Increasing Public Awareness of
HUMAN RIGHTS

In response to a widespread lack of human rights awareness and its alarming consequences, the Church of Scientology in 1998 launched a multi-faceted human rights campaign, which continues today.

Individuals cannot be expected to stand up for their own rights or to respect the rights of others if they do not know what their rights are. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, translated into more than 300 languages and accessible within seconds on the Internet, is the world’s most significant human rights instrument. Yet a survey conducted in a major Western democracy for the Declaration’s 50th anniversary year found that 93% of the public had never heard of it.

In response to this lack of human rights awareness and its alarming consequences, the Church of Scientology in 1998 launched a multi-faceted human rights campaign.

Its first phase was the launch of an annual human rights marathon that would lead through a variety of countries. Participants in the first of these, the European Journey for Religious Freedom, ran 3,225 kilometres through Britain, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and Germany in celebration of the Declaration’s 50th Anniversary.

Meeting thousands of people — from government officials, human rights leaders and church leaders to the public-at-large — the marathoners acquainted most of them for the first time with the details of this fundamental human rights charter and what these rights mean. Taking into account the volumes of literature they distributed and the numerous television and radio programmes they appeared in along the way, the marathon team brought the Declaration to an estimated 30 million people.

The European Journey was succeeded the following year by an even more ambitious marathon, starting in the birthplace of democracy, Athens, and ending 13 weeks later in Hamburg. As has become customary during these marathons, officials and community leaders meeting the runners signed their names to a pledge in support of human rights, which Church members carry with them from town to town. In 1999, the text was incorporated into an official declaration proclaimed by several members of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly. In subsequent years, the human rights marathons have crossed Belgium, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, the Russian Federation, Italy and France to various destinations of significance such as the United Nations Human Rights Office in Geneva, where a specially organised Celebration of Human Rights was joined by representatives of a dozen nations and 47 non-governmental organisations. Wherever these marathon teams have travelled, their message is clear: Discord and violence begin with acts of intolerance, and respect for and adherence to human rights law is the only chance for lasting peace.

In 2002, the Church organised a “Multathlon” (a coined word meaning “many contests") for human rights. Participants ran, biked, sailed, canoed, rollerbladed or rode horseback for 4,000 kilometres through nine countries, ending in Paris.

In 2002, the marathon expanded to a “Multathlon,” a coined word meaning “many contests.” Participants not only ran, but also biked, sailed, canoed, roller bladed or rode horseback for more than 4,000 kilometres through nine countries. It began in St. Petersburg, with a free human rights concert attended by 12,000 people, and ended in Paris. Later that year, the United States also saw its first-ever Multathlon, a 5-day run that helped bring together the many different ethnic communities of Southern California to usher in the Declaration’s 55th year.

Publications to Teach Human Rights

The Church has published several booklets to educate the public on human rights issues.

One of these publications lays out, in simple terms, the principal laws that protect an individual’s right to religious freedom in the different countries of Europe. It was released in multiple languages. The Russian edition, released in 1999, is distributed by the Moscow affiliate of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.

Youth for Human Rights International teaches youth around the globe about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, helping them to become valuable advocates for tolerance and peace.

Noting the tendency of some governments to relegate human rights to lesser importance than post-9/11 security concerns, the Church has recently stepped up its actions to promote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Agreeing wholeheartedly with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said “Large-scale human rights violations are not merely the product of civil and ethnic conflict, they are also a major cause of such conflicts,” the Church in 2002 published A Guidebook to Peace through Human Rights. It is an educational tool not only to increase public awareness about human rights, but to present an answer to the conflicts troubling the world today. Concurrently, the Church published How to Resolve Conflicts, a booklet that details the exact steps to isolate the real source of conflicts and thereby resolve them. Central to this publication is an essay by L. Ron Hubbard explaining why, despite the well- intended efforts of so many, mounting disagreements never seem to dissipate. In it, he outlines the natural law behind conflict and how to resolve disagreements large and small — information that, according to Mr. Hubbard, “is worth working with in any situation where one is trying to bring peace.”

The need to resolve conflicts that foster violence and wars is so urgent, in fact, that the Church intends to release a widespread awareness campaign.

The need to resolve conflicts that foster violence and wars is so urgent, in fact, that the Church intends to release a widespread awareness campaign, with the following message appearing on billboards, posters and advertisements in many European countries: The road to peaceful co-existence between different religious and ethnic groups begins and ends with respect for human rights.

The Church believes that this message, presented in varied forms of communications media, will contribute to a greater understanding that the solution to a post-September 11 world is not to pass a host of radical laws that undermine the very freedoms we are defending, but to tackle intolerance and conflicts at the grass roots by teaching respect for human rights.