There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground…. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words”. These words were spoken by the US President Barack Obama few years back in Cairo, Egypt.

Obama has urged anti-Islam demonstrators in the United States to “stop yelling and start listening”, telling them that they would find Muslims peaceful and welcoming if they reached out to them.

He read out a message of peace at an iftar-dinner he recently hosted at the White House, noting that more than 1.5 billion people around the world observed Ramazan as “a time of spiritual renewal and a reminder of one’s duty to our fellow man”.

He recalled that when three young Muslim Americans were brutally murdered in Chapel Hill, South Carolina, earlier this year, Americans of all faiths rallied around that community.

Historically, mankind has fought to protect his rights and dignity. A myriad of people sacrificed their life to break the chains of slavery and to gain freedom. Rivers of blood streamed to maintain liberty and dignity. Violating man’s natural and inalienable rights, has constantly outraged man’s conscience and led to catastrophic wars. People preferred death to subjugation and humiliation. Ultimately, Human Rights’ law was established to curb the life-threatening challenges and mortal battles and claimed to bring universal peace.

UDHR states in article 1 as, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Human rights are commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights “to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being,” and which are inherent in all human beings regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances, and require freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again.

Ill-fatedly, the UDHR is unlikely to heal the bleeding wounds of the minorities and they suffer in some ways. As a result, the United Nations Humanitarian office has recently said that nearly half a million people, mostly Muslims, continue to require humanitarian assistance three years after inter-communal violence raked Myanmar’s western Rakhine state.

According to the UN, over 416,000 people remain in need of relief, including almost 140,000 displaced people living in dire conditions in camps and many others without citizenship in isolated villages.

To that point, OCHA confirmed that up to 40,000 of the displaced people in Rakhine state live in camps within 500 meters of the coastline, leaving them vulnerable to the elements amid an imminent monsoon season.

Similarly, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the recent attacks in Kuwait and Tunisia, Kuwait which killed at least 65 people.

Tourists were gunned down as they relaxed on a beach, while worshipers were killed in a suicide attack on a Shia mosque.

ISIS had earlier called on followers to turn the month of Ramadan - considered holy by Muslims – into “calamities for non-believers”.

Obama has rightly said that, “As Americans, we insist that nobody should be targeted because of who they are, or what they look like, who they love, how they worship. We stand united against these hateful acts.”

Men are born with natural rights and dignity irrespective of their color, sex, race, beliefs, etc. The world should expresses concerns if one’s rights are violated due to the said reasons in any corner of the world. Since, the philosophy behind the adoption of UDHR is to put an end to carnage and bloodshed; its rule must be peremptory for all the human societies.  It should have been outrageous for the world, including the Muslim countries, when a white supremacist murdered nine African Americans at a church in Charleston about two weeks ago. To put it succinctly, the world’s conscience must be outraged if Muslims, Christians, etc. fall victim for their particular faiths or color in mosques or churches.

The world has to seek common ground and counter militancy to put an end to violence and violation of human rights. The world’s common enemy (terrorist) will have mercy to none and blackmail the globe. Hence, they must be countered with puissant force and effective strategy. The International community is also urged to react seriously against the infringement of human rights and humanitarian law and prosecute the perpetrators.