Best 453 quotes in «human rights quotes» category

THE SADNESS IN OUR HEARTS SEEMS ENDLESS

The thing is we never needed anyone's consent to get married. What is happening is that the established powers are starting realize how much of jack asses they have looked like for not acknowledging our marriages and our human rights and we are starting to receive the rights we were always entitled too. Therefore, no one is "giving" or "allowing" us anything. We are simply and powerfully starting to reclaim what has always been ours. The moralistic patriarchy has made this a long and bloody battle, but the concept has always been simple and I am glad it is finally sinking in. We are here, we have always been here, we are not going anywhere, and trying to suppress us under false puritanical mores is not smart and will not make us go away. It's not just about the LGBTQ communities but all suppressed minorities. If you listen closely you can here the subtle but real shifting of the winds to a more enlightened and egalitarian society. It won't happen without work, and it won't happen without intelligence. Never stop learning, never stop growing, never be ashamed because you are different, and never stop knowing that there is power in community.

The truth about Obama's birthplace or Trump's relationship with Russia will never be established to the satisfaction of everyone, but Christians know truth of another order, that human beings are created in the image of God. They are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights--that is, unalienable claims on our respect. This is the truth that has made us free.

The truth is I don't give a damn why anyone has an abortion. I believe unconditionally in the right of people with uteruses to decide what grow inside of their body and feeds on their blood and endangers their life and reroutes their future. There are no "good" abortions and "bad" abortions, there are only pregnant people who want them and pregnant people who don't, pregnant people who have access and support and pregnant people who face institutional roadblocks and lies.

The views of the Courts in regard to imprisonment have however undergone modification in the last ten years. Imprisonment is seen more and more as a harsh and drastic punishment to be reserved for callous and impenitent characters. We wish to adopt a more enlightened approach in which the probable effect of incarceration upon the life of the accused person and those near to her is carefully weighed.

The West has no idea of the human and economic costs imposed on it by the mere existence of dictatorship in the world.

The word "rights", is something that governments need to provide you and protect you from but, the governments are the basic violators of all human rights.

The Women’s March had restored my faith as I am sure it has introduced the young generation to the new wave of feminism. A feminist movement that was made up of both sexes and all ages and creeds, one that did away with the arguments and stood arm in arm for a greater cause, a cause which the Arab media did not wish to project.

The world is mine and its problems are mine.

The world needs madness, a madness for justice, a madness for harmony, a madness for equality, a madness for humanitarian glory. If everyone had the madness for doing good, there wouldn't be any misery in the world. So, be mad, be furious, be rebellious towards every bit of misery, inequality and injustice in the world. Remember, every injustice anywhere in the world is your business, every misery anywhere in the world is your business, every segregation anywhere in the world is your business. Human condition anywhere in the world is your business.

They talk about human rights until the rights include things they personally do not like as alternatives. There needs to be Frank discussions. And Shirley can join too because the pun works. The ideas of human beings of all demeanor and venues are at stake here.

This book appears at a time when public discussion of the common atrocities of sexual and domestic life has been made possible by the women’s movement, and when public discussion of the common atrocities of political life has been made possible by the movement for human rights. I expect the book to be controversial—first, because it is written from a feminist perspective; second, because it challenges established diagnostic concepts; but third and perhaps most importantly, because it speaks about horrible things, things that no one really wants to hear about.

This discourse of human rights, it's a very good format for TV--the great atrocity analysis and condemnation industry. Who comes out smelling sweet in the atrocity analysis? States have invested themselves with the right to legitimise violence--so who gets criminalised and delegitimised? The resistance. ... Human rights take the history out of justice. ... The idea of justice--even just dreaming of justice--is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust--and then tries to make it more accountable. But then, of course, the catch-22 is that violating human rights is integral to the project of neoliberalism and global hegemony.

This downward spiral of major politics is a slap in the face, but it’s reality. Now we just have to fight back.” -Shenita Etwaroo

This may sound naive, but I didn't fully imagine that little girls grow up in this country with stories like yours. And that, I am sure, you are not the only one. That little girls grow up in tents and start smoking cigarettes by age eight. So seamlessly have we (those in power) written over stories and lives like yours that, to someone like me, it is very easy not to hear about lives like yours. Not to know or imagine they exist. Not to know that public policy is failing you. Not to know that the prison system is an impoverished and wholly inadequate response to your experience and that it, too, is failing you. Which means it's failing all of us.

