Human Rights Day Prepared Remarks
Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
Welcome
It is another good day to be responsible for equality and liberty.
Good afternoon and welcome to today’s Human Right’s Day event to recognize the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the importance of our universal human rights around the world. My name is Jeffrey Imm, and I am with the volunteer human rights activists “Responsible for Equality And Liberty.” I would like to thank those groups and their activists who come to join us this year here at the National Press Club. Our plan is for me to mention why we remember Human Rights Day, offer a brief introduction on the theme of today’s event, “Compassion and Human Rights,” and then allow various speakers to come up. We will try to have Q&A after each speaker but if we start to run too long, then we may have to postpone some Q&A period until the end.
The groups and speakers that we have scheduled for today include:
1. Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) – on Compassion and Human Rights; on the Challenge of Racial and Religious Intolerance in America
2. Mohamed Yahya, Damanga Organization – on Sudan and Darfur
3. Dr. Nazir Bhatti, Pakistan Christian Congress – on Christians in Pakistan
4. Ms. Caylan Ford, DC Liaison and Analyst of Falun Dafa Information Center – on Falun Dafa in the People’s Republic of China
5. Yubin Pang MD Ph.D., Executive Director, Washington DC Area, Global Service Center for Quitting CCP
6. Ms. Maria Rohaly – Mission Free Iran, on women’s rights in Iran
7. Ms. Carolyn Cook – United for Equality – on women’s rights in the United States
8. C. Naseer Ahmad – Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and human rights
We may change the order of some of these speakers to accommodate some who are traveling here from out of town, so I appreciate your patience and understanding on that.
Introduction to Human Rights Day
Around the world every year, people remember Human Rights Day to honor the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the assembled nations of the world in the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, three years after the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the tragedy of the Holocaust.
The UDHR was designed as a statement of “never again” to such atrocities against human rights and human dignity. But the UDHR was more than simply defiance against those who would promote hate, it has more importantly been a guideline and declaration of the universal human rights we view as inherent human rights, regardless of your nationality, your race, your religion, your beliefs, your political views, your gender or sexual orientation. No matter who you are, you are human being with universal human rights.
The bold and unequivocating view of the UDHR’s declaration is that human beings are human beings with the same universal, inherent human rights and freedoms everywhere on our shared planet Earth – no matter what organization, what nation, or what group of people believes otherwise. According to the UDHR, all of us share a common family of humanity together – along with the universal human right of human dignity for all.
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Human Right Day Event Theme: “Compassion and Human Rights”
This year, three British archeologists completed scientific research on compassion in prehistoric human beings. They published their findings in a book entitled “The Prehistory of Compassion.” They found that compassionate behavior in prehistoric human beings was evidenced as early as 6 million years ago, and they trace the increasing growth of compassion in human beings at 1.8 million years ago, 300,000 years ago, 120,000 years ago, and 40,000 years ago.
Their findings lead us to the conclusion that compassion is not only an essential part of promoting human rights, but also that our capacity for compassion is a part of our identities as human beings.
There are others who seek to deny compassion in themselves and others. Some seek to actively promote hatred. In Washington DC in 2009, Nazi and white supremacist James Von Brunn sought to commit a terrorist attack on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Mr. Von Brunn told his supporters that hate was “natural, normal, necessary.”
We are challenged by such views in the United States and around the world, where people are taught that their identity group, their divisions, their self-interest alone, is all that matters. We are challenged by views from some that other identity groups are inferior and not deserving of the same inherent, universal human rights.
Scientific evidence proves that compassion, not hate, is “natural, normal, necessary” in human beings. Our shared religious, moral, and ethical practices teach us that compassion towards others is an inherent part of our human identities. When some deny our human capacity for compassion by denying human rights to others, they are not just attacking our universal human rights, they are also denying their identities as human beings.
We tend to look at compassion as only a choice, when it is convenient and when we have time. But compassion is more than a choice. Compassion is a legacy of our continuing development as human beings. Our growing capacity for compassion is the path ahead for our future as a human society. Human dignity and our other universal human rights are dependent on our shared compassion for each other as human beings.
