Human Rights:

What are human rights?

According to the United Nations, 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.

Universal human rights are often expressed and guaranteed by law, in the forms of treaties, customary international law , general principles and other sources of international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups.

In 1951, the United Nations signed a treaty defining genocide as an act "committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

Modern Human Rights Violations

The Armenian Genocide

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire forcibly deported or massacred hundreds of thousands to 1.5 million Armenians. The Assyrians and the Greeks were also affected.

The date the genocide began is usually seen as April 24, 1915, the day the Ottoman authorities arrested 250 Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople. After, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, deprived of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. People were massacred regardless of age or gender. Rape and sexual abuse were common.

Soon after WWI began, an order was sent to all Ottoman military units that Armenians be sent to labor camps "out of fear that they would collaborate with the Russians." Most of the Ottoman Empire was Muslim and Christian Armenians were seen to be a likely ally of Russia.

The Tehcir Law was passed by the Ottoman Parliament on May 27, 1915. It called for all Armenians in the Empire to be relocated to other places because of war conditions and emergency political requirements.

It is believed that 25 major concentration camps existed for the Armenians. Ottoman troops escorted the Armenians to the camps not only allowed others to rob, kill, and rape the Armenians, but often participated in these activities themselves. Deprived of their belongings and marched into the desert, hundreds of thousands of Armenians died. The death rate from starvation and sickness were very high and was increased by the brutal treatment of the Ottoman soldiers.

After, the signing of the The Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI, the leaders of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Mehmed VI and Damat Adil Ferit Pasha were summoned to trial. They were tried with "crimes against the laws and customs of war and the principles of humanity." However, after long delays, a trial never occurred and they were eventually returned to Turkey in exchange for British citizens held by Turkey.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II. It was a program of systematic state sponsored murder by Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party throughout German occupied territories.

Of the 9 million Jews who resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately 2/3 were killed. A network of over 40,000 concentration camps in Germany and German-occupied territories were used to concentrate, hold, and kill Jews and other victims. Thus, these are often referred to as death or extermination camps and included Chelmo, Treblinka, and the infamous Auschwitz.

Besides Jews, other groups were killed during the Holocaust including Romanians, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners of war, and Polish and Soviet civilians.

The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. It began with an event known as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass" in November 1938. This was a pogrom, or coordinated series of attacks against Jewish businesses and people throughout Germany. Various laws to remove the Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws, were enacted in Germany years before the outbreak of WWII and Jews were forced into ghettos. Where Germany conquered new territory in Eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings.

The Holocaust finally ended when Allied soldiers liberated camps as they advanced into Germany. Many soldiers were horrified by what they saw. The guards and Nazi leaders who were captured were put on trial at Nuremberg after the war. The Nuremberg trials were the first time perpetrators of a genocide who tried for their crimes. Some were given the death penalty while others received prison terms.

Rwanda

From April to July 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. For 100 days, the Hutu militia used clubs and machetes to kill up to 1000 people each day.

Rwanda is one of the smallest countries in Central Africa. It has about seven million people. It is compromised of two main ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. Although the Hutus account for more than 90% of the population, in the past, the Tutsis minority was considered the aristocracy of Rwanda and dominated Hutu peasants for decades, especially while Rwanda was under Belgian colonial rule.

Following the independence from Belgium in 1962, the Hutu majority seized power and reversed the roles. The Hutus oppressed the Tutsis through systematic discrimination and acts of violence. As a result, over 200,000 Tutsis fled to neighboring countries and formed a rebel guerrilla army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

In 1990, this rebel army invaded Rwanda and forced Hutu President Juvenel Habyarimana into signing an accord with mandated that the Hutus and Tutsis would share power.

A United Nations peacekeeping force of 2500 multinational soldiers were then dispatched to Rwanda to preserve the fragile cease-fire between the Hutu government and the Tutsi rebels. Peace threatened by Hutu extremists who were violently opposed to sharing any power with the Tutsis. On April 6th, a small jet carrying the Rwandan President was shot down by ground fired missiles as it approached Rwanda's airport in Kigali. Immediately after, Rwanda plunged into violence as Hutu extremists began targeting prominent oppositions figures who were on their death-lists, including moderate Hutu politicians and Tutsi leaders.

The killings then spread throughout the countryside as Hutu militia, armed with machetes, clubs, guns, and grenades, began indiscriminately killing Tutsi civilians. All individuals in Rwanda carried identification cards specifying their ethnic background, a practice left over form colonial days. These "tribal cards" now meant the difference between life and death.

Amid the onslaught, the small U.N. peacekeeping force was overwhelmed as terrified Tutsi families and moderate politicians sought protection. Among the peacekeepers were ten soldiers from Belgium who were captured by the Hutus, tortured and murdered. As a result, the United States, France, Belgium, and Italy all began evacuating their own personnel from Rwanda. However, no effort was made to evacuate the Tutsi civilians or Hutu moderates. Instead, they were left behind entirely at the mercy of the avenging Hutu.

The UN Security Council responded to the worsening crisis by voting unanimously to abandon Rwanda. The remainder of the U.S. peacekeeping troops were pulled out, leaving behind a only tiny force of about 200 soldiers for the entire country. The Hutu, now without opposition from the world community, clubbed and hacked to death defenseless Tutsi families with machetes everywhere they were found. The Rwandan state radio, controlled by Hutu extremists, further encouraged the killings by broadcasting non-stop hate propaganda and even pinpointed the locations of Tutsis in hiding.

Confronted with international TV news reports depicting genocide, the U.N. Security Council voted to send up to 5,000 soldiers to Rwanda. However, the Security Council failed to establish any timetable and thus never sent the troops in time to stop the massacre. The killings only ended after the armed rebels, invading from neighboring countries, managed to defeat the Hutus and halt the genocide in July 1994. By then, over one-tenth of the population, an estimated 800,000 persons, had been killed.

The world was slow to react to the mass murder of the Tutsis in Rwanda. To learn more, watch this History Channel video.

Darfur

The Darfur Genocide refers to the current mass slaughter and killing of Darfuri men, women, and children in Western Sudan. The killings began in 2003 and continue today. It is the first genocide of the 21st century.

Sudan is the largest country in Africa. Darfur is a region in Western Sudan that emcompasses an area roughly the size of Spain. The population of Darfur is estimated to be about six million. Although the area is predominately Muslim there are many ethnic differences. The Arab groups are mostly nomadic herders while the African groups tend to be farmers.

The genocide is being carried out by a group of people who are armed by the Sudanese government and funded Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed attack and destroy Darfurians, or ethnic African groups, by burning villages, looting economic resources, polluting water sources, and murdering, raping, and torturing civilians. These militias are historic rivals of the main rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Force (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The conflict in Darfur has also increased tensions in neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic as hundreds of thousands of refugees stream over the countries border to escape the violence.

As of today, over 480,000 people have been killed and over 2.8 million displaced.

The Sudanese government and the JEM signed a cease fire agreement in February 2010. The JEM has the most to gain from the talks and could see semi-autonomy much like South Sudan. However, talks have been disrupted by accusations that the Sudanese Army launched raids and air strikes against a village, violating the 2010 agreement.

The Universal Declaration of Rights

With the support and guidance of Eleanor Roosevelt the United Nations published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It provides a set of principles to guide efforts to protect threatened groups. This video from the organization Youth from Human Rights examines the articles and principles in details with short videos on each right.