Happy Human Rights Day!

Today is International Human Rights Day. It is celebrated each year on
December 10, to remember December 10, 1948, when the United Nations'
General Assembly passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I've been part of Amnesty International since high school, and at our
church in Regent Park, we used to sign petitions on behalf of
prisoners of conscience. We also sent them Christmas cards! Human
rights are very important, and - of course - include many freedoms
from, and freedoms to.

I read some interesting headlines in the paper yesterday from Zimbabwe:

- Land reform goes on international trial next week (some evicted
Dutch famers are opening a case against the government at the
International court for their forced evictions from farms, sanctioned
by the government)
- Prisoners fume over toil on government officials' farms (prisoners
in Zimbabwean jails are being used as cheap labour on government
officials' farms, which has resulted in food shortages in prisons
because the prison farms are thus neglected)
- Firms should stand up to government over arrests (two of the largest
bakers in Zimbabwe were arrested last week, and received prison
sentences of 6 months for selling bread above the controlled price -
i.e. trying to raise the price of their loaves to the equivalent of 13
cents US)

This year's theme for Human Rights day is: Fighting Poverty: A Matter
of Obligation, not Charity. Of course, poverty affects all human
rights, and so we need to continually work towards its eradication. I
have blogged about poverty many times, so I won't go into it again
today. Let's pray for human dignity and human rights to be upheld all
over the world - today and always.