Human Rights

A:

It is rather doubtful that Christians are the most persecuted group in the world, since most Christians live at peace with their neighbours. Of course, the sheer number of Christians in the world does mean that there will be some tension with members of other religions, but this is rarely official policy.

On the other hand, the Falun Gong religious group is outlawed and heavily persecuted in China, whereas Christian churches are permitted and given restricted liberty. North Korean persecution is directed against all religions, Christianity included. In the Middle East, Israel could be accused of persecuting Muslims and Christians alike, but this is based on ethnic differences, not religious ones. Druze are persecuted by Muslims in Lebanon, while elsewhere Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims persecute each other depending on who is dominant. And it is really only since the twentieth century that Christians have ceased to take the lead in persecuting members of other religions, with a recent example being the Christian genocide against Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, while Christian-on-Christian strife in Ireland continued into the twenty first century. The International Service for Human Rights has called on France to lift its ban on Muslim women wearing the hijab in public places.

Even though Christians may not be the most persecuted religious group, religious persecution is indeed one of the most important human rights challenges. After all, religious persecution is just as wrong, no matter who the victims of that persecution are.

Answer 2

Yes, indeed it is, according to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular observatory based in Frankfurt, Germany. It was quoted by John Allen Jr, author of 'The Global War on Christians' in The Spectator (Oct. 5, 2013), stated '80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians. Statistically speaking, that makes Christians by far the most persecuted religious body on the planet.'

"The carnage...represents not ontly the most dramatic Chrisitan story of our time, but arguably the premier human rights challenge of this era."

Our 21st Century news is full of appalling examples of persecution, murder &/or forced exile happening in Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea and India to name just a few. And although persecution of Christians is much less dramatic in the 'English-speaking' countries, it is still there and growing. Even Britian's 'Telegraph ran an article stating 'Britain's most senior policeman has been urged to issue guidelines to his officers to protect Christian rights to free speech, among claims they are suffering intimidation and discrimination from police' (Christians Demand Free Speech Guidance From Scotland Yard, July 27, 2013).

Is this just the beginning signs of what the Apostle Paul prophecized of the total disregard of Christian ethics:

GOD'S WORD Translation (GW)

3 You must understand this: In the last days there will be violent periods of time. 2 People will be selfish and love money. They will brag, be arrogant, and use abusive language. They will curse their parents, show no gratitude, have no respect for what is holy, 3 and lack normal affection for their families. They will refuse to make peace with anyone. They will be slanderous, lack self-control, be brutal, and have no love for what is good. 4 They will be traitors. They will be reckless and conceited. They will love pleasure rather than God.

Answer 3

It is unclear how you would define "most persecuted group". For example, if one person has his house burned down on account of his religion and another person is forcibly converted on pain of death, it would be completely arbitray to say which person is "more persecuted" than the other. Also, it is unclear if a group is "more persecuted" if it has more members who experience persecution. For example, if I have 1,000 religious people who are banned from wearing certain religious clothes does that balance out 1 religious person who is forcibly converted? Because of these and other issues, it is impossible to determine who is the "most persecuted group".

Regardless, there are hundreds of millions of Christians who suffer under various degrees of persecution, such as: imprisonment, religious ethnic cleansing, theft of property. government non-recognition of the religion, violations on the right to build, improve, or modify centers of worship, violations on the freedom of movement of believers, prohibitions on the publication, distribution, or sales of religious literature and/or paraphernalia, etc. Most of this persecution happens in the Islamic World, South Asia, and China. Unfortunately, many Non-Christians do not take the claims of Christian persecution seriously because of (1) Christianity's history of being a persecutorial religion and (2) Christians in Anglo-America and Western Europe claim that they are being persecuted whenever they are unable to perform religious activities with state sanction.

However, the real persecution that Christians are suffering should be opposed just like all other religious persecution.

Badly.

Numerous organizations such as Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross have come down harshly on how Iraqi prisoners were treated during the war. While some organizations limit their scope to the Abu Ghraib Human Rights violations (which occurred from late 2003 to early 2004 and will be discussed below), organizations like the ICRC and numerous Arab-oriented groups point to a much longer trend of criminal mistreatment.

The ICRC report specifically notes that the following were not provided to Iraqis imprisoned by US government:

• Brutality against protected persons upon capture and initial custody, sometimes causing death or serious injury.
• Absence of notification of arrest of persons deprived of their liberty to their families causing distress among persons deprived of their liberty and their families.
• Physical or psychological coercion during interrogation to secure information.
• Prolonged solitary confinement in cells devoid of daylight.
• Excessive and disproportionate use of force against persons deprived of their liberty resulting in death or injury during their period of internment.

