What do civil rights mean?
Civil and political rights
Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life, and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, color, age, political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, and disability; and individual rights such as privacy and the freedoms of thought, speech, religion, press, assembly, and movement.
Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
The African-American civil rights movement (1896–1954) was a long, primarily nonviolent series of events to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans. The era has had a lasting impact on United States society, in its tactics, the increased social and legal acceptance of civil rights, and in its exposure of the prevalence and cost of racism.
Civil liberties
All people, irrespective of race, religion, caste or sex, have the right to approach the High Courts or the Supreme Court for the enforcement of their fundamental rights. It is not necessary that the aggrieved party has to be the one to do so. In public interest, anyone can initiate litigation in the court on their behalf. This is known as "Public interest litigation". High Court and Supreme Court judges can also act on their own on the basis of media reports.
American Civil Liberties Union
During those years, the ACLU led the way in expanding legal rights in three directions: new rights for persons within government-run "enclaves", new rights for victim groups, and privacy rights for mainstream citizens. At the same time, the organization grew substantially. The ACLU helped develop the field of constitutional law that governs "enclaves", which are groups of persons that live in conditions under government control. Enclaves include mental hospital patients, members of the military, and prisoners, and students (while at school). The term enclave originated with Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas's use of the phrase "schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism" in the "Tinker v. Des Moines" decision.
Civil society
Sometimes the term "civil society" is used in the more general sense of "the elements such as freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, etc, that make up a democratic society" ("Collins English Dictionary"). Especially in the discussions among thinkers of Eastern and Central Europe, civil society is seen also as a normative concept of civic values.
Civil liberties
The Fundamental Rights emphasize equality by guaranteeing to all citizens the access and use of public institutions and protections, irrespective of their background. The rights to life and personal liberty apply for persons of any nationality, while others, such as the freedom of speech and expression are applicable only to the citizens of India (including non-resident Indian citizens). The right to equality in matters of public employment cannot be conferred to overseas citizens of India.
Civil rights movements
The IRA encouraged Republicans to join in the movement for civil rights but never controlled NICRA. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association fought for the end of discrimination toward Catholics and did not take a position on the legitimacy of the state. Republican leader Gerry Adams explained subsequently that Catholics saw that it was possible for them to have their demands heard. He wrote that "we were able to see an example of the fact that you didn't just have to take it, you could fight back". For an account and critique of the movements for civil rights in Northern Ireland, reflecting on the ambiguous link between the causes of civil rights and opposition to the union with the United Kingdom, see the work of Richard English.
Civil libertarianism
Civil libertarianism is a strain of political thought that supports civil liberties, or which emphasizes the supremacy of individual rights and personal freedoms over and against any kind of authority (such as a state, a corporation, social norms imposed through peer pressure and so on). Civil libertarianism is not a complete ideology—rather, it is a collection of views on the specific issues of civil liberties and civil rights.
Civil Rights Cases
Such being the relations these corporations hold to the public, it would seem that the right of a colored person to use an improved public highway, upon the terms accorded to freemen of other races, is as fundamental in the state of freedom, established in this country, as are any of the rights which my brethren concede to be so far fundamental as to be deemed the essence of civil freedom. 'Personal liberty consists,' says Blackstone, 'in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatever place one's own inclination may direct, without restraint, unless by due course of law.' But of what value is this right of locomotion, if it may be clogged by such burdens as congress intended by the act of 1875 to remove? They are burdens which lay at the very foundation of the institution of slavery as it once existed. They are not to be sustained, except upon the assumption that there is still, in this land of universal liberty, a class which may yet be discriminated against, even in respect of rights of a character so essential and so supreme, that, deprived of their enjoyment, in common with others, a freeman is not only branded as one inferior and infected, but, in the competitions of life, is robbed of some of the most necessary means of existence; and all this solely because they belong to a particular race which the nation has liberated. The thirteenth amendment alone obliterated the race line, so far as all rights fundamental in a state of freedom are concerned.
Civil Rights Cases
Bradley said the following, holding the Constitution did "not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights," as distinct from "state" laws. In effect, only state bodies were sufficiently "public" so as to be regulated.
... individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the [Fourteenth] Amendment. It has a deeper and broader scope. It nullifies and makes void all state legislation, and state action of every kind, which impairs the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or which injures them in life, liberty or property without due process of law, or which denies to any of them the equal protection of the laws. ...
Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866, , enacted April 9, 1866, was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. This legislation was passed by Congress in 1865 and vetoed by U.S. President Andrew Johnson. In April 1866 Congress again passed the bill to support the Thirteenth Amendment. Johnson again vetoed it, but a two-thirds majority in each chamber overcame the veto to become law without presidential signature.
Fundamental rights in India
Fundamental rights, the basic and civil liberties of the people, are protected under the charter of rights contained in Part III (Article 12 to 35) of the Constitution of India. These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before law, freedom of speech and expression, religious and cultural freedom and peaceful assembly, freedom to practice religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights by means of writs such as habeas corpus, Mandamus, Prohibition, Certiorari and Quo Warranto.
Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India
The Fundamental Rights, embodied in Part III of the Constitution, guarantee civil rights to all Indians, and prevent the State from encroaching on individual liberty while simultaneously placing upon it an obligation to protect the citizens' rights from encroachment by society. Seven fundamental rights were originally provided by the Constitution – the right to equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of religion, cultural and educational rights, right to property and right to constitutional remedies. However, the right to property was removed from Part III of the Constitution by the 44th Amendment in 1978.
Civil rights movement
From 1890 to 1908, southern states passed new constitutions and laws to disenfranchise African Americans and many poor whites by creating barriers to voter registration; voting rolls were dramatically reduced as blacks and poor whites were forced out of electoral politics. After the landmark Supreme Court case of "Smith v. Allwright" (1944), which prohibited white primaries, progress was made in increasing black political participation in the Rim South and Acadiana – although almost entirely in urban areas and a few rural localities where most blacks worked outside plantations. The "status quo ante" of excluding African Americans from the political system lasted in the remainder of the South, especially North Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, until national civil rights legislation was passed in the mid-1960s to provide federal enforcement of constitutional voting rights. For more than sixty years, blacks in the South were essentially excluded from politics, unable to elect anyone to represent their interests in Congress or local government. Since they could not vote, they could not serve on local juries.
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom
In other words, civil liberties are the "rights" or "freedoms" which underpin democracy. This usually means the right to vote, the right to life, the prohibition on torture, security of the person, the right to personal liberty and due process of law, freedom of expression and freedom of association."We will do our best to see that our decisions are in conformity with it. But it is drawn in such vague terms that it can be used for all sorts of unreasonable claims and provoke all sorts of litigation. As so often happens with high-sounding principles, they have to be brought down to earth. They have to be applied in a work-a-day world."In response to this judgment the UK parliament passed the Contempt of Court Act 1981.
James Meredith
A highly independent man, Meredith has identified as an individual American citizen who demanded and received the constitutional rights held by any American, not as a participant in the Civil Rights Movement. There have been tensions between him and leaders of major organizations of the movement. When interviewed in 2002, the 40th anniversary of his enrollment at University of Mississippi, Meredith said, "Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind."
