he European Journey for Religious Freedom was a 3,225 kilometer marathon through eight countries to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Of all the human rights instruments developed since the war, the Universal Declaration is the most famous and the most memorable. Adopted in December 1948, when memories of two World Wars and the Holocaust were fresh and vivid, it laid down principles that have formed the bedrock of national constitutions and international human rights treaties ever since. When the European Convention on Human Rights came to be written, the UDHR was a primary source of inspiration.
The Declaration protects the right to freedom of religion, freedom of expression, the right to equal treatment under law, the right to work, the right to education, the right to participate in government, the right of equal access to public service, the right to peacefully assemble, the right to partake in cultural life and the right to enjoy the fruits of one’s creative labors.
One of the goals of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education, proclaimed in 1994 by the General Assembly, is to bring about broad public awareness of individual rights and responsibilities. As Irving Sarnoff reminds us in his Foreword, ignorance of these rights results in their erosion by governments. The final consequence of allowing human rights to be eroded is a police state. While no one would claim that European governments are yet at that stage, it is not an exaggeration to claim that legislation selectively targeting minorities which is currently being enacted by Europe’s parliaments is leading in that direction.
The European Journey for Religious Freedom was conceived as an educational measure. It translated into action the famous slogan of the 1993 United Nations World Conference on Human Rights: “Human Rights: Know Them, Demand Them, Defend Them.” Unless people know their rights, they will not demand them and cannot defend them. The aim of the Journey was to raise public awareness of the UDHR and what it stands for, and to insist that political and religious leaders fulfill their human rights obligations.
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