Abu Ghraib, specifically, was a prison used by the US Military in Iraq where military police from both the US Army and the CIA committed human rights abuses against the Iraqi prisoners. Some of these violations include physical abuse, sexual abuse, waterboarding, torture (including use of electrodes), rape, sodomization (often forced between prisoners by their captors), and some prisoners were killed. Some believe that the reason that such activities were allowed to occur was the prevalence of the 2002 Torture Memos which were written by the US Department of Justice and authorized the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on Prisoners of War.

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In addition to the above, one may consider the Guantanamo Bay detention camp which is is a controversial United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba that was established in January 2002. Bush Administration Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld offered three explanations for the decision to establish the prison camp during a January 22, 2002 press conference: to detain extraordinarily dangerous prisoners, to interrogate prisoners in an optimal setting, and to prosecute prisoners for war crimes. War captives in the Global War on Terror, most of them from the Afghanistan and from Iraq. The Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions. see link below for more information.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. campaigned for equality between Blacks and Whites in the United States through various means. It is notable, however, that he never used violence in advocating equality (unlike some of the other organizations promoting equality of Blacks in the United States. The methods he used included:

Sermons/Speeches: Rev. King is probably most famous for his "I Have a Dream" speech which was given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In the speech, given to thousands of people in person and millions more over the airwaves, Dr. King advocated for a true equality between Blacks and Whites by going back to Biblical motifs and ideas about "what makes an American".

Letters and Editorials: Rev. King also wrote a number of letters to newspapers and helped to write editorials. The most famous of these was "Letter from Birmingham Jail", an open letter where he defends the strategy of non-violent resistance to racism. He also argues that people have moral responsibility to break unjust laws.

Sit-Ins: Rev. King coordinated Sit-Ins, which were silent protests where Blacks would go to establishments like restaurants or movie theatres where they were not legally or culturally supposed to be. Instead of leaving, as society would dictate, they sat down and refused to move until they got service. Of course, they were not actually served and in many cases they had to be arrested by police to remove them from places where they "were not supposed to be". This made the police look bad for enforcing segregation and made more people critical of segregation

Protests: Rev. King coordinated a number of simple protests that would be non-violent assemblies of predominantly Blacks with some Whites holding up placards opposing segregation laws.

Marches and Parades: Rev. King had a number of high profile marches to advocate for and end to segregation. One of the most famous was his "March on Selma, Alabama".

Boycotts: In many key public sectors, such as buses, Blacks were responsible for a greater share of profits and benefits than they would be as merely a percentage of population. Rev. King coordinated bus boycotts, which led to money shortfalls in the public sector. It was hoped that this would put an economic strain on the segregating government.

Legislative Submissions and Court Cases: Rev. King had men lobby Congress and bring court cases to the Supreme Court to get Segregation removed at a legal level as opposed to merely campaigning. He stood right behind President L.B. Johnson when the latter signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The United Nations adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 after 1400 votes on every word, every concept, every pronouncement. The 58 member countries came from extremely varied religious and political backgrounds making agreement extremely difficult especially concerning women's rights. It contains 30 articles that enumerate its vision of universal human rights. It is the best known and cited document of its kind in the world.

Human rights is an inexact concept usually arrived at through a consensus and there are those who hold different views of the rights we are entitled to by virtue of being human. Some views are more simple and don't include the more exacting details of the UN Declaration. One such scheme written by an individual can be found at the related link for true human rights. Human rights declarations are all products of their author's values and morality and also their religious backgrounds and personal beliefs. In this case, they are the opinion of one person.

Human Rights are a concept that dates back to antiquity - it is far from a modern concept. Human Rights have gone by a wide variety of other names, but the concept is identical: they define the fundamantal state and situation of being a human being in a society. As such, human rights are a philosophical question, which has been debated by great thinkers throughout history.

In the modern era, Human Rights have often gone by the name of Natural Rights, or Inherent Rights, or even, the Fundamental Nature of Man. In all cases, the discussion is about what basic minimum standards of behavior are given by a society to all its members. Often couched in religious or moral terms, Human Rights are actually a social contract - that is, they define certain behaviors that are considered intrinsic to members of that society, and from which no member can be deprived. Thus, a Human Right is a legal entitlement to some action or benefit, which cannot be removed, and is considered to be a part of the foundational philosophy of a society. The specific definition of Human Rights (i.e. which behaviors) varies from society to society.

Today, we have a general global consensus on some fundamental rights (the aforementioned UN Declaration of Human Rights is perhaps the iconic example of a list of such rights), but there is a great deal of contention between various societies as to many other rights - Rights that are considered fundamental in one society are accorded less status in others. The concept of Human Rights on the international level is generally taken to be those collection of behaviors which have achieves a consensus of acceptance (but not necessarily a unanimity of acceptance) - that this, those Rights which a substantial majority of societies accepts as Human Rights.

Most refugees are poor and some are desitute.

Politicians fear:

• That refugees will need public assistance ...
• That refugees may be perceived as cheap labour