HUMAN RIGHTS

ETYMOLOGY OF “HUMAN RIGHTS”

“Human rights” are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of our
nationality, residence, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, national or
ethnic origin, color, religion, language or any other status. We are all equally
entitled to our human rights without discrimination.

This is the modern concept of our fundamental rights but it was not always this
way. The belief that everyone, by virtue of her or his humanity, is entitled to
certain human rights that is fairly new and is something stemming from an
evolution of the consideration of human dignity over the last centuries. Its roots lie
in earlier tradition and documents of many cultures.

THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The origins of Human Rights are ideally pinpointed to the year 539 BC. When the
troops of Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon. Cyrus freed the slaves, declared that
all people had the right to choose their own religion, and established racial
equality. These and other principles were recorded on a baked-clay cylinder known
as the Cyrus Cylinder, whose provisions served as inspiration for the first four
Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Another cornerstone in Human Rights History is represented by the promulgation

of the Magna Charta in 1215 which introduced a raw concept of “Rule of Law”
and the basic idea of defined rights and liberties to all persons, which offers
protection from arbitrary prosecution and incarceration. Before the Magna Charta,
the rule of law, now considered as a key principle for good governance in any
modern democratic society, was perceived as a divine justice, solely distributed by
the monarch or the king or, in this case, King John of England.
HUMAN RIGHTS IN ANCIENT TIMES

In Ancient Times, as mentioned before, rights can be found in some

civilizations. For example, Ancient Greece was a society, in which rights were
limited to men and in the upper classes, which means that women did not have the
same privileges as men. To illustrate, women were restricted from working a
regular job, such as a painter or a mason, and were only allowed to be at home,
taking care of the children, and if they had any, teaching the daughters everything
they had to take care of in their future household. Additionally, slaves were a really
important part of the community. Since slaves outnumbered the civilians, they
were treated with respect, to prevent any conflicts or rebellious activity. As proof,
many slaves were assigned the job of the educator for the young boys. Others
helped the woman with the housework, and finally, others helped in the
agricultural field, with planting seeds, collecting fully grown fruits and vegetables,
feeding the animals, etc.
The ancient Egyptians saw men and women, as well as people from all
social classes but slaves, as basically equal under the law, and even the poorest
peasant was allowed to request the vizier (The vizier was the main official in
Ancient Egypt to assist the king), and his court for redress. Men and women had
the right to own and sell property, create contracts, get married and divorce, collect
the inheritance, and pursue legal arguments in court. Married couples could own
their property equally and defend themselves from divorce by approving marriage
contracts, which specified the financial commitments of the husband to his wife
and children, should the marriage end. Even though these freedoms, ancient
Egyptian women did not take part in official roles in the government, only served
secondary roles in the temples, and were also not as likely to be as educated as
men. One of the women’s rights was the right to choose if they wanted to marry or
not. To be allowed a divorce, a woman is required to present a good reason in a
court of law. If her divorce was decided, she kept custody over her children, plus
all of her original gifts if one was brought to the marriage, or its equal worth plus
one-third of her husband's wealth. Men could also get a divorce, but women still
gained custody of their children. The role of Egyptian men was to build pyramids,
buy and sell slaves and grow crops.
HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE ENLIGHTMENT PERIOD
When the French revolutionaries drew up the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen in August 1789, they aimed to topple the institutions surrounding
hereditary monarchy and establish new ones based on the principles of the
Enlightenment, a philosophical movement gathering steam in the eighteenth
century. The goal of the Enlightenment's proponents was to apply the methods
learned from the scientific revolution to the problems of society. Further, its
advocates committed themselves to "reason" and "liberty." Knowledge, its
followers believed, could only come from the careful study of actual conditions
and the application of an individual's reason, not from religious inspiration or
traditional beliefs. Liberty meant freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and
freedom from the unreasonable government (torture, censorship, and so on).
Enlightenment writers, such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, influenced
ordinary readers, politicians, and even heads of state all over the Western world.
Kings and queens consulted them, government ministers joined their cause, and in
the British North American colonies, American revolutionaries put some of their
ideas into practice in the Declaration of Independence and the new Constitution of
the United States.

HUMAN RIGHTS DURING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Not only did the common industry go from being a cottage to a factory, but the
way people lived changed, too. Families and friendships, communities that people
had lived in all their life, all changed when the Industrial Revolution began. New
merchandise was being created, with more amount to go around. New modes of
transportation were needed for the large pieces of machines, and to get the merch
from one place to another, so how we travel changed. And human rights also
changed. At first, numerous ones were violated, but then, because of the abuse that
factory workers suffered at first, people realized how rough life was for those who
weren't of the British upper class, and banded together to enforce the new laws
being put into place, then when they were, that they were obeyed. Many of the
changes that took place in the Industrial Revolution are still with us today, and
even the way people are treated while working in many countries unlike Canada
and the United States still resembles that of the factory workers in the 17 and 18
hundreds. Some of the changes were for the better, and some of them were for the
worst, but in the end, this revolution played a large part in how Human Rights
came to be, and why.
THE DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in
the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and
cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed
by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General
Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples
and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, for fundamental human rights to be
universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. The
UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired and paved the way for, the
adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today permanently at
global and regional levels (all containing references to it in their preambles). 

HUMAN RIGHTS AROUND THE WORLD

RIGHTS IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES

Some proponents of human rights are deeply skeptical of Islam (and religion in
general for that matter). They argue that the two are inherently incompatible. To be
sure, there are plenty of examples of Islam being used to legitimize violations of
human rights today: Think of Saudi Arabia’s use of whipping and other inhuman
punishments, Pakistan’s blasphemy legislation, or the many gender-discriminatory
laws in other Muslim-majority countries. But this is not all there is to say about
Islam and human rights. If we listen to some of the many Muslim voices in
contemporary human rights debates, a much more nuanced picture emerges. There
are at least four different positions among Muslim state actors, civil society
organizations and intellectuals today.
 “All rights are subject to Islamic shari’ah” 
 “The normal scope of human rights”
 “There is nothing in Islamic law that prevents human rights”
 “The Qur’an is not a constitution”

RIGHTS IN COUNTRIES UNDERGOING WAR

Plenty of countries in the Middle Eastern world have ongoing wars, and plenty of
rights are withdrawn from them. For example, they have no right of choosing their
religion, meaning that they are obliged to believe in one religion, or they will be
punished. Moreover, the right to freedom of speech is also removed from the
country's civilians. In addition, the right of freedom of choice of sexual orientation
is also drawn out, which means a human is restricted to only be a male or a female.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Text from Book: “Marco Sutto - Human Rights evolution, a brief history, p. 18”
2. Text from Article: “Nikoleta Kalmouki - Most Popular Professions in Ancient Greece”
3. Text from Article: “Robert Garland – Classifications of Slaves in Ancient Greece”
4. Text from Website: https://bit.ly/rights-in-ancient-egypt
5. Text from Website: https://bit.ly/rights-in-the-enlightment
6. Text from Website: https://bit.ly/rights-in-the-industrial-revolution
7. Text from Article: “Marie Juul Petersen – Islam and Human Rights: Clash or Compatibility?”

INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Name: Ioannis
Surname: Voulgaris
Occupation: Middle School Student
English Level: Proficient English
Date Written: 2/1/2023