Human Rights

UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

* Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity *
and of the equal and inalienable rights
of all members of the human family
is the foundation of freedom,
justice and peace in the world,
......

Amnesty International USA
Amnesty in the USA, find out programs, actions, news and other information.

How to Join Amnesty International USA
Use e-mail or postal mail to join Amnesty.

Human Rights Watch
"Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world."

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
A collection of over ninety of the most important international human rights instruments, treaties, declarations, and other materials.

Directory of Human Rights Resources on the Internet
From the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Amnesty International - Death Penalty
Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all instances.

Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Extnsive death penalty information.

ACLU Death Penalty Page
The ACLU has a firm commitment on death penalty issues.

Friends Service Committee: Programs Addressing the Death Penalty
A wide variety of links concerning the death penalty.

Human Rights - Death Penalty
"At the dawn of the 21st century, the death penalty is considered by most civilized nations as a cruel and inhuman punishment. It has been abolished de jure or de facto by 106 nations, 30 countries have abolished it since 1990. However, the death penalty continues to be commonly applied in other nations. China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States and Iran are the most prolific executioners in the world. Indeed, the US is one of six countries (including also Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen) which executes people who were under 18 years-old at the time they committed their crimes.

While international documents have restricted and in some cases even banned the death penalty, its application is still not against customary international law. Much debate continues in the US as to whether it constitutes an appropriate punishment, at least to the most heinous crimes. In recent years, the debate has been further fueled by the use of new technologies which have shown that a large proportion of people sentenced to death are, indeed, innocent."

Peace

The M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
" ... to promote and apply the principles of nonviolence locally, nationally, and globally, ..."

American Friends Service Committee
" ... committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service."

The King Center
A part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy.

Peacewire
Real solutions to end war:

Food First
"The Institute for Food and Development Policy better known as Food First--is a member-supported, nonprofit 'peoples' think tank and education-for-action center. Our work highlights root causes and value-based solutions to hunger and poverty around the world, with a commitment to establishing food as a fundamental human right."

Bread for the World
"Bread for the World is a nationwide Christian citizens movement seeking justice for the world's hungry people by lobbying our nation's decision makers."

FIAN: For the Human Right to Feed Oneself
"FIAN is the international human rights organisation for the right to food. FIAN has consultative status with the United Nations.
Our mission is to assist national and international struggles to realize the human right to adequate food through concrete action."

Primal Seeds
"Primal Seeds exists as a network to actively engage in protecting biodiversity and creating local food security
It is a response to industrial biopiracy, control of the global seed supply and of our food
This evolving tool is designed to empower individuals to participate in the creation of tomorrow "

The Hunger Project
"The Hunger Project is a strategic organization and global movement committed to the sustainable end of world hunger.

In Africa, Asia and Latin America, we empower local people to create lasting society-wide progress in health, education, nutrition and family incomes. We apply a two-prong strategy: mobilizing grassroots self-reliant action, and mobilizing local leadership to clear away obstacles to enable grassroots action to succeed.

Our highest priority is the empowerment of women. Women bear primary responsibility for family health, education and nutrition – yet, by tradition, culture and law they are denied the means, information and freedom of action to fulfill their responsibility. The Hunger Project is committed to transforming this condition.

You can play a vital role in this global effort. ".

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was founded in 1945 with a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to better the condition of rural populations.

Today, FAO is one of the largest specialized agencies in the United Nations system and the lead agency for agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural development. An intergovernmental organization, FAO has 183 member countries plus one member organization, the European Community.

Since its inception, FAO has worked to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition and the pursuit of food security - defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life.

Care
The humanitairian organization fighting global poverty.

Oxfam America
"Oxfam America is an international development organization dedicated to creating lasting solutions to hunger, poverty and social injustice around the world.

Oxfam provides financial, technical and networking assistance to grassroots groups to support their self-help community development initiatives. Oxfam also advocates among national and international policy-makers, suggesting humane public policies that address structural impediments to ending poverty and hunger. In addition, Oxfam educates Americans about the causes and solutions to world hunger and poverty. A major component of our educational and policy work is campaigning throughout the U.S. to get Americans actively behind the important policy issues that we believe will make significant differences to poor communities.

