Press releases

MINSK, 10 December (BelTA) - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Belarusian was presented in Minsk on 10 December. The event was dedicated to Human Rights Day and the 70th anniversary of the declaration, BelTA has learned.

“The adoption of the declaration in 1948 was a conscious and bold step of the United Nations friends, one of which was Belarus, to support humanistic principles of the further development of mankind,” Belarus Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Dapkiunas said when speaking at the event.

He also said: “It is believed that if we tried to agree on the text of the declaration today, in the atmosphere of mounting hostility and suspicion in the world, we would fail to adopt such a document. This makes the declaration much more important for our time.”

It gave the world a clear understanding that the protection of equality, justice and human dignity is a shared responsibility of all countries and governments. “For the first time the declaration reflected the principles such as universality, interdependence and support for human rights, equality and non-discrimination, and the principle whereby the rights simultaneously imply the obligations of rights holders. It was the declaration that laid down the foundation of international human rights standards and gave impetus to their incorporation into national and international legislation,” Andrei Dapkiunas noted.

The international treaties to ensure economic, social and cultural, civil and political rights, the rights of children, women and people with disabilities were adopted in furtherance of the ideas contained in the declaration, Andrei Dapkiunas said.

Along with this, Andrei Dapkiunas noted: “Each of us must understand that the rights enshrined in the declaration are of little value to many millions of people in the world who are suffering from hunger and preventable diseases, who are caught up in conflicts and are denied effective means of legal protection.”

Without ensuring the conditions for every person to exercise the rights to life, health, education and equality before the law, the general progress of humanity has no great value, the deputy minister stressed.