Human rights

"As American Baptists we declare the following rights to be basic human rights, and we will support programs and measures to assure these rights; The right to human dignity, to be respected and treated as a person, and to be protected against discrimination without regard to age, sex, race, class, marital status, income, national origin, legal status, culture or condition in society."

"The United States in particular and the West in general are in no position to talk about human rights. They are responsible for most of the killings in the region, especially the United States after getting into Iraq, and the UK after invading Libya, and the situation in Yemen, and what happened in Egypt in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism in Tunisia. All these problems happened because of the United States. They were the first ones to trample international law and Security Council resolutions, not us."

"Let’s first of all talk about the first part of your question, which is the problem how to – for the United States – open relations with Syria, regarding the human rights. I will ask you: how could you have this close, very close relation, intimate relation, with Saudi Arabia? Do you consider beheading as human right criteria?...So, when you answer about Saudi Arabia and "your relation", you can put yourself in that position. Second, the United States is in no position to talk about human rights; since Vietnam war till this moment, they killed millions of civilians, if you don’t want to talk about 1.5 million in Iraq, without any assignment by the Security Council. So, the United States is in no position to say “I don’t open relations because of human rights,” and they have to use one standard."

"As India grows into a world power, the story of the birth of Bangladesh has never been more important. It stands as an awful but crucial case for better understanding the politics of human rights, in a world where the duty of defending the vulnerable is not something that the West arrogates for itself alone. Today, at the advent of an Asian era in world politics, the future of human rights will increasingly depend on the ideologies, institutions, and cultures of ascendant Asian great powers like China and India. Thus India’s democratic response to the plight of the Bengalis marks not just a pivotal moment for the history of the subcontinent, but for how the world’s biggest democracy makes its foreign policy—and what weight it gives to human rights."

"Liberty is an empty sound as long as you are kept in bondage economically.[...] Freedom means that you have the right to do a certain thing; but if you have no opportunity to do it, that right is sheer mockery. The opportunity lies in your economic condition, whatever the political situation may be.No political rights can be of the least use to the man who is compelled to slave all his life to keep himself and family from starvation."

"Liberty is not an option; it is a human right."

"Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood."

"I believe with all my heart that America must always stand for these basic human rights at home and abroad. That is both our history and our destiny. America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it's the other way around. Human rights invented America. Ours was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded explicitly on such an idea. Our social and political progress has been based on one fundamental principle: the value and importance of the individual. The fundamental force that unites us is not kinship or place of origin or religious preference. The love of liberty is the common blood that flows in our American veins. The battle for human rights, at home and abroad, is far from over. We should never be surprised nor discouraged, because the impact of our efforts has had and will always have varied results. Rather, we should take pride that the ideals which gave birth to our Nation still inspire the hopes of oppressed people around the world. We have no cause for self-righteousness or complacency, but we have every reason to persevere, both within our own country and beyond our borders. If we are to serve as a beacon for human rights, we must continue to perfect here at home the rights and the values which we espouse around the world: a decent education for our children, adequate medical care for all Americans, an end to discrimination against minorities and women, a job for all those able to work, and freedom from injustice and religious intolerance."

"Human rights are very often spoken of, but we must also speak of humanity's rights. Why should some people go barefoot that others may travel in expensive cars? Why should some live only 35 years that others may live 70? Why should some be miserably poor that others may be exaggeratedly rich? I speak on behalf of the children of the world who do not even have a piece of bread. I speak on behalf of the sick who lack medicine. I speak to you on behalf of those who have been denied the right to life and human dignity."

"On September 17, 1914, Erzberger, the well-known German statesman, an eminent member of the Catholic Party, wrote to the Minister of War, General von Falkenhayn, "We must not worry about committing an offence against the rights of nations nor about violating the laws of humanity. Such feelings today are of secondary importance"? A month later, on October 21, 1914, he wrote in Der Tag, "If a way was found of entirely wiping out the whole of London it would be more humane to employ it than to allow the blood of A SINGLE GERMAN SOLDIER to be shed on the battlefield!""

"The human being must be respected and treated as a person from his conception. Therefore, from that very moment the rights of a person must be accorded to him, foremost among which is the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being."

"Another unforeseen consequence of the changing postwar world was the attempt by nongovernmental organizations and small and medium-sized powers to transform the United Nations from a US-Soviet battleground into a site of human progress. One major focus—emanating from the promises in the Atlantic Charter and the atrocities of World War II—was the defense of human rights. These not-always-complementary goals—promoting freedom and self-determination for subject peoples on the one hand and shielding individuals and groups from arbitrary state power on the other—held little attraction for the Great Powers. At the Nuremberg trials the victors had been more intent on punishing the Nazis’ aggression than siding with their victims, and the same held true at the Tokyo tribunals. Although the UN Charter contained several references to human rights, the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union had frustrated human rights activists by blocking the inclusion of a universal bill of rights. Nonetheless, in 1946 the fifty-one-member General Assembly flexed its muscle, creating the Commission on Human Rights (CHR)."

"In defending the great cause of human rights, I wish to derive the assistance of all religions and of all parties."

"I have been derisively called a "Woman's Rights Man." I know no such distinction. I claim to be a HUMAN RIGHTS MAN, and wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being whatever may be the sex or complexion. ."

"...it was not the fact of slavery in itself which led to the revolt, but the state of feeling and of manners which slavery bred—the hatred of democracy, the contempt for human rights, the horror of equality before the law, the proneness to violence which always results from inequality, the tone which all these things communicated to Southern manners, literature, education, religion, and society."

"To affirm that humans thrive in many different ways is not to deny that there are universal human values. Nor is it to reject the claim that there should be universal human rights. It is to deny that universal values can only be fully realized in a universal regime. Human rights can be respected in a variety of regimes, liberal and otherwise. Universal human rights are not an ideal constitution for a single regime throughout the world, but a set of minimum standards for peaceful coexistence among regimes that will always remain different."

"Human rights are not just cultural or legal constructions, as fashionable western relativists are fond of claiming. They are universal values. To deny the benefits of the new regime of rights to other cultures is to patronise them in a way that is reminiscent of the colonial era. If the new regime on torture is good enough for the US, who can say that it is not good for everyone?"

"I know nothing of man's rights, or woman's rights; human rights are all that I recognise."

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

"The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet, I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of a departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world."

"Actually, who is the terrorist, who is against human rights? The answer is the United States because they attacked Iraq. Moreover, it is the terrorist king, waging war."

"My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights. People -- human beings -- this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds -- all sorts of people -- and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they’re looking to America for precept and example."

"If we do not change course quickly, we will inevitably encounter an incident where that first domino is tipped—triggering a sequence of unstoppable events that will mark the end of our time on this tiny planet... My hope lies in... the leaders of communities and social movements, big and small, who are willing to forfeit everything—including their lives—in defence of human rights. Their valour is unalloyed; it is selfless. There is no discretion or weakness here. They represent the best of us... There are grassroots leaders of movements against discrimination and inequalities in every region… the real store of moral courage and leadership among us..."

"The real lesson of Romero is that there are no legitimate reasons to deny human rights. His government in his time believed that human rights could be somewhat “suspended” to protect El Salvador from Communist influences coming from the Soviet Union via Cuba and Nicaragua. Romero was certainly not an admirer of the Soviet Union, but believed there should be other ways of protecting his country, not suspending human rights. He taught us that those who advocate for human rights are “for” their countries, not “against” them. …Romero’s key teaching, that there is no reason good enough to justify the violation of human rights, is relevant for both religious liberty and the Tai Ji Men case. There are governments that claim that limiting religious liberty is necessary to protect social stability or the harmony of the country. Romero’s message is that this is not a valid justification. Human rights protection defines what a legitimate social stability is, rather than the other way around."

"Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth. And any time any one violates your human rights, you can take them to the world court."

"One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Yielding to desire and acting differently, one becomes guilty of adharma."

"We speak here of the challenge of the dichotomies of war and peace, violence and non-violence, racism and human dignity, oppression and repression and liberty and human rights, poverty and freedom from want. We stand here today as nothing more than a representative of the millions of our people who dared to rise up against a social system whose very essence is war, violence, racism, oppression, repression and the impoverishment of an entire people. I am also here today as a representative of the millions of people across the globe, the anti-apartheid movement, the governments and organisations that joined with us, not to fight against South Africa as a country or any of its peoples, but to oppose an inhuman system and sue for a speedy end to the apartheid crime against humanity. These countless human beings, both inside and outside our country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and injustice, without seeking selfish gain. They recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency."

"Tolerance for different races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and other conditions/choices marking individuals as “different” has improved in most parts of the world. This is not without exception, and at times appears to lurch backwards a bit. But… this tolerance [w]as stemming from a sated world. In times of plenty, we can afford to be kind to those who are different. We are less threatened when we are comfortable. If our 21st Century standard of living peaks—coincident with a peak in surplus energy (i.e., fossil fuels)—then we may not have the luxury of viewing our social progress as an irreversible ratchet. Hard times revive old tribal instincts: different is not welcome."

"A human life is no more sacred than that of a wolf (as just one example). In some sense, neither are sacred. […] If humans are not the apex—the whole point of the Earth, Galaxy, or Universe being here—then why is one life within a robust population that important? When an ant colony inevitably experiences a factor-of-ten seasonal reduction in population, it’s no tragedy: they’ll bounce back next spring. When flamingo chicks die by the hundreds in their perilous migration from the drying flats, it’s part of the time-tested cycle. What’s important is the propagation of the species, and the maintenance of biodiversity. The fate of individuals has little grand meaning. Once humans are seen as just one of millions of animal species on the planet, it becomes hard to argue that the life of a (comparatively rare) bear who kills a human is any less valuable than that of the human now eliminated from among 8 billion. Human rights represent a self-promoting construct we just made up for our exclusive benefit."

"There are those who believe that the fight for gay rights, or indeed human rights in general, stops at the borders of Islam. Very few people seem to realise that they should not. Of course we have legions of celebrities who are willing to sign letters calling for posthumous pardons for Alan Turing and others. But how do these people select their targets?"

"For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation’s development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists – a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world.I reject these choices. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America’s interests – nor the world’s – are served by the denial of human aspirations. So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran. It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements – these movements of hope and history – they have us on their side."

"In the Encyclical Pacem in Terris, John XXIII pointed out that "it is generally accepted today that the common good is best safeguarded when personal rights and duties are guaranteed. The chief concern of civil authorities must therefore be to ensure that these rights are recognized, respected, coordinated, defended and promoted, and that each individual is enabled to perform his duties more easily. For ‘to safeguard the inviolable rights of the human person, and to facilitate the performance of his duties, is the principal duty of every public authority'. Thus any government which refused to recognize human rights or acted in violation of them, would not only fail in its duty; its decrees would be wholly lacking in binding force"."

"While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections. The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity?"

"Though some pro-choicers question whether the fetus is a human being, I think this is a confusion. There and be no doubt, in my view, that the fetus is a human organism. And many who have argued for the moral permissibility of abortion have granted this fact. For example, Laura Purdy and Mihael Tooley write, “A fetus developing inside a human mother is certainly an organism belonging to Homo sapiens [the human species].” And Mary Anne Warren does not doubt that the fetus is human in “the genetic sense,” that is, “the sense in which any member of the species is a human being.” All of these writers distinguish this genetic or biological sense of human from the moral sense according to which being human entitles one to certain moral rights, including normally the right to life. These writers use the term person to signify human in the moral sense-where a person I a bearer of moral rights including a right to life."

"We cannot speak of human rights without centering our attention on [the moral compass of] conscience, one among a few distinctive features that make humans human‒and humane."

"We stand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United Nations and in the life of mankind, that is the approval by the General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

"My position as regards the monied interests can be put in a few words. In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run, identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the upper hand; for property belongs to man and not man to property."

"I find our modern emphasis on 'rights' somewhat overdone and misleading … It makes people forget that the other and more important side of rights is duty. And indeed the great historic codes of our human advance emphasised duties and not rights … The Ten Commandments in the Old Testament and … the Sermon on the Mount … all are silent on rights, all lay stress on duties."

"Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. A most insidious form of fear is that which masqurades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man."

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

"As human rights ideology became an increasingly prominent part of American liberalism in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Catholic clergy began framing their campaign against abortion in the language of international human rights by speaking of the “right to life” for the unborn. In their view, this right was integrally tied to the other human rights that both New Deal liberals and the Catholic Church championed. In 1947, the National Catholic Welfare Conference sent a draft “Declaration of Human Rights” to the newly created United Nations (UN). The declaration included a long list of human rights upon which both New Deal liberals and the Catholic Church agreed, such as the “right to a living wage,” the “right to collective bargaining,” and the “right to assistance, through community services in the education and care of the children.” Heading the list was the right that the bishops believed undergirded all other human rights—the “right to life and bodily integrity from the moment of conception”. When the UN left this right out of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that it issued the following year, the Catholic Association for International Peace responded in 1950 by sending the UN a call for a revised Declaration that included a prohibition on abortion."

"For Catholics, a prohibition on abortion would not be a gratuitous addition to the UN’s Declaration, but instead a recognition of the principles that supported the entire human rights tradition. Human rights, Catholics believed, were not the product of modern secular values, but were instead derived from the natural law—an unwritten code which, in accordance with the view of the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas, could be discovered through reasoned reflection on the purposes for which God had created human beings. Pope Pius XI’s papal encyclicals of the early 1930s had defended both the “sacred rights of the workers that flow from their dignity as men and as Christians” and the “sacred” life of the unborn as inviolable principles derived from the “law of nature”. One of the most influential Catholic proponents of international human rights in the mid-twentieth century—and a contributor to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights—was a natural-law philosopher, Jacques Maritain, who grounded his ethical principles in the thought of Aquinas. Though proponents of abortion law reform often appealed to the principles of New Deal liberalism in arguing that the legalization of therapeutic abortion would save women’s lives and alleviate poverty, Catholic opponents of abortion legalization believed that they were the true guardians of liberal values and the human rights tradition, because their arguments against abortion were grounded in the claim that all people—born and unborn—had the right to life. Without protection for that fundamental right, they believed, no one’s rights would be secure and the “law of the jungle will prevail”."

"Although the UN had ignored Catholic pleas to include the unborn in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it did include them in its Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), which asserted that the child “needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”. Catholics were thus able to ground their legal arguments against abortion in a UN statement that they believed offered firm proof that the unborn child had internationally recognized, inalienable human rights. When Fr. James McHugh, director of the US Catholic Conference’s Family Life Bureau, mobilized American bishops in a nationwide campaign against abortion legalization in 1968, he encouraged them to cite the UN declaration as evidence that their campaign was a human rights cause that had the imprimatur of the United Nations behind it."

