Human Rights Day 2011: Church of Scientology Spearheading Human Rights Education
On the 63rd anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Church of Scientology urges mandatory human rights education as the key to its full implementation of the Declaration.
Human rights are the rights that belong to everyone without exception--to people of any color, creed, age, ethnicity or gender. But as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon pointed out in his Human Rights Day message this year, "...unless we know them, unless we demand they be respected, and unless we defend our rights -- and the right of others -- to exercise them, they will be just words in a decades-old document."
To make the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights known to all, the Church of Scientology has undertaken a massive human rights education initiative, reaching more than 180 million people in 2011 with the information on human rights in 17 languages.
The United Nations estimates that 2.45 million people are trafficked each year, nearly a billion live in hunger, and almost half the world’s population subsists on less than $2.50 a day, making it clear any momentum generated this year must continue and that education and insistence on human rights has never been more vital.
In a global demonstration of support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its 30 rights, Scientology Churches and Missions marked Human Rights Day with seminars, rallies, concerts, round tables, forums and festivals, and helped organize more than 80 human rights walks in 26 countries to raise awareness of the Declaration and the need for its full implementation.
In 1969, L. Ron Hubbard wrote, "The United Nations came up with the answer. An absence of human rights stained the hands of governments and threatened their rules. Very few governments have implemented any part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These governments have not grasped that their very survival depends utterly upon adopting such reforms and thus giving their peoples a cause, a civilization worth supporting, worth their patriotism."
For more than four decades, the Church has worked to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights broadly known. The Declaration appeared in the first edition of Freedom Magazine, the Church’s human rights journal, in 1968. In 1998, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration, the Church carried out the first of five annual cross-European marathons, reaching an estimated 33 million with its message in support of human rights.
Ten years ago, the Church began publishing materials that present the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in terms anyone can understand. These booklets, award-winning public service announcements and human rights documentary videos are available free of charge to any individual or group.
"There are many examples in history of what individuals can accomplish by demanding their rights and insisting on the rights of others," says Rev. Robert Adams, Vice President of the Church of Scientology International. "But a knowledge of these rights comes first. The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, yet in many ways, despite advances, the violations of its articles are as abhorrent today as they were six decades ago. We work with many dedicated groups, organizations, agencies and government bodies to make human rights a reality. To achieve this goal, education in human rights must be mandatory, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must be given the force of law."
Since Human Rights Day 2010, through direct action and sponsorship of activities and materials, the Church of Scientology has reached hundreds of millions of people with humans rights information, distributing more than 2 million publications and providing educational materials to more than 45,000 human rights organizations and 4,500 educators and educational institutions.
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The Scientology religion was founded by author and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard. The first Church of Scientology was formed in the United States in 1954 and has grown to more than 9,000 Churches, Missions and affiliated groups and millions of members in 165 countries.
Labels: church of scientology, human rights, L. Ron Hubbard, scientologist, scientology
Tim Bowles: Idealism in Action
As you read this page, untold millions on five continents are attempting to scratch out a subsistence living, many unsuccessfully, deprived of their basic human rights.A trip to Africa in 2005 changed Tim Bowles’ life.
"When I arrived in Ghana, it was like coming home," he says. "I knew I had to do something to help."
Bowles, an attorney specializing in constitutional law, was in Africa to assist with the Youth for Human Rights International World Tour. Decades of gruesome civil wars have decimated wide regions of sub-Sahara Africa. Of the worst 20 countries in the 2004 Human Development Index, 19 are in Africa.
The wars dismantled the infrastructure, displaced entire villages, and destroyed livelihoods. The result: Widespread poverty and disease.
Bowles was so taken with the youth he met in Africa, and so moved by what they had been through, that he decided to take on the challenge personally.
Dedicated to making a real difference, Bowles returned to the continent the following year to launch a unique initiative. In coordination with a corps of young human rights activists he met there in 2005, each eager to bring about reform in his or her country, he developed the African Human Rights Leadership Campaign, under the banner of Youth for Human Rights. The Campaign has grown to provide young African men and women the training and experience they need to play key roles in creating and sustaining just and prosperous societies over the coming crucial decades.
In friendly competition with each other, teams of high school students generate and conduct public awareness campaigns on human rights abuses they select, based on the articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including human trafficking, access to justice and government corruption. They first learn leadership, organizational and communication skills-including public speaking and videography-to present their points of view effectively. In the course of conducting their campaigns through contact with media, a broad range of public and private sector leaders and the general public, the program enables students to become meaningful participants in their respective nation’s social, political and cultural advancement.
