You are asked to wear a mask and get vaccinated. If you don’t, you can’t attend social gatherings, catch a plane, or eat in a restaurant. You could lose your job.
Is this discrimination? A human rights violation?
Some people answer yes to these questions and support their argument by choosing only a few articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canadian Human Rights Act.
They are wrong.
As lawyers and leaders of two prominent Canadian human rights organizations, we consider these claims to be not only false, but also dangerous. They put our health at risk and prolong the pandemic by promoting contraventions of health instructions and ignoring science. They endanger human rights and distract public attention from the real issues.
December 10 is International Human Rights Day because it was on that day, in 1948, that the Declaration was adopted. She was born out of the genocide and atrocities of World War II, a dark chapter in history.
The Declaration is based on the principle that we share a fundamental humanity, that everyone has fundamental rights and that these rights must be protected for the good of society.
However, individual rights and freedoms can only be realized if we also protect the well-being of society as a whole.
Those who oppose the restrictions related to COVID-19 have their favorites among the 30 articles of the Declaration. For example, they often cite article 3: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. ”
Obviously neglected, Article 29 recognizes that there will be times like the one we are living now when reasonable limitations on individual freedoms are necessary for the common good. Protecting the public from a deadly pandemic is certainly important for the health of all populations and for our common humanity.
Everyone claims to support human rights, but it is not always recognized that individual freedoms always come with individual responsibilities to others.
Without this understanding, human rights can be distorted and attacked. Hatred, violence, threats, racism and fear are the consequences.
The population has become polarized in its opinions, which distorts perceptions and breeds intolerance. Social media provides us with valuable platforms to make our opinions known, but online anger (and disturbing digital algorithms) has encouraged and popularized people who use ignorance, misinformation and complacency to further their personal ends or to gain more attention, often fueling even more anger and division.
Today as we celebrate 73e anniversary of the founding human rights document that we hold dear, let’s commit to learning what it really says and what it really means. To protect human rights, we must first understand them, otherwise we risk repeating the very story that the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights wanted to prevent from happening again.