"Human rights are also about positive access to food, healthcare, safety, and education."

"Upholding human rights should underpin all policymaking."

"In her classic analysis of totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt traced its roots to the nationalization of human rights. Implied in the working system of nation-states from the very outset, she argues, was "that only nationals could be citizens, only people of the same national origin could enjoy the full protection of legal institutions, that persons of different nationality needed some law of exception until or unless they were completely assimilated and divorced from their origins." However, since the emergence of nation-states coincided historically with the development of constitutional government, the inherent dangers of linking rights with nationality remained hidden from view until World War I and its consequences "sufficiently shattered the facade of Europe's political system to lay bare its hiddenframe. Out of this "two victim groups emerged whose sufferings were different from those of all others in the era between the wars," the national minorities in the "successor States" and the Stateless. It was precisely the experience of these sufferings that provided the impetus to reverse the previous historical trend in the wake of World War II by developing a doctrine of "human rights," which was successfully operationalized by way of a multitude of legal instruments at the national and international levels. More recently, however, what began as a mere internationalization of human rights, whereby States undertake to respect the rights of individuals within their jurisdiction as a condition for membership in the international community, has evolved further into a globalization of these rights, in the sense that they are seen to arise in the membership of all individuals in the human species. This amounts to a rudimentary form of citizenship in a Kantian cosmopolitan polity in the making, a notion that entails the concomitant imposition of significant limits on State sovereignty."

"All dictators risk being overthrown by their opponents... [and] therefore need large police forces to protect them. ...The police force in ...their job was to arrest people before they committed crimes. ...All local police units had to draw up lists of people who might be 'Enemies of the State'. They gave these lists to the ... a branch of the SS... [with] the power to do... as it liked. ...'Enemies of the State' ...are [likely] woken ...by a violent knocking at the door. ...[M]en in black uniforms ...[give] three minutes to pack a bag. ...[T]hey take you to the ...police station where you are shut in a cell. ...[D]ays, weeks or months ...[later] ...you are ...told to sign Form D-11, an 'Order for Protective Custody' ...agreeing to go to prison ...[Y]ou are too scared to refuse to sign ...Without ...a trial you are ...taken to a concentration camp where you ...stay for as long as the Gestapo pleases. ...A former prisoner ...described ...'In Buchenwald there were 8000 ...2000 Jews and 6000 non-Jews. ...first ..."politicals" ...many ...in concentration camps ...since 1933 ...many ...accused of having spoken abusively of the sacred ... Fuehrer ...After the "political", the ..."work-shy" is the largest. ...A business employee lost his position and applied for unemployment relief. ...he was informed by the Labour Exchange that he could obtain employment as a navvy on the ...roads. This man, who was looking for a commercial post, turned down the offer. ...[R]eported as "work-shy" ...he was ...arrested and taken to a concentration camp. The next group were the "Bibelforscher" a religious sect ...proscribed ...by the Gestapo since ...members refuse military service. The fourth... homosexuals... To charge this offense is a favorite tactic of the secret police. ...The last class ...professional criminals...'"

"Sipo and SD was a conglomerate, formed... when Heinrich Himmler, Reichfuehrer SS, became chief of the German Police. He fused the Criminal Investigative Police (Kripo) and the (the political police) to form the Security Police ( or Sipo) under the command of SS General Reinhard Heydrich. ...[T]he exchange of personnel ...produced an amalgam of party and state agencies that became central to the execution of most of the terror and mass murder of the Third Reich. ...Although no single organization carries full responsibility for the evils of the Third Reich, the SS-police system was the executor of terrorism and "population policy" in the same way that the military carried out the Reich’s imperialistic aggression. Within the police state, even the concentration camps could not rival the impact of Sipo and SD. It was the source not only of the "s" who administered terror and genocide by assigning victims to the camps, but also of the police executives for identification and arrest, and of the command and staff for a major instrument of execution, the . ...Sipo and SD was ...central to many ...controversial developments in the Third Reich—the totalitarian efforts to achieve conformity and to end opposition, the race and resettlement programs, the development and implementation of imperialistic expansion ...The creation of the totalitarian police state as an essential step toward the provides one ...perspective for this study. ...[H]ow [could] a modern of such cultural prestige as Germany... be twisted to Hitler's ends, how so many thousands of functionaries—more ordinary Germans than Nazi extremists or sadists—could be found to execute Hitler's will[?] When the Nazi experience becomes the will of the ... the result is both an alabi... and a smoke screen that obscures insights into how similarly extreme developments might reoccur, perhaps without a Hitler or a German '."

"[T]he real key to power in the State—control of the n police force and of the... State Administration—lay with Goering, as Prussian Minister of the Interior. ...In the critical period of 1933-1934, no man after Hitler played so important a role in the Nazi revolution ...His energy and ruthlessness together with his control ...were indispensable to Hitler's success. Goering showed no intention of being restrained ...he enforced his will, as if he already held absolute power. The moment Goering entered office he began a drastic of the Prussian State service, paying particular attention to the senior police officers, where he made a clean sweep in favour of his own appointments, many of them — S.A. or S.S. leaders. ...Goering issued an order to show no mercy to the activities of "organizations hostile to the State" ...Goering continued: "Police officers who make... use of fire-arms in the execution of their duties will... benefit by my protection; those who... fail in their duty will be punished..." In other words, when in doubt shoot. ...All they had to do was ...put a white arm-band over their brown ...or black shirts: they then represented the authority of the State. ...For the citizen to appeal to the police for protection became more dangerous than to suffer assault and robbery in silence. At best, the police... looked the other way; more often the auxiliaries helped ...S.A. comrades ..beat up their victims. This was “legality” in practice."

"I can't even begin to picture how we would deport 11 million people in a few years where we don’t have a police state, where the police can’t break down your door at will and take you away without a warrant... Unless you suspend the Constitution and instruct the police to behave as if we live in North Korea, it ain't happening."

"We are pretty free in America when you compare us to other nations around the world, but we're not pretty free in America when you compare us to past generations.If you look at the state of what's going on in America right now—and, y'know, in my book I chronicle easily a hundred different cases where government has overreached and encroached on Constitutional liberties of Americans—we're at the point now in America, a little girl can't run a lemonade stand in her driveway without having the local zoning zealots come in and fine her fifty dollars. We're at the point now where elementary school kids down in Georgia have their irises scanned as they board the bus—all in the name of "safety." We're at the point now where nebulous environmental laws prevent homeowners from building a shed in their own back yard because there might be a flood plain issue in a hundred years.This is the America where we're at, and I really implore people to read my book and tell me how we're not in a police state, because my research shows we're right on the cusp."

"The deterioration in police conduct, and the militarization of local police forces, quite simply and quite predictably mirrors the rise of the total state itself.We know that state monopolies invariably provide worse and worse services for more and more money. Police services are no exception. When it comes to your local police, there is no shopping around, there is no customer service, and there is no choice. Without market competition, market price signals, and market discipline, government has no ability or incentive to provide what people really want, which is peaceful and effective security for themselves, their families, their homes, and their property. As with everything government purports to provide, the public wants Andy Griffith but ends up with the Terminator."

"[P]erpetrators of the Holocaust were ordinary Germans. Many were not particularly Nazified... not being in the SS or even in the . ...Many of the perpetrators, at least in the police battalions, were older. They were not particularly martial. ...It is not just that perpetrators were ordinary Germans, but that there were also vast numbers of them... The number... who took part in the extermination of the Jew... was greater than 100,000... probably far greater. ...Over 10,000 German camps of various sizes and kinds existed for incarcerating and destroying Jews and non-Jews. ...The German justice center ...catalogued over 333,000 people ...who served ...institutions used to kill Jews and others. ...Nazi authorities ...assigned ...virtually anyone who was available. The perpetrators were not coerced to kill. ...[I]n many units officers announced... they did not have to kill, and... at least nine police battalions... had been informed that they did not have to kill. There is similar evidence for the some... s. There is... evidence... Himmler... issue[d] orders allowing those... not up to the killing... excused... [O]rdinary Germans killed... [T]he... initiative... zeal, and... cruelty... all were found among the ordinary Germans who were the perpetrators of the Holocaust."

"[D]oes America now embody this common description of a police state?Clearly it does. The American government exerts extreme control over society, down to dictating which foods you may eat. Its economic control borders on the absolute. It politicizes and presides over even the traditional bastion of privacy—the family. Camera and other surveillance of daily life has soared, with the Supreme Court recently expanding the "right" of police to perform warrantless searches. Enforcement is so draconian that the United States has more prisoners per capita than any other nation; and over the last few years, the police have been self-consciously militarizing their procedures and attitudes. Travel, formerly a right, is now a privilege granted by government agents at their whim. Several huge and tyrannical law-enforcement agencies monitor peaceful behavior rather than respond to crime. These agencies operate largely outside the restrictions of the Constitution; for example, the TSA conducts arbitrary searches in violation of Fourth Amendment guarantees.As an anarchist, I view all states as police states, because every law is ultimately backed by police force against the body or property of a scofflaw, however peaceful he may be. I see only a difference of degree, not of kind. But even small differences in the degree of repression can be matters of life or death, and so they should not be trivialized."

"The prosecutors have all the power. Not even the judge has discretion, because lawmakers have mostly taken that liberality away in the name of cracking down on crime. This happened all through the 1980s and 1990s, and the prosecutorial dictatorship has entrenched itself to become the norm since 2001. For the last ten years, the police state has had free rein."

"These people are politically, socially, culturally, and economically invisible. How many are actually guilty? We can't know. How many could be let out today to make a wonderful contribution to building a productive society? We don't know. How many are completely nonviolent, not even guilty by any normal standard of law but only guilty according to the letter of the current dictatorship? Probably a majority. … Yet the rise and entrenchment of the American police state are rarely questioned.However, in the end, what is really needed is a fundamental rethinking of the notion that the state rather than private markets must monopolize the provision of justice and security. This is the fatal conceit. No power granted to the state goes unabused. This power, among all possible powers, might be the most important one to take away from the state."

"Despite making up only 13 percent of the male population of the United States, black men constitute almost half of the male prison population, and on any given day, nearly a third of all black men in their twenties are in prison, on probation, or on parole. These black men are overwhelmingly from ghetto communities. The high levels of police surveillance, racial profiling, stiff penalties for minor parole violations, felon disenfranchisement laws, and general harassment of young urban blacks intensify their hostility toward the criminal justice system, and invite urban blacks to conclude that they are living under a race-based police state whose intent is to prevent them from enjoying all the benefits of equal citizenship and to contain social unrest."

"An extreme reflection of the dangers confronting modern social development is the growth of racism, nationalism, and militarism and, in particular, the rise of demagogic, hypocritical, and monstrously cruel dictatorial police regimes. Foremost are the regimes of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao Tse-tung, and a number of extremely reactionary regimes in smaller countries, such as Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Greece, Albania, Haiti, and other Latin American countries. These tragic developments have always derived from the struggle of egotistical and group interests, the struggle for unlimited power, suppression of intellectual free­dom, a spread of intellectually simplified, narrow-minded mass myths"

"There isn’t any difference between the totalitarian Russian Government and the Hitler government and the Franco government in Spain. They are all alike. They are police state governments."

"As soon as he became Chancellor... Hitler prevailed upon President Hindenburg to call new elections. ...[H]e hoped to gain enough strength in the Reichstag to pass an Enabling Act, which would allow him to . ...During the campaign, the NSDAP ...exploited the fact that they now had some control... Prussian Minister of the Interior Goering established a 50,000-strong auxiliary police force, including 25,000 SA members and 15,000 SS men. This both legitimised National Socialist terror against their political opponents—especially the Social Democrats and the Communists—and shifted the burden for funding... the NSDAP’s machine... to the state.. claiming it was needed to forestall an imminent revolt from the left. ...[T]his ...heightened the ...hysteria among the electorate, which ...boosted support for the NSDAP."

"the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations, Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms, Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge."

"The General Assembly Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person."

"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."

"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

"Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."

"All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination."

"Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property."

"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

"Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

"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."

"Everyone has the right to education... Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship... Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children."

"View full text"

"Now that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is 75 years old, it’s time to take [it] out and bury it."

"The UDHR was much less “Western” than many believe, and reading it through the lenses of an alleged opposition of the West versus the rest makes for [maliciously] ideological, inaccurate interpretation."

"[Dutch constitutional scholar Mirjam (BM) v]an Schaik’s reconstruction of the genesis of Article 18—both UDHR and ICCPR—is not merely historical but interpretive. She argues convincingly that understanding the drafting process is essential to defending the provision against contemporary distortions. Her central thesis—that “defamation of religious liberty” is more dangerous than “defamation of religion”—is compelling, especially in light of her Dutch context, where public figures have been murdered for criticizing Islam."

"On 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN General Assembly gathered in... Paris... Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the agreement’s drafting committee, described it as an “international Magna Carta for all mankind,” and member states pledged “to achieve ...the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” It was the first international agreement on the basic principles of human rights."

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights , approved and proclaimed by the United Nations on 10 December 1948, is now part of humanity’s cultural heritage. That text, which is always relevant, can contribute greatly to placing the human person, in his or her inviolable integrity, at the foundation of the quest for truth, thus restoring dignity to those who do not feel respected in their inmost being and in the dictates of their conscience."

"The legacy of the UDHR can never be underestimated. It is a landmark document that “proclaimed the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being -- regardless of race, color, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” It was the direct response to the heinous crimes perpetrated by the Nazis and a much-needed affirmation of human rights for everyone everywhere."

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

"Just months after its founding, the UN also formed its Human Rights Commission, chaired by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, to draft the landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in Paris on December 10, 1948. In addition, instead of firing squads for the defeated Axis leaders, the United States led the Allies in convening tribunals at Nuremburg and Tokyo in 1945-1946 that tried their war crimes under international law. Three years later, Washington joined the international community in adopting the four modern Geneva conventions that laid down the laws of war for future conflicts to protect both captives and civilians."