Human rights campaigns really begin with compassion. Certainly, there are those who speak out on oppression, discrimination, and violence against their own identity group. But they do so because they believe that someone else will listen to them, that someone else will care, that someone else will have compassion.
Our volunteer activists with Responsible for Equality And Liberty believe in this so much that our motto is “Choose Love, Not Hate – Love Wins.” We offer an outstretched hand, not an upraised fist, even to those who would offer us hate, even to those who would deny our human rights. I know that this is not always easy to do, when you are attacked, when your identity group is attacked, when your family is attacked. I understand this first-hand. But I will stand my ground to the last and state that “Love Wins,” not just now, but also tomorrow. Compassion is not only the hope for human rights, it is also the destiny for humanity.
Compassion and A Shared Human Rights Cause
If we accept that compassion is necessary for an effective human rights campaign, then it follows that individual human rights campaigns share this need for human compassion. Responsible for Equality And Liberty sees such individual human rights campaigns as elements of a larger, shared human rights cause. Your campaign for human rights is our campaign. The larger shared cause of universal human rights for all is also your cause as well. We believe that for individual campaigns to truly succeed, we must also work towards our shared human rights cause.
The mission of Responsible for Equality And Liberty has been to bring people and human rights campaigns together to become aware of each other, to see what we have in common, to identify our shared human rights struggle, and to demonstrate how we can work together. Our goal is to work to help our fellow human beings prioritize human rights issues in their lives, activities, governments, nations, and shared world.
In the traditional human rights community, we have defined ourselves primarily by individual human rights campaigns. Individual human rights campaigns struggle with competition for attention, resources, and visibility, and today many campaigns struggle with a difficult economy and apathy. Some groups have created coalitions on specific regions or specific topics to maximize their effectiveness and resources.
We have a different vision, different agenda, and different hope for the future.
We believe that there is a singular, shared human rights cause that is larger than any one campaign, any one organization, or any one coalition. We are reaching out to the larger coalition of our human brothers and sisters across world to embrace their human capacity for compassion, that is part of their very human nature. We believe the leaders for human rights are every single one of us as human beings. The message to our fellow human beings is that their self-interest begins with prioritizing the compassion that is part of their humanity, and that their self-interest begins with prioritizing the universal human rights that we must all share. An attack on human rights anywhere is an attack on human rights everywhere.
We seek to get our fellow brothers and sisters in humanity to recognize the needs of their human family, to recognize their inherent human identity for compassion to their fellow human beings. We aren’t seeking to CHANGE our fellow human beings, but we seek to get our brothers and sisters to stop denying who and what they are as human beings, to stop denying their responsibility for their human family, and to stop denying their capability for the compassion. To truly work towards a shared human rights cause, we must urge our human brothers and sisters to be true to who they are as human beings.
It is time for our fellow human beings to come to the aid of our human rights leaders and TOGETHER bring an end to the human rights violations of our brothers and sisters around the world. We must all be responsible for equality and liberty.
In working in our human rights cause, we must remember that our conscience must also be led by our compassion. We must remember that without compassion to others, we cannot promote any human rights initiative. People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
In the traditional human rights community, we have also largely defined ourselves with what is wrong and bad in the world. In our passion and concern for others, it is easy to slip into a pattern of simply cataloging the ills of the world, especially given the horrible genocide, violence, oppression, and abuse of so many in the world.
If we believe in the power of compassion, we must also balance a shared human rights cause with describing what is right in the world as well. We must offer hugs with our entreaties, we must offer hope from within the gloom. We must offer a positive message of optimism that celebrates our accomplishments. Every step, every accomplishment, no matter how small it seems, is another demonstration of the growth of human compassion. Every success once again proves how love will defeat hate.
You are demonstrating how important this is by being here at this Human Rights Day event today.
We have the answer to our shared human rights cause within each of our hearts. Imagine those hearts working together as one. That is our vision, and we hope it is yours.
We must find the courage and consistency to work towards our human destiny of compassion in human rights and human dignity for all.
