2011 Human Rights Day Event Remarks, National Press Club, Washington DC
December 8, 2011
Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
December 8, 2011
Welcome and thank you for coming today!
It is another good to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
That is the name of our human rights coalition, Responsible for Equality And Liberty, and we are here today to invite our fellow human rights activists in a joint event where we remember the December 10, 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the nations of the United Nations.
People around the world remember this human rights accomplishment as Human Rights Day, and there events going on around the world.
Here in Washington DC, Responsible for Equality And Liberty, has sought to also celebrate Human Rights Day here at the National Press Club, as we have done over the several years, with speakers on various human rights campaigns, to share our common bond together in our efforts to be responsible for our universal human rights for all people around the world.
Our common bond is our humanity. This includes the inherent human dignity and human rights for all people of all identity groups everywhere in the world that represent our universal human rights. We come from the nations of the world, from different races, different ethnic groups, different religions, different genders, and different identity groups – but our universal human rights apply equally to all – without exception, without reservation.
Our universal human rights are also based on our shared respect for one another as human beings. Such respect is essential in our human society. We find those who seek to be superior or arrogant in seeking rights for themselves that they would deny to others. But our universal human rights are based on shared respect for all people of all identity groups everywhere in the world. Our universal human rights require a commitment to being responsible for BOTH equality and liberty for all.
In our individual campaigns, we struggle with those who would seek to deny such universal human rights. We see extremist groups, totalitarian governments, and those with hate in their hearts seeking to deny human rights to others. Let us never forget this problem is one of human respect, first and foremost. If we are to RESPONSIBLE on this matter, we must treat all human beings with respect, even those with whom we disagree. The challenge we see in human rights is not only a challenge for individual campaigns, but it is a challenge for humanity itself.
So our combined campaigns for human rights must begin with a declaration of love and respect for our fellow human beings. The view with Responsible for Equality And Liberty is that we offer an outstretched hand, not an upraised fist – to all of our brothers and sisters in humanity.
Our common bond is our humanity and our common legacy must be one where we show our love and respect for one another, even as we challenge those who oppress, and even as we challenge those deny human rights and dignity to others. We must set an example. We must set a standard. We must offer a vision of the future based on hope.
We urge others to Choose Love, Not Hate. But we are not preaching about our own perfection, rather we are setting a goal for our society and ourselves with humility.
Our goal in our human rights campaigns must also be finding and building for the future of human society together.
That future must begin with a commitment to the most vulnerable among us, whether they are minorities in the race, religion, gender, ethnic background or other identity groups. It is easy to ignore those who are different. But the global danger is that we become arrogant and fail to respect their human rights. We have seen this around the world: in the United States, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa, in Europe. We have individuals who will speak today on campaigns to defend the human rights of minorities and other groups who are denied human rights based on perceptions in culture, including women in America.
Our future in human rights must also address the issue of the terrible poverty around the world, and the impact of this poverty on effectively denying the human rights of people. I also urge Americans to address this issue as well. Just a short drive from where we meet today, you can see some of the most dire circumstances of poverty and neglect. There are those who would seek to leverage such poverty to abuse the vulnerable in our society in America and around the world. To challenge the poverty in human rights around the world, we cannot also neglect the need to challenge the issue of poverty itself. Give where you can, help where you can. Use your declaration of love and respect to help those who need help.
If our commitment to the future must address the most vulnerable among us, then the most important part of that commitment is our children. Without our children, there is no future for human society. Our children are the future leaders of Earth, and we must set an example on human rights, respect, and love for one another – not just for our own sake – but also for our children’s future. I say “our children” because they are our shared responsibility and our shared future. We cannot just only expect the parents of our children to look out on their behalf, no more than only our parents looked out on our behalf. All of human society has a responsiblity to equality and liberty for our children, and all of human society has an obligation to safely protect and preserve our children, so that can live and grow to become the future leaders of our Earth.
