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Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Articles 3, 4, 6, 7 By: Susanne, Justin, Aidan, and James. Article 3. Every person has equal rights including: liberty, security, and life. Everybody has the exact human rights.
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights Articles 3, 4, 6, 7 By: Susanne, Justin, Aidan, and James
Article 3 • Every person has equal rights including: liberty, security, and life. Everybody has the exact human rights. • This relates to the history of the U.S. because some Americans still believe that people of different races, skin tones, and religions shouldn’t have the same rights as ‘whites,’ even though everybody is created equal; everybody should have the same rights.
U.N. Dismayed by Widespread Use of Torture By ThalifDeen UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 (IPS) - The United Nations says more and more countries are torturing prisoners despite a commitment by 105 governments to outlaw one of the world's most cruelest forms of human rights violations. ''Torture has become an instrument of power used to break, terrify and devastate people,'' BacreWalyNdiaye of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday. ''And it does not spare either women or children.'' Ndiayesaid that in more than 40 countries, torture was still a method of punishment practiced freely. A total of 105 governments have ratified the U.N. Convention against Torture which came into force in 1987. ''It was not enough for states to ratify the Convention against Torture, but action should be taken to incorporate its provisions into domestic laws and criminalize them.'' Currently, the United Nations has a Special Rapporteur on Torture and a Committee Against Torture. The Committee was established by the General Assembly to monitor the implementation of the Convention. But Ndiaye said that only 105 government had ratified the Convention compared to 191 ratifications for the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United Nations has also set up a Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. In 1998, a total of 4.2 million dollars would be distributed for 112 projects in 50 countries to help more than 59,000 victims of torture.
This was a significant achievement compared to five years ago when the Fund had only half that amount for 57 projects, and about half of the victims, Ndiaye said. Last year the 185-member General Assembly, in an attempt to draw international attention to the growing problem, proclaimed June 26 as the annual International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. ''June 26 is not a date chosen at random,'' U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan said Friday, ''It was the day 11 years ago, that the Convention against Torture came into force. It also was the day 53 years ago on which the U.N. charter was signed - the first international instrument to embody obligations for member states to promote and encourage respect for human rights.'' Although 105 out of 193 governments have ratified the convention, he said, there were many among the ratifiers who still practiced torture as an instrument of repression. He said the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose 50th anniversary is being celebrated this year, provided for the first international prohibition of torture.
Article 4 • No one can be a slave or held in slavery; slavery and slave trade is forbidden. • This article relates to the history of the U.S. because during the civil war, many people from the north and some from the south thought that slavery was wrong. Just because of someone’s skin tone, people judged the blacks and thought that they were less capable of doing many things.
Niger Author Unknown Niger, an African nation straddling the Sahara desert, is a vast land of about 14 million people. It is bigger in area than France, Spain and Portugal combined. Niger is also one of the world's poorest countries, where most people live on less than a dollar a day. Slavery has long been tolerated in Niger, although the government outlawed the practice in 2003. Antislavery organizations estimate that 43,000 people are enslaved in Niger, where nomadic tribes like the Tuareg and Toubou have for centuries held members of other ethnic groups as slaves. In 2008, a West African regional court ruled that the government had failed to protect a young woman sold into slavery at the age of 12. The landmark ruling ordered the government to pay about $19,000 in damages to the woman.
Article 6 • All people are equal in the law; no one person is ‘more’ equal then others. • In the third newspaper article, the 6th article comes into place because it shows that a person who used to be mayor of Niles was sentenced a year in prison on account of being charged of mail- and tax- frauds.
Articles in Newspapers: • The New York Times, Sunday Opinion, February 7, 2010, ‘Ray of Light’ • The New York Times, Front Page, Page 1, January 31, 2010, ‘From High Jinks to Handcuffs’ • Chicago Tribune, Section 1, ‘Chicagoland’, Page 1, January 30, 2010, ‘Ex-Niles Mayor gets Prison’ • The New York Times, National Section, Page 14, February 7, 2010, ‘Nurse Faces Trial and 10 Years in Prison For Reporting Doctor at Texas Hospital’
Article 7 • All people are equally no matter what skin or race. They are equally protected by law and their race can’t be used against them in court. • This relates to the history of the world because during the Holocaust, the Nazis believes that Jews were not the “perfect human being.” The Nazis wanted to create a “perfect” nation so they attempted to exterminate all of the Jews. In Germany and many other countries in the world, the Jews’ race was used against them in court.
Bronx Communities Are Accused of Preventing Blacks From Buying Homes By: Cara Buckley The people of Edgewater Park have described their home as a Shangri-La, a tightly knit and idyllic community sitting on Long Island Sound in a hidden pocket of the Bronx. But according to a new lawsuit, not everyone is welcome in this version of paradise. On Thursday,the Fair Housing Justice Center, a nonprofit group, sued Edgewater Park, its nearby sister community, Silver Beach Gardens, and one of its former longtime residents, the Realtor Amelia Lewis, claiming racial discrimination. The suit, filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, sprang from an investigation the housing group conducted in September and October 2009, in which a white couple and an African-American couple inquired about buying homes in the communities. Both were “test” couples who worked for the housing group and said they were looking for homes priced below $300,000.
Both communities, just north of the Throgs Neck Bridge, are cooperatives; residents own their homes but the land is owned collectively. According to the lawsuit, the white woman was warmly welcomed by Ms. Lewis, and was quickly shown nine available homes in both Edgewater Park and Silver Beach Gardens. The white faux buyer voiced the concern that she did not know anyone who lived there; the cooperatives’ rules say that prospective buyers must submit three recommendation letters from current residents. But Ms. Lewis replied that she would line up the necessary reference letters, adding “they would love you, I can tell,” the suit said. A week and a half later, the African-American couple arrived at Ms. Lewis’s office and was almost immediately asked if they knew three people who lived there. When they said they did not, Ms. Lewis said, “there’s no way you’re going to get in there,” the suit said. Ms. Lewis went on to say that Edgewater Park was “not wonderful for everybody,” the suit said, adding that it was mostly Irish and Italian, “kind of prejudice” and “like Archie Bunker territory.”
In the end, it said, Ms. Lewis refused to show the African-American couple any home in either Edgewater Park or Silver Beach Gardens. Three calls made to Ms. Lewis’s office on Friday were not returned, a lawyer for Silver Beach Gardens declined to comment, and two calls to the lawyer for Edgewater Park were not returned. The suit says that 2000 Census figures show that while blacks account for 35 percent of owner-occupied homes in the Bronx, they account for less than 1 percent of the 1,100 homes in Edgewater Park and Silver Beach Gardens. Diane L. Houk, a lawyer representing the Fair Housing Justice Center, and also its former executive director, said the requirement of three reference letters from existing owners “sounds neutral at first, but has a discriminatory impact on nonwhites.” The investigation, she said, was prompted by an August article in The New York Times, in which residents said their communities were largely unknown and their streets largely sealed off. Usually it behooves moderately priced communities to get the word out, she said, to drive up demand and prices. “Any time anything’s hidden or secret,” she said, “you have to ask, ‘Why would you want to be hidden?’ ”