"We just heard from the Minister of Honduras. Let us recall that United Fruit Company essentially ran his country for a long time. United Fruit’s attorney was US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen Dulles was the head of the CIA. On behalf of United Fruit Company, the two Dulles Brothers conspired to overthrow President Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, next door to Honduras, in order to stop the land reforms that Árbenz was trying to implement. So, yes, we have a global food system, but we need a different system. That different system must be based on the principle of universal human dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principle of national sovereignty in the UN Charter, and the economic rights in the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. In the Universal Declaration, all governments agreed that social protection is a human right, not merely a “nice thing,” or a pleasant thing, but a basic human right. That was 73 years ago. The Sustainable Development Goals are our generation's pledge to honor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet I come from a country that not only doesn't care about the world's poor, it doesn't even care about its own poor. One in seven Americans is hungry right now, but one political party cares about little more than cutting taxes for the rich and filibustering any real solutions to poverty."

"It was the Americans who first discovered how the UN could serve their Cold War purposes. The text of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed in 1948 by a coalition of American New Dealers, western European liberals, and postcolonial elites, with the Soviets unable to block it. They in the end abstained from the vote, along with seven other states. Forty-eight voted in favor. The Chilean representative summed up the conflict in distinct terms: “The views expressed by the Polish representative and shared by the USSR delegation resulted from a different conception of life and man. The draft declaration rested on the assumption that the interests of the individual came before those of the State and that the State should not be allowed to deprive the individual of his dignity and his basic rights. The opposing conception was that the rights of the individual must give precedence to the interests of society.” The declaration may not have had much practical significance in the first decades of the Cold War, but its adaptation was a victory for the United States over Soviet concepts of rights."

"In our egalitarian democracy, we have achieved the ultimate in making certain that all men are created equal: we have just about empowered a branch of the government, the Federal Housing Administration, to specify the size and shape of the typical American master bedroom (in which all Americans are thus created equal); to specify the size and … to specify the width, length, straightness or curvature, surface, presence or absence of trees, sidewalks, telephone poles, etc, etc, of most suburban streets (on which all American youngsters play equal) – at their considerable peril."

"An egalitarian educational system is necessarily opposed to meritocracy and reward for achievement. It is inevitably opposed to procedures that might reveal differing levels of achievement."

"Islam is in principle egalitarian, and has always had problems with power."

"Egalitarianism seems to be rooted more in the hatred of domination than in the love of equality per se."

"The egalitarian mania of demagogues is even more dangerous than the brutality of men in gallooned coats. Anyone who has been oppressed can get back on his feet if the oppression has not cost him his life. A man who has been equalized is physically and morally ruined. Anyone who is different is not equal; that is one of the reasons why the Jews are so often targeted. Equalization goes downward, like shaving, hedge trimming, or the pecking order of poultry. At times, the world spirit seems to change into monstrous Procrustes – a man has read Rousseau and starts practicing equality by chopping off heads or, as Mimie le Bon called it, "making the apricots roll." The guillotinings in Cambrai were an entertainment before dinner. Pygmies shortened the legs of tall Africans in order to cut them down to size; white Negroes flatten the literary languages."

"The life of a biological scientist in the United States is a life of discussion and debate—it is the Talmudic tradition writ large. ...The egalitarian structure of American science encourages this camaraderie. ...this would not—could not—have taken place in the Austria, the Germany, the France, or perhaps even the England of 1955."

"Chinks in America's egalitarian armor are not hard to find. Democracy is the fig leaf of elitism."

"The demand for equality and identity arises precisely in order to avoid that fear, that feeling of inferiority. Nobody is better, nobody is superior, nobody feels challenged, everybody is "safe." Furthermore, if identity, if sameness has been achieved, then the other person's actions and reactions can be forecast. With no (disagreeable) surprises, a warm herd feeling of brotherhood emerges. These sentiments – this rejection of quality (which ineluctably differs from person to person) – explain much concerning the spirit of the mass movements of the last two hundred years. Simone Weil has told us that the "I" comes from the flesh, but "we" comes from the devil."

"Prosperity or egalitarianism you have to choose. I favor freedom you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion."

"It's more egalitarian on the Internet - anyone can put anything up. But in terms of the money it takes to allow a band to get good, there's less of it to invest."

"Sweden had paternity-leave policies in place for years but found that few men were taking advantage of the benefit. While women felt comfortable taking time off to be with baby, men worried that they would look less dedicated to their careers if they did the same. So the Swedish government implemented a “use it or lose it” policy, mandating that the country’s thirteen-month parental leave cannot only be used by one parent – the other parent must use at least two months of the leave, or both lose those months entirely. Today 85% of Swedish fathers take paternity leave. The policy has helped redefine notions of masculinity and femininity in the already-egalitarian country."

"There is a powerful tension in our relationship to technology. We are excited by egalitarianism and anonymity, but we constantly fight for our identity."

"The trauma of the Sixties persuaded me that my generation's egalitarianism was a sentimental error. I now see the hierarchical as both beautiful and necessary. Efficiency liberates; egalitarianism tangles, delays, blocks, deadens."

"Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Republicanism, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing."

"Whether you're a libertarian liberal or a more egalitarian liberal, the idea is that justice means being non-judgmental with respect to the preferences people bring to public life."

"Well I think in terms of corporate philosophy I've always believed that you've got to treat people in a very very egalitarian manner in the sense I like to treat people on a one-to-one basis. And I like people to take on a lot of responsibilities because I think with a sense of responsibility also comes a sense of purpose. To me that's a very important part of the corporate philosophy: we have a very flat structure, I encourage a lot of informality in our workplace. Everyone at work calls me Kiran, which is a very different kind of a culture to have especially in a country like India where people are very reverential about the heads of companies."

"Egalitarian policies are the best way to unite and empower people, and are also a necessary counterweight to the sometimes detrimental influence of market forces."

"Money is the most egalitarian force in society. It confers power on whoever holds it."

"Like many works of literature, Hollywood chooses for its villains people who strive for social dominance through the pursuit of wealth, prestige, and power. But the ordinary business of capitalism is much more egalitarian: It's about finding meaning and enjoyment in work and production."

"Christian equality can be described as equity, or even-handedness. Egalitarianism, in contrast, demands sameness, or equality of outcome. These two visions of equality are about as comparable as dry and wet. Think of it in terms of ten teenage boys trying to dunk a basketball: equity means that they all face the same ten-foot standard, and only two them can do it — equity thus usually means differences in outcome. Egalitarianism wants equality of outcome, and there is only one way to get that — lower the net. Sameness of outcome requires differences in the standards."

"Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good."

"The Bill of Rights was designed to keep agents of government and official away from assemblies of people. The aim was to allow men to be free and independent and to assert their rights against government."

"Freedom of speech and of the press are which are safeguarded by the of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. [...] The right of peaceable assembly is a right cognate to those of free speech and free press, and is equally fundamental. [...] The very idea of a government, republican in form, implies a right on the part of its citizens to meet peaceably for consultation in respect to public affairs and to petition for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment of the Federal Constitution expressly guarantees that right against abridgment by Congress. But explicit mention there does not argue exclusion elsewhere. For the right is one that cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all civil and political institutions — principles which the Fourteenth Amendment embodies in the general terms of its due process clause. [...] These rights may be abused by using speech or press or assembly in order to incite to violence and crime. The people, through their may protect themselves against that abuse. But the legislative intervention, can find constitutional justification only by dealing with the abuse. The rights themselves must not be curtailed. The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the s of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government."

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

"Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on."

"Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of itself, and bureaucracy rises as the only deciding factor."

"During the very first storms of the revolution, the French bourgeoisie dared to take away from the workers the right of association but just acquired. By a decree of June 14, 1791, they declared all coalition of the workers as “an attempt against liberty and the declaration of the rights of man,” punishable by a fine of 500 livres, together with deprivation of the rights of an active citizen for one year. This law which, by means of State compulsion, confined the struggle between capital and labour within limits comfortable for capital, has outlived revolutions and changes of dynasties. Even the Reign of Terror left it untouched. It was but quite recently struck out of the Penal Code."

"Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."

"Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly OSCE/ODIHR, 2007"

"Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly (2nd edition) Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR, 2010"

"There can be no political prisoners in a democracy, nor detention without trial in a state of law."

"Political prisoners, detention without trial and unlimited imprisonment define tyranny."

"Bradley Manning has been imprisoned without charge, under torture, which is what solitary confinement is."

"We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonise Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we’ll put all our energies, all our talents into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind."

"I have come to this conclusion: the aim of solitary confinement is brain-washing, so that prisoners, deprived of normal living conditions, lose their unique human characteristics, their train of thought and ideas, and their physical and psychological health."

"The United States is a nation of second chances, but the experience of solitary confinement too often undercuts that second chance. Those who do make it out often have trouble holding down jobs, reuniting with family and becoming productive members of society. Imagine having served your time and then being unable to hand change over to a customer or look your wife in the eye or hug your children."

"Les objets extérieurs ont une action réelle sur le cerveau. Qui s’enferme entre quatre murs finit par perdre la faculté d’associer les idées et les mots. Que de prisonniers cellulaires devenus imbéciles, sinon fous, par le défaut d’exercice des facultés pensantes."

"I woke up with the same thought: will this be the day? Will this be the day I lose my sanity and discipline? Will I start screaming and never stop?"

"Article 40 1. All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function. 2. 1° Titles of nobility shall not be conferred by the State. 2° No title of nobility or of honour may be accepted by any citizen except with the prior approval of the Government. 3. 1° The State guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate the personal rights of the citizen. 2° The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name, and property rights of every citizen. 3° The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right. This subsection shall not limit freedom to travel between the State and another state. This subsection shall not limit freedom to obtain or make available, in the State, subject to such conditions as may be laid down by law, information relating to services lawfully available in another state."

"4. 1° No citizen shall be deprived of his personal liberty save in accordance with law. 2° Upon complaint being made by or on behalf of any person to the High Court or any judge thereof alleging that such person is being unlawfully detained, the High Court and any and every judge thereof to whom such complaint is made shall forthwith enquire into the said complaint and may order the person in whose custody such person is detained to produce the body of such person before the High Court on a named day and to certify in writing the grounds of his detention, and the High Court shall, upon the body of such person being produced before that Court and after giving the person in whose custody he is detained an opportunity of justifying the detention, order the release of such person from such detention unless satisfied that he is being detained in accordance with the law. 3° Where the body of a person alleged to be unlawfully detained is produced before the High Court in pursuance of an order in that behalf made under this section and that Court is satisfied that such person is being detained in accordance with a law but that such law is invalid having regard to the provisions of this Constitution, the High Court shall refer the question of the validity of such law to the Supreme Court by way of case stated and may, at the time of such reference or at any time thereafter, allow the said person to be at liberty on such bail and subject to such conditions as the High Court shall fix until the Supreme Court has determined the question so referred to it. 4° The High Court before which the body of a person alleged to be unlawfully detained is to be produced in pursuance of an order in that behalf made under this section shall, if the President of the High Court or, if he is not available, the senior judge of that Court who is available so directs in respect of any particular case, consist of three judges and shall, in every other case, consist of one judge only. 5° Nothing in this section, however, shall be invoked to prohibit, control, or interfere with any act of the Defence Forces during the existence of a state of war or armed rebellion. 6° Provision may be made by law for the refusal of bail by a court to a person charged with a serious offence where it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offence by that person."

"That the general guarantee of personal rights in section 3 (1) of Art. 40 extends to rights not specified in Art. 40. One of the personal rights of the citizen protected by the general guarantee is the right to bodily integrity."

"Every person with disabilities has a right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity on an equal basis with others."

"[A]ll the while Florence was making its way through the courts, law enforcement officials were playing fast and loose with the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on searches and seizures, especially as it relates to violations of bodily integrity and roadside strip searches. Examples of minor infractions which have resulted in strip searches include: individuals arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, driving with an inoperable headlight, failing to use a turn signal, riding a bicycle without an audible bell, making an improper left turn, engaging in an antiwar demonstration (the individual searched was a nun, a Sister of Divine Providence for 50 years). Police have also carried out strip searches for passing a bad check, dog leash violations, filing a false police report, failing to produce a driver's license after making an illegal left turn, having outstanding parking tickets, and public intoxication. A failure to pay child support could also result in a strip search."

"Now recall the structure of negative liberty as it has long been conceived in the liberal political tradition. In contrast to any (positive) right to autonomy, the right to negative liberty is neither conceptually impossible nor morally indefensible under contemporary conditions. My interest in being left alone is sufficient grounds for placing others under duties not to molest or interfere with me; and these duties are sufficiently undemanding to be universalized to that, for example, we all have a duty not to invade anybody else's physical integrity.28 Appealing to negative liberty is one way to construct a justifactory argument for a right to physical integrity; but “not” the best way, which – as also with regard to privacy rights – is to argue from autonomy. In fact, the Interest Theory advocates a multi-layered and dynamic conception of rights, according to which a single right may be the ground of an almost endless number of duties, from which further rights and duties flow. These rights and duties can be described as coming in “waves”, or it might be said, less metaphorically, that derivative duty-imposing rights are elaborated through moral arguments which extrapolate from “core” rights and duties. A core right to physical integrity, for example, might include within its derivates victim's rights to receive compensation, as well as a bundle of criminal justice rights for the state to detect, catch, try and punish offenders in cases where a person's physical integrity has been violated unjustifiably."

"It is tempting to try to explain (away) rights conflict by pointing to the fact that very few rights are absolute. The right to privacy certainly is not absolute, as my proposed definition makes clear: “reasonable” demands for information, “justifiable” surveillance, and “non-arbitrary” interference with person, home or property all fall outside its protection. Perhaps, then, it can be shown that the right to privacy is circumscribed by the boundaries of more weighty interests, such as interests in bodily integrity and security, so that rights protecting these interests are not in conflict with the right to privacy after all? The suggestion is a helpful reminder that few – if any – rights are absolute, and that apparent conflicts between rights can sometimes be resolved by paying more careful attention to the proper scope of particular rights. On reflection it may be found that one right actually circumscribes or delimits another, as opposed to there being any genuine conflict between them. But this is not enough to salvage the objection presently under examination, as a simple example demonstrates. It is reasonable to postulate that the right to privacy ends at the point where there is “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” to suspect that a vulnerable child is in grave danger of harm."

