He called them "prisoners of conscience" . Soon this plan became popular and many volunteers even from other continents supported this organisation until the members grew up over 1 million in over 150 countries.

The basic principles of AI are their accuracy and the independence from any political or religious idea, government or economic interest. These principles which are the reason why AI is so successful indicate the main purpose of this organisation which does not work to change political systems but fight for observance of the Human Rights. Out of these ideals AI - activists basically do not work in their own countries because it is more likely that political motivation leads to work which is not impartial enough.

As mentioned AI lives from donations and most of the work is carried out by volunteers who organize public events on which information about the conditions of prisoners of conscience and other human right violations are passed to the people. They also organize demonstrations, letter - writing groups and write press releases.
For their work AI was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.


AI is one of the most famous organisation which fight against human right abuses but there is a huge number of such organisations. Their members are spread all over the world working to help discriminated people with all their efforts.
Some organisations are only concentrated on a certain continent for example Africa or regions like Tibet to protect different racial or ethnic groups and their culture.

And that was the introduction to the third point to which I want to turn to:


Minorities



I'd like to define the word "minority".

A minority is a group of people with a different culture, religion or language small in number.

Out of the big selection of minorities I have chosen the following two which I want to describe:


The Tibetans:

In 1949 - 50 the communist government of China sent troops to invade Tibet. In the following years China increased their control which led to the National Uprising in 1959 and also to the flight of the Tibetan's head of the state and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama to India. After this time the destruction and oppression of the Tibetan culture began for the next 20 years. More than 1,2 million people, one fifth of the population, died because of China's policy, many were kept in prison because of their political and religious activities. Over 6000 monasteries, temples and other historical buildings were destroyed and pillaged. China even used Tibet for the production of nuclear weapons and as dump for nuclear waste.

In 1979 the situation relaxed a little bit but in 1987 as China enlarged the influx of Chinese it turned back to the old conditions again. The problem that so many Chinese settled down in the major towns of Tibet was that they did not only control the political and military power but they had also a great impact in the economic, cultural and religious life of the people.

The Tibetans only want to be independent from China regarding their internal affairs but China has not accepted this attempt and every peaceful demonstration against China's discriminations have resulted in violent reactions of the Chinese security forces.
Although the UNO and other countries have put China under pressure it is not willing to improve the situation in Tibet.

The Kurd

The Kurd minority have drawn great attention on themselves all over the world since PKK activists have demonstrated in many countries against the arrest of their leader Öcalean in 1999.

The problems of the Kurd minority have a prehistory that started in the early 80ies. The violent conflict between the Turkey government and the about 13 million ethnic Kurds began in August 1984. The Turkish government practised village destruction and depopulation in the south - eastern part of Turkey until 1996 as the government made known that about 2700 villages were completely or partially depopulated by the army. Over 300000 people were violently evacuated from their homes by security forces.

But the Human Right violations continue on both sides. Many civilians were killed because of bomb attacks organized by PKK and the Turkish military does not quit to pressure Kurd people in their villages.

According to the BBC:
In some countries the living together with their minorities works in a peaceful way, for example in Romania. There the situation of the Hungarian minority which is the greatest in Europe have improved since the dictatorship of the Ceausesco regime. Of course they have some problems in the society but the conditions have become much better.

Now I want to talk about the question: Why do minorities often live in bad social conditions?

The first reason I want to mention is that the responsible country does not care about the ethnic groups. That means the country does not invest in the regions where these groups are settled and so the local economy has no chance to develop. As a result social institutions like medical treatment, schools or food supply cannot be supported and so the inhabitants stay poor and very often ill.
Another point is that the country and its jurisdiction use the minorities to increase their economical and military power. So the country exploits the minorities and takes advantage of their work. The consequence of this treatment is social poverty and violence is used to keep the situation as it is.

The next question I want to deal with is: Why is the integration of minorities so hard?

One problem why the majority does not integrate the minority is very often their egoism. They are not ready to share, to live with somebody different in "there" society. And that is the point. Many people have prejudices against different people but in reality they are not different. This attitude that a certain group is an enemy even if the situation has changed is given to the next generation. Because of this fact that such an opinion was built up by many generations it is very hard for two ethnic groups to live together because this attitude cannot be changed from one day to another. For instance this problem exists between the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians.
One way to solve these basic problems is to educate people and to take measures. These measures must be carried out in childhood.

The EU for example tries to solve the problem of minorities by supporting education projects. The reason why it seeks to find solutions is shown by many conflicts of the past: Discrimination of certain group means a great security risk.


In conclusion I would like to say that all problems of discrimination are avoided if everyone is willing to respect the other.

Human Rights and Minorities


The Human Rights


The Human Rights were proclaimed by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948.
It says that every human being has equal rights in the human family and that the dignity of all human beings must be recognised. So all members of the United Nation Organisation have promised to obey and to promote these rights by the rule of law and by teaching them.


Amnesty International

AI was founded by the London lawyer Peter Benson in 1961. His main idea was to encourage people to write letters to government offices in countries which held people in prison because of their political idea, religion, race or national origin demanding a fair trail, to end tortures and their release. This organisation grew big very fast and for its work the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1977.


The Tibetans:

In 1949 - 50 the communist government of China sent troops to invade Tibet. In the following years China increased their control in 1959 and after this time the destruction and oppression of the Tibetan culture began for the next 20 years.

The Kurd

The violent conflict between the Turkish government and the about 13 million ethnic Kurds began in August 1984. The Turkish government practised village destruction and depopulation in the south - eastern part of Turkey.

The problems of minorities (social conditions and integration ):

The responsible country does not invest in the regions where these groups are settled and so the local economy has no chance to develop. Another point is that the country uses them to increase their economic and military power by oppressing and exploiting them. The fact that an attitude which was built up by many generations against a certain group makes it very hard for two ethnic minorities to live together.

 What does the reality of observing the Human Rights look like?
 What are the basic principles of AI?
 What kind of work do the AI - activists do?
 What did the founder of AI call the prisoners whom he wanted to help? Why did he give them that name?
 What is the reason why the EU seeks to solve the minority problems?

dignity ...........................Würde

disregard ...............Mißachtung
to observe ...................befolgen

to apply .....................anwenden
conscience .................Gewissen

impartial ....unvoreingenommen
donate ...........................Spende

prejudice ....................Vorurteil
jurisdiction ........gerichtsbarkeit

attempt .....................Vorschlag
influx ...........................Zustrom
to pillage .....................plündern
monastery ......................Kloster
oppression .........Unterdrückung