University of Sarajevo

Faculty of Philosophy
English Language and Literature Department

Violations of Human Rights

Student: Eldina Kapetanovi

Mentor: dr. Nejla Kalajdisalihovi

Sarajevo, January 2016

Introduction
Human rights are norms that all people obtain by birth in order to be protected everywhere
from legal and social abuses.

Some human rights are:

the right to freedom of religion;

the right to be healthy - Access to all medical services, sanitation, adequate food,

decent housing, healthy working conditions, and a clean environment;

the right to education - It is said that education should be free, at least in the
elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education is compulsory (required by
law). Technical and professional education should generally be available and higher
education should be equally accessible to everyone. It should promote understanding,

tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups;

the right to fair trials, if and when it comes to being convicted for a crime the right
to a fair trial is an essential right in all countries respecting the rule of law. Now,
individual elements which are included into that human right itself - the elements to
which all humans are entitled within that law, may vary from one state or country to

another;
the right not to be tortured, etc.

They are called universal, because they describe equal rights and freedom for anyone
regardless of gender, language, nationality, race, religion, and some other personal choices
people take free-willingly.

Even though the rights themselves are called universal, the idea of them is not. It is a
product of 17th and 18th European thought. Early philosophical sources of the idea of human
rights derive from some of the worlds most famous philosophers, such as Samuel
Pufendorf (16321694), John Locke(16321704), and Immanuel Kant (17241804), and
others who will be mentioned further on.

One of the oldest Western philosophies on human rights is that they are a product of a natural
law as natural rights, which cannot be repealed or restrained by any human law.

Thomas Hobbes (15881679) argued that the human right was to use ones own power for
the preservation of ones own life. Hobbes sharply distinguished this natural "liberty", from
natural "laws", described as a general rule, by which a man is forbidden to do things that are
destructive of his life.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) Above all, we note the fact that the so-called rights of man, the
droits de l'homme as distinct from the droits du citoyen, are nothing but the rights of a
member of civil society i.e., the rights of egoistic man, of man separated from other men
and from the community.
For Marx, liberal rights and ideas of justice are based on the idea that each of us needs
protection from others. Therefore, liberal rights are rights of separation, designed to protect
us from such threats. According to Marx, real freedom is to be found positively in our
relations with other people. It is to be found in human community, not in isolation.

Liberalism
Liberalism is a worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. There are three ideas
which liberals support:
The first is the idea that all people are born with rights, which they obtained and continue
holding simply because they are a human being. Unfortunately, not everyone shares this
belief. Many people believe that rights are simply entitlements granted by the government
and held only by the states citizens. But for liberals, rights are universal, held by everyone,
and inalienable, they continue to exist regardless of whether or not governments recognise
them as legitimate rights.
The second idea concerns what human rights actually are. Classical liberals believe that the
list of human rights is comprised primarily of those things that are crucial to preserve life and
individual liberty.
The third idea in which classical liberals believe, that the role of the state in fulfilling or
protecting human rights should be very limited. States should do only what is necessary to
protect life and property.

Speaking of freedom, life, and property, this leads us to one of the most influential
philosophers of the Enlightenment era, the so-called Father of Classical Liberalism, John
Locke.
John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and his philosophy. Locke
turned Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler (king, governor, etc.) went against

natural law and failed to protect "life, liberty, and property," people would have every right to
overthrow the existing state and create a new one.
John Locke uses the word property in both broad and narrow senses. In a broad sense, it
covers a wide range of human interests, more narrowly, it refers to material goods. He argues
that property is a natural right and it is earned by labour. To deny valid property rights,
according to Locke, is to deny human rights.

According to Locke there are three natural rights:

Life: everyone is entitled to live.

Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict

with the first right.

Estate: everyone is entitled to own everything they create or gain through gift or trade
so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights.

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life,
health, liberty or possessions. (John Locke)

17th century German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf, who classified dozens of duties
accordingly: duties to God, duties to oneself, and duties to others.

Concerning our duties towards God, he argued that there are two kinds:

1. a theoretical duty to know the existence and nature of God, and

2. a practical duty to both inwardly and outwardly worship God.

Concerning our duties towards oneself, these are also two kinds:

1. duties of the soul, which involve developing one's skills and talents, and
2. duties of the body, which involve not harming our bodies, as we might through
gluttony or drunkenness, and not killing oneself.

Concerning our duties towards others, Pufendorf classifies these as absolute duties (which
are universally binding on people)

Absolute duties are of three sorts:

1. avoid wronging others,

2. treat people as equals, and
3. promote the good of others.

Influenced by Pufendorf, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) agreed that we have moral duties to
ourselves and others, such as developing our talents, and keeping our promises to others.