"Some readers might now be thinking that their skepticism about the existence of a right to privacy has been more than vindicated – and by an opponent! - but this is to forget the lesson of the first section, and so to fall victim to the second misconception I promised to dispel. Privacy, to repeat, is essential for an autonomous life. It is therefore self-defeating for anybody who embraces the liberal ideal of personal autonomy to deny that there is a right to privacy in order to defend a competing right to bodily integrity. For why is bodily integrity valuable? In large part precisely because it is another prerequisite for living autonomously. The implication of finding a common root both for rights and rights to bodily integrity in a liberal conception of well-being, it should be evident, is that bodily integrity would be worth much less (though certainly not worthless)46 if privacy interests lacked adequate protection. (The reverse relation also holds, of course: a surfeit of privacy would be inadequate compensation for a substantial loss of bodily autonomy). It is certainly much to be regretted that rights always over-extend to situations in which the protection they afford is unwarranted or abused, as well as to situations in which the right-holder's interest in privacy is trivial or non-existent. But this over-extension is an attribute that the right to privacy shares with every other species of right; and while it is possible to reduce the area of over-extension through careful drafting and interpretation, at some point further refinements can only be bought at the cost of excluding meritorious cases from the ambit of the right. No amount of handwringing or denial will alter that conceptual reality, or falsify the moral truth about rights. Unless one is prepared to reject the liberal ideal of autonomy itself, therefore, the right to privacy seems secure, its faults and limitations notwithstanding."

"The above issues have not been satisfactorily resolved at the conceptual level and it is largely because of this that law-makers have been unable to develop a coherent regulatory framework within which to place the right to privacy. The right to privacy is at present so vague and unstable that its scope seems to be almost boundless. Indeed, there is a tendency to reclassify a number of distinct types of legal wrong as invasions of privacy. For example, violations of one's bodily integrity have traditionally been protected by specific criminal offences or civil actions such as assault, battery and negligence. The justification for such offences or actions was traditionally found in the universally accepted principle that people have a right not to have their bodily integrity violated. However, the same interests that are protected by such offences and actions are being relabeled by some as “bodily privacy”.13 In relation to information privacy, one commentator has warned that:"

"The second bodily privacy category relates to violation of a person's bodily integrity. Bodily integrity is violated by the application of any degree of force to the body – the merest touching will suffice. There are two broad situations in which bodily integrity is typically infringed. The first, and most common, is where force is applied to the body of a person in order to elicit some type of sensation, normally pleasure or pain. The most typical examples are where force is applied to cause pain, or as part of the thrust and parry of everyday life (for example, being bustled in a crowded train) or as a romantic gesture. The law of privacy has no application in this context. These contacts are governed by criminal law and torts law. The broad principle is that all non-consensual touching is unlawful, apart from the contacts that we implicitly consent to as part of everyday life. Properly viewed, contacts of this nature do not engage the right to privacy. This is because the other rights that are at issue are universally regarded as more important than the right to privacy. The right to bodily integrity, apart from the right to life which in some manifestations overlaps with the right to bodily integrity, is perhaps the most important right in the context of any normative ethic. The protection that it can shore up will not be further advanced by re-phrasing the interests in terms of privacy. Violations of bodily integrity can result in the perpetrator incurring both criminal liability, for offences such as assault and battery, and also civil liability to pay damages to the victim. The main tortious actions are battery, assault, action on the case for damages for physical injury and action on the case for nervous shock and negligence."

"A second situation in which one's bodily integrity is violated is where the other party has a strategic reason to obtain something of interest from the body of the person. The principal example of this is where a body sample is sought from a person. As a general rule more information about a person can be ascertained from bodily samples than the forms of bodily “invasions” referred to above. An enormous amount f information can potentially be obtained from a hair, saliva, skin, urine, breath or blood sample. This the right of information privacy is potentially more strongly invoked in these circumstances. In some cases the right to physical integrity also comes into play. This applies to all of the above examples, except breath and urine samples. All of these procedures are permissible with the consent of the person involved. This consent can be immediate or it can be given beforehand as a pre-condition to lawful participation in an activity. Thus, many professional sportspeople and people involved in other vocations (such as the military) undertake to submit themselves to certain forms of testing if and when required. Apart from these consensual situations it is unlawful for any person to demand a bodily sample or take it by force except where expressly authorised by statute. As a general rule, the only situation in which it is permissible to take such samples by force is for purposes of detection and investigation of crime."

"Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben have both convincingly criticized the purely juridical approach to the modern state-citizen relationship, the logic of which leads inexorably to an assumed dichotomy between the liberal and the authoritarian. Arguing first that the eighteenth and nineteenth century classical juridical subject gave way in the twentieth century to a biopolitical subject, both Foucault and Agamben suggest that this twentieth century sovereign focus on biological (rather than legal) life has in turn rendered the classical juridical categories of sovereignty (left, right, liberal, authoritarian) irrelevant. In his series of lectures, “Society Must Be Defeated”, Foucault described that he called a gradual “penetration” of the classical juridical sovereign right to take life or let live by a new sovereign right “to make live or let die.”11 He discussed, in other words, the movement from politics to what he defined as biopolitics, from a focus on the rights of the individual to a focus on the health of the population. The transition from the right to life to the right to death obliterated the line between active and passive citizenship, between rights and duties writ large. All that was left was the health of the population, which rested in turn upon the biological integrity of the citizen."

"I am thus particularly concerned with the ways in which markers of political identity have joined together with markers of reproductive or biological identity to produce biopolitical, rather than liberal or authoritarian space. I am interested, in other words, in the ways in which a citizen's political status as a consenting individual collides with a citizen's biological status as a being possessed of bodily integrity. Indeed, I would argue that consent and bodily integrity have come together as “the” twin pillars of appropriate sexual, reproductive, and political structures only as law has become a function of biopolitics. I would argue, moreover, that since this moment, the consent/bodily integrity formula has been critical to the obsolescence of the juridically defined citizen. The invocation of this formula has been the most obvious in recent national and international interpretations of rape. Rape, in fact, has been articulated as a “crime against humanity” precisely as the “conception of the material integrity of the body as a right” has developed, and as the crime has come to be understood first and foremost “as a violation of autonomy.”"

"[C]onsent and bodily integrity have been equally key to the criminalization and decriminalization of abortion and adultery, as well as to more broadly defined discussions of gender and citizenship. As Drucilla Cornell has argued with respect to the conditions necessary “ to transform ourselves into individualize beings who can participate in public and political life as equal citizens,” only “1) bodily integrity, differentiation of oneself from others, and 3) the protection of the imaginary domain itself” are sufficient for full, equal political participation. Bodily integrity and consenting individualism, in other words, are for Cornell central to overcoming the gender hierarchy implicit in post-Enlightenment conceptions of citizenship. But they are also, as I mentioned above, central to supplanting political space with biopolitical space, to exploding the classical-juridical categories of citizenship and to rendering them a largely meaningless. I will elaborate on this argument more fully in the following chapters, for for now I would like to sketch three analyses of the consent/bodily integrity formula that point to a significant transformation in the relationship between sexual and reproductive identity on the one hand and political identity on the other. The first of these analyses suggests that sexual and reproductive legislation has been instrumental to the formulation of lawless space. The second suggests that that the citizens who inhabit this space are subject, in the name of security or even national security, to a constant, intense, and intimate regulation of every aspect of their biological lives-that sexual and reproductive legislation is promulgated precisely for the purposes of this regulation. The third suggests more broadly that the consent/bodily integrity formula itself has produced a situation in which citizens can be known only biologically and sexually, and that juridical status alone I irrelevant to contemporary politics."

"Children, however, are noy the only partial citizens or non-citizens regulated by national or international political structures, and it is here that the consent/bodily integrity formula becomes problematic. Another increasingly recognizable non-citizen or partial citizen is the (internal or external) refugee-mature, sane regulated, but not in any way a full political actor. Indeed, what recent national and international interpretations of consent and bodily integrity have produced from the perspective of refugees-even, or especially, to the extent that they have been endowed with ersatz rights-is a situation in which any and all sexual or reproductive behavior on their part has become criminal. Sex has become rape and reproduction has become criminal abortion and/or criminal procreation."

"A second aspect of the consent/bodily integrity formula that I would like to consider in brief now and explore in more detail later on is the process by which consent has become the instrument used to exercise any meaningful right to bodily integrity-and has thus become a means, again, or criminalizing all sex. The simultaneous invocation of bodily integrity and consent in contemporary legislation has, I will argue, defined non0criminal sex as an activity in which a citizen consents specifically to a violation of his or her bodily integrity. By consenting to this violation, however, this same citizen effectively transfers sovereign power-transfers the sovereign's unique ability to waive a citizen's rights-to his or her sexual or reproductive partner. The only choice on the part of individuals engaging in sexual activity has therefore become a criminal one: 1) an individual can violate another individual's right to bodily integrity without his or her consent and thereby commit the traditional liberal crime that is rape, or 2) an individual can violate another individual's right to bodily integrity with his or her consent, usurp the sovereign prerogative, and thus commit a biopolitical act of treason."

"When we bring together political consent and biological bodily integrity, in other words, we produce a state full of precisely the sovereign subjects described by Sade and Agamben-a state in which public and private, political existence and bare life collapse into one another, in which a citizen's only choice is between committing violent assault and committing treason. We create a biopolitical arena, centered around the womb, and in the constant production of likewise biopolitical subjects."

"The question at stake in general is whether the violation of bodily integrity is about physical trespass or whether it is about something else. And if it something else, is this something a matter of existential identity, political or bodily borders, or political or bodily control? Scarry, for example, begins her discussion of consent and rights with a reference to Judge Cardozo's conclusion in the 1914 case, Schloendorff v Society of New York Hospital, in which Cardozo writes that “in the case at hand the wrong complained of is not merely negligence. It is trespass. Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs or operates without his patient's consent commits an assault for which he is liable in damage.” In analyzing this passage, Scarry argues that the body, in his language, is conceived of as a palpable ground: the body has edges; it has specific boundaries; to cross over these boundaries without the authorization of the person is an act of trespass. Judge Cardozo sets this in a political and philosophical framework by citing the 1905 Illinois Court of Appeals case, Pratt v. Davis, in which Justice Brown had asserted "Under a free government at least, the free citizen's first and greatest right, which underlies all others-the right to the inviolability of his person, in other words, his right to himself-is the subject of universal acquiescence.” Here, as legal commentators have noticed, the private relations (or what might have been conceived of as merely the private” relation) between physician and patient is placed within the frame of the “civil rights of citizenship”"

"The most basic issue raised in both Cardozo's ruling and Scarry's analysis is, then, the issue of space. Bodily boundaries are conflated with civic boundaries. The violation of bodily integrity is not about violence; it is about trespass and the public and private spheres-it is about the duty of a free government to preserve these spheres whole and intact. As Scarry suggests, therefore, if we accept this approach to bodily integrity, and in particular the right to bodily integrity, the physical and legal borders of the body and the physical and legal borders of the nation state become in many ways one and the same thing. But Scarry is certainly not the only theorist to point out this relationship between rights rhetoric and bodily integrity or between bodily borders and the articulation of political space. As Alan Hyde has noted in his Bodies of Law, for instance, “the 'private body' is a right, conceptualized as space, weighted against other interests and therefore not absolute; it is, therefore, public and social … [R]ights are often visualized with spatial metaphors; in Roe v. Wade, typically they are “areas or zones.'” [italics in original]"

"Although an issue worth mentioning that is not often raised in discussions of Cardozo's decision is that Marty Schloendorff lost the case against the hospital and that she “had no ordinary tumor, nor was it on her arm. It was a fibroid mass in her uterus and the operation done against her will was a hysterotomy.” Lombardo 2005, 795. There are striking similarities, in other words, between this “good” decision on bodily integrity and the “bad decision” a few years later that occurred in Buck v Bell. In each, questioning about political violations of biological boundaries end with a medico-legal decision-reinforced by the courts-to sterilize unfit women."

"Scholars such as Catharine MacKinnon and Jean L. Cohen, arguing on separate sides of the US abortion-rights-as-privacy-rights debate, have likewise suggested the inherently spatial dimensions of the rhetoric surrounding bodily integrity-even if they have not effectively problematized these dimensions in the way that Scarry and Hyde have. In another context, Luise White has critiqued the neo-colonial implications “lurking behind western notions of bodily integrity,” arguing that “stories of body parts, hearts, doctors and border crossings are not only a debate about the vulnerability of African bodies, but about the vulnerability of African borders, and about the language of individual rights that protects bodies and undermines borders.” Like so many other aspects of the “global” rights rhetoric that reinforces the borders surrounding European and North American political space, in other words, the right to bodily integrity likewise produces a porous, permeable boundary around nation states int her rest of the world. The point to be made here, however, is simply that the linkage between modern notions of bodily integrity and modern notions of political space-be it the space enclosed by sovereign, national boundaries, the “public sphere,” the arena of the “private,” or colonized space constantly in flux-is one that has been developing over a number of years. Crimes against bodily integrity are about a physically defined political trespass. They involve a biological undermining of sovereign boundaries, the public sphere, or the domain of the private."

"At the same time, not all contemporary discussions of bodily integrity fall so obviously into the paradigm of overlapping biological and civic or national rights. Nadine Taub, for instance, begins her analysis of bodily integrity and reproduction by arguing that it is central to debates about abortion and contraception first and foremost because of “the tremendous impact pregnancy and childbearing have on a woman's body.” Here, in other words, the basic issue at stake is an actually physical change (addition, subtraction, transplant, or removal) that occurs in an individual's body, and how this change might affect that individual's sense of “personhood.” Taub further links reproduction related discussions of bodily integrity to similar discussions in the realm of medical experimentation and treatment, and she concludes that “this right of bodily integrity has been clearly articulated constitutionally.” Rather than protecting the liberal notion of an intact civic relationship occurring in protected public space, therefore, bodily integrity here is protecting the broader notion of “personhood” as it is expressed in physical wholeness."

"Drucilla Cornell addresses the question of bodily integrity, personhood, and the legal protection of both in a related way, arguing that, the right to abortion should not be understood as the right to choose an abortion but as the right to realize the legitimacy of the individual woman's projection of her own bodily integrity, consistent with her imagination of herself at the time that she chooses to terminate her pregnancy. Here, in other words, personhood and bodily integrity are not about physical wholeness but about psychological or existential wholeness-the relationship between an intact body and a sense of self. A woman's identity (political and otherwise) is based on the projection of her physical and psychological self, and a legal system must protect a woman citizen's ability (and “right”) to maintain this identity. As Taub notes, although “far more sophisticated” than many other approaches, Cornell's analysis is also based both implicitly and explicitly upon a Lacanian interpretation of the mirroring process. Taub further argues that if we do not accept Lacanian analysis, Cornell's argument becomes problematic. I would respond, however, that psychological projections of the self based on bodily integrity are not any more constructed (or “false”) than physical projections of the same, and that Cornell's approach is therefore useful regardless of whether or not we accept the details of Lacanian analysis. Indeed, both the more “basic” approach and the more “sophisticated” approach appear to get at the same issue-the linkage of personhood or the self to the ideal of wholeness, and the need for legal structures or rights rhetoric to protect this connection."