Love Wins.
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Human Rights Challenges for the United States: Racial and Religious Intolerance
While we address human rights challenges around the world on Human Rights Day, it is important for those of us in America to also recognize the continuing human rights challenges that we face within our own country. When we call for our fellow human beings to be compassionate and responsible in such human rights – that compassion and responsibility must also come from ourselves in our own lives as Americans.
The hard work of defending human rights in America may be unpopular at times. It is often easier to get Americans to agree that people in another country, people of another majority religion, or people who are somehow “different” should make commitments to “change” first. But as a nation responsible for equality and liberty, we must practice what we preach – not just when this is easy to hear – but most especially when this is difficult for us to hear.
When we ask others to recognize the need to support our universal human rights and to embrace their human compassion for one another, as a nation in America, we must also take a good look in the mirror and ask ourselves and our nation to do the same. When we work for the human rights of women, racial harmony, religious freedom, and liberty around the world, let us not forget that we must also continue to extend our hand in compassion to work for such human rights in the United States of America as well.
The past year saw a marked increase in racial and religious intolerance in America that those of us in the United States working for human rights around the world must also be responsible for addressing as Americans. We have seen how such intolerance can and will continue to divide us as a nation. There are some working to celebrate and even to expand such divisions based on intolerance in our nation. We have a responsibility, not just as Americans, but also as human beings committed to our universal human rights, to use the power of compassion to defy the venom of intolerance. Love will ultimately win.
While we condemn the horror of slavery in parts of the world today, on December 20 in South Carolina and other states in the American South, there will be celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Secession Day, when the Confederate States of America began to failed efforts to dissolve their union with the United States of America. A key issue in the Confederate states’ secession was the issue of slavery in America (which was in both the South and the North at that time), a dark chapter from America’s struggles with human rights. We ask our fellow Americans in the South to reflect on this issue. While some celebrate our past divisions, we know that there will be Southern Americans who will continue to prioritize of common bonds in humanity and compassion.
In the past year, we have seen numerous groups anxiously try to revive hatred and divisions between all races in America. We have seen white supremacists get radio shows on FCC-licensed radio stations. We have seen those who promote diverse racial supremacism (both white and black) interviewed in parts of the news media without challenge to their views against equality. The rhetoric of racial intolerance seems to becoming more public and more prevalent, as we see not only in the media and the Internet, but also in marches in the streets of our city, including our nation’s capital. Racial slurs, hate symbols, nooses hung outside black American’s homes, and marches of racial hatred continue in America. Racial hate messages are distributed in fliers, promoted in our libraries and parks, and racial hate messages are hidden in plastic Easter Eggs for children to find. Even the simple snowman is not safe from the disease of racial hate. Last week in Idaho, a white supremacist made a Ku Klux Klan shaped snowman holding a rope hanging noose.
But we have also seen the activism and courage by many other Americans who reject and who are horrified by such divisions and hatred. While racial supremacists get the news headlines, there are countless unheralded heroes who have condemned such racism, who have promoted racial harmony, and who in cities across our nation have taken a courageous stand against hate. Americans across the nation have replied to hate: “Not in Our Town.”
In the past year, we have seen the consequences of desperate acts of violence by white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups, as they have come to realize that America will no longer consider going back to the bad old days of racial hate. This year, individuals were convicted of terrorist plots against black Americans. Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman were convicted of a plot to kill 88 black Americans and Barack Obama in Tennessee; this plot included a plan to decapitate 14 black Americans, as well as shooting out the windows in a black American church. This year, we have seen the conviction of Ku Klux Klan leader Raymond “Chuck” Foster in killing a white woman Cynthia Lynch, who died because she chose her conscience over the KKK’s efforts to indoctrinate her in the white supremacist group.
For every desperate act of racial violence and hatred, we have seen a hundred acts of courage and compassion. Our nationwide law enforcement and Department of Justice have stood up to such violence and ensured that criminals have received justice. When the Nazis marched in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the YWCA has offered a message of peace and a commitment to our human rights. The message from law enforcement has been consistent: while we respect freedom of speech even by those promoting racial hate, we are a nation of laws where violence will not be tolerated. The message from our community organizations has been that we will respond to hate with compassion and dignity for all.
