Human Rights Protection

Report Outline
Persisting Concern For Human Rights
Human Rights Principles and Treaties
Future Course of Human Rights Efforts
Special Focus

Persisting Concern For Human Rights

Coming U.N. Parley on Rights of Individuals

Representatives of governments, of international agencies, and of non-governmental groups are to convene on April 22 at Teheran, Iran, for three weeks of discussion about human rights. The conference, called by the United Nations, will review progress made and the problems ahead in achieving worldwide recognition and protection of the rights of individuals. The Teheran meeting will be one of the highlights in observance of 1968 as the International Year for Human Rights.

A resolution adopted in 1963 by the U.N. General Assembly designated 1968 as a year in which to pay special attention to human rights. President Johnson on Oct. 11, 1967, proclaimed 1968 a year of rededication to human rights in the United States. The Senate had passed a bill on June 14, 1967, creating a U. S. Committee on Human Rights to conduct special activities during the International Year for Human Rights. Without waiting for House action on the bill, Johnson on Jan. 30, 1968, established the President's Commission for the Observance of Human Rights Year and appointed as its members W. Averell Harriman, chairman, the heads of five Cabinet departments, former Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, labor leaders George Meany and A. Philip Randolph, and others.

Cases of Lack of Respect for Human Rights

Enjoyment of human rights is restricted, in one way or another, in every part of the globe. In the Soviet Union, despite relaxation of police-state methods since the death of Stalin, and in other Communist countries as well, the right to dissent publicly from governmental policies, and the right to vote for candidates for public office other than those favored by the authorities, are severely limited. Thus, although freedom of speech and of the press is guaranteed under Article 125 of the Soviet Constitution, the Soviet government interprets that provision in its own way. As Andrei Vishinsky, then Deputy Foreign Minister, wrote in 1948: “In the U.S.S.R. all propaganda of anti-democratic [i.e., anti-Communist] views, all agitation aimed at weakening the Soviet state [i.e., criticism of official policies] is prohibited by law.”