Civil law (common law)
Civil law is a branch of the law. In common law legal systems such as England and Wales, the law of Pakistan and the law of the United States, the term refers to non-criminal law. The law relating to civil wrongs and quasi-contracts is part of the civil law, as is law of property (other than property-related crimes, such as theft or vandalism). Civil law may, like criminal law, be divided into substantive law and procedural law. The rights and duties of persons (natural persons and legal persons) amongst themselves is the primary concern of civil law. It is often suggested that civil proceedings are taken for the purpose of obtaining compensation for injury, and may thus be distinguished from criminal proceedings, whose purpose is to inflict punishment. However, exemplary damages or punitive damages may be awarded in civil proceedings. It was also formerly possible for common informers to sue for a penalty in civil proceedings.
Civil liberties
Many contemporary states have a constitution, a bill of rights, or similar constitutional documents that enumerate and seek to guarantee civil liberties. Other states have enacted similar laws through a variety of legal means, including signing and ratifying or otherwise giving effect to key conventions such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The existence of some claimed civil liberties is a matter of dispute, as are the extent of most civil rights. Controversial examples include property rights, reproductive rights, and civil marriage. The degree that democracies have involved themselves in needs to take into fact the influence of terrorism. Whether the existence of victimless crimes infringes upon civil liberties is a matter of dispute. Another matter of debate is the suspension or alteration of certain civil liberties in times of war or state of emergency, including whether and to what extent this should occur.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Part 2 (Articles 2 – 5) obliges parties to legislate where necessary to give effect to the rights recognised in the Covenant, and to provide an effective legal remedy for any violation of those rights. It also requires the rights be recognised "without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status," and to ensure that they are enjoyed equally by women. The rights can only be limited "in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation," and even then no derogation is permitted from the rights to life, freedom from torture and slavery, the freedom from retrospective law, the right to personhood, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
Human rights
This is held to be true because without civil and political rights the public cannot assert their economic, social and cultural rights. Similarly, without livelihoods and a working society, the public cannot assert or make use of civil or political rights (known as the "full belly thesis")
Report to the American People on Civil Rights
In the end, the most vocal support for the civil rights bill came from the participants of the August 28 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The demonstration made Kennedy anxious, but its organizers ensured that it would be used to support his legislation. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (in which four black choir girls were killed) in September increased public support for the bill, but legislative progress stagnated in Congress by the efforts of southern Democrats and conservative Republicans. In an interview that month, the President acknowledged the political cost of his new stance on civil rights: "It has caused a good deal of feeling against the Administration in the South—also, I suppose, in other parts of the country. ... I lost some southern states in 1960 so I suppose I will lose some, maybe more, in 1964. I am not sure that I am the most popular figure in the country today in the South, but that is all right." Still, he remained optimistic about his legislation, commenting in his last-ever press conference on November 14, "However dark the land looks now, I think that 'westward look, the land is bright,' and I think that next summer it may be." On November 22, 1963 Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson was immediately sworn in as President and addressed a joint session of Congress, saying, "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long." After an intense legislative effort, the bill passed Congress and was signed into law by Johnson as the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964.
Civil Rights Cases
When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. There were thousands of free colored people in this country before the abolition of slavery, enjoying all the essential rights of life, liberty, and property the same as white citizens; yet no one, at that time, thought that it was any invasion of their personal status as freemen because they were not admitted to all the privileges enjoyed by white citizens, or because they were subjected to discriminations in the enjoyment of accommodations in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement. Mere discriminations on account of race or color were not regarded as badges of slavery ...
Children's rights under ISIL
Children have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion which are core human rights, established in several international conventions such as articles 13 - 17 of the CRC. ISIL has used education as a tool for indoctrination for the purposes of creating a new generation of supporters. In Raqqah, children are gathered to watch screenings of videos showing mass executions of Government soldiers. Its purpose is to desensitize them to extreme violence. On May 2014, there was an abduction of 153 Kurdish boys, aged between 14 –16 years by ISIL. They imprisoned them in the a school in Aleppo and screened videos of beheading and attacks and forced them it a daily instruction on militant ideology for a 5-month period. Those who disagreed were punished with severe beatings. The corroboration of the testimonies collected report that ISIL intends to subjugate children under their control and dominate every aspect of their lives through terror, indoctrination, and provision of services to those who will conform. Their use of surveillance, coercion, fear and punishment are used to prevent any form of disagreement.
Civilian
A civilian is "a person who is not a member of the military”. While some American police and firefighter organizations call those outside of their groups as civilian, this is from unofficial and informal grouping, the same way a professional in one field may informally call those not in their field as “civilians.” For legal definitions and the purpose of this article, civilians are those solely outide of the military. The term "civilian" is slightly different from a non-combatant under the law of war, as some non-combatants are not civilians (for example, military chaplains attached to the belligerent armed forces or neutral military personnel). Under international law, civilians in the territories of a party to an armed conflict are entitled to certain privileges under the customary laws of war and international treaties such as the Fourth Geneva Convention. The privileges that they enjoy under international law depends on whether the conflict is an internal one (a civil war) or an international one.
Civic space
The right to freedom of expression entails, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the "freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 
The right is fundamental to the existence of civil society. It includes "the right to access information, critically evaluate and speak out against the policies and actions of state and non-state actors, as well as publicly draw attention to and carry out advocacy actions to promote shared concerns, without fear of retribution from any quarter. Civil society organisations are also assured the freedom to carry out investigations and document their findings under this right." 
According to international law (for example see Article 20 of the ICCPR), freedom of expression can only be restricted in certain limited circumstances, provided by law and where it is necessary to protect the rights and reputations of others and to safeguard national security, public order, public health and morals.
Benjamin Hooks
Hooks feels that the perilous times of the civil rights movement should never be taken for granted, especially by those who were born in the aftermath of the movement’s gains. "A young black man can’t understand what it means to have something he’s never been denied,’ Hooks told "U.S. News & World Report". "I can’t make them understand the mental relief I feel at the rights we have. It almost infuriates me that people don’t understand what integration has done for this country."
Civil rights movement
Women often acted as leaders in the civil rights movement and led organizations that contributed to the cause of civil rights. African-American women stepped into the roles that men had previously held. Women were members of the NAACP because they believed it could help them contribute to the cause of civil rights. Women involved with the Black Panthers would lead meetings, edit the "Black Panther" newspaper, and advocated for childcare and sexual freedom. Women involved with SNCC helped to organize sit-ins and the Freedom Rides, as well as keeping the organization together. Women also formed church groups, bridge clubs, and professional organizations, such as the National Council of Negro Women, to help achieve freedom for themselves and their race. Some women who participated in these organizations lost their jobs because of their involvement.
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights
In the new civil rights, it is the people that are covering that must use their freedom and start to uncover themselves. The new civil rights harnesses authenticity and sees a characteristic less in a group but more in terms of our common humanity. Evidence of the shift is shown through the Supreme Court rulings in 2003's Lawrence v. Texas and 2004's Tennessee v. Lane dealing with, respectively, gay rights and disabilities.
Citizenship
Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and duties. In this sense, citizenship was described as "a bundle of rights -- primarily, political participation in the life of the community, the right to vote, and the right to receive certain protection from the community, as well as obligations." Citizenship is seen by most scholars as culture-specific, in the sense that the meaning of the term varies considerably from culture to culture, and over time. In China, for example, there is a cultural politics of citizenship which could be called "peopleship".
