Editorial:
Human
Rights
Declared
but
Not
Observed
12/11/98
by Adam J. Smith, DRCNet Associate Director This past week marked the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the United Nations' Declaration on Human Rights. It is a remarkable document, written in the aftermath of the Holocaust, which acknowledges a commitment by the nations of the world to due process, equality, and personal freedom. Even today, while millions of people still live under conditions violative of both the letter and the spirit of the Declaration, it is held out as the marker of advanced society. It is shocking then, that fifty years after the world came together in agreement on standards for the treatment of the individual, the United States, its constitution the envy of billions of the world's citizens, pursues a policy which contradicts and offends those principles. The drug war, and the ever-escalating effort to enforce its unenforceable prohibitions, has led America down a path that few could have imagined fifty years ago, until now we have come to a time in our history when the unthinkable is routine, and the unquestionable has been questioned and even discarded. Whether out of frustration, ignorance or political ambition, a generation of leaders have sacrificed the moral high ground in favor of a moralistic oppression so foreign to the ideals of human rights as to shock the conscience. A brief look at but a few of the articles of the Declaration of Human Rights points to a system out of control, and a nation in a race toward the bottom in its treatment of its citizens. Article 10 of the United Nations Declaration states that "Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him." Yet every day in America, citizens are convicted and sentenced to long prison terms on the word of informants who are being paid, often in the currency of their own freedom, for their testimony. And while it would be illegal for an accused to offer anything of value in return for testimony on his or her behalf, they are routinely sent away, their lives destroyed, by people whose futures depend upon telling the court exactly what the state wants to hear. Article 12 states, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." Yet every day in America, the doors of citizens are kicked in on the word of confidential informants, police tap phones, sift through garbage, scan houses with infra-red sensors, stop and search travelers who fit vague "profiles", force people to urinate on demand for chemical tests and watch unsuspecting citizens with surveillance cameras. Privacy and the integrity of one's home and person have become a casualty of the unrelenting search for contraband, which can be anywhere and everywhere. Article 16.3 states, "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state." Yet every day in America parents are taken from their children for terms of years or decades for non-violent offenses in which no one, save arguably the parents themselves have been harmed. Children are also taken from parents and incarcerated, for non-violent offenses, often to be housed with adult prisoners. Article 17.2 states, "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property." Yet every day in America, government agents seize the property of individuals on the merest suspicion. That property is then presumed to belong to the state, whether or not criminal charges are filed. Proof is then required not of the government, but of the rightful owner, whether or not that individual can afford representation. Article 18 states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion: This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." Yet across America, practitioners of Rastafari, Coptic Christians, Sufi Moslems and others have been denied the right to their traditional sacraments. They have been told that their religion, and its commandments, do not meet the criteria of the state and are therefore illegitimate. Members of these groups are harassed, surveilled and jailed. When they are released, the terms of their parole or probation often forbid them to worship in their chosen manner and even to associate with others of their faith. Last week marked fifty years since the world came together in the aftermath of one of the greatest atrocities in the history of humankind. Humbled by the sheer powerlessness of the individual in the face of a state out of control, these representatives of the peoples of the globe set out the basic, minimal standards of freedom, equality, and the dignity of man. Fifty years ago the United States stood as the paragon of the virtues that they enumerated. Today, in the name of a war perpetrated upon her own citizens, that same United States makes a mockery of those ideals. It is stunning, really, that we have fallen so far, so fast. We as a nation are not, by virtue of our place in history, immune from tyranny. Nor, apparently, are we cognizant of its warning signs.
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