About Oxfam International
Oxfam America is one of 12 Oxfam organizations around the world that comprise Oxfam International.

Oxfam International is dedicated to creating lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice--12 independent organizations working together to achieve greater impact by their collective efforts. We believe that a strong, coherent confederation with well-developed and firmly articulated beliefs and actions will contribute most effectively to the broader movement for change of which we at Oxfam America can only ever be one small part."

Save the Children
"The history of Save the Children is a story of positive change and people - millions of people in thousands of communities around the globe - working together to create opportunities for the world's children to live safe, healthy, and fulfilling lives. In January 1932 in a small room in New York City, a group of concerned citizens gathered to respond to the needs of the proud people of Appalachia hard hit by the Great Depression."

America's Second Harvest
"America's Second Harvest is the nation's largest domestic hunger relief organization. Through a network of over 200 food banks and food-rescue programs, we provide emergency food assistance to more than 23 million hungry Americans each year, eight million of whom are children.

Last year, America's Second Harvest distributed 1.7 billion pounds of food to needy Americans, serving all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Our goal is to end hunger in America."

Share Our Strength
"Share Our Strength, one of the nation's leading anti-hunger, anti-poverty organizations began in the basement of a row house on Capitol Hill in 1984. In the beginning, we organized a handful of chefs to cook for fundraisers. Today we mobilize thousands of individuals in the culinary industry to organize events, host dinners, teach cooking and nutrition classes to low-income families and serve as anti-hunger advocates.

To bring even more resources to the fight against hunger and poverty, we build creative partnerships with a range of industries, including retail, financial services and music — and we create community wealth, resources generated through profitable enterprise to promote social change."

American Civil Liberties Union
"The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Freedom Forum
"The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people. The foundation focuses on three main priorities: the Newseum, First Amendment freedoms and newsroom diversity."

Electronic Frontier Foundation
"Based in San Francisco, EFF is a donor-supported membership organization working to protect our fundamental rights regardless of technology; to educate the press, policymakers and the general public about civil liberties issues related to technology; and to act as a defender of those liberties. Among our various activities, EFF opposes misguided legislation, initiates and defends court cases preserving individuals' rights, launches global public campaigns, introduces leading edge proposals and papers, hosts frequent educational events, engages the press regularly, and publishes a comprehensive archive of digital civil liberties information at one of the most linked-to websites in the world."

Liberty Bell Virtual Museum
"Welcome to the Liberty Bell Virtual Museum! An on-line museum housing a collection of Liberty Bell memorabilia and souvenirs dating back to the 1800's. Herein also lies a web site for the promotion, study and appreciation for America's most widely recognized icon of freedom - the Liberty Bell.

Through links, resources and the display of items currently held in a private collection, the intent of the museum is to provide students, collectors and interested individuals with information about the Liberty Bell, its role in American history and the use of the Liberty Bell's image for decoration, promotion and souvenirs."

Internet Freedom
"Internet Freedom is opposed to all forms of censorship and content regulation on the Net.
We believe that users should be free to make their own judgements about what they read, watch or hear."

People for the American Way
"People For the American Way Foundation is a premier source of vital information for policymakers, scholars and activists nationwide on the Religious Right movement and its political allies. We also engage in legal action as needed to protect or restore the rights and liberties of Americans."

Freedom House
"Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization, is a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Through a vast array of international programs and publications, Freedom House is working to advance the remarkable worldwide expansion of political and economic freedom.

Freedom House is a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Founded nearly sixty years ago by Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, and other Americans concerned with the mounting threats to peace and democracy, Freedom House has been a vigorous proponent of democratic values and a steadfast opponent of dictatorships of the far left and the far right. "

Reporters Without Borders
"Reporters Without Borders is an association officially recognised as serving the public interest.

