The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which has been debating for two weeks a draft Convention on the elimination of religious intolerance, ended that discussion today and voted to give “highest priority” to completion of the proposed international instrument in 1967.
This morning, the Commission adopted a draft article spelling out the protections to be given by all governments to persons who wish to exercise their religious rights. Included among the clauses adopted thus far is one specifically naming anti-Semitism as one major prejudice to be combated. The article passed this morning calls upon all states to “ensure to everyone within their jurisdiction effective protection and remedies, through the competent national tribunals and other state institutions, against any acts, including acts of discrimination on the ground of religion or belief, which violate his human rights and fundamental freedoms contrary to this Convention, as well as the right to seek from such tribunals just and adequate reparation or satisfaction for any damage suffered as a result of such acts.”
Because the Soviet Union has been widely accused of discriminating against practitioners of the Jewish religion, the USSR has been fighting against completion of the draft Convention on religious freedoms for six years. Among the members of the Commission’s current session, which opened two weeks ago and is scheduled to end April 1, is Morris B. Abram, delegate for the United States, and Israel’s Associate Supreme Court Justice Haim H. Cohn, representing the Jewish State.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
