Today is Human Rights Day. Seldom in the 76 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed by the nations of the world in San Francisco, on 10 December 1948, have human rights seemed under such grave threat.
The Declaration was written in the hopeful days after the defeat of Nazism and the end of the Second World War, when millions of people across the world desired to live in a fairer and better world. In the ensuing decades, the UDHR played its role in helping to ensure that people did live in a fairer world and great leaps forward, such as the ending of Apartheid in South Africa and the tumbling down of the Berlin Wall, along with the totalitarian regimes in eastern Europe.
Conflicts today
Today, however, we seem to be living in a world that is going backwards. Brutal conflicts are taking place in Ukraine, Gaza, Burma, Yemen and the Sudan, seeing children killed and thousands upon thousands being displaced and having to flee their homes. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees notes that, “over 250,000 have recently fled violence in Sudan and urgently need lifesaving aid”, while Reuters state that “Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 41,500 people, with the majority of identified victims being women and children”. Meanwhile the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated in April this year that the number of displaced people in Burma had reached. “more than 2.8 million, including more than 2.5 million people who fled conflict and insecurity since the 2021 military takeover”. The UN also reported in October this year that since the start of the Russian invasion in February, 11 973 civilians had been killed in the war. Al Jazeera reported in 2023 that in the seven years of war in Yemen up to that time, 377 000 people had been killed and four million displaced.
Right-wing populists
We have seen the election of right-wing populists who will trample over people and their rights given half a chance. There are such governments in countries from Putin’s Russia to the Argentina of Javier Milei, while of course Donald Trump is due to be inaugurated again as President of the USA next month.
The UK and Newcastle
Meanwhile, in this country rights such as access to appropriate health , education and social care are being challenged while food banks proliferate along with warm hubs. It was noted by Statista. that, “In 2023/24 there were 1,699 food bank distribution centres run by the UK’s main food bank distributor, the Trussell Trust, compared with 1,646 in the previous year. In this year, over 3.12 million people used a food bank in the UK, compared with just under 26,000 in 2008/09.”
In our own region we have seen Newcastle United taken over by the Saudi PIF, with all the appalling baggage of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, committed by the Saudi PIF documented by Human Rights Watch in a report that came out on 20 November. In response there has been barely a whisper of dissent from elected representatives and other high-profile members of society in the North East.
Surely, we need to return to the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and remember that human rights belong to all of us and are at heart about human decency and respect for each other. We need to remember our common humanity and this Human Rights Day also remember all those whose rights are being denied them, both in this country and across the world. And perhaps we also need to remember the words on Martin Luther King Jr, who visited Newcastle on 13 November 1967 and who in one of his famous quotes said the following:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.