But if we were to assess human society based on how its most vulnerable, we would a sorry story. Too few nations, including the United States of America, are signatories to the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child. A few weeks ago there was a separate event where people remember the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on November 20, 1989.
If we are committed to human rights, we must first and foremost be committed to human rights for our children. Yet an endless parade of violence and abuse against children and young people continues throughout America and throughout the world.
On Monday of this week a 7 year old girl, Jorelys Rivera, was found murdered, sexually abused, and left in a trash bin. (Lifting her photo to the audience). This is the face of human rights in America and the world today. Our children are abused, raped, tortured, and killed in America and around the world with impunity. In Texas, children were killed by their own mother, after putting a Facebook posting warning of threats against them. In Pennylvania, institutional leaders ignored reports of repeated attacks and rapes of young boys for over a decade at the Pennsylvania State University, of which I myself am an alumnus.
This week in Afghanistan, a teenage girl who had been raped and imprisoned by the Aghan government as a result of being a victim, was finally given an oppportunity to be released from prison after 2 years, if she married her rapist.
Our disgrace in human rights for children are not just by criminals and extremists, it is by governments, it is by institutions, and it is by too many in society. This disgrace in human rights for children is only a reflection of the state of our society on human rights. We see extremist views from people who claim that they represent religious or cultural views justifying pedophilia and honor killings. On regular basis, such so-called “honor killings” frequently of young girls are reported at the international human rights group’s web site stophonourkillings.com. In the United Kingdom alone, there were 3,000 so-called honor killings last year.
This threat to our children affects all of us and all of in this room and the individual human rights campaigns represented here.
In Sudan and Darfur, children are killed, young girls are raped, children are starved, authorities refuse to let children learn about their culture, and some children are taught to become soldiers.
In Pakistan, we see an endless and horrifying oppression of young children, brainwashing by extremist of young minds, tying bombs onto children for terrorist acts, the abuse, rape, and murder of young Christian girls and other religious minitories, including a young girl Amariah Masih, who was murdered resisting an attempted rape and reported forced religious conversion.
In Balochistan, we have seen over 168 children who have “disappeared” and teenage boys killed as part of a brutal “kill and dump” campaign by authorities.
In China, only two months ago, the world saw heartless people continue to walk by as a two year old girl Yue-Yue was run over by a vehicle and left to die in the street. At the U.S. Congress a short drive away, I have sat and listened to testimony from young Chinese women forced into having abortions and heard reports of how the government instructed doctors to kill young babies. The Falun Gong, here with us today, could tell the story of how the children of their supporters are also oppressed, tortured, killed, and others left to be orphans or without parent as the Chinese Communist Party takes their parents away for their beliefs.
In Bahrain, I have a report from a few weeks ago of 5 children killed and hundreds of children subjected to excessive force by a brutal government that seeks deny democracy and human rights.
We such abuses too regularly, and it is easy to view such disgraces as statistics rather than as human beings, who are precious, unique, and loved.
My friends have also been asking why Responsible for Equality And Liberty has had less press conferences this year. One of my own personal focus has been dealing with people suffering in dire poverty in this nation and seeking to help them from their difficult living environment. This has included a teenage girl who came to me with her own story of abuse and I have been intervening to protect her and other American girls suffering from abuse as a result of their poverty, by those who seek to take their hope, dreams, and their innocence away.
They are all OUR children. They are all OUR responsibility for equality and liberty. Every one.
In the month of December, we see some people celebrating holidays of various sorts and some providing gifts to children.
I believe we can give them a special gift this year.
We must give the gift of our courage, our consistency, and our commitment for the universal human rights and dignity to all of our children around the world.
Some believe that abuses against our children are simply a law enforcement issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we are to be responsible as individuals in a human society, each of us must be responsible for the children that are our common bond and bridge to the future.
We must set an example for our children.
We must provide a beacon and symbol of hope for our children.
We must show that by our words and more importantly by actions, in the United States and around the world – to our children – and to each other…
We are Responsible for Equality And Liberty.
