I am attending 4 days’ workshop on the Chilean military coup. The purpose of this workshop is to create collective and inter-generational knowledge for the future. The members consist of 70% of victims, 30 % of teens whose relatives were (are) victims, plus me. Listening to their real stories on torture and the loved ones, I cannot help thinking about this.

Please take a time on this question:
What are human rights?

First of all, education is believed to be a human right and I have no doubt on that. Also, literacy was frequently claimed to be a human right on an occasion international literacy day on this Sunday (Sep 8th).

What else is a human right and what is not? Who decide that? Can we measure it?
According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
“Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.”

If it’s a fundamental right for every human being, why has it been (is it being) violated in many countries? There are histories of torture in more than 100 countries. Wars and crimes never stop.

Some article caught my interest on this issue:
“Why is literacy Human rights?”

“Access to internet is human right?”.
It tells about a new project on internet access in which Facebook founder said that “Access to internet is human right”

“Measuring human rights fulfillment”
This article argues that without an evidence-base for assessing performance, states can escape from their human rights obligations by claiming inadequate resources.

“Why do people donate to victims of natural disasters but not of wars?”
This one addresses how people see natural disasters and man-maid disaster (war)

I think that unless we have a collective understanding, knowledge, and history of human right at global and local levels, we cannot have a full commitment to human rights – rights for the future we want.

Again, what are human rights for you?