Vienna - City of Human Rights. Declaration.

"The City of Vienna pledges to act as a guardian and defender of human rights by striving to respect, protect, fulfil and be accountable for human rights in all of its areas of competence. Based on this approach, the City of Vienna actively supports its citizens in asserting and upholding their human rights by providing adequate framework conditions and using them as a basis for its actions. This approach is based on the principle that every person living in the city has the same human rights – regardless of their nationality or residency status." (via/more)

photograph of Thomas Bernhard in Vienna, 1970 via

Defining Museums

According to the International Council of Museums, a museum is "a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment". This has been the accepted definition for about fifty years. This September, the council will vote on a new definition as the current one may "not speak the language of the 21st century" (via):

Museums are democratizing, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artifacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people.
Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing.

photographs by Sandra Lousada (Rothko exhibition, 1961) via

Every Child Should Have the Right to Rise

It all began with a boy in a long sleeve t-shirt...
It was only a few months before the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, when Norwegian speed skater Johann Olav Koss led a humanitarian trip to the newly formed African country of Eritrea. There, he came face-to-face with the realities of life in a country emerging from decades of war.



As children played amidst burned out tanks, surrounded by the images of war martyrs, one boy stood out and crystallized an idea for Johann that would write the future of Right To Play
He met the President of Eritrea and said, 'You need food and I have brought sports equipment. I made a mistake. I'm sorry.' The President looked at Johann and said, 'This is the greatest gift we have ever received. For the first time, we are being treated like human beings–not just something to be kept alive. For the first time, my children can play like any child.'
For Johann it felt like the starting point for something bigger. Since then, the power of play has helped millions of children to rise and recapture hope.



Literally via/More: LINK

The Indifference of the World

"In the name of all those who persecute you, who have persecuted you, and those who have hurt you, above all in the indifference of the world, I ask you for forgiveness. Forgiveness."
Pope Francis



"The devastating cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable – what kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother's milk. And for the mother to witness this murder while she is being gang-raped by the very security forces who should be protecting her. (...)
The killing of people as they prayed, fished to feed their families or slept in their homes, the brutal beating of children as young as two and an elderly woman aged 80 – the perpetrators of these violations, and those who ordered them, must be held accountable."
Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

"Numerous testimonies collected from people from different village tracts…confirmed that the army deliberately set fire to houses with families inside, and in other cases pushed Rohingyas into already burning houses.
Testimonies were collected of several cases where the army or Rakhine villagers locked an entire family, including elderly and disabled people, inside a house and set it on fire, killing them all."
Excerpts taken from a report issued by the United Nations in February 2017

More:

::: "My World is Finished." Rohingya targeted in crimes against humanity in Myanmar. Amnesty International. DOWNLOAD
::: Interviews with Rohingyas fleeing from Myanmar since 9 October 2016, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. DOWNLOAD

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photograph via

The Cyrus Cylinder: The First Charter of Human Rights

The rugby ball-sized clay cylinder was made on the order of the Persian King Cyrus about 2.600 years ago, at a time, the empire stretched from the Balkans to Central Asia. Cyrus had the reputation of being a "liberal and enlightened monarch", his empire was "the first model based on diversity and tolerance of different cultures and religions", a model that later inspired Jefferson, Truman, and King George V. Some scientists call it the "first bill on human rights" (via and via). A replica of the world's first charter of human rights is kept at the United Nations Headquarters (via).



An excerpt from the cylinder:

“I ordered that all shall be free to worship their gods without harm … I ordered closed places of worship … to be reopened. … I brought their people together and rebuilt their homes.”

"Cyrus’ words heralded an exemplary policy of religious tolerance, producing stability across his vast multicultural domain — and suggesting that more freedom, rather than less, can be a recipe for a safer and more secure world."
Katrina Lantos Swett & Daniel I. Mark

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photograph via

International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims

On 21 December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 March as the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims.



The purpose of the Day is to:

- Honour the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and justice;
- Pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to, and lost their lives in, the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all;
- Recognize, in particular, the important work and values of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, of El Salvador, who was assasinated on 24 March 1980, after denouncing violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable populations and defending the principles of protecting lives, promoting human dignity and opposition to all forms of violence. (literally via)



Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (1917-1980) was the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. He spoke out "against poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture" and was assassinated while offering Mass in the chapel of a cancer hospital in 1980 - one year after the Revolutionary Government Junta came to power. A sniper from a right-wing death squad shot him in the heart. Three years before, his friend Rutilio Grande, a Jesuit priest who created self-reliance groups among the poor, was assassinated (via and via).

"When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path'". Oscar Romero

Romero was the "voice of those witout voice", the "most outspoken voice against the death squad slaughter", a priest who told the poor to seek justice in this world and not to wait for the next. His assassination plunged El Salvador into a civil war that left 80.000 dead and 8.000 disappeared. Little was done to investigate his murder, details went to grave with him and thousands of others who were killed (via and via).

