ILPS Commission 3 | On International Human Rights Day 2022

10 December 2022

ILPS Commission 3 Statement 

With steadfast unity and solidarity, ILPS Commission 3 (On Political Prisoners and Human Rights) joins the broadest ranks of the struggling peoples of the world in marking International Human Rights Day, December 10.

The current world situation sets an imperative for the widest commitment, participation, and action for human rights, especially among the ranks of the oppressed and exploited classes, to assert and advance the right of the people to life, human dignity and development. While the global COVID-19 pandemic has been declared controlled by many states and government, the people continue to suffer the burden of systemic problems of the lack or total absence of our most fundamental rights to food, land, livelihood, health care and other basic needs. 

The people were pushed to the brink, as many were left scampering for much needed assistance and access to basic health care, among others. Medical services remained a privilege under a neoliberal health care system. As the pandemic and the crisis spelled death for millions, the strict and prolonged lockdowns and pandemic-related restrictions in many countries were even exploited to implement greater suppression of people’s rights. 

In the hands of the ruling, exploitative classes and repressive and militarist states, aggression, large-scale corruption and plunder of national coffers, and war, the people were even told that human rights should be shunted aside amid a pandemic. As profit comes first for the big capitalists and corporations and states and governments rode on the pandemic to forward their militarist policies and repressive measures, it was clear that for as long as systemic global oppression and exploitation remains, the people’s only option is to stand firm, and fight for their rights. 

This year, the global average unemployment rate stands at 7.11 percent, with South Africa having the highest value at 34.63. These figures account for the millions of people who suffered doubly as they endured slave-level wages and loss of other forms of livelihood, among others. 

The systemic oppression and exploitation of the world’s wealth and resources by a fewmakes many realize that the struggle for human rights is a continuing and arduous struggle, an imperative that goes beyond commemorating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

We stand in solidarity with the peoples of the world who have now come out to stand for their rights against further suppression, global aggression and war in many countries. We stand with the people of China who are clamoring against another round of pandemic lockdowns. We raise our fists together with people in militarist regimes against fascism and corruption.. We continue to stand with the people of Palestine in their life-and-death struggle against Zionist occupation and US wars of aggression. 

We derive inspiration from the martyrs and heroes of the people’s struggle for rights and freedoms, who paved the way for the succeeding generations to realize that human rights will not be served to them on a silver platter, but should be fought for. We salute the political prisoners who continue to strive for freedom and stand for the rights of the people even behind bars and despite the worst of torture and deprivation of their rights. We stand with the victims of rights violations and their families who, despite facing fear and more threats, continue to demonstrate that justice does not reside inside the courts and halls of power, but in the strength of people’s movements againsthuman rights violations. 

On International Human Rights Day, let us express our commitment to people’s rights through action and active resistance. There is a need to further educate the people of their rights as persons and as communities, and learn the most important lessons of standing up and fighting back. We should express our outrage at the extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, mass arrests and detention, torture, criminalization of dissent, and fascist attacks against all struggling peoples of the world. 

Let us also recognize the revolutionary movements and their struggles all over the world, that now set the temper that in the midst of crisis, poverty and oppression on a global scale, to rebel is just in order to achieve victories in our long fight for human rights. 

Long live international solidarity!

Fight for human rights!

Justice for victims of human rights violations!

Unite and struggle!