More than a third of the world's people live in countries where there is no press freedom. Reporters Without Borders works constantly to restore their right to be informed. Thirty-one media professionals lost their lives in 2001 for doing what they were paid to do -- keeping us informed. Today, more than 120 journalists around the world are in prison simply for doing their job. In Nepal, Eritrea and China, they can spend years in jail just for using the "wrong" word or photo. Reporters Without Borders believes imprisoning or killing a journalist is like eliminating a key witness and threatens everyone's right to be informed. It has been fighting such practices for more than 17 years."

We welcome all people to join us as we build simple, decent, affordable, houses in partnership with those in need of adequate shelter.

Since 1976, Habitat has built more than 125,000 houses in more than 80 countries, including some 45,000 houses across the United States."

Shelter for Life
"Shelter for Life specializes in providing medium to long-term shelter solutions for IDP's, refugees and disaster victims. We also have a long track record in infrastructure projects (schools, clinics, roads, bridges, water supply system, etc.), emergency relief distribution and community development. SFL has worked in Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Honduras, Kosovo, India, Iraq, Pakistan and Western Sahara."

National Alliance to End Homelessness
"The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to mobilize the nonprofit, public and private sectors of society in an alliance to end homelessness. The Alliance represents a united effort to address the root causes of homelessness and challenge society's acceptance of homelessness as an inevitable by-product of American life. Guiding our work is the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. The Ten Year Plan identifies our nation's current weaknesses in addressing the problem and lays out practical steps that our nation can take to change our present course and truly end homelessness within ten years."

National Coalition for the Homeless
"Our mission is to end homelessness. We focus our work in the following 4 areas: housing justice, economic justice, health care justice, and civil rights. Our approaches are: grassroots organizing, public education, policy advocacy, technical assistance, and partnerships."

DisabilityInfo.gov
The comprehensive Federal website of disability-related government resources.

Physicians for Human Rights
"Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) promotes health by protecting human rights. We believe that human rights are essential preconditions for the health and well-being of all people. Using medical and scientific methods, we investigate and expose violations of human rights worldwide and we work to stop them. We support institutions that hold perpetrators of human rights abuses, including health professionals, accountable for their actions. We educate health professionals and medical, public health and nursing students and organize them to become active in supporting a movement for human rights and creating a culture of human rights in the medical and scientific professions."

Doctors Without Borders
"Doctors Without Borders was founded in 1971 by a small group of French doctors who believed that all people have the right to medical care regardless of race,religion, creed or political affiliation, and that the needs of these people supersede respect for national borders. It was the first non-governmental organization to both provide emergency medical assistance and publicly bear witness to the plight of the populations they served.

A private, nonprofit organization, Doctors Without Borders is at the forefront of emergency health care as well as care for populations suffering from endemic diseases and neglect. Doctors Without Borders provides primary health care, performs surgery, rehabilitates hospitals and clinics, runs nutrition and sanitation programs, trains local medical personnel, and provides mental health care. Through longer-term programs, Doctors Without Borders treats chronic diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, sleeping sickness, and AIDS; assists with the medical and psychological problems of marginalized populations including street children and ethnic minorities; and brings health care to remote, isolated areas where resources and training are limited."

International Medical Corps
"International Medical Corps is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives and relieving suffering through health care training and relief programs. Established in 1984 by volunteer United States doctors and nurses, IMC is a private, voluntary, nonpolitical, nonsectarian organization. Its mission is to improve the quality of life through health interventions and related activities that build local capacity in areas worldwide where few organizations dare to serve. By offering training and health care to local populations and medical assistance to people at highest risk, and with the flexibility to respond rapidly to emergency situations, IMC rehabilitates devastated health care systems and helps bring them back to self-reliance."

National Mental Health Association
"The National Mental Health Association (NMHA) is the country's oldest and largest nonprofit organization addressing all aspects of mental health and mental illness. With more than 340 affiliates nationwide. NMHA works to improve the mental health of all Americans, especially the 54 million individuals with mental disorders, through advocacy, education, research and service."

Special Olympics
"Special Olympics is an international organization dedicated to empowering individuals with mental retardation to become physically fit, productive and respected members of society through sports training and competition. Special Olympics offers children and adults with mental retardation year-round training and competition in 26 Olympic-type summer and winter sports."