States' rights
During the heyday of the civil rights movement, defenders of segregation used the term "states' rights" as a code word—in what is now referred to as dog-whistle politics—political messaging that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. In 1948 it was the official name of the "Dixiecrat" party led by white supremacist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond. Democratic governor George Wallace of Alabama, who famously declared in his inaugural address in 1963, "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!"—later remarked that he should have said, "States' rights now! States' rights tomorrow! States' rights forever!" Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states' rights; in that view, which some historians dispute, his replacement of "segregation" with "states' rights" would be more of a clarification than a euphemism.
Timeline of the civil rights movement
This is a timeline of the civil rights movement, a nonviolent freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for African Americans. The goals of the movement included securing equal protection under the law, ending legally established racial discrimination, and gaining equal access to public facilities, education reform, fair housing, and the ability to vote.
Civil liberties
Civil liberties or personal freedoms are personal guarantees and freedoms that the government cannot abridge, either by law or by judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may include the freedom of conscience, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to security and liberty, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the right to equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a fair trial, and the right to life. Other civil liberties include the right to own property, the right to defend oneself, and the right to bodily integrity. Within the distinctions between civil liberties and other types of liberty, distinctions exist between positive liberty/positive rights and negative liberty/negative rights.
Civil rights referendum
A civil rights referendum or human rights referendum is any act of direct democracy which allows for a vote on the granting or amendment of current civil rights, liberties or associations as recognized by a government. Such referenda have frequently been proposed as a means by which the majority of the voting public in a polity, rather than the judicial or legislative chambers of government, could determine what the state should recognize or carry out, while such referenda have been strongly criticized by civil rights organizations and professional bodies as means by which the majority of the public could vote on the rights of a vulnerable minority according to contemporary prejudices.
Civil rights movements
The main aim of the successful civil rights movement and other social movements for civil rights included ensuring that the rights of all people were and are equally protected by the law. These include but are not limited to the rights of minorities, women's rights, and LGBT rights.
Three generations of human rights
First-generation human rights, sometimes called "blue" rights, deal essentially with liberty and participation in political life. They are fundamentally civil and political in nature: They serve negatively to protect the individual from excesses of the state. First-generation rights include, among other things, the right to life, equality before the law, freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and voting rights. They were pioneered by the United States Bill of Rights and in France by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in the 18th century, although some of these rights and the right to due process date back to the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Rights of Englishmen, which were expressed in the English Bill of Rights in 1689.
Human Rights City
Human rights advocates describe a Human Rights City as “One whose residents and local authorities, through learning about the relevance of human rights to their daily lives (guided by a steering committee), join in ongoing learning, discussions, systematic analysis and critical thinking at the community level, to pursue a creative exchange of ideas and the joint planning of actions to realize their economic, social, political, civil and cultural human rights.” Human rights cities were defined at the 2011 World Human Rights Cities Forum of Gwangju (South Korea) as "both a local community and a socio-political process in a local context where human rights play a key role as fundamental values and guiding principles." This framework has generated various practices in different cities.
Fundamental rights
The Bill of Rights lists specifically enumerated rights. The Supreme Court has extended fundamental rights by recognizing several fundamental rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, including but not limited to:
Any restrictions a government statute or policy places on these rights are evaluated with strict scrutiny. If a right is denied to everyone, it is an issue of substantive due process. If a right is denied to some individuals but not others, it is also an issue of equal protection. However, any action that abridges a right deemed fundamental, when also violating equal protection, is still held to the more exacting standard of strict scrutiny, instead of the less demanding rational basis test.
Hannah Arendt
In "The Origins of Totalitarianism", Hannah Arendt devotes a lengthy chapter ("The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man") to a critical analysis of human rights, in what has been described as "the most widely read essay on refugees ever published". Arendt is not skeptical of the notion of political rights in general, but instead defends a national or civil conception of rights. Human rights, or the Rights of Man as they were commonly called, are universal, inalienable, and possessed simply by virtue of being human. In contrast, civil rights are possessed by virtue of belonging to a political community, most commonly by being a citizen. Arendt's primary criticism of human rights is that they are ineffectual and illusory because their enforcement is in tension with national sovereignty. She argued that since there is no political authority above that of sovereign nations, state governments have little incentive to respect human rights when such policies conflict with national interests. This can be seen most clearly by examining the treatment of refugees and other stateless people. Since the refugee has no state to secure their civil rights, the only rights they have to fall back on are human rights. In this way Arendt uses the refugee as a test case for examining human rights in isolation from civil rights.
Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India
The Right to Freedom is covered in Articles 19-22, with the view of guaranteeing individual rights that were considered vital by the framers of the Constitution, and these Articles also include certain restrictions that may be imposed by the State on individual liberty under specified conditions. Article 19 guarantees six freedoms in the nature of civil rights, which are available only to citizens of India. These include the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of assembly without arms, freedom of association, freedom of movement throughout the territory of our country, freedom to reside and settle in any part of the country of India and the freedom to practice any profession. All these freedoms are subject to reasonable restrictions that may be imposed on them by the State, listed under Article 19 itself. The grounds for imposing these restrictions vary according to the freedom sought to be restricted and include national security, public order, decency and morality, contempt of court, incitement to offences, and defamation. The State is also empowered, in the interests of the general public to nationalise any trade, industry or service to the exclusion of the citizens.
Human rights
Civil and political rights are enshrined in articles 3 to 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the ICCPR. Economic, social and cultural rights are enshrined in articles 22 to 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the ICESCR. The UDHR included both economic, social and cultural rights and civil and political rights because it was based on the principle that the different rights could only successfully exist in combination:
Sivilingeniør
legally
Civil death
Civil death () is the loss of all or almost all civil rights by a person due to a conviction for a felony or due to an act by the government of a country that results in the loss of civil rights. It is usually inflicted on persons convicted of crimes against the state or adults determined by a court to be legally incompetent because of mental disability.
Liberalism in the United States
During the 1960s, relations between white liberals and the civil rights movement became increasingly strained; civil rights leaders accused liberal politicians of temporizing and procrastinating, although they realized they needed the support of Northern whites to pass any legislation over Southern obstructionism. Many white liberals believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would only anger many Southern whites and make it even more difficult to pass civil rights laws through Congress. In response to that concern, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. agreed to tone down the March on Washington in 1963. Kennedy finally endorsed the March on Washington and proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he could not get it passed during his lifetime. Lyndon Johnson, who took office in November 1963, used the image of Kennedy's martyrdom to mobilize northern support, along with the black leadership community, to pass major civil rights legislation: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The result was an end to legalized segregation and an end to restrictions on black voting. However, it was followed a wave of black riots in the inner cities, which made for "long hot summers" in every major city from 1964 through 1970. The riots alienated much of the white working class that had been the base of the labor union element in the civil rights coalition.
Thomas B. Curtis
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 originated in Curtis' office in 1962, and it was mainly Republican pressure from Curtis and his fellow Republican Judiciary Committee member William McCulloch of Ohio that forced John F. Kennedy to make his first, hesitant message on civil rights in April 1963. Curtis' defense of civil rights was rooted partly in the Lincoln tradition of the GOP, but more simply in the belief that civil rights were at the base of the American philosophy of government and Judeo-Christian morality and that their defense was "the most fundamental issue that confronts any government at any time," as he wrote in 1952.
