Human Rights Rejects Murder —
December 10, 2024 –
Universal Human Rights Day –
Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) –
Advocacy of human rights rejects the concept that murder is normal, common, and acceptable; it furthers moral shame to reject those who consider murder even laudable. On December 10, Universal Human Rights Day, this is the most compelling and urgent issue for human rights. Rejection of murder needs to discussed with our children. Opposition to murder needs to be shouted from our street corners. Shame over murder needs to be part of protests to our institutional leaders, both to dictators and to those who claim to be democratic leaders, to those who who make and facilitate weapons to murder, or and to those denying health care, food, and support to those in desperate need for survival. We cannot progress towards all of the other objectives and values of universal human rights, if we casually accept murdering fellow human beings, and if we view their human lives as merely expendable with the “ends justifying the means.”
On Human Rights Day, December 10, the world remembers the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The position of the UDHR on murder is crystal clear.
— UDHR Article 3. “EVERYONE has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
We all have the right to safety, security, and liberty, and we have the right to defend ourselves accordingly. But as the UDHR states, it was created in 1948 in response to “disregard and contempt for human rights [that] have resulted in barbarous acts,” and so it also appeals to the “conscience of mankind” to find a path to peace with “human rights [that] should be protected by the rule of law.”
Those who choose “barbarous acts” of MURDER as their pathway to “security” or “liberty” are choosing neither; they are only perpetuating contempt for human life itself.
Many institutions and people have terms to disguise their actions in violence either by physical attack on others or by denying healthcare to others with glib terms of “national security,” “security operations,” “economic stability,” etc.
But those of us who demand respect for fellow human life and dignity know MURDER when we see it – no matter who is doing the murdering or what they claim to be their justification.
Murder is NOT a human right. Life is a Universal Human Right.
Defense of our human civilization demands that we reject murder and respect life of fellow human beings.
Progress requires that we have find a shared view of actual reality, and we cannot get achieve progress without a greater common cause in respecting lives of fellow human beings. As my long-time comrade in human rights campaigns Shireen Qudosi reminds me of our discussion six years ago, “there could be no rule of law without a shared reality.”
Too many allow this concept of a “shared reality” to be too complex to grasp, and that it is impossible to understand how others might feel and how their lives are impacted by events. Let us start with the beginning – We are all ALIVE. We all breathe. We all have a heartbeat. We have brains to think. We are all human beings, no matter how different we think that we are. Our lives matter as human beings.
UDHR Article 1: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
No matter how much we oppose, object, or in worse case are even at war, with our fellow human beings, let us stop, BREATH, FEEL OUR HEART, THINK. We are all born free and equal in dignity and rights. We can control our world choices and the actions those of those who claim to represent us.
Let us first respect shared human life. ALL OF US.
Let us STOP THE KILLING of fellow human beings.
To ever be Responsible for Equality And Liberty, let us first believe that our fellow human beings have the right to be alive on our shared Earth. Let us start with THAT shared reality.
