Christians stress right to make voices heard on Human Rights Day

The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) has called for global recognition of communication rights on Human Rights Day today.

The UDHR affirm 'the dignity and worth of the human person' and 'the equal rights of men and women'. According to the WACC, human rights means having economic, social and cultural rights as well as just civil and political rights.

The WACC has called for the recognition of communication rights that allow individuals and communities to express their needs, have their voices heard and participate in their own development, according to APD Switzerland.

WACC argue that communication rights allow self-determination and contribute to a world built on peace and social justice. Such rights are also necessary for achieving the Millennium Development Goals of halving extreme global poverty and hunger.

Such rights are also regarded as vital instruments in achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, fighting HIV and Aids and other diseases, ensuring environmental stability and developing global partnerships for development.

UNESCO has drawn up a plan of action for the 60th anniversary of the UDHR in 2008. The plan emphasises the importance of the right to education, freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to seek, receive and impart information, the right to take part in cultural life and the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.

Activities for the anniversary will begin on this year's Human Rights Day and will finish at next years anniversary. According to WACC, communication rights are noticeably absent.

They say that a concerted response to civil society's critique of the World Summit on the Information Society held in 2003 and 2005 is needed to complement UNESCO's plan of action for the year.

At the summit, representatives of civil society mourned the 'eclipse' of human beings as the subjects of communication and development in the face of a growing reliance on technological advancements in information and communication to solve all the world's problems, according to APD Switzerland.

The representatives issued a statement after the summit saying that people's common humanity "rests in our capacity to communicate with each other and to create community".

"It is in the respectful dialogue and sharing of values among peoples, in the plurality of their cultures and civilizations, that meaningful and accountable communication thrives," the statement read.

The WACC has called on governments, NGOs and the private sector to recognise and strengthen communication rights as an essential component in the development and implementation of political, economic, social and cultural policies, reports APD Switzerland.

They have also said that there can be no genuine development without human rights and no social justice without communication rights.

The WACC was founded in 1968 and promotes communication for social change, holding communication to be a basic human right.