Along with the moral uprising of the society, many new human rights have been taken into
consideration and established, such as the new LGBT rights, or euthanasia. The legal

recognition of those new human rights must be based on the assumption that some kind of
Natural Law allows the recognition of those rights.
Many funds have been formed throughout the second half of the 20th century, and many are
formed daily in todays day and age. Organizations have erupted in an effort to protect the
rights of those whose rights have been violated.
I have decided to give an example of such organisations, by presenting The Malala Fund
which may not be, by my assumption, well known in our society, taking in consideration that
it is a fairly new, recent fund.
Malala was born on 12 July 1997 in Mingora, a town in north-west Pakistan. Her father
named her after Malalai, a Pashtun heroine. Little did he know, she would grow up to be one
too.
Her father ran a school adjacent to the family's home. He was known as an advocate for
education in Pakistan, which has the second highest number of out-of-school children in the
world, and became an outspoken opponent of Taliban efforts to restrict education and stop
girls from going to school. With the help of her father, Malala stood up because she had
wanted to make a change for a long time.
Malala and her father received death threats but continued to speak out for the right to
education. In 2011, she received Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize. In response to
her rising popularity and national recognition, Taliban leaders voted to kill her.
On 9 October 2012, as Malala and her friends were travelling home from school, a masked
gunman entered their school bus and asked for Malala by name. She was shot with a single

bullet which went through her head, neck and shoulder. Two of her friends were also injured
in the attack.
Malala survived the initial attack, but was in a critical condition. She was moved to
Birmingham in the United Kingdom for treatment at a hospital that specialises in military
injuries. She was not discharged until January, 2013 by which time she had been joined by
her family in the UK.
The Taliban's attempt to kill Malala received worldwide condemnation and led to protests
across Pakistan. In the weeks after the attack, over 2 million people signed a right to
education petition, and the National Assembly swiftly ratified Pakistan's first Right To Free
and Compulsory Education Bill.

2013 Establishing the Malala Fund

Malala and her father became a global advocate for the millions of girls being denied a
formal education because of social, economic, legal and political factors. In 2013, Malala and
her father co-founded the Malala Fund to bring awareness to the social and economic impact
of girls' education and to empower girls to raise their voices, to unlock their potential and to
demand change.

2014 Nobel Peace Prize

Malala accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on 10 December, 2014 with Indian children's rights
and education advocate Kailash Satyarthi. Malala contributed her $1.1 million prize money to
financing the creation of a secondary school for girls in Pakistan.

'The Malala Fund is the voice of girls. The goal of the fund is to see every girl in school for
12 years of a safe, quality education. There seems to be a view that basic literacy is enough,
but it's not. Secondary education is the basic human right of every girl.'

Conclusion
Human rights have been constantly evolving throughout the human history, and even though
most of us are informed about our rights, we violate others, whether we are aware of it, or
not. We live in a world which has improved in the field of technology. Cars, planes, trains,
ships, helicopters, robots are only some of the major breakthroughs and inventions
throughout eras of human existence. We are given an amazing opportunity to put our
intellects in good use, but are we actually wise enough to take that opportunity?
As long as there are different races, religions, nationalities, people will disagree, fight and
not tolerate each other. Yes we have come a long way since the Middle Ages, the First and
Second World Wars, slavery is no longer present in our communities, women and children
have gained many rights throughout the last century and they are still fighting for a better
tomorrow where everybody is equal. Unfortunately, Jews had to suffer great losses, Muslims,
Christians too, and they still do, and I am sure every race and religion will continue to suffer

great losses, as long as there are closed-minded and brainwashed people who disrespect the
essential, natural, human rights of others.
There are many solutions out there to prevent the abuse of human rights. Through education
and the media people can be aware of the numerous human rights violations taking place in
the world today and gain some knowledge of what's going on in the world. It is 2016, we
should not be ashamed of who we are, who we love and what we do, if it does not harm
anyone, invade anyones privacy, or endangers their life.
I believe that the world and the people residing have had enough time to see what has
occurred in the past. We need to learn from our mistakes in the past and never let such
atrocities like the torture of the Jewish families, terrorist attacks all over the world in todays
day and age, dictate us towards hate and revenge, and never let those atrocities happen again.
I sincerely hope I wake up one day and not fear being disrespected for being a woman, a
Muslim, a Bosnian. We are who we are, and we cannot change our origins, we can only thrive
towards becoming a better person tomorrow than what we are today.
As Ernest Hemingway once said: There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow
man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

SOURCES:
www.humanrights.com/what-are-human-rights/violations-of-human-rights/article-3.html
www.ukessays.com/essays/philosophy/human-rights-violations-philosophy-essay.php
www.pravosudje.ba/vstv/faces/docservlet?_id_doc=2791
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/
https://www.malala.org/

GLOSSARY:

INALIENABLE /in'eilinbl/ - neotuiv

GENERAL ASSEMBLY / 'denrl 'sembli / - generalna skuptina
INTERDEPENDENT /ntdpendnt/ - meusavistan
INDIVISIBLE /indivizbl/ - nedjeljiv, nerazdvojiv