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Remember Edmund Burke – do something about Uyghur genocide

7 Feb, 2021 | Genocide, Latest, Press releases and statements

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As the Trade Bill returns to House of Commons on Tuesday, Mia Hasenson-Gross, Executive Director of the Jewish human rights charity, René Cassin, is making the following plea to MPs:

The founder of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, is famously said:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

There can be few evils greater than that being inflicted on the Uyghur people by the Chinese Communist Party. Last month, the Foreign Secretary told MPs “we have a moral duty to respond”, having itemised the regime’s horrific barbarism: “Internment camps, arbitrary detention, political re-education, forced labour, torture and forced sterilisation. All on an industrial scale”.

I make a simple plea to those same MPs. Remember the words of Edmund Burke.

Please do something.

  • Do something that will enhance the UK’s reputation as a force for good in the world
  • Do something that will deter tyrants and defeat evil
  • Do something that will help the Uyghur people who are today being crushed by the inhuman cruelty of the Chinese Communist Party

I ask in the name of René Cassin, the French-Jewish co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration was the world’s response to the atrocities of Nazism when, in its words, “… disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind”.

When these words are echoed by those of the Foreign Secretary only last month, I fear that “Never Again!” is becoming “yet again”.

Please support the ‘Genocide Amendment’.

Thank you.

Today, 10th December, is International Human Rights Day – the 76th anniversary of the signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. 

 

 

The Declaration was a reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust. So, for Jews, today has a particuar significance. 

Although rooted in response to atrocity, the Declaration was forward-looking and optimistic. It spoke for the majority of people who knew a better world was possible. The fact that it’s co-author , the French-Jewish lawyer Monsieur Rene Cassin, could draft such a hopeful document so soon after 26 members of his family were murdered by the Nazis is a testament to his humanity and the power of human rights in general. 

Today, as the organisation that works in Cassin’s name, we are determined to ensure his Declaration’s vision of human rights for all is fully realised. Central to that work is a focus on so called ‘socio-economic rights’ – rights to everyday essentials like food, housing and health. This vision was best articulated in Article 25 of the Declaration: 

‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control’.

Bolstering these rights would ensure everybody has access to the foundations on which to build a dignified, prosperous and meaningful life. They have been neglected for too long.

 

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