Human rights in Sweden
The European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR) which was incorporated into Swedish domestic law from 1 January 1995 forms the cornerstone of Sweden protection of rights and freedoms. Sweden is a "dualist state" in its adoption of International Law such as the ECHR thereby requiring a special act by the Swedish government for treaties and conventions to take effect domestically. Since Sweden has ratified the EHCR this in practice means that Swedish Court's must interpret cases with respect to the articles of the EHCR. The Convention guarantees specific right and freedoms as well as prohibiting negative freedoms and unfair practices. Some of the rights include: right to life, freedom from torture, right to a fair trial, freedom of expression and right to education.
American Civil Liberties Union
When World War II engulfed the United States, the Bill of Rights was enshrined as a hallowed document, and numerous organizations defended civil liberties. Chicago and New York proclaimed "Civil Rights" weeks, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced a national Bill of Rights day. Eleanor Roosevelt was the keynote speaker at the 1939 ACLU convention. In spite of this newfound respect for civil rights, Americans were becoming adamantly anti-communist, and believed that excluding communists from American society was an essential step to preserve democracy.
Societal attitudes toward homosexuality
Some opponents of the movement say the term "LGBT civil rights" is a misnomer and an attempt to piggyback on the civil rights movement. Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, for example, called the comparison of the civil rights movement to the "gay rights movement" a "disgrace to a black American". He said that "homosexuality is not a civil right. What we have is a bunch of radical homosexuals trying to attach their agenda to the struggles of the 1960s," while Jesse Jackson has said "Gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution." Gene Rivers, a Boston minister, has accused gays of "pimping" the civil rights movement.
Civil union
The terms used to designate civil unions are not standardized, and vary widely from country to country. Government-sanctioned relationships that may be similar or equivalent to civil unions include civil partnerships, registered partnerships, domestic partnerships, significant relationships, reciprocal beneficiary relationships, common-law marriage, adult interdependent relationships, life partnerships, stable unions, civil solidarity pacts, and so on. The exact level of rights, benefits, obligations, and responsibilities also varies, depending on the laws of a particular country. Some jurisdictions allow same-sex couples to adopt, while others forbid them to do so, or allow adoption only in specified circumstances.
Civil Rights Cases
What I affirm is that no state, nor the officers of any state, nor any corporation or individual wielding power under state authority for the public benefit or the public convenience, can, consistently either with the freedom established by the fundamental law, or with that equality of civil rights which now belongs to every citizen, discriminate against freemen or citizens, in their civil rights, because of their race, or because they once labored under disabilities imposed upon them as a race. The rights which congress, by the act of 1875, endeavored to secure and protect are legal, not social, rights. The right, for instance, of a colored citizen to use the accommodations of a public highway upon the same terms as are permitted to white citizens is no more a social right than his right, under the law, to use the public streets of a city, or a town, or a turnpike road, or a public market, or a post-office, or his right to sit in a public building with others, of whatever race, for the purpose of hearing the political questions of the day discussed. Scarcely a day passes without our seeing in this court-room citizens of the white and black races sitting side by side watching the progress of our business. It would never occur to any one that the presence of a colored citizen in a court-house or court-room was an invasion of the social rights of white persons who may frequent such places. And yet such a suggestion would be quite as sound in law—I say it with all respect—as is the suggestion that the claim of a colored citizen to use, upon the same terms as is permitted to white citizens, the accommodations of public highways, or public inns, or places of public amusement, established under the license of the law, is an invasion of the social rights of the white race.
Civil Rights Cases
The one underlying purpose of congressional legislation has been to enable the black race to take the rank of mere citizens. The difficulty has been to compel a recognition of their legal right to take that rank, and to secure the enjoyment of privileges belonging, under the law, to them as a component part of the people for whose welfare and happiness government is ordained. At every step in this direction the nation has been confronted with class tyranny, which a contemporary English historian says is, of all tyrannies, the most intolerable, 'for it is ubiquitous in its operation, and weighs, perhaps, most heavily on those whose obscurity or distance would withdraw them from the notice of a single despot.' To-day it is the colored race which is denied, by corporations and individuals wielding public authority, rights fundamental in their freedom and citizenship. At some future time it may be some other race that will fall under the ban. If the constitutional amendments be enforced, according to the intent with which, as I conceive, they were adopted, there cannot be, in this republic, any class of human beings in practical subjection to another class, with power in the latter to dole out to the former just such privileges as they may choose to grant. The supreme law of the land has decreed that no authority shall be exercised in this country upon the basis of discrimination, in respect of civil rights, against freemen and citizens because of their race, color, or previous condition of servitude. To that decree—for the due enforcement of which, by appropriate legislation, congress has been invested with express power—every one must bow, whatever may have been, or whatever now are, his individual views as to the wisdom or policy, either of the recent changes in the fundamental law, or of the legislation which has been enacted to give them effect.
History of Western civilization
Following the war, black Americans started what has become known as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. After roughly a century of second-class citizenship following the abolition of slavery, blacks began seeking full equality. This was helped by the 1954 decision by the Supreme Court, outlawing segregation in schools, which was common in the South. Dr. Martin Luther King, a black minister from the South led many blacks and whites who supported their cause in non-violent protests against discrimination. Eventually, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed in 1964, banning measures that had prevented blacks from voting and outlawing segregation and discrimination in the U.S.
U.S. Route 80 in Alabama
The Alabama section of US 80 played an integral role in the events of the American Civil Rights Movement. Selma, like many cities and towns in the American southeast, was subject to Jim Crow laws, which enforced acts of racial segregation among the populous. Dating back to 1877, the Jim Crow laws were meant to separate the American black and white populations, while ensuring both had institutions and accommodations of equal quality. A notion commonly referred to as "separate but equal". In reality, the acts did little more than legally force the southeast's black population to reside in poor living conditions and also denied black citizens entry into most white establishments such as businesses and public institutions. Following the events surrounding the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court case of "Brown v. Board of Education" in 1954, desegregating American schools and the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and 1956 leading to a similar ruling regarding public bus segregation by the Supreme Court, marked the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, meant to abolish American segregation. The movement lead to protests across the United States, including the March on Washington in 1963, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Though the civil rights protests were often met with violent retaliation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ensured much of the goals the protesters and activists had pushed for became legal reality. However, remaining Jim Crow laws still prevented most black Americans in the southeast from voting. Initial efforts to surpass this problem during the Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi was met with the murder of three activists involved in the project. Further retaliation by pro-segregationists, ranging from bombings to police brutality lead to an increase in protests against such violence as well as voting restrictions in the year 1965. In Dallas County, there were over 15,000 black citizens eligible for voter registration, but only 300 of those people were actually registered.
