PREVENTING HARM: LET US FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights violations are among the greatest sufferings that can be inflicted. And now, some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that we have made great progress in this area and that in liberal democracies, these types of abuses are rather infrequent, as legal, judicial, police, and social mechanisms fortunately exist to prevent them.

The bad news is that in dictatorships or illiberal or low-quality democracies, the situation is different or even very different. Some examples include communist or similar dictatorships, such as North Korea, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela; countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, such as the Russian Federation and Belarus; most Muslim-majority countries; a large part of sub-Saharan countries; and Burma.

In these places, abuses are committed such as imprisoning innocent people in jails or concentration camps, sometimes under very harsh conditions, beatings, torture, and other types of aggression, rape, intimidation, or murder. All of this is unpleasant, but it is necessary to open our eyes to reality.

Read LOVE THE TRUTH!: Let us face cruelties and injustices head-on

But we have reasons to be optimistic. Since the Enlightenment in the 18th century and especially since the promulgation of the United States Declaration of Independence and, a few years later, in a more developed form, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen during the French Revolution, there has been a fairly rapid expansion of human rights, first in the West and then in the rest of the planet.

Sometimes one step has been taken backward and then two forward, but the trend over the decades has been toward greater protection. As the economic and cultural level in different countries increases, it is likely that this civilizing process will continue along the same path toward the summit that has been taking place until now.

This does not mean that it will happen on its own, without requiring our effort, like water flowing down a river to the sea without the need for pumps to push it. Therefore, we should not be complacent, thinking that everything will turn out well in the end. In the matter of rights, progress has been made thanks to human intervention and especially to the great effort of individuals with names and surnames who have fought for them, some of them giving their lives or paying prices such as imprisonment, concentration camps, exile, or even torture.

Consequently, if we want human rights to advance, we cannot relax. You do not need to give up your current life to go to some country to fight to overthrow a tyranny, but we can all contribute our grain of sand, and now I will tell you how:

1. SIGN

Signature collection campaigns are effective, as they exert pressure on governments, both those that violate human rights and the rest, so that they influence the former or even sanction them. Read more at…

Some campaigns you can sign include the following:

• Those of the Well-being Institute: human rights, women’s rights, LGBTQI+ rights, children’s rights, rights of other oppressed groups, etc. Access them…

• Those of Amnesty International. If you register on their website, they will send you more campaigns that you can sign.

2. SHARE

Let us spread the aforementioned campaigns on our social networks and WhatsApp, as well as news about human rights violations to help raise awareness. The more voters who are positioned on these issues, the more politicians will do. This is because they usually do what their constituents want, as what they want above all else are votes.

Read PREVENTING HARM: Let us share and convince so that they do not cause harm

3. HELP

You can do so with money, time, or in other ways for NGOs such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International.

Thank you for making your contribution to building a world with less cruelty and more kindness, with less suffering and more happiness.