On December 10, 2008, I had a chance to attend some of the celebrations for the annual United Nations Human Rights Day (commemorating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). This year was particularly important, because it was the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the cornerstone of human rights principles and protections within the UN system and globally.
I attended a public celebration for UDHR 60 and Human Rights Day at the United Nations Conference Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The program included video interviews with several women in different African countries that addressed human rights violations against women. The Chief Commissioner of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission delivered a speech about human rights in Ethiopia and then launched the official website of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. We also saw an excerpt of an Amharic movie that was filmed to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the UDHR about the struggles of a young girl with a disability against discrimination and stigmatization. The event concluded with the reading of the official statements of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Secretary General of the United Nations on the occasion of Human Rights Day.
