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Skriven 2006-06-21 21:40:20 av Marc Lewis (1:396/45)
Ärende: Vatican Information Service (Press Release)
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                The following press release is Copyrighted by the
                          Vatican Information Service.
                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                               VIS-Press releases

STATES MUST DEFEND AND PROMOTE HUMAN RIGHTS

VATICAN CITY, JUN 21, 2006 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon, Archbishop Giovanni
Lajolo, secretary for Relations with States, delivered a statement before the
first session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva,
Switzerland.

"The new Human Rights Council represents an important step in the struggle to
place human beings at the center of all political activity, both national and
international," said Archbishop Lajolo.

After describing the situation of human rights in the world as "worrying," the
Holy See secretary for Relations with States pointed out how in many countries
those rights suffer "grave violations," and that there are governments which
continue to believe that, "in the final instance, power determines the content
of human rights and, consequently, they feel justified in using aberrant
practices."

"All States, members of the council, must assume their individual and
collective responsibility in the defense and promotion of these rights," he
added.

Going on to refer to the most fundamental human right, the right to life,
Archbishop Lajolo said that "never must a government, a group or an individual
take upon themselves the right to decide on the life of a human being as if he
were not a person, reducing him to the condition of an object that serves other
aims, however grand or noble such aims may be."

"A corollary of this concerns the right to freedom of belief and to religious
freedom, because humans have an interior and transcendent dimension which is an
integral part of their very being. To deny this dimension to is to make a
serious attack against human dignity."

"Religious freedom must be harmoniously inserted into the context of all human
freedoms," said the secretary for Relations with States. "It cannot become
merely arbitrary."

"The response of the Human Rights Council to the challenges of freedom in many
countries of the world, beginning with the council's own member States,"
Archbishop Lajolo concluded, "is a test of the credibility of the United
Nations and of the entire international judicial system."
.../HUMAN RIGHTS/GENEVA:LAJOLO VIS 060621 (350)

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