 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay
"You cannot defeat discrimination by shutting your eyes to it and hoping that it will go away. Complacency is discrimination"s best friend," High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told a news conference in Geneva, ahead of this year"s Human Rights Day.
The theme of this year"s Day, observed annually on 10 December, is "Embrace Diversity: End Discrimination," and Ms. Pillay shared how she confronted her own prejudices in an earlier stage of her life shaped by the fact that she grew up in apartheid-era South Africa.
"We all, and here I include myself, have a tendency to hold ingrained prejudices against certain people because of the group they belong to rather than because of who they actually are as individuals.
"It is my hope that starting on this Human Rights Day, people will begin making an extra effort to think about these issues, and about how they as individuals can take action in their own homes, in the workplace and in society at large to first of all identify discrimination, and then tackle it, wherever it raises its ugly head," said the High Commissioner.
As part of the commemoration of the Day, Ms. Pillay will be in South Africa to preside over a panel of high-level judges sitting in the first ever World Human Rights Moot Court competition at the University of Pretoria. Students worldwide will argue a fictional human rights case on the principle of non-discrimination at the event organized by the university and supported by the UN human rights office.
Then on 10 December she will speak, along with representatives from the Government, civil society and academia, at a public celebration planned for Freedom Park, which will also feature a performance from South African singer Yvonne Chaka-Chaka.
The Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly in 1948, will be marked with numerous other events worldwide.
Source: UN News
Global 
-
The United Nations is continuing to assist people in eastern Uganda affected by deadly landslides, which have killed at least 94 people since they occurred earlier this month. more
-
The second-ranking official at the United Nations today called on richer countries to implement their commitments on providing finance for development to help poorer nations reach the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). more
-
United Nations aid workers in eastern Madagascar are helping local officials mount relief efforts in the wake of Tropical Storm Hubert, which has killed dozens of people in the Indian Ocean country and left an estimated 11,000 others homeless. more
-
The United Nations agency that tackles HIV/AIDS and eight Portuguese-speaking countries that are home to an estimated 223 million people have agreed to strengthen their cooperation against the deadly disease. more
-
The top United Nations official in the war-wracked Darfur region of western Sudan today welcomed an agreement between the national Government and a rebel group, calling it "another important milestone" on the path towards a comprehensive peace pact to end the deadly conflict that has engulfed the ... more
-
The time has come to transform the relationship between Afghanistan and its partners to enable greater responsibility on the part of Afghans themselves and an increasingly supporting role for the international community as the country strives to achieve peace and development, a senior United ... more
-
The situation in the Middle East was the focus of discussions between Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow today, a day ahead of tomorrow?s meeting in the same city of the diplomatic Quartet. more
-
The governor blames Kurdish militias and parties, calls for UN-EU investigation. Kurdish sources tell AsiaNews that al-Qaeda and inefficient law enforcement are to blame. more
-
Hundreds of former employees demonstrated in Colombo yesterday, complaining about a life of misery since losing their job years ago. Some employers have failed to meet their severance pay obligations. Workers, backed by priests and nuns, want the government to intervene. more
Comments
|
|
RSS