Political Activism Resources
"An independent, non-partisan, FREE web on political activism - since 1996."

Open Directory -- Peace Activism
Links to a large and varied number of peace organizations.

International A.N.S.W.E.R.
"Act Now to Stop War and End Racism"

Nonviolent Peaceforce
" The mission of the Nonviolent Peaceforce is to build a trained, international civilian peaceforce committed to third-party nonviolent intervention."

International Action Center
"Information, Activism, and Resistance to U.S. Militarism, War, and Corporate Greed, Linking with Struggles Against Racism and Oppression within the United States."

www.PetitionOnline.com
"We give you the ancient methods of grassroots democracy, combined with the latest digital networked communications, running live and free 24 hours a day."

Amnesty International -- Freedom Writers
"Each month, members of Amnesty International USA's Freedom Writers Network take action on three selected human rights cases. Action by you can help bring about a prisoner's release, secure vital information, launch an investigation, or even save a life."

Amnesty International -- Urgent Action Network
"The Urgent Action Network (UAN) is an Amnesty International program designed to provide a quick, effective response to situations of urgency involving prisoners, detainees and other threatened individuals. There are Urgent Action Networks in 78 countries where there are established Amnesty International organizations. In the United States, thousands of individual AI members, student groups, community chapters and other organizations make up its Urgent Action Network.

A.I.'s Urgent Action Network consists of a streamlined procedure for finding and responding to urgent information about threatened individuals and quickly getting it to a pool of concerned people who agree to be 'on call' to send immediate letters, faxes, telegrams, and aerograms to government authorities regarding cases of torture, capital punishment, extrajudicial execution, ill-treatment, "disappearance," untreated health problems, death threats, denial of legal counsel, unacknowledged detention, forced repatriation, harassment, and arbitrary arrest.

An Urgent Action includes specific details about the prisoner as well as background information regarding relevant patterns of human rights violations in the country, recommended actions, addresses of responsible governmental authorities and general guidelines to use when composing appeals."

American Friends Service Committee -- Activism Ideas
"The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service. Its work is based on the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) belief in the worth of every person, and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.

Founded in 1917 to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian victims during World War I, today the AFSC has programs that focus on issues related to economic justice, peace-building and demilitarization, social justice, and youth, in the United States, and in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and at the United Nations (Geneva and New York)."

ActNow -- Nation Magazine
" ActNow aims to help people act on their beliefs by putting readers in touch with creative ways to register informed dissent."

emailprotest
"A comprehensive list of email protest campaigns currently online.
Also listed below are online petitions and sponsor clicking campaigns."

Voice 4 Change
"This site is here for you learn about the wonderful work of many organizations who are working to make our world a better place. Please click the links to these hard working organizations that are doing critical work for our survival, and for justice."

Friends Committee on National Legislation
"FCNL, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, is a Quaker lobby in the public interest. FCNL seeks to bring the concerns, experiences and testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends to bear on policy decisions in the nation's capital. FCNL's small staff works with a nationwide network of thousands of Quakers and like-minded people to advocate social and economic justice, peace, and good government. Since its founding in 1943, FCNL has witnessed from a basis of spiritual and ethical purpose, as we seek change in both national policy and public opinion.

FCNL's multi-issue advocacy connects historic Quaker testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity and truth with peace and social justice matters which the United States government is or should be addressing. FCNL advocacy encompasses a wide range of national and international concerns. These include

- Promote arms control and disarmament initiatives and oppose the expansion of military alliances
- Promote nonviolent dispute resolution and the peaceful prevention of armed conflict and genocide, through the United Nations and appropriate governmental and non-governmental organizations
- Shift budget priorities away from military spending and toward providing for human needs and a healthy environment at home and abroad
- Address economic, social, and racial disparity through such measures as adequate, comprehensive, and universal health care; progressive taxation; affirmative action; educational opportunities; a living wage; affordable housing; and assistance for and empowerment of the most vulnerable of society
- Reform the criminal justice system, emphasizing the principles of restorative justice and crime prevention, and eliminate the death penalty.