Last winter in 2010, we saw the growing efforts of a nationwide white nationalist group to hold a national event in our nation’s capital, where diversity was to be mocked and minority races were to be viewed as inferior. We stand without question to respect the dignity, equality, and liberty of all of our fellow Americans and human beings. That is why we are Responsible for Equality And Liberty. Responsible for Equality And Liberty made an effort to urge local hotels to give us the chance to also promote racial equality, human dignity, and the value of our human diversity as brothers and sisters in humanity. For such compassionate activism in America, we were condemned by white nationalists, mocked in some foreign media, we were threatened, and efforts were made to disparage my family. Our efforts to promote racial dignity, equality, and liberty were undeterred. When white nationalists later came to disrupt other human rights events we had, I continued to extend our mission of compassion and offer an outstretched hand to them as well, as my brothers and sisters in humanity.
At the time, some asked me why don’t we just let black civil right groups challenge the views of white nationalists. We are Responsible for Equality And Liberty. Responsibility begins at home, in our own city, state, and nation. Responsibility begins with our own identity group. That is why as a white human being, I must challenge white supremacism. That is why as a man, I must challenge misogyny and attacks on women’s rights. That is why as a Christian, I must challenge those Christian extremists in America who seek to deny religious rights to religious minorities. We must be living examples as agents of compassion and change in our own identity groups.
If we only look to identity groups in the minority (in America or anywhere or the world) to lead the path of compassion in gaining human rights and human dignity, then those in majority identity groups in the world have not truly accepted our responsibility for compassion and human rights. I urge those around the world, whatever your identity group, to embrace this responsibility for compassion and human rights. Change begins with us.
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On the issue of religious intolerance in America, we have seen tremendous attacks on our religious freedoms, religious pluralism, and a growing religious intolerance that attacks our institutions, laws, and Constitution. I wrote earlier this week about my first president, John F. Kennedy, who in a speech in 1960 while a candidate for president stated that “I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end…”. Fifty years later, we have seen, especially this year, that America sadly still has a long way to go.
We have not just seen the rise of only one form of religious intolerance. We have seen attacks on houses of worship and we also have seen a growing rise of religious militants intolerant of people with different faiths.
We have seen black Christian churches attacked across America, including here in the Washington DC area, some of which have been shot up by guns. We have seen attacks on Hindu and Buddhist temples; this has included attacks on Buddhist temples that have included pro-“Christian” graffiti. We have seen an endless series of attacks on Jewish synagogues in America, which have included Nazi symbols, death threats, and hate – even here in the Washington DC area and in the city where I live.
We have seen the rise of a virulent hatred against Islam and Muslim mosques across our nation, with a pipe bomb attack against a mosque in Florida, arson attacks against mosques in Texas and Oregon, and a conviction of Neo-Nazis for their arson attack against a mosque in Tennessee. We have seen other cases of arson, vandalism, and destruction in attacks against Muslim mosques across America, with vandalism and destruction of property in Tennessee, arson of construction equipment for a new mosque in Tennessee, arson attack against a mosque automobile in Louisiana, children harassed outside of their mosque in Texas, and youths shooting rifles outside of a mosque in western New York.
Our freedom of religion and worship, like all of our other freedoms, is dependent on our shared trust of pluralism in our society; in America, we don’t have to agree with someone else’s religion or faith or even support any religion at all. But we do have the responsibility to ensure that others’ freedoms are defended, as they are guaranteed by our Constitution, by our laws, and by our society.
Religious militantism that seeks to promote violence or deny others their human rights is a violation of that covenant of shared trust, and we continue to urge representatives of religious groups to combat such militantism. But we have the common sense and the respect for our fellow Americans that we don’t begin to believe that religious militants represent the majority of kind-hearted, loving people of various faiths. When we see threats in NYC and Portland by Muslim men who have sought to have bombs in large groups, we know that they do not represent Muslim America. When we see threats by the Christian Hutaree group arrested for plotting attacks against police officers, and others who claim to represent Christian groups in America who call for violence, we know that they do not represent Christian America.
