50th anniversary of universal declaration marked

The human rights organisation Amnesty International has presented UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan more than 10 million individual pledges of support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in connection with today’s 50th anniversary of its signing. Signatories to the pledge include Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other politicians including Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, French President Jacques Chirac, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Religious leaders, actors and singers have also pledged their support alongside millions of ordinary people. In a statement to the General Assembly commemoration marking the occasion, Annan said that without human rights “no peace or prosperity can endure”. Annan said it was a day to recall “not only the rights attained over 50 years, but also the rights denied; to pursue the achievement of justice by all and for all; and to pursue the violators of human rights with greater persistence than ever. It is the day to renew our commitment to globalizing justice in the age of globalization.”