"The many remarkably bright young people with whom I have worked since 2005 are determined not to fall into the patterns of hatred to which many of their elders succumbed," says Bowles.
Over the past six years, Bowles and his team of Youth for Human Rights program directors in Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone-and more recently Togo and Ethiopia-have trained nearly 700 youth in more than 150 schools, formed over 300 local human rights groups, and educated some 15,000 high school and junior high school students on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and their own responsibility in seeing that these rights are honored.
Bowles’ original decision to enter law followed a trip to India in 1973 where he first confronted the plight of the millions who live in poverty, deprived of human rights. He studied and practiced constitutional law to ensure the rights of others, including his church, were protected.
"I saw law as a helping profession," says Bowles, "one that would provide knowledge and skills to help improve social conditions and advance worthy causes."
The African Human Rights Leadership Campaign brings him full circle with this original purpose, as it is a means to improve the lives of millions. By empowering this and future generations with an understanding of their rights and responsibilities, the Campaign seeks to bring peace and prosperity in regions torn by hatred.
In the video From the Ruins: African Human Rights Leadership, Boersen Hinneh, Youth for Human Rights program director for Liberia, expresses the core concept of the program: "It’s about teaching young people about their basic human rights and responsibilities. And that is the key issue-responsibility. When young people have been exposed to so much violence I think there is a need that they learn their basic rights and responsibilities so that when they get older they will know how to treat their fellow citizens, their fellow man, equally."
A Scientologist since 1975, Bowles says Scientology has enabled him to envision and pursue this purpose.
"I have gained the ability and willingness to confront and deal effectively with enormous challenges," he says. "It has helped me conceive of doing seemingly impossible things and actually do them. Scientology, by its philosophical foundations, its tools, and the examples it sets through members’ actions, is an inspiration, a support and a means to my achieving my role in civilization’s advance."
To learn more about what Scientologists are doing to create a better world, watch "Meet a Scientologist" videos at www.Scientology.org.
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The popular "Meet a Scientologist" profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total more than 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.
A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own YouTube Video Channel. The Official Scientology YouTube Channel has now been viewed by millions of visitors.
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Meet a
Scientologist!Labels: church of scientology, human rights, l ron hubbard, meet a scientologist, scientologist, scientologists, youth for human rights
Churches of Scientology in 14 countries joined forces with Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) last week conducting a global petition drive in support of human rights education. Based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the petition calls on governments to make human rights education mandatory and to conduct human rights education campaigns. The Declaration was ratified by the UN General Assembly in 1948 and defines the fundamental freedoms and human rights in the United Nations Charter. Since that time it has influenced national constitutions, treaties, laws, and human rights institutions the world over.
“The Universal Declaration does more than condemn discrimination, slavery and torture,” said Rev. Bob Adams, spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International. “Unfortunately, most people are unaware of the full scope of these rights and so have no way of knowing when these rights are violated. It’s not something only for governments to care for—we all have an interest in these rights.”
Scientologists, their families and friends took to busy street corners, festivals and shopping centers and city squares, where they presented booklets and videos, engaged in human rights discussions and gained support for the cause on giant petition boards. Active on many fronts of human rights initiatives and reform for five decades, the Church sponsors a worldwide human rights initiative to raise awareness and respect for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This includes distribution of millions of booklets and the airing of 30 public service messages, both based on the Declaration’s articles. In 2009, the Church sponsored the production of a new educational film, The Story of Human Rights, a 20-minute entertaining and historical account of the development of human rights, and a new human rights educators kit. To date, these materials have reached over 500 million people in 180 countries.
“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the inherent dignity and rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace,” said Rev. Adams. “The world needs a lot more people knowing it and supporting it.”
Meet a
Scientologist!Labels: human rights, scientology
As part of their religious Code, Scientologists pledge “to expose and help abolish any and all physically damaging practices in the field of mental health,” and thereby bring about an atmosphere of safety and security to mental healing.
Accordingly, in 1969 Scientologists established the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a watchdog group that investigates and exposes psychiatric violations of human rights. Today, CCHR is a worldwide force actively working to eliminate brutal treatments, criminal practices and human rights abuses in the field of mental health. It has been responsible for helping to enact more than 150 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices in the field of mental health.
Meet a
Scientologist!Labels: human rights, mental health, Scientologst
Blogging for Human Rights
Today is the day to Blog for Human Rights!
But what ARE human rights? Do you know all 30 of the rights covered in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
If not, check out the public service announcements on the
Scientology web site. Simple but hard hitting and very easy to understand.
Labels: church of scientology, human rights