We must recognize efforts by those of a majority religion to seek to deny the human rights of freedom of religion and freedom of worship presents a significant problem for America, just as it would in any nation. This year, we have seen coast-to-coast efforts across American by those who claim to represent elements of Christianity to seek to prevent Muslims from having houses of worship, who seek to deny freedom of religion, who seek to ban mosques, and even some who have gone to court in Tennessee to seek to deny that Islam is a religion in America. In California, Tennessee, New York, Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Florida, Connecticut, North Carolina, in state after state, we see those who seek to deny religious freedom and freedom of worship for Muslim-Americans. We have seen people call for attacks on mosques on the radio and on the Internet, we seen those who have called for a war on Islam, and we have seen those in our nation’s capital and other parts of the nation who have destroyed and burned the Qur’an. In the city of our Statue of Liberty, we have seen those who tell to the cheers of American crowds that some Muslim leaders should not have the right to have freedom of worship, not just in NYC, but anywhere in America.
But we have also seen the rise of a new generation of interfaith movements across America, created out of the troubling challenge of growing religious intolerance in America. Diverse people across America have joined hands together in response to the storm of religious hate and intolerance against Muslim Americans and other Americans. They have held their own candle-light vigils. On September 11, in our nation’s capital, I was privileged to have the opportunity to have people of all faiths and no religion at all join together to defend freedom of religion and worship for Muslim Americans, simply because it was the right thing to do, it was the American thing to do. To those who promote religious intolerance and hate, we offer an outstretched hand, not an upraised fist, of pluralism, peace, and compassion as fellow human beings.
A few weeks ago in Portland, Oregon, a Muslim man was arrested for an alleged plot to bomb a crowd during a Christmas-tree lighting. Days later, a mosque that he attended was attacked by an arsonist. But then the true face of compassion showed itself, as Portland neighbors of all religions and none at all, people of diverse groups banded together. The parking lot of the Portland mosque was full as community and religious leaders who joined together to condemn such hate and violence. That is the America that I know and love. In the past several months, I have attended two mosque services, and my regret is that I have not had time to have further visits yet. But to those of you who have not had the opportunity to visit a mosque, I would urge you to do so, and send a signal that those of us who defend human rights support such tolerance and freedom of religion and worship for all people.
Some may think this is a problem just for Muslim Americans. We see that once that the disease of hate takes root, this illness does not just limit itself to any one group, but sickens and undermines our entire society. The group in Georgia that seeks to deny freedom of worship for Muslim Americans, has also opposed Buddhists from holding worship services. A Christian extremist group based out of Virginia that sought to destroy the Qur’an in our nation’s capital also has opposed Hindu public prayer. The group in Tennessee that seeks to deny freedom of religion for Muslims and seeks to deny that Islam is a religion, also opposes Falun Dafa / Falun Gong members from publicly practicing their beliefs in Tennessee. A Christian extremist group that led one of the Qur’an burning efforts also regularly protests and seeks to disrupt worship services in Jewish synagogues, and has praised terrorist attacks against Iraqi Christians.
Fifty years ago, John F. Kennedy told those who sought to deny him the right to run for president because he was a Catholic American: “Today I may be the victim–but tomorrow it may be you–until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.”
It has been a very difficult year for America, but many have made the courageous decision to put hate and intolerance in our past, and make compassion and human rights our future.
America is a nation of nations, an amalgamation of different races, different religions, different ethnic groups, and different identity groups. Our infinite diversity is balanced by our uni-culture of respect for our Constitution, our freedoms, and our universal human rights. When groups within America begin to fight among themselves, our balance has always been in the agreement on the truths that we hold self evident that all men and women are created equal. This commitment to equality and liberty in America is a model for what we seek to share with our brothers and sisters in humanity around the world.
