Human rights

1. Human rights What are they? What human rights do we have?

2. What are our human rights and where do they come from? • In December 2000 members of the EU produced a charter of ‘Fundamental human rights’. • These are set down in law and are the basic rights that we all have as EU members.

3. What are they? Our human rights fall into one of 7 categories…. • The right to dignity • The right to freedom • The right to equality • The right to solidarity • The right to citizen’s rights • The right to justice • General rights. WHAT DO THEY MEAN?

4. Dignity:The right to life, the right to integrity, the prohibition of enforced labour, slavery or degrading punishment. • Freedom:The right to liberty, security, the right to a private life, the right to an education, the right to a freedom of expression. • Equality:Equality before the law. No discrimination on race, religion, gender, age, ability/disability etc.

5. Solidarity:Workers rights and rights to a welfare state. Prohibition of child labour and children’s work rights. • Citizen’s rights:The right to vote and stand as a candidate for election. The right to free movement and residence. • Justice:The right to a fair trial. Presumption of innocence. Proportional punishment to crime. The right not to be tried more than once for the same crime.

6. The right to equality: Hitler, the Nazis and the Jews

7. Hitler and the Jews: the right to equality • Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party. He came to power first as chancellor and then as emperor of Germany in 1933. He became a dictator over Germany. This meant he had complete power and no one could challenge him. • Hitler thought that Jewish people were a threat to the wealth and prosperity of Germany – so he decided to wipe them out. • Hitler wanted a ‘super’ or ‘Aryan’ race in Germany. The Nazis predominantly applied this term to those of Northern European racial background, particularly those of Nordic descent. Hitler felt this was the only race capable of rebuilding Germany.

8. The Nazis thought that certain characteristics denoted members of the ‘Aryan’ race: blonde hair, blue eyes, strong and muscular men, beautiful women, an absence of mental or physical defects, heterosexuality and ‘pure’ white blood. Hitler thought that anyone who did not fit those criteria was a threat to Germany and his plans to build a ‘super nation’. • Ironically, Hitler did not fit any of the Aryan race criteria. He was dark haired and dark eyed! However, he went about trying to get rid of anyone who did not fit his ‘Aryan’ criteria.

9. How did Hitler persecute the Jews? • Hitler first told people to boycott Jewish businesses and separated Jewish children from others in schools. • He then forced the Jews to live in ghettos. • He told the German people they were carriers of diseases and so must be forced to live away from others. • He made the Jews wear yellow stars and carry identity cards. • Ultimately, Jewish people and other social outcasts were taken to concentration camps where they were killed.

10. Jewish children at school • “They made us [Jewish children] sit at white tables at the front of the class away from the other children… people who once played together in the playground were ‘warned’ away from us by their parents… the high school finished quarter of an hour before us, the older boys waited for us outside the gates… the teachers knew what was happening” (Memories from an Austrian Jew who survived under Hitler’s regime in the 1940s)

11. Ghettos and concentration camps

12. The right to freedom and solidarity

13. The right to an education and the prohibition of child labour • Around 300,000 children are fighting in wars all around the world. • Some are as young as seven. • Most are boys but some are girls. • Some child soldiers are kidnapped from their families and forced to fight. • Some sign up willingly because of offers to get them out of poverty and the provision of regular food.

14. Child soldiers [insert suitable images here]

15. Tony Martin: are humanrights always straightforward?

16. On the 21 August 1999 Fred Barrass, 16, broke into an isolated farm house in Norfolk, along with two friends aged 29 and 30. • On hearing the disturbance, Tony Martin, 54, who owned the farm took his shot gun and went to investigate. • He shot at the three burglars, killing Fred Barrass and wounding one of the other men. • It is claimed that the men were running away at the time. • In 2000, Tony Martin was jailed for life for murder but on appeal he had his sentence reduced to 5 years for manslaughter and was released in 2003. • The other two burglars were both jailed for between 30 months and 3 years.

17. Are human rights straightforward? The right to live and the right to die. The case of Diane Petty

18. Diane Petty • Diane Petty was a 43 year mother of two who fought in the high court for the right to die. • She had motor neurone disease. This is a degenerative and incurable disease. • MND destroys the motor neurones (cells that control your muscles), ultimately leading to an inability to speak, walk, breathe or swallow on your own. • It is fatal within around 2–5 years of diagnosis and about half of all people diagnosed with MND die within 14 months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_neurone_disease

19. Diane fought in the high court for the right to die. • She wanted her husband, Brian, to be able to help her to die using assisted suicide as she was afraid of dying by suffocation or choking caused by MND. • She went to the European court of human rights but they refused. • She died of MND on 11 May 2002, after suffering breathing difficulties and going into a coma.