DATE: 10 December 2021

PLACE: Opposite of Number 10, Downing Street

COMMITTEE: Executive Committee

We celebrate our rights on the 10th of December every year on the occasion of the UN Human Rights Day. We demand justice for those who cannot speak up for themselves and whose voices are not heard. To make sure our voices are heard, we showed up opposite Downing Street with an 8m long banner wall and asked people to write their views on justice and current human rights violations around the world. We’ve seen people demanding justice for Uyghurs, Latin Americans, Palestine, Kurds, Turks, Libyans, Afghanis, Belarusian, women and transgenders. This project showed us the importance of true solidarity for human rights. We supported our Justice Wall with Instagram broadcasts at different times throughout the day.

Here are a volunteer’s words on their experience at the Justice Wall:

“ It was phenomenal, and one of my first interactive events (other than protests). I feel like us being in the frontier and socially interacting people in public and getting to see their reactions live was energetic and hyping!! It let us remember what we are doing, and what we can do. I truly believe it was a huge motivator as well as an amazing and inclusive project.”

And here is the speech HRS volunteer Asiye Betul made during the protest:

Dear friends,

Before we get started, I would like to celebrate our rights. Mine, yours and all of ours! Happy day human rights day to us!

We have united here today to observe and  celebrate the day of our rights, the day of  the rights that make us who we are and the rights that should be available for all of us. While doing so, we demand justice for those whose rights are being violated, those whose voices are being silenced. We remind you that we will not forget the rights that some have forgotten.

Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December — the day the United Nations General Assembly adopted, in 1948, and has been celebrated every year since then.

But Dear friends,

How much have these rights been applied since then? Why can’t all humans reach those rights?

Isn’t it strange that some rights are still being violated while we’re sat here celebrating them? Isn’t it strange that there’s a genocide happening in front of our eyes in China? Isn’t it strange that we’re building walls, putting out immigration bills? That there are journalists arrested in Brazil and Turkey? Isn’t it so strange that our rights are still being violated, in this very day?!

As we stand here with our wall of Justice, we will ask for the long awaited justice! We will not only ask for ours, but everyone’s rights! And we will let this wall be proof, of all those whose rights are denied and forgotten.

Because rights are only human, when they apply to all of us.

Because we are only human, when we fight for rights.

Dear Friends!

Happy Human rights day!

Let us celebrate our rights! Let us fight for our rights!