Following earlier failed demonstrations in Selma and the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion, Martin Luther King Jr. began working with other activists to create a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. The march was to follow the route of US 80 between the two cities. Despite King being unable to attend due to illness and preferring to postpone the event, the first attempt at the march started without him on March 7, 1965 with 525 individuals in attendance. The march continued east on US 80 until reaching the south side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River. The Alabama National Guard, under orders of Governor George Wallace, awaited the protesters wearing gas masks and brandishing weapons. Joining the Guard were local policemen and "possemen", civilians authorized to combat the protesters by local law enforcement. The resistance proceeded to violently beat the protesters with batons and tear gas, while others trampled protesters with horses while also spitting and cracking bullwhips on the demonstrators. Over 50 participants had to be taken to the hospital. News agencies such as the American Broadcasting Company however, had recorded the event on television cameras, then proceeded to interrupt regular programing to display the footage nationwide. The event would come to be known as "Bloody Sunday". News of the attacks lead to public outrage across the United States. King organized a second protest on March 9, with the support of nearly 400 new demonstrators from across the nation, despite a court issued restraining order. This time, the resistance on the other end of the bridge cleared an open pathway on US 80 for the protesters to proceed rather than continue to block the highway. King, fearing the move was a trap, cancelled the march.
Growing pressure and outrage towards caused President Lyndon Johnson to give a public address to Congress in support to the marchers. As well as the address, Johnson pressured Congress to pass legislation which would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This landmark legislation abolished practices such as literacy tests, which had prevented the majority of black citizens in the southeast from voting. Though the legislation would not be passed until August 6. Judge Frank Minis Johnson overturned the earlier restraining order, ruling the protesters had every right to march along US 80 or any public under rights guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. A third attempt at the march lead by King began on March 21, 1965 with almost 3,200 people attending. Along the march, demonstrators were met by widespread taunting including signs and posters directing verbal attacks towards the march as well as a radio store in Selma playing "Bye Bye Blackbird" towards the group. In Lowndes County, US 80 reduced from four lanes to two. Due to restrictions, the number of protesters through the county was greatly reduced to 300 persons. Despite the reduction, the march continued to push forward over the next 4 days. On March 25, the march reached the city limits of Montgomery. Upon entering the city, the number of demonstrators rose to 30,000 individuals. The marchers left US 80 and arrived at the state capitol on Dexter Street, where King gave his "How Long, Not Long" speech to a giant crowd on top of a flatbed trailer. President Johnson had arranged for the Alabama National Guard, United States Army, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Marshals Service to protect the demonstrators from harm during the march along US 80.
In 1989, Representative John Lewis of Georgia, one of the marchers from the 1965 demonstrations, introduced the Selma to Montgomery National Trail Study Act, which enabled the National Park Service to study a potential designation of US 80 between Montgomery and Selma as a National Trail. The study was approved on July 3, 1990, signed into affect by President George H.W. Bush as Public Law 101-321. The National Park Service tasked historians Luke Lambert and Barbara Tagger to conduct the study. In April 1993, the study was completed and awaited Congressional approval. Congress approved of the designation passing legislation to President Bill Clinton. President Clinton proceeded to sign Public Law 104-333 into effect on November 12, 1996, officially designating the 54 mile stretch of US 80 as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. The stretch of road had previously been designated as a National Scenic Byway by the Secretary of Transportation on September 19, 1996. President Clinton himself joined a commemorative march with King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and several other civil rights activists on the 35th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Civil and political rights
Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote.
Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India
The "Fundamental Rights" are defined as the basic human rights of all citizens. These rights, defined in Part III of the Constitution, applied irrespective of race, place of birth, religion, caste, creed, or gender. They are enforceable by the courts, subject to specific restrictions. The "Directive Principles of State Policy" are guidelines for the framing of laws by the government. These provisions, set out in Part IV of the Constitution, are not enforceable by the courts, but the principles on which they are based are fundamental guidelines for governance that the State is expected to apply in framing policies and passing laws.
Fundamental rights in India
The fundamental rights were included in the constitution because they were considered essential for the development of the personality of every individual and to preserve human dignity. The writers of the constitution regarded democracy of no avail if civil liberties, like freedom of speech and religion were not recognised and protected by the State. According to them, "democracy" is, in essence, a government by opinion and therefore, the means of formulating public opinion should be secured to the people of a democratic nation. For this purpose, the constitution guaranteed to all the citizens of India the freedom of speech and expression and various other freedoms in the form of the fundamental rights.
Civil Rights Cases
Justice Harlan dissented against the Court's narrow interpretation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments for all five of the cases. He argued Congress was attempting to overcome the refusal of the states to protect the rights denied to African Americans that white citizens took as their birthright. Private railroads ("Olcott v. Supervisors") were by law public highways, and it was the function of the government to make and maintain highways for the conveyance of the public; that innkeepers have long been held to be "a sort of public servants" ("Rex v. Ivens" 1835 7 Car. & P. 213) that had no right to deny to anyone "conducting himself in a proper manner" admission to his inn; and that public amusements are maintained under a license coming from the State. He also found that the lack of protection from the 1875 Civil Rights Act would result in the violation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, largely on the same grounds. Harlan J would have held the Civil Rights Act of 1875 valid, because people were left ‘practically at the mercy of corporations and individuals wielding power under public authority’. His judgment went as follows.
The opinion in these cases proceeds, as it seems to me, upon grounds entirely too narrow and artificial. The substance and spirit of the recent amendments of the constitution have been sacrificed by a subtle and ingenious verbal criticism. 'It is not the words of the law but the internal sense of it that makes the law. The letter of the law is the body; the sense and reason of the law is the soul.' Constitutional provisions, adopted in the interest of liberty, and for the purpose of securing, through national legislation, if need be, rights inhering in a state of freedom, and belonging to American citizenship, have been so construed as to defeat the ends the people desired to accomplish, which they attempted to accomplish, and which they supposed they had accomplished by changes in their fundamental law. By this I do not mean that the determination of these cases should have been materially controlled by considerations of mere expediency or policy. I mean only, in this form, to express an earnest conviction that the court has departed from the familiar rule requiring, in the interpretation of constitutional provisions, that full effect be given to the intent with which they were adopted.
Civil rights movement (1896–1954)
After the Civil War, the US expanded the legal rights of African Americans. Congress passed, and enough states ratified, an amendment ending slavery in 1865—the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment only outlawed slavery; it provided neither citizenship nor equal rights. In 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified by the states, granting African Americans citizenship. All persons born in the US were extended equal protection under the laws of the Constitution. The 15th Amendment (ratified in 1870) stated that race could not be used as a condition to deprive men of the ability to vote. During Reconstruction (1865–1877), Northern troops occupied the South. Together with the Freedmen's Bureau, they tried to administer and enforce the new constitutional amendments. Many black leaders were elected to local and state offices, and many others organized community groups, especially to support education.
Civil liberties
These include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, incorporated in the fundamental law of the land and are enforceable in a court of law. Violations of these rights result in punishments as prescribed in the Indian Penal Code, subject to discretion of the judiciary. These rights are neither absolute nor immune from constitutional amendments. They have been aimed at overturning the inequalities of pre-independence social practices. Specifically, they resulted in abolishment of un-touchability and prohibit discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. They forbid human trafficking and unfree labour. They protect cultural and educational rights of ethnic and religious minorities by allowing them to preserve their languages and administer their own educational institutions.
Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 also said that any citizen has the same right that a white citizen has to make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. Additionally, the act guaranteed to all citizens the "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and ... like punishment, pains, and penalties..." Persons who denied these rights on account of race or previous enslavement were guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction faced a fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.