"Although a second critique of Cornell's analysis might be elaborated via a reading of Lesley Caldwell's discussion of abortion in Italy: “because [abortion as contraception] does not imply the forethought that most methods of contraception demand, it more readily accommodates women not thinking of themselves as active sexual persons; this is a refusal that closely aligns with dominant ideas of masculinity and femininity.” Caldwell 1981, 59. Here, in other words, we have women using the right to bodily integrity and their right to abortion to project themselves (psychologically-if not according to strict Lacanian analysis) as participants of patriarchal gender relations. Women's right to bodily integrity in this context reinforces notions of women's sexual passivity. At the same time, I should emphasize that my point is not to argue that abortion rights always, or even often, lead to are-inscription of patriarchal power structures. Nor do I want to argue that Cornell's approach to bodily integrity is somehow flawed. Instead, I want to caution that the late twentieth century rhetoric of bodily integrity, like the early twentieth century rhetoric of consent, is a complicated one-by no means leading us inexorably to a changed or altered relationship between politics and reproduction. Indeed, as we shall see, the late twentieth century decriminalization of abortion, with its invocation of bodily integrity, defined in far more in compromising terms women's bodies as incubators for future political subjects."

"Each of these approaches to bodily integrity, in other words, highlights an aspect of physical, political, or psychological wholeness as well as an aspect of physical, political, or biological space. In Cardozo and Cohen, the issue at stake is defining spheres (the public as well as the private) and the civic or political relationships that are mediated in these spheres. In Taub and Cornell, the issue at stake is physical and psychological personhood, how each relates to political identity, and how attacks on each need to be prevented using a rhetoric of rights and duties. All four thus in a basic way see bodily integrity as central to defining the self, to defining “reality,” and to defining political space. As I will suggest over the following pages, it is this understanding of the right to bodily integrity precisely and in particular that reinforces- in a far more relentless and effective way than even the right to consent did in the early twentieth century-the articulation of women's wombs as biopolitical space. Bodily integrity-physical, psychological, and political-has been constructed for distinctly political reasons, having to do with distinctly political notions of reality, identity, and personhood."

"As reproduction, abortion, and abortion rights became linked not only to contraception and sterilization, but also to the post-Second World War ideal of bodily integrity, in other words, the womb became a space, ironically, far more' open to regulation than it had ever been before. This regulation, however, was occurring now in the name of protecting a woman's political, sexual, social, and civilizational self, rather than in the name of the health or integrity of the race. By the late 1970s, in fact, the Council of Europe was arguing that this approach to reproduction was an eminently public, national concern-”the activities of private family planning associations .. supported as complements of, not substitutes for vigorous national programs.” But it was not just the politicization of reproductive space-or the mapping of the public onto the womb-that occurred with the entry of bodily integrity into discussions of reproductive law. It was also that the public sphere was likewise transformed into an arena for expressing sexual, reproductive, and therefore biopolitical identities. The conflation of bodily borders and national borders explicitly noted by White and implicitly suggested by philosophers such as Locke thus became increasingly overt as the twentieth century progressed. Indeed, bodily integrity, far more than consent, became the means of defining the biopolitical subject, politicizing not just the womb, for instance, but the hospital in which the abortion would be performed-inscribing the nation onto a reproductive space now defined explicitly as a container for both the consenting patient and the non-consenting citizen."

"Indeed, law must be violated in order to preserve the body. The clear message is that national identity-liberal citizenship even-has nothing to do with juridical boundaries and everything to do with biological ones. This message becomes even more overt in Turkey of the 1990s, when the right to bodily integrity is invoked as a means of halting state-sponsored virginity examinations. I will discuss these examinations in more detail in the next chapter, but for now I would simply like to consider the implications of one of the more common slogans of the campaign against the procedure-"No to Virginity Tests! This is My Body!” (“Bekaret Kontrolune hayir! Bedenimiz Bizimdir!”). As Ayse Gul Altinay states in an endnote to an essay discussing the campaign, “it is hard to find an appropriate translation for 'Bedenimiz bizimdir,' which means 'these are our bodies' or 'our bodies belong to us.' It is problematic to translate it as the singular 'this is my body,' but I could not find anything that was more appropriate.” The basic problem with translating the slogan, in other words, is that beden refers to a singular “body.” but it is attached to a plural possessive. The most literal translation of the phrase would therefore be “this is our body” or “out body belongs to us.” As Altinay notes, such a translation would undercut the broader purpose of the slogan, and is therefore inappropriate in an essay lauding the campaign. At the same time, however, it is worth considering the implications of both the slogan's singular and the slogan's plural, given the connection between reproduction and law that I have been suggesting in the formulation of biopolitical identity. As Foucault has argued with regard to biopolitics in general, what we are dealing with in this new technology of power is not exactly society (or at least not the social body, as defined by the jurists), nor is it the individual-as-body. It is a new body, a multiple body with so many heads that, while they might not be infinity in number, cannot necessarily be counted. Biopolitics deals with the population. The biopolitical focus on population, in other words, is a focus that produces precisely a collection of protesting, juridically defined citizens claiming the public sphere as a means of protecting “their” (plural) biologically defined “body” (singular). The invocation of bodily integrity, therefore, quite overtly turns not just reproductive space into political space, but political space into reproductive space-reducing legal, political, and biological bodies as well as borders to one and the same thing. Indeed, one of the more basic effects of thinking of citizenship in terms of bodily integrity is that the “public sphere” gradually ceases to be defied as the “arena in which consent is formed” and comes instead to be understood as a place in which bodies are defined and reproductive space established. In the case of reproductive legislation, we see an attempt to turn the places (the hospital here as well as the womb) where abortions are performed into simultaneously modern space and political space. In Turkey, for instance, in addition to the trope of “traditional” contraception, there is also the trope of abortions performed in "traditional” or “rural” settings-abortions understood to be both more widespread and less appropriate than those performed in “urban” settings by “trained” personnel. Likewise, in all three states, there is a concerted effort to restrict “legal” abortions to certified hospitals or clinics. This effort to confine abortions to legally defined, modern arenas-to villify the “backstreet abortion” alongside the “untrained midwife”-is not, however, simply a continuation of the nineteenth century process of linking the medical to the legal and of criminalizing unregulated medical practitioners. More so, I would argue, it is part of a new, late twentieth century process of aligning reproductive space, political space, and now medical space as well."

"[W]hen we consider that right exactly is being articulated in the case of abortion legislation, and what role precisely the consent of the physician is playing in this articulation, the hospital becomes a nation-state linked far more overtly to biopolitics than to juridical sovereignty. Fundamentally, bodily integrity cannot exist in this formulation (in either the clause or in the rhetoric criticizing this clause) without physicians' consent. It is, in other words, the consenting/non-consenting physician/citizen, acting within the “miniature nation-state,” who alone produces whole bodies endowed with a sense of self. To the extent that the hospital has become the public sphere, therefore, it is not consent that is formed there, but intact bodies-or, more basically, bodily integrity. Bodily integrity cannot exist on its own, that is-it must be mediated through this newly defined public sphere. Without a consenting/non-consenting physician, therefore, (“consenting” if the clause remains in effect, “non-consenting” if its critics successfully remove it-but linked to the citizen in either case), an abortion cannot be performed, and the right to bodily integrity will remain un-invoked. As a result, the borders and boundaries once more collapse into one another, reproductive space, political space, biological space, and medical space all, quite literally, defined as one."

"In quite different ways, in other words, Cahill, Hengehold, and MacKinnon were all implicitly or explicitly advocating, first. An understanding of rape that addressed both the reality and the rhetoric of women's sexuality, and, second, a more critical approach to crimes committed against this sexuality. To the extent that-constructed or not-sexual identity intersected with social, political, or national identity, rape needed to be understood as an attack on subjectivity as much as it was understood as a physical assault. To the extent that the centrality of the penis (counter intuitively) highlighted the violent as opposed to the sexual nature of rape, the male penis needed to be downplayed in favor of female bodily integrity. All three of these theorists, in other words, were understanding rape in terms of "trespass” rather than in terms of "penetration.” To draw on the vocabulary of the last chapter, identity was trumping violence. All three of these theorists were also, however, writing in the late 1980s and 1990s. By the first years of the twenty-first century, both internal law and European law had changed. Indeed, by 2005, various international legislative commissions had started defining rape in precisely the terms advanced by Cahill, Henhehold, and MacKinnon. Meanwhile, French, Italian, Turkish and other nation-state based jurists were coming to understand rape explicitly as an issue of bodily integrity, identity and dignity-highlighting the victim's subjectivity, and marginalizing or in some cases eliminating completely the role of violence, penetration, or the penis. If we are operating in a progress narrative, therefore, we seem to be on the right track. In fact, if we look further back in time, past the 1977 conversation with Foucault, we can see a distinctly progressive transformation-from a “traditional” approach to rape, in which a woman's sexuality, or more specifically her virginity, was the property of her family, her father, or her husband, to a late nineteenth/early twentieth century moment during which women were understood as (liberal) political actors theoretically (if not actually) capable of consent, to, finally, this late twentieth/early twenty-first century point at which women became embodied subjects, political actors to the extent that their bodily integrity remained intact."

"I will not be arguing that bodily integrity is an inappropriate lens through which to view rape legislation or that violence should be privileged over sex in discussions of rape. But I do think it is important to examine the implications of understanding “integrity” or even “humanity” as the object of attack in rape."

"In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, women's bodies were unprotected. They were permeable, penetrable texts that might be read, analyzed, and exposed. Women by their very (sexual ad reproductive) nature indeed could not possess a coherent subjectivity, given that torture and labor played identical roles in destabilizing it. Just as torture simultaneously marked and revealed the truth of a crime on a broken, objectified individual's body, in other words, so too did labor mark and reveal the same on a similarly objectified woman's body. By the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however-largely in the name of treating a legally defined, uniform citizenry, where the concept “natural,” even, was linked to the marriage contract-women's bodies became unbroken, and unbreakable. Even in labor, women maintained their subjectivity. They were indeed so intellectually collected, so capable of producing their own narratives, they they could deliberately obscure or hide a “truth” that in the eighteenth century would have appeared on their pain racked bodies regardless of their volition. At the same time, however, I want to suggest that this taking for granted of women's bodily integrity (linked to their subjectivity)-which eventually became the taking for granted of their right to bodily integrity (linked to their subjectivity)-did not by any means render women's bodies less spatially defined than they had been before. The only difference was that rather than serving as political space, they began to serve as biopolitical space. Just as occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century with the mobilization of consent theory, in other words, here with the mobilization of bodily integrity, we have, first of all, the rendering of all sex criminal by its very nature-subject to regulation by national and international; structures. Second, there is the replacement of torture by forensic medicine-each search for testimony reading women's bodies as passive objects, the only obvious difference between the two being forensic medicine's reliance on consent theory. And finally, we have the at this point exaggerated overlay between bodily boundaries and political boundaries-the mobilization of the right to bodily integrity turning violations of a woman's biological barriers into acts of treason."

"Whereas in the early twentieth century the criminalization of sex happened via an expansion of the categories of statutory rape and coercion, however, in the late twentieth century, it was a result of the overlap between consent and bodily integrity-the conflation of “autonomy” (or rights) and “integrity” (or dignity). Approaches to rape in contemporary international law, especially since the Bosnian genocide, for example, have relied heavily upon a new understanding of the relationship between consent and bodily integrity."

"Here in the February 22, 2011 ruling, however, the link forged between consent and bodily integrity-indeed, the overlap of the two as each defines women's subjectivity-brings rape very much into Bergelson's second category. Sex is an act of bodily harm. It is conceived of as a violation of bodily integrity. It undermines an individual's *biopolitical) dignity, whether there is consent or not. Consent merely serves to mitigate the crime. It is therefore empathically not, as Bergelson states elsewhere, that: consensual sex is not rape, even if one of the partners is not aware of the other's consent.” The burden of proof in the context of the February 22, 2001 rape trial was explicitly on the defendant-to show that consent occurred. In the very process of reinforcing women's subjectivity, therefore-in the very process of eliminating the humiliating effects of considering consent alone in rape legislation (namely, the effects of placing the burden of proof on the victim to show that she did not in fact “want it”)-contemporary international law is also effectively criminalizing all sex. Whereas it is true that rape is not like torture to the extent that pain “per se” is not the issue, in other words, it is exactly like torture in that regardless of consent it is a crime against bodily integrity, autonomy, and therefore humanity."

"Rape is a crime not because there is an absence of consent, but because sex is an assault on politically defined biological boundaries. The role of “proving” consent is thus, again, simply to mitigate the original crime. Far more so than early twentieth century fascist and “quasi”-fascist legislature, contemporary international law has thus mobilized the “right” implied by integrity/autonomy to turn sex into something in need of constant regulation And indeed, to the extent that both integrity and autonomy play interchangeable roles in the contemporary legislation, the passive, spatial nature of women's bodies is highlighted. In Kirsten Campbell's description of the ICTY's approach to rape law, for instance, we learn that, the Tribunal's conception of the crime of rape rests upon notions of integrity of the body and of the self of the survivor of sexual violence .. [T]his model of rape as a crime against humanity thus rests upon a conception of the material integrity of the body, and of the crime as a trauma to it … [I]n “Kunarac” the crime consists not only of a breach of bodily integrity but also of sexual autonomy ... [T]his model of rape reflects the more liberal model of rape, which “now understands the crime as a violation of autonomy, as a failure to recognize the victim's civil rights of self determination” and assumes that “personhood is intricately tied to self-determination and autonomy.” In a very different context, Alan Hyde has argued that, bodies may indeed be experienced as autonomous, but, when this is so, this is because of their social, discursive construction as autonomous. Body autonomy is really social, public, and conventional ... [I]t follows that the body is not the best but the worst standpoint for defining legal subjects, particularly subjects' autonomy against public intrusion (the aim of those who would replace the right of privacy with a right to bodily integrity or autonomy). Hyde's analysis is more critically informed than Campbell's is-working from the notion that the autonomous body is a political construct rather than some pre-existent, natural reality. But each in a different way accepts unquestionably the slippage between the “autonomy” associated with the liberal right to do with one's body as one wishes, and the “integrity” associated with the authoritarian insistence the body is inviolable and deserving of respect. In Campbell's discussion, we have firs ta conflation of the “self” and bodily integrity, followed by a characterization of rape as a simultaneous assault on bodily integrity and sexual autonomy. The passage concludes with a conflation this time of “personhood,” “self-determination,” and “autonomy.” Hyde's discussion is almost a mirror image. We start with bodily “autonomy”, and then move to the strange assertion that autonomy *rather than integrity) serves as a barrier “against public intrusion.” We then conclude with integrity “or” autonomy replacing the notion of privacy. If integrity and autonomy-and the right to both-were the same thing, then these discussions would be entirely reasonable. Without question, however, they are not."