Peace @nd Security
"world wide web metapage"

Center for Defense Information
"Based on CDI’s latest analysis, the proposed $396 billion Fiscal Year 2003 Pentagon spending package exceeds that of the next 25 nations combined. "

Good Government Groups
"The Good Government Groups, or G3, is a coalition of more than 20 nonprofit advocacy groups and labor organizations which are working towards government accountability, whistleblower advocacy, and reducing government secrecy. While each member organization has its own agenda, we often have areas of common concern. The coalition as a whole, or subsets thereof, is a forum for both networking as well as pursuing relevant action items as they arise."

Project on Defense Alternatives
"Since its inception in 1991, the Project on Defense Alternatives has sought to adapt security policy to the challenges and opportunities of the post-Cold War era. Toward this end it promotes consideration of the broadest range of defense options. Central to its mission is the development of "transitional security policy," which would serve to create conditions favorable to the advent of regional and global cooperative security regimes. In the Project's perspective a transitional security policy would:

- Guarantee reliable, cost-effective defense against aggression;
- Rely on military structures that do not contribute to interstate tensions, crisis instability, or arms racing;
- Allow significant reductions in the level of armed forces and military spending;
- Foster progress in arms control and in the gradual demilitarization of international relations; and,
- Facilitate an increasing reliance on collective and global peacekeeping agencies and nonmilitary means of conflict prevention, containment, and resolution.

The rights guaranteed to criminal suspects, defendants, offenders and prisoners were not included in the Bill of Rights for the benefit of criminals. They are fundamental political rights that protect all Americans from governmental abuse of power. These rights are found in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. They include the guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, the right to reasonable bail, the right to due process of law and the right to be free from cruel and unusual treatment. This "bundle of rights" is indispensable to a free society."

ACLU Prisoner Rights
"Over the past 25 years, prison has occupied an increasingly dominant role in American crime policy. Beginning in the early 1970s, the "tough on crime" approach to criminal justice began to prevail in many policy circles and began to win votes at the polls. In response, the government funded the construction of prisons and started to lock up offenders, especially those convicted of non-violent offenses, at previously unheard-of rates. The situation was exacerbated by the "war on drugs" in the 1980s; mandatory sentences forced hundreds of thousands of low-level, non-violent, and predominantly African-American and Hispanic drug offenders into the nation's correctional facilities.

Today, the United States houses approximately 2 million prisoners at an annual cost of more than $40 billion. More than half of those incarcerated have been convicted of a non-violent offense. In the mid-1990s, nearly half of all prisoners were African-American; today, 3 in 10 newborn African-American males can expect to spend time in prison at some point in their lives.

The ACLU has fought and will continue to fight these conditions, and the "lock em up" mentality that still prevails in much of our federal and local legislatures. Use the resources on this page to learn more and take action to protect the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the Bill of Rights. Our latest news releases are listed to the left; actions you can take now are listed to the right, along with additional resources."

When States become Members of the United Nations, they agree to accept the obligations of the UN Charter, an international treaty that sets out basic principles of international relations. According to the Charter, the UN has four purposes: to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations; to cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting respect for human rights; and to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations.

The United Nations is not a world government and it does not make laws. It does, however, provide the means to help resolve international conflicts and formulate policies on matters affecting all of us. At the UN, all the Member States large and small, rich and poor, with differing political views and social systems have a voice and a vote in this process."

Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Race, Racism and the Law
"Race, Racism and the Law considers race, racism and racial distinctions in the law; It examines the role of domestic and international law in promoting and/or alleviating racism. The site includes statutes, cases, excerpts of law review articles, annotated bibliographies and other documents related to race and racism."

ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights
"The struggle of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) people for full equality is one of this generation’s most important and galvanizing civil rights movements. Despite the many advances that have been made, however, LGBT people continue to face discrimination in many areas of life. No federal law prevents a person from being fired or refused a job on the basis of sexual orientation. The nation’s largest employer – the U.S. military – openly discriminates against gays and lesbians. Mothers and fathers still lose child custody simply because they are gay or lesbian. And gay people are still denied the right to marry in all states."

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