Conscience
English humanist lawyers in the 16th and 17th centuries interpreted conscience as a collection of universal principles given to man by god at creation to be applied by reason; this gradually reforming the medieval Roman law-based system with forms of action, written pleadings, use of juries and patterns of litigation such as Demurrer and Assumpsit that displayed an increased concern for elements of right and wrong on the actual facts. A conscience vote in a parliament allows legislators to vote without restrictions from any political party to which they may belong. In his trial in Jerusalem Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann claimed he was simply following legal orders under paragraph 48 of the German Military Code which provided: "punishability of an action or omission is not excused on the ground that the person considered his behaviour required by his conscience or the prescripts of his religion". The United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) which is part of international customary law specifically refers to "conscience" in Articles 1 and 18. Likewise, the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) mentions "conscience" in Article 18.1. It has been argued that these articles provide international legal obligations protecting conscientious objectors from service in the military.
John Rawls in his "A Theory of Justice" defines a conscientious objector as an individual prepared to undertake, in public (and often despite widespread condemnation), an action of civil disobedience to a legal rule justifying it (also in public) by reference to contrary foundational social virtues (such as justice as liberty or fairness) and the principles of morality and law derived from them. Rawls considered civil disobedience should be viewed as an appeal, warning or admonishment (showing general respect and fidelity to the rule of law by the non-violence and transparency of methods adopted) that a law breaches a community's fundamental virtue of justice. Objections to Rawls' theory include first, its inability to accommodate conscientious objections to the society's basic appreciation of justice or to emerging moral or ethical principles (such as respect for the rights of the natural environment) which are not yet part of it and second, the difficulty of predictably and consistently determining that a majority decision is just or unjust. "Conscientious objection" (also called conscientious refusal or evasion) to obeying a law, should not arise from unreasoning, naive "traditional conscience", for to do so merely encourages infantile abdication of responsibility to calibrate the law against moral or human rights norms and disrespect for democratic institutions. Instead it should be based on "critical conscience' – seriously thought out, conceptually mature, personal moral or religious beliefs held to be fundamentally incompatible (that is, not merely inconsistent on the basis of selfish desires, whim or impulse), for example, either with all laws requiring conscription for military service, or legal compulsion to fight for or financially support the State in a particular war. A famous example arose when Henry David Thoreau the author of Walden was willingly jailed for refusing to pay a tax because he profoundly disagreed with a government policy and was frustrated by the corruption and injustice of the democratic machinery of the state. A more recent case concerned Kimberly Rivera, a private in the US Army and mother of four children who, having served 3 months in Iraq War decided the conflict was immoral and sought refugee status in Canada in 2012 (see List of Iraq War resisters), but was deported and arrested in the US.
Civil liberties in the United States
Civil liberties in the United States are certain unalienable rights retained by (as opposed to privileges granted to) citizens of the United States under the Constitution of the United States, as interpreted and clarified by the Supreme Court of the United States and lower federal courts. Civil liberties are simply defined as individual legal and constitutional protections from entities more powerful than an individual, for example, parts of the government, other individuals, or corporations. The liberties explicitly defined, make up the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the right to privacy. There are also many liberties of people not defined in the Constitution, as stated in the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Human rights and encryption
Human rights are moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behavior, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They 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.
Civil and political rights
T. H. Marshall notes that civil rights were among the first to be recognized and codified, followed later by political rights and still later by social rights. In many countries, they are constitutional rights and are included in a bill of rights or similar document. They are also defined in international human rights instruments, such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1967 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Civil rights (disambiguation)
Civil rights may refer to several different things:
Civil and political rights
Civil and political rights form the original and main part of international human rights. They comprise the first portion of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with economic, social, and cultural rights comprising the second portion). The theory of three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be "first-generation rights", and the theory of negative and positive rights considers them to be generally negative rights.
United States House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
The Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is a subcommittee within the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
[The subcommittee] has oversight jurisdiction over: issues related to civil rights, civil liberties and the equal protection of laws, including voting rights, freedom of religion, speech,
press, and assembly; equal employment; nondisclosure agreements; and criminal justice reform policies; and legislative and oversight jurisdiction over the Census Bureau and the Census.
Political positions of Rand Paul
In April 2013, in a speech at Howard University, he said "It's a mischaracterization of my position. I've never been against the Civil Rights Act, ever, and I continue to be for the Civil Rights Act as well as the Voting Rights Act. There was one interview that had a long, extended conversation about the ramifications beyond race, and I have been concerned about the ramifications of certain portions of the Civil Rights Act beyond race, as they are now being applied to smoking, menus, listing calories and things on menus, and guns. And so I do question some of the ramifications and the extensions but I never questioned the Civil Rights Act and never came out in opposition to the Civil Rights Act or ever introduced anything to alter the Civil Rights Act."
South African constitutional litigation
The Bill of Rights is “the principal source of substantive constraints on public power in the Constitution.” The Bill of Rights instructs the state to use the power that the Constitution gives it in ways that do not violate fundamental rights and that promote and fulfil those rights. Should it fail to comply with these instructions, it will act unconstitutionally; its actions or laws will be unlawful and invalid. Although the Constitution as a whole is mostly concerned with state power and with law, there are a number of provisions of the Bill of Rights that place duties on private individuals in certain circumstances.
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement (also known as the African-American civil rights movement, the American civil rights movement and other terms) in the United States was a decades-long struggle with the goal of enforcing constitutional and legal rights for African Americans that other Americans already enjoyed. With roots that dated back to the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, the movement achieved its largest legislative gains in the mid-1960s, after years of direct actions and grassroots protests that were organized from the mid-1950s until 1968. Encompassing strategies, various groups, and organized social movements to accomplish the goals of ending legalized racial segregation, disenfranchisement, and discrimination in the United States, the movement, using major nonviolent campaigns, eventually secured new recognition in federal law and federal protection for all Americans.
Human rights in Canada
The division of powers is also the reason that the term "civil rights" is not used in Canada in the same way as it is used in other countries, such as the United States. One of the main areas of provincial jurisdiction is "Property and civil rights", which is a broad phrase used to encompass all of what is normally termed the civil law, such as contracts, property, torts/delicts, family law, wills, estates and successions and so on. This use of the phrase dates back to the "Quebec Act, 1774". Given the broad, established meaning of "civil rights" in Canadian constitutional law, it has not been used in the more specific meaning of personal equality rights. Instead, the terms "human rights" / "droits de la personne" are used.
Multicultural education
10 years later the Civil Rights Act of 1964, known as "the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction" was enacted. It outlawed discrimination in public spaces and establishments, made it illegal for any workplace and employment discrimination, and it made integration possible for schools and other public spaces possible. Students of exception are also a group that civil rights advocates have been fighting for in the implementation of quality multicultural education. With the continued support from civil rights groups coming out of their struggle, many of these students found support on a scale much larger due to the major push in education to provide equity to all students.
Law
Freedom of speech, freedom of association and many other individual rights allow people to gather, discuss, criticise and hold to account their governments, from which the basis of a deliberative democracy is formed. The more people are involved with, concerned by and capable of changing how political power is exercised over their lives, the more acceptable and legitimate the law becomes to the people. The most familiar institutions of civil society include economic markets, profit-oriented firms, families, trade unions, hospitals, universities, schools, charities, debating clubs, non-governmental organisations, neighbourhoods, churches, and religious associations.