"For me, though, Archbishop Oscar Romero is not just the greatest bishop in Christian history, he is one of the greatest human beings in history — right up there with the likes of Jeremiah and Isaiah, Francis and Clare, Mahatma Gandhi and Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, Thich Nhat Hanh and Archbishop Tutu. Oscar Romero is the epitome of what it means to be a Christian — a prophet of peace, justice and nonviolence.
And that’s precisely the problem. That’s why he was killed. That’s why so many church authorities ignore him, resent him, even hate him." John Dear

In 2015, Pope Francis declared Romero a martyr for his faith (via). What Óscar Romero and Pope Francis very much have in common is the philosophy of liberation theology which says that the Gospel contains a preference for the poor and that the Church has the duty to work for political, economic and spiritual change. This theology is not appreciated by conservatives in the Catholic Church who regarded the pro-poor movement as a Marxist Trojan horse and spent more than three decades blocking Romero's path to sainthood (via).

"For centuries, the Church had been telling the poor that their sufferings were God’s will, but now young priests were coming to rural areas to tell them that an unjust political and economic system, not God, was to blame for their miserable condition. God wanted them to live decent lives in this world, before they went to Heaven. The church was there to help them. It was a radical change, a revolution. The poor now had religious support to organize and defend themselves against the landowners, the oligarchy, the wealthiest people in one of the most unequal regions in the world, and against their repressive military apparatus." Carlos Dada

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photographs via and via

When photographers start crying ...

“For the first time in my life I saw my colleagues - photographers and journalists - crying because of the situation.”
Georgi Licovski



"It was really terrible, really terrible."
Georgi Licovski



Licovski has seen much in his life. Born in Macedonia, he has been working as a photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency since 1991 when the Balkan crisis, the Kosovo crisis, the Albanian humanitarian catastrophe and the Macedonian war started (via). When talking about his recent assignment, he told TIME that spending the day taking pictures of refugees crossing the border of Greece to Macedonia made him cry for the first time while working. (via)



The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14(1):
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.



Vivian Maier, Barbara Bordnick, Philippe Halsman, paparazzi and Eli Wallach taking pictures. Normal situations, none of them crying. There is nothing normal about war or not granting asylum. Licovski's photograph of asylum seeking children at the Greek border: link



photos (Vivian Maier) via and (Barbara Bordnick) via and (Philippe Halsman and family) via and (paparazzi) via and (Eli Wallach) via

Human Rights Day

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."
Eleanor Roosevelt


"In 1950, on the second anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, students at the UN International Nursery School in New York viewed a poster of the historic document.  (photograph via, description via)

"On Human Rights Day we speak out.
We denounce authorities who deny the rights of any person or group.
We declare that human rights are for all of us, all the time: whoever we are and wherever we are from; no matter our class, our opinions, our sexual orientation.
This is a matter of individual justice, social stability and global progress.
The United Nations protects human rights because that is our proud mission – and because when people enjoy their rights, economies flourish and countries are at peace.
Violations of human rights are more than personal tragedies. They are alarm bells that may warn of a much bigger crisis.
The UN’s Human Rights Up Front initiative aims to heed those alarms. We are rallying in response to violations – before they degenerate into mass atrocities or war crimes.
Everyone can advance the struggle against injustice, intolerance and extremism.
I call on States to honour their obligation to protect human rights every day of the year. I call on people to hold their governments to account. And I call for special protections for the human rights defenders who courageously serve our collective cause.
Let us respond to the cries of the exploited, and uphold the right to human dignity for all." 
Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General (Human Rights Day 2014)


"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is first printed at the University of California-Berkeley Press." (photograph via, information via)


Eleanor Roosevelt with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, November 1949.  (photograph via, information via)

Torture

"Once governments use or allow torture, no one is safe. Almost anyone can be a victim, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or politics. (...)

However, some individuals and groups are more vulnerable than others. (...) People belonging to a particular religious or other minority group, or targeted because of their identity, also face increased risk. (...) Many victims come from already disadvantaged groups: women; children; members of ethnic minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people; and, overwhelmingly, the poor. These are the very people who find access to redress difficult or impossible. (...)



Rape and other sexual attacks on women by state agents are reported in many countries. Women may have less access to legal remedies and be subject to discriminatory laws, making it even harder for them to secure justice for torture.

Both women and men – but mostly women – are subject to gender-based torture, including in the form of rape and other sexual violence. Some forms of torture and other ill-treatment are unique to women including forced abortions, denial of abortions, forced sterilization and female genital mutilation. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex prisoners will also be targeted in different ways from heterosexual prisoners. For example, transgender prisoners are often held in facilities for their gender at birth rather than their gender of choice, and lesbian and gay prisoners will more often be targeted for sexual and other violence than heterosexual prisoners, whether by other prisoners/detainees or prison staff.



Measures to combat torture must therefore be gender-sensitive and gender inclusive as well as being sensitive and inclusive of the specific measures needed to ensure the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons."
Amnesty International, 2014



via Torture in 2014. 30 Years of Broken Promises. Amnesty International

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.(via)



The Universal Declaration of Human rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 to never allow again the atrocities seen in the Second World War. The General Assembly encouraged all member states to disseminate and display the declaration in schools and other educational institutions (via).