Human Rights and Wrongs

http://hrforall.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/human-rights-and-wrongs/

Posted by: hrforall on: December 10, 2008

In: HR Education Comment!
Dean Johns

As a human who happens to write, I most of all love to write in support of human rights. It’s the worthiest possible cause. It puts me in the best possible company. And it gives me at least a grain of hope that I can help right some human wrongs.


It also reminds me how fortunate I am, as a citizen of a relatively free country, to enjoy the right to write in comparative safety - unlike fellow writers in so many countries around the world who constantly put their liberty and even their lives on the line.

And even more gutsy are those who don’t just write, but riot, rage and revolt against their oppressors.

So it’s a particular pleasure to pay tribute to the courage of these heroes and heroines who fight the good fight, and also to express sympathy for all those millions of souls still helpless in the face of overwhelming political, economic and military might, by writing in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

Humanity has made a great deal of progress since Dec 10, 1948. Most subjects of former colonies have won liberty from their imperial overlords. Millions of Eastern Europeans have been freed from the death-grip of the USSR. South Africans have rid themselves of the curse of apartheid.


Indigenous peoples have achieved long-overdue recognition and rights in Canada, Australia and even some countries in South America. African-Americans have progressed from being begrudged the vote to seeing one of their own elected to the presidency.

But many others haven’t been so fortunate. Billions of our fellow humans are largely or totally deprived of their rights by rotten regimes in a depressingly long roll-call of countries including China, Burma, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Haiti, the Congo, Eritrea, Sudan, Niger, Chad, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Somalia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe.

Then there are all those nations that like to present themselves as worthy global citizens, but actually grant their people only those human rights that suit the purposes of whichever parties or personalities happen to be in power. Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, for example - plus, of course, Malaysia.

How Malaysia compares

Let’s focus on Malaysia for now and see how the situation here after 50+ years of Barisan Nasional (BN) rule stacks-up against the 60-year-old UDHR.

Concepts involving entrenched inequality, like ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy), the New Economic Policy and special privileges including legal immunity for ‘royalty’ seem to me fundamentally at odds with the first two Articles of the UDHR.

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…

Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Next let’s examine what the UDHR has to say about selective prosecution, as in the case of opposition supporters for sedition, while seditious comments by keris-waving BN politicians are tolerated and even encouraged.

Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.

And while we’re on this subject, what about the incarceration of bloggers and political activists under the ISA, without charge or trial?

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Then there are those perennially sensitive if not incendiary issues, especially as relating to Malays, of religious freedom and ‘apostasy’. But the UDHR doesn’t leave room for much doubt or debate

Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief…

As for the matter of media censorship and control in favour of BN and the suppression of dissenting views:

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media…

It’s the same story for Malaysia’s laws against public vigils and rallies.

Article 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association…

Malaysia is in flagrant and consistent breach of several other Articles of the UDRH too, most notably to me in its shameful exploitation of foreign workers for pathetic rates of pay and poor housing.

Article 23: Everyone has the right to work…to just and favourable conditions of work…(and) everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

The BN government habitually tries to justify its systematic denial of so many human rights by claiming that Malaysia is an exception to the rule by virtue of “special circumstances”, “sensitive issues” or “Asian values”.

But almost 10 years before Malaysia even existed as an independent nation, the framers of the UDHR foresaw the need to warn against such nonsense.

Article 30: Nothing in this declaration may be interpreted as implying for any state, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

The UDHR isn’t, as BN and many other ruling regimes seem to imagine, just a piece of paper they can cynically sign and blithely ignore. It’s a legally-binding document that they have a duty to uphold.

And if they fail in this duty, we the people have the right - indeed the responsibility, according to UDHR Article 29 - to write or otherwise voice our protests as loudly as humanly possible.

Some of these Articles are abbreviated for reasons of length. Read the full version of the UDHR here.