Everyone has the right to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. This Charter underscores our shared commitment to transparency and accountability as essential to good governance, whether by governments, businesses or not-for-profit organizations. Wherever we operate, we want to ensure that the high standards we demand of others are also upheld in our own organizations. The Charter complements and complements existing laws. It is a voluntary charter based on a number of existing codes, norms, standards and guidelines. Its adoption shall not prevent signatories from supporting or using other instruments to promote transparency and accountability. The Charter also aims to identify common ground between the many existing frameworks for CSO accountability, strengthen the cohesion of civil society and the visibility of the sector`s contributions. Our following accountability commitments are at the heart of what we consider to be good practice in CSO accountability. The potentially deadly consequences of hate speech – including its ability to facilitate the violation of the right to life on a large scale – were once again graphically portrayed when Rwanda`s Radio Mille Collines laid the groundwork for the 1994 genocide by dehumanizing their fellow citizens and branding them as enemies. About 800,000 people were killed.
More recently, messages of incitement to hatred and violence have spread at an alarming rate on Facebook in Myanmar and may have contributed to genocide and crimes against humanity. The Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar highlighted the Myanmar military`s use of Facebook to incite hatred and spread false information to justify its actions against civilians. In response, Facebook shut down several of these accounts. « The first man to throw an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. » Article 19 of Sigmund Freud contains the right to „seek, receive and impart information and ideas through all media and regardless of frontiers.“ While individuals enjoy the same rights online as offline, states also censor and criminalize a wide range of online content through vague or ambiguous laws that prohibit „extremism,“ „blasphemy,“ „slander,“ „offensive“ language, „fake news,“ and „propaganda.“ One of the reasons article 19 is so important is that it is clear and undeniably transnational. The phrase „regardless of borders“ means that we, as human beings, have the right to share information with any other person – the country we come from is not relevant to that right. The free press should spread the facts around the world, intellectuals should share the truth with the world, no matter where it comes from or how unpleasant it may be for them. Scholars often live a life in which they constantly travel physically, if not mentally, through study. Ideas transcend the state. Borders are not up to ideas or ideals, which is why the first task of a tyrant around the world is to attack the free press and intellectuals.
As efforts to control speech and information multiply, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has provided guidance on the distinction between freedom of expression and hate speech through the Rabat Plan of Action, which proposes to set a high threshold for the interpretation of restrictions imposed by international human rights law on the restriction of freedom of expression. Its six-part threshold test takes into account the context, intent, content, scope, status of the speaker and the likelihood that the speech in question would encourage action against the target audience, and is used in Tunisia, Côte d`Ivoire and Morocco, as well as by the European Court of Human Rights in a recent judgment in the Pussy Riot case. Thank you for this wonderful article that reminds everyone of the bold principles behind this document. Of course, we can and must criticize the gap that has remained and still exists between the ideals of the Declaration and the reality of protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of all peoples, but the fact remains that the document was revolutionary in many ways. It was a response to the horrors the world had just endured and a solution to change in the future. While it is true that there are specific Values of Western Europe that have been imposed on others, I hope that the freedom to enjoy life and freedom, the right not to be subjected to torture, equality before the law for all and the right of access to information are never outdated or too specific to be defended by all. It is also important to remember Eleanor Roosevelt`s lifelong role in promoting freedom. Nevertheless, the document has become a battle cry for human rights, an important ground on which rights can be challenged and negotiated. The document`s universal aspirations can easily be dismissed with the argument that different societies have different values.
That`s right. But it is also true that we live in a world with infinite fluctuations in values, as values can vary even within seemingly homogeneous societies. It does not seem an exaggeration to ask that we, as members of the same species, try to understand how to live together peacefully when our values come into conflict. The right to freedom of expression is also protected by the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by consensus by the General Assembly in 1998. The declaration refers to specific means by which human rights defenders exercise their right to freedom of expression, such as publishing reports, publicly discussing the human rights situation, criticizing government policies, etc. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an important milestone in the history of human rights. The Declaration, drafted by representatives of different legal and cultural circles from all regions of the world, was proclaimed on 10 December 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and nations. It stipulates for the first time that fundamental human rights must be universally protected, and it has been translated into more than 500 languages. It is generally accepted that the UDHR inspired and paved the way for the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, which are now permanently applied at the global and regional levels (all of which contain references to these in their preambles). Accordingly, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence has been expressly prohibited when the UDHR has been transposed into binding international law by subsequent treaties. In the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, freedom of expression occupies the same place (Article 19) as in the UDHR and sets out explicit criteria that governments must respect when restricting freedom of expression.
Article 20, which immediately follows, sets the limits of the prohibition of incitement. We are committed to ensuring that all donations advance our mission. We respect the rights of donors and the dignity of those affected by our fundraising activities. However, freedom of expression is explicitly protected in most regions, and there is growing concern today about ongoing and perhaps growing efforts to abuse the concept of „hate speech“ or „incitement“ as an excuse to suppress dissent or criticism of a government in power, often using counterterrorism legislation as a legal means of what is, under international law, an unlawful purpose. .