"What is it, though, about a general anesthetic that immediately prompts concerns of violations of bodily integrity-concerns that strip searches, vaginal examinations, and, as we shall see, post-rape medical examinations apparently do not? One answer has to do with the role played by consent in such situations. The passive, inert body of Cardozo's judgment may be more politically active than its physically active counterparts, but only if this political activity is mobilized in support of the liberty of the sovereign citizen him or herself. Liberal individuals consent to medical anesthesia for their own, “individual” greater good. If the passive, inert body is nothing more than a political “setting”, however, a field from which to gather evidence for a common good, then there is no liberal political activity to speak of. The rhetoric of consenting citizenship breaks down. More important than the role of consent in these approaches to general anesthetic, though, is arguably the sexual connotations that have grown up over the past few centuries around medicinal unconsciousness. As Dudley Buxton, writing in 1888 on “the Criminal Use of Chloroform,” noted, many cases have not been reported in which the prosecutrix has affirmed that a dentist or surgeon has violated her person while she was under the influence of anesthetic .. [B]ut it is not only designing, bad women who bring such charges. Modest, virtuous, and refined gentlewomen have been prosecutrices in these cases. The cause for this remarkable and deplorable state of things is fortunately not far to seek. Chloroform, ether, nitrous oxide, gas, cocaine, and possibly other carbon compounds, employed in producing anaesthesia possess the property of exciting sexual emotions and in many cases produce erotic hallucinations. It is undoubted that in certain persons sexual orgasm may occur during the induction of anaesthetic. It is not just the mockery of consent that is at stake in such situations, in other words-it is also involuntary (female) sexual pleasure. It is true that J.P. Payne, commenting on Buxton's assertions 100 years later, argues that such analyses of the effect of chloroform were patently incorrect. But the fact remains that alongside the fear that the physically passive body might slip into sexual activity. General anesthetic thus plays up-as a trope if not as a reality-the fundamentally sexual nature of assaults on bodily integrity. As such, again, it presents the horrifying possibility that sexual behavior or sexual identity might slip outside the bounds of the political, and in the process render legal violations of bodily integrity suddenly illegal. Strip searches, the collection of urine samples, and vaginal examinations are self-consciously modern and humane political and legal processes. All three may “seem” no different from early modern torture-each involving an obvious violation of bodily boundaries performed for the sake of (non-verbal) truth, testimony, and evidence. But they are not “actually” torture in that they do not involve-or are not meant to involve-the undermining of subjectivity, the disordering of the self, or the political and intellectual incoherence that arises from torture (or labor pains) in non-modern contexts. The unconscious orgasm of the anesthetized body, however-whether it happens in reality, or merely hovers as an unrealized possibility (or fantasy) around the passive body-shifts modern, humane violations of bodily integrity into the realm of torture and lawless violence. The basic point of the right to bodily integrity as it was articulated by Cardozo and countless others was that even and especially in an unconscious state, the liberal citizen was a coherent, politically active, self. That a sexual orgasm-"the" manifestation of the shattered, incoherent, loss of subjectivity-might occur in the midst of this unconsciousness completely undermines the very foundation of embodied political rights. In the context of rape legislation, therefore, it becomes particularly frightening, given the very slight difference between the crime of rape-an illegal violation of bodily integrity-and the gathering of forensic evidence following rape-a legal violation of the same bodily integrity."

"Indeed, much of the discussion surrounding the gathering of forensic evidence prior to rape trials is implicitly an attempt to ensure that the crime (a form of torture that combines a violation of bodily integrity with an undermining of subjectivity) not be confused with the investigation (a form of not-torture that combines a violation of bodily integrity with a reinforcement of subjectivity)."

"One basic goal of critiques of the post-rape gathering of forensic evidence, in other words, is to keep rape victims conscious, active, consenting, and-no matter what the discomfort-in full possession of a coherent self. The declarations of consent are repetitive; the extent to which the rape victim is always hyperbolically “aware” of what is going on is extraordinary. And again, the purpose of this insistence is to highlight the legality of these new violations of the victim's bodily integrity, to fortify the rape victim's political rights even as physically they are being undermined. It may be, in other words, that the gathering of evidence involves an intimate regulation of the sexual and the biological, it may be that t involves disturbing and indeed completely erasing bodily borders and boundaries, it may be that all of this occurs in the name of securing truth and testimony. But the process is “not” (like rape) torture. It is the opposite of torture-the violation of bodily integrity happening here is a reinforcement of the rights and the political subjectivity that the rape itself has undermined. At the same time, however, this rhetoric of political subjectivity that surrounds the forensic examination is the only obvious difference between the two processes-physically, they are nearly identical."

"[T]he post-rape gathering of forensic evidence is not the only process that involves a violation of bodily integrity in the name of political subjectivity-a violation of bodily integrity, in fact, in the name of the very right to bodily integrity. Virginity examinations in Turkey and the issuing of search warrants for women's vaginas in the United States are two similar activities that play on this late twentieth century rhetoric."

"[I]n both Turkey and in the United States, it is the very notion of a protected right to bodily integrity-the maintenance of a hyperbolic political subjectivity-that makes these legal violations of bodily integrity possible. In Turkey, especially after 1999, this political subjectivity was maintained via a resource to consent. Undertaken on the bodies of “consenting citizens” who had, in consenting, waived their rights, the violation of bodily integrity implicit in the virginity examination was simultaneously a fortification of the right to bodily integrity. A waived right is still a right. Consent plays less of a role in the vaginal searches undertaken by United States police officers and customs officials-indeed Rodriques insisted that she had been physically forced onto and held down on the examination table. But a second, equally effective protector of rights was mobilized instead-that is, the issuance of a search warrant. Like the right to consent, the search warrant exists to protect United States citizens' rights, particularly their right to privacy-a right which by the 1990s had become inextricably entangled with the right to bodily integrity. The issuance of a search warrant, however- like consent-waives this right even as it reinforces it. It is precisely the protected nature of Rodriques privacy and bodily integrity-the existence of her rights-that make possible a legal search of her vagina. Neither the virginity examination nor the vaginal search is thus a rape. Neither is torture. Each is instead nothing more nor less than a reinforcement of a woman's right and duty to protect her bodily orders and to protect her political subjectivity via the violation of each."

"What, then, is a rape? I have addressed over the past few pages the line between criminal sexual activity and non-criminal sexual activity both theoretically and anecdotally. We have seen that the coming together of consent and bodily integrity, as well as the conflation of autonomy and integrity, as led-theoretically, at least-to a situation in which all sex is a crime, mitigated merely by the existence of consent. We have likewise seen the complex process by which rape, newly defined as torture, has been differentiated from legal violations of bodily integrity-how the undermining of political subjectivity that accompanies rape and torture is held up against the fragile, coherent political self that is maintained when evidence (of rape, drug smuggling, or virginity) is gathered from a passive, trespassed body. Finally, we have seen the coming together of biological or bodily and political borders in these legal violations-a process nearly the opposite of the separation of the political from the biological or bodily that occurs in criminal violations."

"The discussion began with the idea that "bodily integrity unifies women and that no woman can say that it does not apply to them." The group went on to explore what is meant by women’s human right to Bodily Integrity and identified several key elements which are central to the concept:"

"Freedom of Movement. This is a basic civil right which is often severely limited in women’s daily lives. The threat of assault, rape, and other forms of violence against women, limits where women can go, who they go with, how they travel, and the time of the day or night they can enjoy "freedom of movement.""

"Security of Person. The right to live in safety underscores women’s right not to be subjected to physical, sexual, or emotional violence inside or outside the home, either by private individuals or by people acting on the part of the state. Sexual harassment of women prisoners, or the use of rape as a form of torture, are examples of state-sponsored violations of Bodily Integrity. Participants in the working session highlighted the issue of strip searching by security forces in Northern Ireland as a major area of concern in this regard. It was also stated that the right to Bodily Integrity and security of person includes mental integrity, that is, freedom from mental and psychological abuse."

"Reproductive and Sexual Rights. Control of reproductive and sexual rights was also put forward as central to the idea of Bodily Integrity. This includes "the right to information about our bodies and the idea that that women do not have sole responsibility for contraception." Reproductive and sexual rights affirm the rights of all women—including women with disabilities and lesbians—to sexual expression and to make their own informed decisions about reproduction."

"Women’s Health. The right of women to Bodily Integrity also includes the right to health and demands woman-centred health care. Reproductive and gynaecological health services are the largest part of women’s experience within the medical establishment."

"Breaking Women’s Isolation. Participants in the working session also took a broader view of Bodily Integrity and Security of Person by including women’s physical isolation from services and resources as an issue under this theme."

"A broader interpretation of Bodily Integrity also insists on the right of women to an identity that is not defined in terms of men and the traditional nuclear family. As one participant put it, "I am tired of being called a single parent. I am a woman with a child and choose not to be with a partner. Yet I am seen as a woman without a man or a woman whom a man didn’t want.""

"Education and Bodily Integrity. All the groups identified a huge need for education from primary school onward. Children have the right to bodily integrity. As one woman asked, "who owns children’s bodies?" The Stay Safe Programme (in the Republic of Ireland) was cited as an example of an important strategy in this area. However, while many felt it was useful, it was also noted that once-off programmes were not enough and that an integrated approach needs to be adopted by schools. Such an approach would not only address the dangers of violations of bodily integrity but would also foster "a celebration of our bodies as women." As part of this much needed education the following areas were cited as requiring attention: children, especially girls, need to be educated about bodily integrity and to learn that no one has the right to violate that integrity; girls should be taught that they are not responsible for the sexual responses of men; girls should be encouraged to take pride in their bodies (yet the current value attached solely to girls/women’s physical appearance needs to be redressed)."

"The freedom of thought is a sacred right of every individual man, and diversity will continue to increase with the progress, refinement, and differentiation of the human intellect."

"La propagande de l'erreur est libre: liberté de pensée!"

"The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought."

"“The biggest gift from God to man is a free mind,” [Uyghur-man Örkesh Davlet] said."

"The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control over the means of mental production, so that in consequence the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are, in general, subject to it."

"If it is the drive of our time, after freedom of thought is won, to pursue it to that perfection through which it changes to freedom of the will in order to realize the latter as the principle of a new era."

"But arms – instrumentalities, as President Wilson called them – are not sufficient by themselves. We must add to them the power of ideas. People say we ought not to allow ourselves to be drawn into a theoretical antagonism between Nazidom and democracy; but the antagonism is here now. It is this very conflict of spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength. You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like – they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?"

"Liberty of conscience was the one great value which the common people had preserved from the Commonwealth. The countryside was ruled by the gentry, the towns by corrupt corporations, the nation by the corruptest corporation of all: but the chapel, the tavern and the home were their own. In the "unsteepled" places of worship there was room for a free intellectual life and for democratic experiments with "members unlimited". Against the background of London Dissent, with its fringe of deists and earnest mystics, William Blake seems no longer the cranky untutored genius that he must seem to those who know only the genteel culture of the time. On the contrary, he is the original yet authentic voice of a long popular tradition. If some of the London Jacobins were strangely unperturbed by the execution of Louis and Marie Antoinette it was because they remembered that their own forebears had once executed a king. No one with Bunyan in their bones could have found many of Blake's aphorisms strange: "The strongest poison ever known \ Game from Caesar's laurel crown.""

"Psychology is now able to tell us with reasonable assurance that the most influential obstacle to freedom of thought and to new ideas is fear; and fear which can with inimitable art disguise itself as caution or sanity or reasoned scepticism or on occasion even as courage."

"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

"Michael Walzer, probably the most distinguished philosopher of justice in war, repeatedly points to India’s Bangladesh war as a canonical example of a justifiable humanitarian intervention, in a radical emergency when there was no other plausible way to save innocent human lives."

"For good measure, Britain’s prime minister Tony Blair had in a speech in Chicago in 1999 suggested that a concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’ be seen as valid wherever democracy and human rights were under threat. To him, there could be no limit to NATO’s responsibility. But who should define threats and responsibilities? After New York’s 9/11 atrocity in 2001 at the hands of Al Qaeda, NATO found itself expected to intervene wherever Washington’s rulers ordained. Armies from virtually all Europe’s states were summoned to fight with varying degrees of enthusiasm and engagement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. As America tested its hegemonic muscles, obedience was the price for the continuance of the nuclear umbrella. No one asked, let alone answered, the question of who should police the ever-expanding borders of democratic Europe."

"Therefore, for the exhausting, bloody war which is today convulsing the unfortunate peoples of the former Yugoslavia, the leaders of the Western powers must share the blame with Tito. Now, attempting to somehow correct the very problem they helped to create, they essentially repeat the well-known maxim of Metternich [the backward-looking Hapsburg diplomat who dominated the post-Napoleonic Congress of Vienna in the early 19th century] for the Holy Alliance: "Intervention for the sake of making others healthy." Today the slogan is "Intervention for the sake of humanism." It is an ironic similarity! But intervention is a very dangerous thing. It is not so easy for the great powers to control the world."

"In 2010, a Bolivian law granted to the state a monopoly on the formation of teachers. As a consequence, private institutions were gradually closed, including the Catholic Sedes Sapientiae and a parallel Adventist college. The question at issue is whether states are entitled to create monopolies in certain fields of higher education that exclude private academic institutions, including those inspired by specific religious values."

"The refusal to register Segero Unam Christian Academy raises serious questions about the state of freedom of religion or belief in South Korea. When neutrality is interpreted to exclude faith‑based education from legal recognition, it becomes a tool of exclusion rather than fairness. When a pastor’s public advocacy for constitutional freedoms is treated as disqualifying “political activity,” the boundary between education policy and ideological policing becomes dangerously thin."

"Freedom of expression, association, and education are important, intimate, and public rights but in an ideal list or hierarchy they come after [ freedom of religion or belief ], and it can even be argued that they derive from it."

"When schools cloak spiritual practices in the language of science, they bypass parental authority and compromise the religious freedom of students."

