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On 10 December the “International Human Rights Day” is celebrated - established by the United Nations in memory of the signing of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” in Paris in 1948. The document with 30 articles, according to Navi Pillay, UNO High Commissioner for Human Rights – “has had an impact on the human race more significant than any other document in modern history.”
“Ringing the Bells of Europe in support of Human Rights” is the idea of the “Group of bell-ringers of Arrone” aimed at spreading a culture of “All Human Rights for Everyone” and the messages and the topics which the United Nations proposes each year for reflection on those people mentioned in the Declaration. The topic for 2010 is discrimination.
Nowadays the Secretary General of the United Nations has said, “No country is immune from discrimination. […] It can appear in the form of institutionalised racism, of ethnic conflict, episodes of intolerance and rejection, or as the denial of other peoples’ identity.” “Discrimination,” – he continued – “affects vulnerable individuals and groups: the disabled, women and girls, the poor, migrants, minorities , and in general anyone who is perceived to be different. These people are often excluded from taking part in the economic, social, political and cultural life of their own communities. The prejudice which condemns and excludes them can be exploited by extremists. In some countries we are witnessing the appearance of a new policy of xenophobia”.
This year, 62 after the signing of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” is also the 51st anniversary of the “Declaration of the Rights of the Child” and the 21st of the “International Convention on the Rights of Children and Adolescents ” and the 20th anniversary of the “International Convention on the Rights of migrant workers and their families.”
The symbolic value of the “Ringing the Bells of Europe in support of Human Rights” project has been heightened by the fact that in August 2010, on the occasion of the 50th National Meeting of Bell-ringers held in Arrone the ancient bell-tower was given the title of “Bell Tower of Human Rights” by the Archishop Renato Boccardo of the Diocese of Spoleto-Norcia.
The President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, has conferred a special medal on the project
For further information: www.campanariarrone.it
Published 09/12/2010