This new situation, in which "humanity" has in effect assumed the role formerly ascribed to nature or history, would mean in this context that the right to have rights, or the right of every individual to belong to humanity, should be guaranteed by humanity itself. It is by no means certain whether this is possible. For, contrary to the best-intentioned humanitarian attempts to obtain new declarations of human rights from international organizations, it should be understood that this idea transcends the present sphere of international law which still operates in terms of reciprocal agreements and treaties between sovereign states; and, for the time being, a sphere that is above the nation does not exist. Furthermore, this dilemma would by no means be eliminated by the establishment of a "world government." Such a world government is indeed within the realm of possibility, but one may suspect that in reality it might differ considerably from the version promoted by idealistic-minded organizations. The crimes against human rights, which have become a specialty of totalitarian regimes, can always be justified by the pretext that right is equivalent to being good or useful for the whole in distinction to its parts. (Hitler's motto that "Right is what is good for the German people" is only the vulgarized form of a conception of law which can be found everywhere and which in practice will remain effectual only so long as older traditions that are still effective in the constitutions prevent this.) A conception of law which identifies what is right with the notion of what is good for—for the individual, or the family, or the people, or the largest number—becomes inevitable once the absolute and transcendent measurements of religion or the law of nature have lost their authority. And this predicament is by no means solved if the unit to which the "good for" applies is as large as mankind itself. For it is quite conceivable, and even within the realm of practical political possibilities, that one fine day a highly organized and mechanized humanity will conclude quite democratically—namely by majority decision—that for humanity as a whole it would be better to liquidate certain parts thereof.

This place does not feel like my country. It feels like countries I have read about where things are very bad. It feels, in fact, like exactly the kind of thing we were protesting against, but we thought it was elsewhere. It is not heartening to find that it has come to us.

Those who deny any group of people human rights are really denying the humanity of that group - and their own.

Those who object to human rights protection laws typically do so because they want to be above those laws.

Throughout my life, I have never stopped to strategize about my next steps. I often just keep walking along, through whichever door opens. I have been on a journey and this journey has never stopped. When the journey is acknowledged and sustained by those I work with, they are a source of inspiration, energy and encouragement. They are the reasons I kept walking, and will keep walking, as long as my knees hold out.

..Thus it can be said that ‘Human Rights’ is an ever expanding subject, which grows in leaps and bounds with the evolution of knowledge, development of the society and the advancement of the world at large, thereby encompassing within its ambit newer forms of right/s as and when recognized as an inalienable ‘right’ , along with wrapped-in duties; duties, on the part of the state, the government, the human rights organizations on one hand, and duties incumbent on individuals as responsible beings owing their allegiance to the society, the society itself , and the world at large on the other...

To be or not to be, that is out of the question! I live in the 21st century.

Today, we live in a vastly different world. The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative. And there are no hormones for those attributes. A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, innovative, creative. We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much.

Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The basic freedoms in life are not seen as gifts to be doled out by benevolent well-wishers, but as Casement said at his trial, as those rights to which all human beings are entitled from birth. It is this spirit which underlies organizations like Amnesty International, with its belief that putting someone in prison solely for his or her opinion is a crime, whether it happens in China or Turkey or Argentina and Medecins Sans Frontieres, with its belief that a sick child is entitled to medical care, whether in Rwanda or Honduras or the South Bronx.

Today we demand justice for the oppressed. We no longer accept atrocities as the inescapable fate of the defenceless. We desire and expect a better future. But when confronted with the enormity of injustice and what it demands of us, we retreat into the familiar ritual of intellectualization and moral posturing, recycling lofty liberal ideals from a safe distance. We avoid the intimate knowledge of suffering without which we will never understand the imperative of human rights.

Today, something can still be done by those who feel a sense of impotence: they can render support to Amnesty International. They can assist it to stand up for justice and freedom.” -Shenita Etwaroo

Unbelievably, while many non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and America’s Watch have denounced the human rights situation in Cuba, there has been a continuing love affair on the part of the media and many intellectuals with Fidel Castro.

United we are humans, divided we are apes.

Unless you forgive, unless you open the wings of your heart you can not move forward.

UPON FACES ANGEL TEARS... YOUR VOICES IN OUR EARS

Violence is the type of possession.

Vosotros los jóvenes no sabéis apreciar las cosas, proseguía. No sabéis lo que hemos tenido que pasar para lograr que estéis donde estáis. Míralo, es él quien pela las zanahorias. ¿Sabéis cuántas vidas de mujeres, cuántos cuerpos de mujeres han tenido que arrollar los tanques para llegar a esta situación? La cocina es mi pasatiempo predilecto, decía Luke. Disfruto cocinando. Un pasatiempo muy original, replicaba mi madre. No tienes por qué darme explicaciones. En otros tiempos no te habrían permitido tener semejante pasatiempo, te habrían llamado marica. Vamos, madre, le decía yo. No discutamos por tonterías. Tonterías, repetía amargamente. Las llamas tonterías. Veo que no entiendes. No entiendes nada de lo que estoy diciendo.

Voting on things is democratic, yes - but not on deciding on whether or not people should be equal or have human rights. That isn't democracy, it is mob rule. Everybody should be equal in a democracy - that is the nature of a democracy.