All legal systems deal with the same basic issues, but jurisdictions categorise and identify its legal subjects in different ways. A common distinction is that between "public law" (a term related closely to the state, and including constitutional, administrative and criminal law), and "private law" (which covers contract, tort and property). In civil law systems, contract and tort fall under a general law of obligations, while trusts law is dealt with under statutory regimes or international conventions. International, constitutional and administrative law, criminal law, contract, tort, property law and trusts are regarded as the "traditional core subjects", although there are many further disciplines.
Civil Rights Act of 1866
With an incipit of "An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their vindication", the act declared that all people born in the United States who are not subject to any foreign power are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. A similar provision (called the Citizenship Clause) was written a few months later into the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Human rights in the United States
According to "Human Rights: The Essential Reference", "the American Declaration of Independence was the first civic document that met a modern definition of human rights." The Constitution recognizes a number of inalienable human rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair trial by jury.
Civil rights movement in popular culture
The 1954 to 1968 civil rights movement contributed strong cultural threads to American and international theater, song, film, television, and folk art. These depictions in the arts keep alive the ideals and deeds of the people who organized, supported, and participated in this nonviolent movement.
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the Legislature by petitions, or remonstrances, for redress of their grievances.
Human rights in the United States
In the 1860s, after decades of conflict over southern states' continued practice of slavery, and northern states' outlawing it, the Civil War was fought, and in its aftermath the Constitution was amended to prohibit slavery and to prohibit states' denying rights granted in the Constitution. Among these amendments was the Fourteenth Amendment, which included an Equal Protection Clause which seemed to clarify that courts and states were prohibited in narrowing the meaning of "Persons". After the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, Susan B. Anthony, buttressed by the equal protection language, voted. She was prosecuted for this, however, and ran into an all-male court ruling that women were not "Persons"; the court levied a fine but it was never collected.
Fifty years later, in 1920, the Constitution was amended again, with the Nineteenth Amendment to definitively prohibit discrimination against women's suffrage.
Civil and political rights
First-generation rights, often called "purple" rights, deal essentially with liberty and participation in political life. They are fundamentally civil and political in nature, as well as strongly individualistic: They serve negatively to protect the individual from excesses of the state. First-generation rights include, among other things, freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, (in some countries) the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion, freedom from discrimination, and voting rights. They were pioneered in the United States by the Bill of Rights and in France by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in the 18th century, although some of these rights and the right to due process date back to the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Rights of Englishmen, which were expressed in the English Bill of Rights in 1689.
Civil rights movement
In order to secure a place in the mainstream and gain the broadest base, the new generation of civil rights activists believed they had to openly distance themselves from anything and anyone associated with the Communist party. According to Ella Baker, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference adopted "Christian" into its name to deter charges of Communism. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had been concerned about communism since the early 20th century, and continued to label as "Communist" or "subversive" some of the civil rights activists, whom it kept under close surveillance. In the early 1960s, the practice of distancing the civil rights movement from "Reds" was challenged by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who adopted a policy of accepting assistance and participation by anyone, regardless of political affiliation, who supported the SNCC program and was willing to "put their body on the line." At times this political openness put SNCC at odds with the NAACP.
Civil Rights Cases
The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), were a group of five US Supreme Court constitutional law cases. Against the famous dissent of Justice Harlan, a majority held the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, because Congress lacked authority to regulate private affairs under the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the Thirteenth Amendment "merely abolishes slavery". The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had banned race discrimination in access to services offered to the public. The decision was effectively reversed in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court from 1937, and finally by legislation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Vital statistics (government records)
While the number of births and deaths can be obtained by enumeration at certain points in time (e.g. censuses and surveys), civil registration collects this information on a continuous basis and is the only source that provides individuals with a legal document. For instance, the importance of birth registration as the first legal recognition of the child is emphasized in Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that "the child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents". United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and a number of non-governmental organizations (Plan International, Save the Children Fund, World Vision, etc.) have particularly promoted the human rights aspects of registration, while the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and World Health Organization (WHO) have focused more on the statistical aspects of civil registration.
Scott Long
One of the most basic splits in contemporary human rights work – sometimes mapped onto a division between "global South" and "global North," though not quite reducible to it – is between rights as a set of legal norms, and rights as a complex of human dreams and political aspirations. The split has to do, as well, with the difference between institutions and movements, the former ones formal and developing their own standards and needs, the latter fluid and chaotic and responsible to individuals' and communities' desires and drives … Human Rights Watch – and other international organizations like it – needs a far deeper understanding of what social movements are, why they are important, how they turn human rights into living values rather than legal abstractions.
New South
The beginnings of the Civil Rights era in the 1960s led to a revival of the term to describe a South which would no longer be held back by Jim Crow Laws and other aspects of compulsory legal segregation. Again, the initially slow pace of civil rights reforms, notably in the areas of school desegregation and voting rights, at first made the "New South" more of a slogan than a description of the South as it actually was; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 brought an era of far more rapid change.
Civil and political rights
The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. In 1868, the 14th amendment to the constitution gave blacks equal protection under the law.
In the 1960s, Americans who knew only the potential of "equal protection of the laws" expected the president, the Congress, and the courts to fulfill the promise of the 14th Amendment.
Substantive rights
Substantive rights are basic human rights possessed by people in an ordered society and include rights granted by natural law as well as the substantive law. Substantive rights involve a right to the substance of being human (life, liberty, happiness), rather than a right to a procedure to enforce that right, which is defined by procedural law.
Human rights violations during the Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
Regional groups have been accused of indiscriminate attacks, often resulting in the deaths of civilians, and at times, of limiting the ability of civilians to import goods and arbitrarily detaining protesters. The rights to life and to security of person, not to be arbitrarily deprived of one's property, and not to be arbitrarily detained are protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and can be argued to have been breached by these regional groups.
Civil union
A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant most or all of the rights of marriage except the title itself. Around the world, developed democracies began establishing civil unions in the late 1990s, often developing them from less formal domestic partnerships, which grant only some of the rights of marriage. In the majority of countries that established these unions in laws, they have since been either supplemented or replaced by same-sex marriage. Civil unions are viewed by LGBT rights campaigners as a "first step" towards establishing same-sex marriage, as civil unions are viewed by supporters of LGBT rights as a "separate but equal" or "second class" status. While civil unions are often established for both opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples, in a number of countries they are available to same-sex couples only.
Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974
The civil rights movement brought about controversies on busing, language rights, desegregation, and the idea of “equal education". The groundwork for the creation of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act first came about with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination and racial segregation against African Americans and women. In 1968 the U.S. Department of Education, formerly the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, issued a statement saying that school officials are responsible for providing equal educational opportunities for all, regardless of one’s nationality, race, or color. A 1970 memorandum was then passed, clarifying the responsibilities of school officials. In addition to requiring separate classes to be created for students less than proficient in the English language, communication between students’ parents and the school was to be required to be conducted in a language understood by the parents.
