Do you know of any democratic states that are accused of human right offense?

Question

Doing a paper that has to display how empirical question can affect moral issues. I plan to have the moral statement be "The world should be comprised solely of democracys" the empircal question is "Do democracies violate human rights?"

Only example I can think of is Native Americans in the 1800's and possible the Weimar Republic becoming NAZI

Sorry, I am looking for somewhere around 10-15 examples. Additonally, I am not sure if The Weimar Republic example is valid, since it wasn't a homegrown democracy

Also, if you could elaborate, I'm not a history expert, so I need the democacy, a general time peroid and who was oppressed, I should be able to pick up the research from there.

Answer 1

For starters:
The USA is supposedly a Democracy, but it has consistently been undemocratic in its actions since independence.
a) Slavery
b) Limited voting rights for a long time, then all men gained a vote and only more recently have women and Afro-Americans gained a vote.
c) An undemocratic electoral system that really does not give the ordinary person a valid vote.
d) The right to protest has been limited throughout the whole of the countries existence. (take the Vietnam war protests in the mid to late 1960's when people were arrested and bashed by police for quietly and peacefully protesting), or the bashing, jailing and killing of trade unionists throughout the countries history, especially in the 1920's and 1930's.
e) The actions of the US in installing dictatorships in foreign countries sympathetic to the US.
f) The US violating UN and other international treaties and the UN charter for its own welfare.
g) The current US policy of using torture against supposed "terrorists" at Guantanamo Bay and at other sites in foreign countries.
h) Killing off Native Americans and stealing their land.

Britain --
The treatment of South Africa "Boers" prior to and during the Boer War.
The treatment of Indians whilst India was a colony.
The export of "criminals" to 'the Americas' prior to US independence, or to Australia from 1776 onwards.
People in Hong Kong did not have the vote whilst it was a colony of Britain.

Australia --
The killing off of Australian Aborigines following settlement in late 1700's.
The taking of Aboriginal children from their parents to be raised in orphanages or childrens homes or with white people. Many were raped and mistreated while in the orphanages or with the white people.
The right to protest was banned in Queensland in the 1960's through to the early 1990's and many people were jailed and/or bashed by police.

South Africa --
The South African government practised "Aparthied", or racial segregation from the early 1960's through to around 1994. Many Coloureds (mixed race people or Indians etc) and "Blacks" were killed and jailed and treated horrifically during this period.

Rhodesia --
Similar to South Africa at the same time.

Cyprus --
The Turkish government invaded Cyprus in the early 1960's causing a war and the division of the island into "Turkish" and "Greek" halves, with many killed and wounded and a lot of political tension and trouble which continues to this day.

Greece -- There was a military coup in the early 1960's and a extreme right-wing dictatorship ensured for many years.

France -- In the late 1950's and early 1960's, under General De Galle, many freedoms were restricted and France committed a number of atrocities in Algieria whilst it was a French colony, as they did in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the "First Indochina War" (pre-1954).

Answer 2

Not sure if your paper have the right question, or if you are being clear on what you need to know, but almost every country (including those with a democratic system) have been accused of violating Human rights one way or the other; even the US has been acused of that.

Being a democracy doesn't stop any goverment from doing whatever they want to get what they wnat. Some countries do it more openly than others but no country (democratic or not) can claim to be free of guilt.

Go to the Amnesty International web site to have a list of Human Rights violation by all countries.
http://www.amnesty.org/

for other human Rights sitesm go
http://www.hrweb.org/resource.html

Answer 3

A few states call themselves "the democratic people's ...." this or that or the other. So first you have to decide if a state calling itself a democracy really IS one.

Having said that, I would say that a TRUE democracy could, indeed, violate human rights. Because a true democracy is subject to the "tyranny of the majority." I.e. if we changed to USA from a constitutional representative democracy to a true democracy, we could revoke women's right to vote if a majority voted for it. We could reinstate slavery if a majority voted for it. Because in the absence of a check-and-balance system, there is nothing to protect a minority from being totally out-voted.

So, I would say that true democracies CAN violate human rights unless they make it nearly impossible to do so by the way their internal safeguards are set up.

Answer 4

United States is being accused of human rights violations because of what is happening in Guantanamo Bay.

Answer 5

Then your question is phrased wrong.. Delete it and try again...