"Our children are starving for people who can provide them with practical skills that will allow them to build a life for themselves. There are many adults who have those skills and would love the opportunity to prepare [children] for a jobs-based economy, if only they were allowed. There are welders, machinists, lawyers, artists, graphic designers, writers, accountants and more out there, all with skills our children need. …Why shouldn’t any principal at a public school have the option to hire someone like me with significant real-world experience?"

"addressing human rights challenges is inseparable from social and economic development programs. Under her leadership, initiatives aimed at reducing inequality and promoting inclusivity have made notable progress despite ongoing challenges"

"Recent policies targeting school completion rates and offering boarding options for marginalised communities have both troubled youth, and increased opportunities for social development"

"the opportunity to assure that everybody can become masters of their own destiny"

"new healthcare policies offer free medical services for pregnant women and children under the age of five, with additional funding set aside for individuals who are unable to afford treatment"

"There is a double function to our country. Help others whilst preventing war to come on our soil"

"We would like Australia to be a better friend, to increase the level of relationship and engagement and accompany Burundi as we strive to improve our economic, social and political stability"

"Following the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, Israel launched an intensive military campaign in the Gaza Strip... is still underway... Israel's onslaught on Gaza includes mass killing... in direct attacks and through creating catastrophic living conditions that... raise the massive death toll; serious bodily or mental harm to the entire population... large-scale destruction of infrastructure; destruction of the social fabric, including educational institutions and... cultural sites; mass arrests and abuse of detainees in Israeli prisons, which have... become torture camps for thousands of Palestinians held without trial; mass forced displacement, including attempts at and making the latter an official war goal; and an assault on Palestinian identity through the deliberate destruction of refugee camps and attempts to undermine the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (). The outcome... is severe, and at least in part, irreparable, harm to more than 2 million people..."

"...Israel's policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes... with statements by senior... politicians and... commanders about the goals... leads to the... conclusion that Israel is taking... action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip."

"Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

"Since the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide... genocide has... been recognized as one of the gravest crimes in international law, involving acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

"Both morally and legally, genocide cannot be justified... including as an act of self-defense."

"[G]enocidal acts are various actions intended to bring... destruction of a distinct group, as part of a deliberate, coordinated effort by a ruling authority."

"The current onslaught on the Palestinian people, including... Gaza... [is] in the context of... [>]seventy years in which Israel has imposed a violent and discriminatory regime on... Palestinians... its most extreme form... in the Gaza Strip."

"As part of broader... settler-colonialism... from the early stages of Zionist settlement, the Israeli regime works to ensure Jewish supremacy over Palestinians — economically, politically, socially, and culturally."

"[T]he apartheid and occupation regime has institutionalized mechanisms of violent control, demographic engineering, discrimination, and fragmentation of the Palestinian collective."

"These foundations... made it possible to launch a genocidal attack on the Palestinians... after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023."

"The atrocious attack, aimed mostly at civilians, included many war crimes and likely... crimes against humanity."

"For Israelis, the... attack... generated a degree of anxiety and feeling of existential threat that led to profound social and political changes... These instigated a shift in... policy... from repression and control to destruction and annihilation."

"The Israeli genocide... in the Gaza Strip... [is] violence... implemented in its most extreme and lethal form. Yet the assault... cannot be separated from... escalating violence... inflicted... on Palestinians in the , including , and within Israel."

"[T]roops are operating... in the other areas, under the same commanders and political leadership. The practices... often reflect the... logic applied in Gaza: total disregard for human life, severe harm to innocents, widespread destruction of residential areas and living conditions, ... flouting... moral obligations and international law. ...[M]any senior military and political figures are threatening... the level of force... used in Gaza against Palestinians in other areas. In these areas..., lethal crimes are... committed... with no accountability... The violence and destruction... is intensifying... with no effective domestic or international mechanism acting to halt them. As a result... crimes are becoming normalized in the eyes of soldiers, commanders, politicians, media figures and Israelis..."

"Given the... escalation in... violence against Palestinians in all these areas — which... includes... grave crimes — we must call for an immediate end to the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and warn of clear and imminent danger that... genocide will not remain confined to Gaza."

"means "in the image [of God]"... from... "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him" (Genesis 1:27). It reflects the principle of the inherent value of all human life. This moral foundation has guided the organization's work..."

"Based on the information we collect and the resulting conclusions, we are committed to presenting unequivocal positions and demands regarding the state of human rights violations and the actions required to protect these rights."

"In 2021, joined many others, first and foremost Palestinian organizations and activists, who for decades... identified the Israeli regime as... apartheid... We wrote: ...the Israeli regime implements laws, practices and state violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group — Jews — over another — Palestinians. A key method... is engineering space differently for each group."

"[W]hen the State of Israel was established... [i]t... had a clear objective... to cement the supremacy of the Jewish group across... territory under Israeli control. The main tool... the establishment of an apartheid regime (one that, unlike... South Africa, has never been formally declared as such and... has been consistently denied...) This regime is designed to cement... supremacy... through demographic engineering, separation, shaping public discourse, indoctrination, militarism, and... use of force and violence."

"[T]he core objective... The... Israeli system — political, military, public, and legal — is structured to uphold Jewish supremacy, relying on a false pretense of... rule of law while... rights of... Palestinian subjects are... unprotected."

"As a human rights organization... our duty [is] to analyze human rights violations... in context, taking into account the regime... and its guiding political logic."

"[S]ince October 2023... we have gathered eyewitness testimonies and documented hundreds of incidents involving unprecedented and extreme violence... throughout the territory Israel controls, while key politicians and... commanders... openly declared the policies... Countless evidence... reflects the horrifying transformation of the... Israeli system in its treatment of Palestinians."

"At , Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians... work side by side, guided by... defending human rights... [as] a basic human and moral obligation. ...[A] discriminatory apartheid regime ...classifies some ...as privileged ...because we are Jewish, and others as undeserving of ...protection ...because we are Palestinian. Together, we fight for the right we all have to live... without discrimination, violent repression and annihilation."

"Israel is intensifying its brutal, merciless assault... [I]t is our duty to bear witness to... [what] we and many others have documented and investigated. It is our duty to name the reality... to recount it, and to stand with... victims."

"We call on the Israeli public and... the international community to... to put an immediate stop to Israel's assault on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and across all areas under Israeli control, using every means available under international law."

"Genocide can rarely be carried out without consent, support, and legitimization from within the perpetrating group. Yet... societies that perpetrate genocide often do not recognize themselves as such."

"Usually, the genocidal campaign is perceived by its direct perpetrators, and understood by the broader public, as a legitimate act of self-defense in response to... existential threat."

"[R]ecognizing that genocide is taking place against part of a group or in a specific location is... a grave warning: it signals the potential expansion of similar patterns of violence to other segments of the group or... other areas."

"The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (which came into force in 1951) defines... acts... considered genocidal if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group: killing members... causing serious bodily or mental harm... deliberately inflicting conditions... calculated to bring about the group's... destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births... and forcibly transferring children... to another group. ...[I]nternational tribunals that adjudicated... Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia... included acts of widespread sexual and gender-based violence. Thus... the intentional destruction... may, and... tends to occur through multiple forms of action, with direct killing being only one..."

"[T]he centrality of intent to destroy... is often framed in terms of ' — the mental... intent to destroy the group in whole or in part — and ' — the physical acts... as... in the Convention. Genocide requires a specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy the group in whole or in part..."

"There is an inherent gap between the legal and the historical analysis of genocide. The legal definition is narrow... shaped in large part by... interests of the states whose representatives drafted it. From a historical perspective, violent destruction of groups... has occurred... many of which do not align with the stringent legal definition. The high threshold... and... dominant interpretations... by international tribunals have led to... genocide... typically recognized only after a significant portion of the... group has... been destroyed and... suffered irreparable harm."

"[W]hile the legal debate over whether Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip is... important and necessary, there is a critical gap between the amount of time it will take the formal legal institutions deliberating... chiefly the International Court of Justice, to issue binding decisions, and the reality of society in Gaza being destroyed before our eyes."

"[T]he international community either remains passive or actively supports Israel's crimes."

"This report relies on the legal definition of genocide as outlined in the UN Convention, but adopts a broader analytical framework, drawing on 's original conception as well as historical and sociological research..."

"...Israel has imposed unprecedented restrictions on access to Gaza by organizations and media outlets, deepening its isolation from the world. B'Tselem's field researchers in the Gaza Strip, who managed to escape... continued collecting testimonies from hundreds of residents... despite the ongoing challenge..."

"[D]ata... not directly investigated and verified by B'Tselem was drawn from... publications and reports by human rights organizations, humanitarian agencies, UN offices and bodies, investigations and reports by reputable media outlets committed to journalistic ethics and data verification standards, expert... internationally recognized professionals, and primary sources... as testimonies and verified documentation from the field. In addition, we drew on... scholarly literature that has examined... genocide... throughout history.., as well as... researchers who have documented widespread practices... in the... war in Gaza and published... in recognized academic journals."

"With regard to the number of Palestinians killed and injured in the Gaza Strip, this report relies on figures published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. These figures are widely considered reliable... Moreover, they are generally regarded as conservative..."

"[T]his section reflects only a partial picture of the scale of harm to... Palestinian life... under Israeli control. We estimate that years of documentation and research will be required to fully assess the scope of destruction that continues... and the long-term consequences... Palestinians... are expected to face in the future."

"Nearly two years of... onslaught has left most of the Gaza Strip in ruins. As of mid-July 2025, estimated... 58,026 fatalities, the overwhelming majority... civilians... not participating in... hostilities. The... wounded... approximately 138,520. All hospitals... destroyed or... partially functioning... the same is true of the vast majority of civilian infrastructure. ...Since ...early March 2025, hundreds ...have been killed or wounded every day: from airstrikes, shooting and shelling... malnutrition or a lethal combination of hunger, diseases.., contaminated water and a devastated healthcare system."

"This reality... cannot be justified or explained as an attempt to destroy the rule of Hamas or its military capabilities in Gaza."

"Statements by senior Israeli decision-makers... have expressed genocidal intent throughout."

"Genocidal intent was also expressed in numerous statements made by Israeli military officers... soldiers... military and security experts, and... Israeli media and cultural figures. These voices articulated a worldview... according to which... most... Gaza[ns] are... responsible for [October 7] crimes... or... support them."

"Accordingly, for many... the aspiration to destroy... Hamas and... to prevent future attacks... were translated into targeting the entire population of the Gaza Strip."

"The total dehumanization of Gaza's residents has led to a perception, still widely held among Jewish-Israelis, that their lives are of negligible value compared to Israel's national goals, if not worthless altogether."

"Israel's conduct... in the Gaza Strip... has included... massive, indiscriminate bombardment of population centers; starvation of more than two million... as a method of warfare; attempts at ethnic cleansing and formally including the ethnic cleansing... in the war aims; systematic destruction of hospitals and other medical facilities... entitled to... protection under international law... [and] the vast majority of civilian infrastructure... unprecedented killing of medical personnel, aid workers, persons in charge of... public order, and journalists. Israel's claim that Hamas fighters or members of... armed Palestinian groups were... in medical or civilian facilities, often... without... evidence, cannot justify or explain such widespread, systematic destruction."

"[T]his policy has been supported, legitimized and normalized by most of Jewish-Israeli and its institutions, including the Israeli legal system."

"The... intent... component in the definition of genocide, emerges unequivocally in... Israeli leadership's awareness of the... consequences of its open-fire and starvation policies; ...systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure..; the decision to continue, and... escalate, the assault despite... its impact on the civilian population..; and numerous statements by policymakers... indicating... Israel is targeting the entire population..."

"A... legal examination... appears in Amnesty International's December 2024... "You Feel Like You Are Subhuman: Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza"; in the work of , currently being published; in the submissions by South Africa's legal team... filed with the International Court of Justice (ICJ); and in reports by United Nations experts."

"Israel's genocide against the Palestinians... in the Gaza Strip... cannot be separated from the sharp escalation of Israel's violence against Palestinians... in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and within Israel... [E]scalation of Israeli violence in Gaza is gradually extending to other areas... [A]... society that legitimizes genocide in Gaza — through participation, support, denial, or indifference—naturally legitimizes increasing violence against Palestinians as a whole."

"The sections below... focus on... killings, physical destruction, forcible displacement, and the destruction of political, cultural, and social life... address how Israel's genocide... targets Palestinian identity, particularly through attacks on refugees... [and] analyze key expressions of dehumanization and incitement against Palestinians..."

"[T]he Ministry of Health in Gaza.... [fatalities] breakdown released in July 2025 shows 15%... women, 29%... minors and 7% are elderly."

"A study... estimated that during the first 12 months of the Israeli assault, the life expectancy of men in Gaza dropped by 51.6%, to 40.5 years, a loss of 34.9 years compared to prewar... For women... 38.6%, to... 47.5 years, a loss of 29.9 years."

"Several studies... suggest... casualties... much higher. The duration... the... scale of infrastructure destruction, and... restriction of humanitarian and rescue organizations' access... are... some... factors..."

"Israel's... open-fire policy... systematically violates fundamental principles of international law, such as distinction and proportionality. Israel... policy... permits unprecedented levels of harm to uninvolved civilians when striking at what it considers military targets. ...These practices enable... increase... frequency of strikes and [to] reduce risk to soldiers at the expense of precautions... to reduce injury to innocents."

"[A]fter ordering residents to leave their homes, Israel repeatedly bombed... "safe corridors" that... s (IDPs) were to use to travel to "humanitarian zones"."

""[H]umanitarian zones"... meant to provide IDPs safety, offered unlivable conditions and were... systematically bombed."

"After breaking the ceasefire in March 2025, Israel resumed... aggressive... indiscriminate attacks... including... designated humanitarian zones and other areas densely populated by tens of thousands of destitute IDPs. As of 14 July 2025, the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported more than 7,450 people killed and over 26,000 wounded since the ceasefire was violated."

"The mass killing of civilians in Gaza has been carried out... through permissive... at times deliberate, live fire by Israeli soldiers... Soldiers' testimonies reveal that... Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip defined "kill zones"... with arbitrary boundaries, sometimes unclear even to the soldiers... where permission was given to open fire at anyone... within them."

"Soldiers and officers... reported... absence of... , or... rules... at the discretion of commanders... or based on arbitrary criteria. Isolated incidents such as the killing of 15 paramedics in April 2025, or the December 2023 shooting of three Israeli hostages who had escaped captivity and were waving a white flag, illustrate that the open-fire regulations were... discarded. These practices were reinforced by statements from commanders... and by... volunteer doctors... including visual evidence of deliberate sniper shootings of children."