Parenting coordinator
There also was an official debate in Oklahoma Legislature that parenting coordination can interfere with civil liberties and conflict with Fourth Amendment: Common civil liberties include the rights of people, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and additionally, the right to due process, to a trial, to own property, and to privacy. The debate stemmed around the fact that the coordinator can demand to know details about parties conversations, check on conditions of their house, ask questions about their personal life, disregard rules of evidence laws, get copies of documents without a warrant request, make decisions which exceeds their authority, since the PC has the power to control and regulate many aspects of parent time with their child up to recommending court to limit parent contact with child. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that a state may not make a law that "abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" and no state may "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Title 42 United States Code Section 1983 states that citizens can sue any person that acting under a color of law to deprive the citizens of their civil rights under the pretext of a regulation of a state. Oklahoma was the first state to pass a PC statute and also the first state to later determine the statute to be unconstitutional. As a result, the statute has been amended, see Title 43 Oklahoma Statutes Supp.2003 § 120.3 for details. Currently, the scope of practice has been limited to rendering only ”minor and temporary" decisions. Later, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts also declared parental coordinator appointment unconstitutional, because of the "unlawful delegation of judicial decision-making authority".Notes
Report to the American People on Civil Rights
The Report to the American People on Civil Rights was a speech on civil rights, delivered on radio and television by United States President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office on June 11, 1963 in which he proposed legislation that would later become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Expressing civil rights as a moral issue, Kennedy moved past his previous appeals to legality and asserted that the pursuit of racial equality was a just cause. The address signified a shift in his administration's policy towards strong support of the civil rights movement and played a significant role in shaping his legacy as a proponent of civil rights.
Civil liberties in the United States
The extent of civil liberties and the periphery of the population of the United States who had access to these liberties has expanded over time. For example, the Constitution did not originally define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to determine who was eligible. In the early history of the U.S., most states allowed only white male adult property owners to vote (about 6% of the population). The 'Three-Fifths Compromise' allowed the southern slaveholders to consolidate power and maintain slavery in America for eighty years after the ratification of the Constitution. And the Bill of Rights had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 130 years after ratification.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Section 1 of the amendment formally defines United States citizenship and also protects various civil rights from being abridged or denied by any state or state actor. Abridgment or denial of those civil rights by private persons is not addressed by this amendment; the Supreme Court held in the "Civil Rights Cases" (1883) that the amendment was limited to "state action" and, therefore, did not authorize the Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals or organizations (though Congress can sometimes reach such discrimination via other parts of the Constitution). U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph P. Bradley commented in the Civil Rights Cases that "individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the [Fourteenth] Amendment. It has a deeper and broader scope. It nullifies and makes void all state legislation, and state action of every kind, which impairs the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or which injures them in life, liberty or property without due process of law, or which denies to any of them the equal protection of the laws."
State of emergency
Some countries have made it illegal to modify emergency law or the constitution during the emergency; other countries have the freedom to change any legislation or rights based constitutional frameworks at any time that the legislative chooses to do so. Constitutions are contracts between the government and the private individuals of that country. The International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is an international law document signed by states. Therefore, the Covenant applies to only those persons acting in an official capacity, not private individuals. However, signatories to the Covenant are expected to integrate it into national legislation. The state of emergency (within the ICCPR framework) must be publicly declared and the Secretary-General of the United Nations must be contacted immediately, to declare the reason for the emergency, the date on which the emergency is to start, the derogations that may take place, with the timeframe of the emergency and the date in which the emergency is expected to finish. Although this is common protocol stipulated by the ICCPR, this is often not strictly followed; enforcement is better regulated by European Convention of human rights.
Patrick O'Boyle
In April 1964, in the midst of Congressional debate on the Civil Rights Bill, O'Boyle chaired the Inter-religious Convocation on Civil Rights at Georgetown University. In giving the invocation, O'Boyle said that "There is in every man a priceless dignity which is your heritage. From this dignity flow the rights of man, and the duty in justice that all must respect and honor these rights..." In his remarks, he urged Congress to pass the bill and those present to "tell our Representatives our conviction that such a law is a moral obligation."
Civic space
The right to freely associate includes the right of every person without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, sexual orientation or other status, to “establish a civil society organisation and also to freely join one or choosing not to participate. Individuals may operate civil society organisations and participate in their activities without fear or unwarranted interference. Freedom of association also encompasses the right to establish branches, recruit staff, raise funds freely, to fair taxation levels and to affiliate and cooperate with other organisations locally, nationally or internationally.” It also includes the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests. 
International law protects the freedom of association and obligates states not to interfere with this right and only in instances where intervention by the state is necessary in the interests of national security, public safety or public order; the protection of public health or morals; or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Like the freedom of expression, the margin for restricting this right is very limited. State actions must lean in favour of permitting civil society activities and creating an enabling environment for civil society to function and thrive.
Civil rights movement
Robert Kennedy first became concerned with civil rights in mid-May 1961 during the Freedom Rides, when photographs of the burning bus and savage beatings in Anniston and Birmingham were broadcast around the world. They came at an especially embarrassing time, as President Kennedy was about to have a summit with the Soviet premier in Vienna. The White House was concerned with its image among the populations of newly independent nations in Africa and Asia, and Robert Kennedy responded with an address for Voice of America stating that great progress had been made on the issue of race relations. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the administration worked to resolve the crisis with a minimum of violence and prevent the Freedom Riders from generating a fresh crop of headlines that might divert attention from the President's international agenda. The "Freedom Riders" documentary notes that, "The back burner issue of civil rights had collided with the urgent demands of Cold War realpolitik."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower told District of Columbia officials to make Washington a model for the rest of the country in integrating black and white public school children. He proposed to Congress the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and of 1960 and signed those acts into law. The 1957 act for the first time established a permanent civil rights office inside the Justice Department and a Civil Rights Commission to hear testimony about abuses of voting rights. Although both acts were much weaker than subsequent civil rights legislation, they constituted the first significant civil rights acts since 1875.
Civil Rights Cases
Black American plaintiffs, in five cases from lower courts, sued theaters, hotels and transit companies that refused to admit them, or had excluded them from "white only" facilities. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had been passed by Congress and entitled everyone to access accommodation, public transport, and theatres regardless of race or color. This followed the American Civil War (1860–1865), President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1 January 1863) to end slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (9 July 1868) which reads "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." To implement the principles in the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress had specified that people could not be discriminated against on grounds of race or color in access to services offered to the general public. The business owners contended that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was itself unconstitutional, and an Act of Congress should not be able to interfere with their private rights of property.
Human rights movement
An Appeal for Human Rights, published by Atlanta students in 1960, is cited as a key moment in beginning the wave of nonviolent direct actions that swept the American South. In 1967, less than a year before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. began to argue that the concept of "civil rights" was laden with isolating, individualistic capitalist values. He said: "It is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights. When you deal with human rights you are not dealing with something clearly defined in the Constitution. They are rights that are clearly defined by the mandates of a humanitarian concern." For King, who began to organize the multi-racial Poor People's Campaign at the end of his life, human rights required economic justice in addition to de jure equality.
Rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. Rights are of essential importance in such disciplines as law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology.
Rights are often considered fundamental to civilization, for they are regarded as established pillars of society and culture, and the history of social conflicts can be found in the history of each right and its development. According to the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived".
Civil and political rights
Civil rights guarantee equal protection under the law. When civil and political rights are not guaranteed to all as part of equal protection of laws, or when such guarantees exist on paper but are not respected in practice, opposition, legal action and even social unrest may ensue.