Walter Mignolo terms and articulates _critical cosmopolitanism, juxtaposing it with globalization, which is a process of "the homogeneity of the planet from above––economically, politically and culturally." Although _globalization from below_ is to counter _globalization from above_ from the experience and perspective of those who suffer from the consequences of _globalization from above_, cosmopolitanism differs, according to Mignolo, form these two types of globalization. Mignolo defines globalization as 'a set of designs to manage the world,' and cosmopolitanism as 'a set of projects toward planetary conviviality

We can be of many nations, but earth is our land. We can be of many races, but we are just one clan.

We can't free another people. But we can help them free themselves.

We cordially believe in the rights of property. We think that normally and in the long run the rights of humanity, coincide with the rights of property... But we feel that if in exceptional cases there is any conflict between the rights of property and the rights of man, then we must stand for the rights of man.

We Have a Chance To Save Lives If We Don't Take It We May Regret It Like We Did With Alan Kurdi

We need to protect the defenders of nature, environmentalists, Animal Rights and Human Rights activists. It's a call for all humans to show courage and solidarity.

We need officials who will commit to the health of the nation and the rights of the people, through electing the right people, however, we would be able to ensure that no private sector institution and no group of ideologues can co-opt our rights, drive us into insensible wars and steal the nation from its people.” -Shenita Etwaroo

We’re currently faced with two entirely different challenges – facing down Islamism and jihadism on the one hand, and advancing human rights and democratic culture on the other.

We will never know peace in the world without balance. And we will never know balance without justice for all. Yet justice exists only where there is fairness and equality, when every man is treated and viewed equally. No equality, no justice. No justice, no peace.

What have been called “women’s issues” are freedom issues. Body control. The right of human beings to control their own bodies is a freedom issue. Respect. The right of human beings to be treated institutionally with respect as a human being is a freedom issue.

When civilians kill, it is called murder. When governments kill, it is called pragmatism.

Whenever one comes to the the table for interreligous dialogue, there is what I would call an _ecumenical taboo_ that one has to comply with. The ecumenical taboo_ does not exist in a written document, but people tend to practice it around the dialogue table. One should not raise, for instance, such questions as gender justice, sexual orientation issues, religious constructions of the other, multiple forms of violence in a religious community, or religious cooperation with neo/imperialism. each religion has its own _history of sin_ that has justified and perpetuated oppression and exclusion of certain groups of people through its own religious teaching, doctrine, and practice. In order to be _nice_ and _tolerant_ to one another, interreligious dialogue has not challenged the fundamental issues of injustice that a particular religion has practiced, justified, and perpetuated in various ways. I do not disregard that most ecumenists have based interreligious dialogue on a politics of tolerance, and this has played a significant role in easing the antagonism between religions, at least among the leaders of established religions. However, we should ground an authentic ecumenism and theology of religion in a _politics of affirmation and transformation, rather than a politics of tolerance_.

When someone harms our daughter or sister or wife, our rage and courage practically turn infinite and we do not even imagine of stopping until the perpetrators are brought to justice, yet when mindless barbarians keep raping the very fabric of humanity in the name of race, religion and nation, we somehow manage to accept it as the norm. What a hypocrisy! What a bunch of losers we are! Okay, be a loser - live as a loser - crawl through the several decades of your life as a loser - but don't you dare to boast about being human. Because if you don't have the guts and conscience to act against discrimination, segregation and bigotry, then you don't deserve the title of human. Losers don't make humans, just like bigots and barbarians ain't no human. If we are to look at the mirror and say out loud – yes, that’s me, a human – then we must, not should, but must, be accountable for not just our individual reality, but for our societal reality as well.

When the world is partying, I'm working - when the world is on dates and getting laid, I'm working - when the world is on holidays, I'm working - when the world is celebrating the festivals, I'm working - for humankind to have a healthy and prosperous life, someone's gotta work.

When Westerners remain silent out of 'respect' for foreign cultures, they show support only for the most conservative elements of those cultures. Cultural relativism is as much my enemy as the oppression I fight within my culture and faith.

When you're silent, your silence condones it. Thus, whatever you believe in goes down the drain.

Wir sind das Volk!" Dieser Satz hat uns gelehrt, dass wir, wenn wir unserer Sehnsucht glauben und ihr vertrauen, die Angst verlieren können. Eine Angst, die willfährige Dienerin jeder Art von nicht legitimierter Herrschaft ist, die uns ohnmächtig macht, die uns bindet. In dem Augenblick aber, in dem wir unsere Angst als Angst benennen und Anpassung und Angst als Geschwisterkinder erkennen, sind wir möglicherweise bereit zu erproben: Können wir auch ohne sie leben? In genau diesem Augenblick wachsen uns jene Kräfte zu, die eine ganze Gesellschaft verändern können.