"Until 14 July 2025... 138,520 people were injured... Approximately 25%... life-altering injuries that require... rehabilitative care, including limb amputations, spinal injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and severe burns. ...[R]ecords ...refer only to ...treatment at an official medical facility. ... As with the death toll, it appears... official figures... understate... the... number."

"According to data provided by the Ministry of Health in Gaza to (PHRI), more than 4,700... have undergone amputations since October 2023, including over 940 children and... 370 women. ...[W]here basic medications ...as s were unavailable, doctors were forced to amputate ...though under normal circumstances ... not ...necessary. ...Tens of thousands of wounded ...and amputees were left without adequate care."

"[T]he UN warned that people with disabilities... are "at higher risks of dying, becoming injured and acquiring further impairments" as a result of the ongoing Israeli offensive."

"[E]stimates range from thousands to tens of thousands of deaths, in addition to the direct fatalities caused by the Israeli assault. ...[R]esearchers broadly agree that... figures released by the Ministry of Health in Gaza significantly understate... victims."

"[C]auses of indirect deaths are injuries, infectious diseases, , maternal and neonatal mortality, and complications from untreated chronic illnesses. All... a... result of... destruction of living conditions... restrictions on the entry of , and... assault on the healthcare system that has rendered it unable to cope with... casualties. Experts warn... along with the starvation... indirect deaths will rise further."

"In... October 2024... 100 American medical professionals who had volunteered in the Gaza Strip published a letter stating that almost every person they encountered... was ... sick or wounded, and... nearly every child under... five was suffering from ing and . ...[M]any of the surgeries ...resulted in s due to ..., poor sanitary conditions, and ...lack of . They ...stated that malnutrition and ...shortage of clean ...led to widespread ...low and post-partum women unable to breastfeed, often resulting in the infants' deaths. ...[P]regnant women and fetuses ...had died as a result of the decimation of the healthcare system."

"Gaza's residents have endured countless traumatic events... with... psychological consequences... [W]ithin a reality of omnipresent death, relentless displacement, and ongoing hunger and disease, many are suffering psychological distress after witnessing horrific events, including the violent deaths of... loved ones."

"[I]ncidence of mental health problems has increased significantly, particularly trauma-related disorders, depression, and anxiety, in a population already exhibiting high rates of mental illness due to prolonged exposure to occupation, blockade, and recurring military violence."

"[N]early all of Gaza's 1.2 million children were in need of mental health and support due to symptoms of depression, anxiety, , and more."

"6% of children in Gaza felt... death was imminent, and nearly half expressed a desire to die as a result of... trauma..."

"[B]efore the... offensive... 64%... in the Gaza Strip were classified as food insecure, and... 80% relied on... humanitarian aid. Immediately after launching its assault... Israel declared a complete blockade... which quickly led to... shortages of food..."

"In September 2024, 15 aid organizations published an analysis showing that Israel had blocked 83% of food assistance to the Strip."

"Israel attacked convoys... distributing humanitarian aid, as well as the Palestinian police officers tasked... with securing them. The [food] shortage... led to sharp price hikes... further limiting access... for most of the population."

"[W]e have witnessed relentless human suffering and loss of life on a scale unimaginable..."

"Entire cities bombed and razed, with scarcely a house left standing; hundreds of thousands torn from their lives... with what little they could take on their backs, searching for temporary shelter; adults and children... in endless lines for... little food, risking life and limb... to feed their starving families; and... death looming everywhere."

"Genocide... is an assault on humanity... on the fundamental belief that every life is precious, and the core principle that every human being is entitled to basic rights affording protection from arbitrary violence. ...[A]ttempting to eradicate a group of human beings is a crime... that every person has the duty to oppose and act to stop immediately. This is a moral, legal, and human imperative: to acknowledge the facts... stand with the victims, and demand an end to destruction and extermination..."

"[S]ince October 2023, the Israeli regime has been responsible for carrying out genocide..."

"Killing tens of thousands... causing bodily or mental harm to hundreds of thousands more; destroying homes and civilian infrastructure on a massive scale; starvation, displacement, and denying humanitarian aid... perpetrated systematically... aimed at annihilating... life in the Gaza Strip."

"Israel's decision to continue.... despite countless warnings and... evidence of its deadly consequences... with repeated public clarifications by... policymakers that the target is the entire population of Gaza, demonstrate the intent of... leadership to... destroy Palestinian life in the Gaza Strip."

"[T]he Israeli regime is leading an assault on the Palestinian population in the West Bank and a policy of egregious rights violations against Palestinian citizens of Israel. The form and extent of these actions... are rooted in the... denial of Palestinian humanity. ...[T]he lives and dignity of Palestinians have come to be regarded as disposable... and violence against them normalized."

"The routine killing and destruction in the Gaza Strip and the forced displacement of tens of thousands in the would not have been possible without international inaction in the face of the unfathomable scale and severity of these crimes."

"[M]any state leaders, particularly in Europe and the United States, have not only refrained from effective action to stop the genocide but enabled it — through statements affirming Israel's "right to self-defense" or active support, including the shipment of weapons and ammunition."

"[A]fter the International Court of Justice ruled... plausible risk that Israel's actions amount to genocidal acts, and... the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Gallant on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the international community failed..."

"The genocidal nature of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip and the international community's failure to prevent them will... likely to reshape norms of conduct in international relations and the protection of human rights around the world."

"Trampling fundamental principles... and blatantly disregarding the moral norms that shaped the post-WWII world order, may turn... indiscriminate lethal force and deliberate targeting of civilians into... conduct of future violent conflicts."

"Confronting the... destruction and moral disintegration requires... acknowledging the crimes... [and] commitment to action and... accountability... international and domestic."

"[R]ebuilding after such devastation will be... long and arduous... [and] require a fundamental shift in the foundations of the Israeli regime."

"[T]he Israeli regime... stripped [of] every moral value and obligation of meaning, is a danger to all people under its rule. ...[E]verything must be done to prevent it from claiming more victims."

"[R]ecognition that the Israeli regime is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip and the deep concern that it may expand to other areas... demand urgent... unequivocal action from both Israeli society and the international community."

"This is the time to save those who have not yet been lost forever, and use every means... under international law to stop Israel's genocide of the Palestinians."

"With the publication of these two reports, and become the first... Israeli organizations to state... based on meticulous documentation and research: Israel is committing genocide... This is another milestone in the human rights community’s efforts to hold Israeli authorities accountable for their crimes... Amid... efforts by the Israeli government to crack down on... human rights organizations, such publications demanded courage and unyielding commitment... Their findings must be heeded... and translated into action to... dismantle... apartheid against all Palestinians whose rights Israel controls. ...B’Tselem’s report builds on... work undertaken for decades to document Israel’s crimes... and demonstrate the cloak of that has sheltered Israeli authorities from accountability. The report’s findings... are... damning and illustrate the importance... to stop Israel’s genocide with... demands to end its unlawful occupation... and dismantle its system of apartheid. ...The publication... coincides with... the UN conference on Palestine in New York. Their... findings add to the... call for... states to recognize Israel’s action... for what it is: genocide. States... must take urgent and effective measures to end Israel’s impunity for its human rights violations against Palestinians and stop its genocide, apartheid and unlawful occupation. Palestinians have... suffered irreversible harm; the horrors... will require generations to recover... States must not miss yet another opportunity to change course, restore... faith in international law and enable Palestinians to begin their recovery..."

"Israel's military campaign in Gaza since October 2023... constitutes genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention."

"The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza's health and life-sustaining systems—through targeted attacks on hospitals, obstruction of medical aid and evacuations, and the killing and detention of healthcare personnel."

"...Israel's actions have destroyed Gaza's healthcare infrastructure in a manner that is both calculated and systematic."

"Gaza's health system has been systematically dismantled—its hospitals rendered non-functional, medical evacuations blocked, and essential services like trauma care, surgery, dialysis, and eliminated."

"[K]illing and detention of over 1,800 healthcare workers... has decimated Gaza's medical capacity and rendered recovery nearly impossible."

"Humanitarian relief has been deliberately restricted, forcing civilians to approach militarized distribution points that have often become sites of s."

"This... assault has produced a... failure of health and humanitarian infrastructure, compounded by policies leading to starvation, disease, and the breakdown of , housing, and education systems."

"As of mid-2025, over 57,000 Palestinians - primarily women and children - have been confirmed killed, with estimates nearing 100,000 when indirect deaths are included."

"Gaza residents... detained and held in Israeli facilities report systematic torture, medical neglect, and degrading treatment..."

"Children face... trauma, while women endure... miscarriages, s, and maternal mortality amid famine and lack of reproductive healthcare services."

"[T]hese acts... part of a deliberate policy targeting Palestinians... fulfill... core acts defined in Article II of the : (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; and (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part."

"Despite international legal rulings, Israel has not complied... and global enforcement remains weak."

"PHRI urges international bodies and states to fulfill their duty under Article I of the to stop the Gaza genocide."

"[D]estruction of Gaza's health system is not only a legal violation but a humanitarian catastrophe demanding urgent global solidarity and response."

"Understanding... requires following key events at least since the 1948 war—the Palestinian Nakba ("Catastrophe"). Israel forcibly displaced over 80% of the indigenous Palestinian population through mass deportations, internment of civilians, massacres, and the systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructure. More than 200,000 of the 751,000 Palestinians recorded as refugees fled to the Gaza Strip, tripling its prewar population."

"In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank... and the Gaza Strip, displacing over 400,000..."

"Since 2007, Israel has imposed a comprehensive blockade on the Gaza Strip."

"Repeated Israeli military escalations between 2008 and 2021 severely damaged healthcare infrastructure and exhausted its emergency response capacity."

"Following Hamas' attack, Israel launched a sustained and far-reaching military offensive against the Gaza Strip."

"Today's rampant starvation and in the Gaza Strip carry critical long-term effects, particularly for children."

"The dismantling of long-term critical care, as well as preventative and diagnostic medicine, will have lasting consequences for the treatment of infectious, cardiac, oncological, and other diseases..."

"Mass displacement and the destruction of buildings... rendered the education system... inoperable, while also destroying family and community structures..."

"Collapsed water and systems have led to detrimental environmental effects."

"These issues are deeply interwoven with... categories... in the definition of genocide under Article II of the ..."

"[T]he destruction of healthcare infrastructure may constitute both the infliction of conditions of life (Article II(c)) and serious bodily or mental harm (Article II(b))."

"[A]cts of killing (Article II(a)) may also contribute to broader patterns of deprivation."

"The deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, where undertaken with the intent to eliminate a protected group, constitutes genocide under Article II(c) of the . The deprivation of basic necessities such as food, water, shelter, and medical care can thus fulfill the material element..."

"Through sustained military attacks, siege policies, and the obstruction of humanitarian access, including medical supplies, Israel has dismantled the institutions and services essential to health and survival."

"Hospitals, clinics, ambulances, and medical personnel have been systematically targeted, rendered non-functional, or killed. Diagnostic and treatment capacities have been eliminated, resulting in deaths due to acute and chronic life-threatening conditions, including infectious, cardiac, and oncologic diseases."

"The prolonged famine will have severe long-term effects, particularly on children. ...[[Psychological trauma|[M]ental effects]] of the atrocities will persist..."

"Very early into the war, all major hospitals in northern Gaza... were shelled, besieged, or forcibly evacuated."

"By late December 2023, only nine of the Gaza Strip's 36 hospitals remained partially functional - all located in the south."

"Repeated direct attacks on hospitals... obstruction of supply flows and aid, and the decimation of medical personnel through killings and detentions made recovery impossible."

"By early June, the health system had reached a state of near-total collapse. With only 14 out of 36 hospitals only partially functional, and most major facilities in Rafah and central Gaza either shuttered or overwhelmed, medical staff faced impossible conditions."

"From October 2024, Israel executed a military campaign aimed at physically and functionally erasing northern Gaza."

"[[w:Kamal Adwan Hospital sieges|[D]estruction of Kamal Adwan]] marked dealt a decisive blow to northern Gaza's healthcare system. With no remaining medical facilities, no operational ambulances, and no rescue infrastructure, northern Gaza's health system was erased."

"On March 2 [2025], Israel imposed a second total siege on the Gaza Strip—the longest yet... cutting off all humanitarian and medical access. The World Food Programme (WFP), WHO, and other UN agencies reported... bakeries ran out of flour and fuel, food stocks... depleted, and hospitals... unable to operate... In May alone, 5,000 children in Gaza were diagnosed with ..."

"On March 23, Israeli forces opened fire on marked ambulances and a fire-fighting vehicle, killing 15 Palestinian medics... attempting to assist wounded civilians after an airstrike. They were buried in an apparent attempt to eliminate evidence. The International Federation of the Red Cross called it "the most deadly attack on medical workers in a decade." (Jun 19, 2025)"

"As of May 23, over 90% of Gaza's 531 health service points were either entirely or partially out of service, with many of the last remaining sites located inside declared evacuation zones, inaccessible to civilians and medics alike."

"[A]ttacks on Gaza's hospitals... blocked medical evacuations, prevented patients from entering or leaving... and killed or detained... patients and medical staff. The raids caused significant damage... while denying... critical resources, including electricity, water, and medical supplies. These... endangered... lives... [and] severely undermined the hospitals' ability to function."

"Taking a health-focused approach to identify genocidal intent and policy, the report documents the systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health system, destruction of medical facilities, blocking of drugs, and killings and arrests of health workers. ...[T]hey implore health and humanitarian communities worldwide to confront the destruction of Gaza’s medical system, attacks on its infrastructure and environment, and deliberate targeting of the conditions needed for human survival in Gaza. ...[T]hird parties, PHRI argues, have a duty to terminate this genocidal campaign and protect the health, lives, and dignity of Palestinians."

"PHRI... ... documents.. a deliberate, cumulative dismantling of Gaza’s health system, and... its people’s ability to survive. This amounts to genocide. Israel’s bombing of hospitals, destruction of medical equipment, and depletion of medications have made medical care... impossible. ...Each day, dozens die of malnutrition. Ninety-two percent of infants aged six months to two years don’t get enough to eat. ...85 children have ...starved to death. Israel has displaced 9 in 10 Gazans, destroyed or damaged 92% of homes, and left... half a million children without schools or stability. It has wiped out essential health services... [A]ctions are critical—and must be taken immediately—to prevent further loss of life."