Youth for Human Rights South Africa Supports ANC Anti-Racism Campaign

Joining forces those marching to end racism, Youth for Human Rights South Africa is determined to accomplish Mandela's dream of ending discrimination in any form.

When thousands of ANC (African National Congress) members took a stand against racism in a march to Union Building in Pretoria last month, volunteers from the local chapter of Youth for Human Rights joined the movement and showed them that education on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is key to accomplishing their goals.

“The ANC calls for South Africans to move beyond merely identifying racism as a persisting challenge to uniting in action and to completely eradicate it together with all other forms of discrimination,” said ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe about the march. “In the same way our people were united against apartheid the ANC seeks to mobilize all South Africans, black and white, to contribute to the ongoing transformation of our country…This is not a protest march … it is a march about facilitating conversation among South Africans.”

"The ANC calls for South Africans to move beyond merely identifying racism as a persisting challenge to uniting in action and to completely eradicate it together with all other forms of discrimination. In the same way our people were united against apartheid the ANC seeks to mobilize all South Africans, black and white, to contribute to the ongoing transformation of our country…This is not a protest march … it is a march about facilitating conversation among South Africans."

Gwede Mantashe, ANC Secretary-General

Maurithus Meiring, Director of Special Affairs of the Church of Scientology Pretoria and coordinator of Youth for Human Rights Pretoria, congratulated the ANC for mobilizing thousands to join in this movement. “It has been 22 years since apartheid ended,” says Meiring. “It is time to end all forms of racism. Nelson Mandela described racism as ‘a blight on the human conscience,’ and he said. ‘The idea that any people can be inferior to another, to the point where those who consider themselves superior define and treat the rest as sub-human, denies the humanity even of those who elevate themselves to the status of gods.’ By educating people on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we are helping accomplish this goal Madiba set for the country more than 20 years ago.”

Scientologists on six continents engage in collaborative efforts with government agencies and nongovernmental organizations to bring about broad-scale awareness and implementation of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world’s premier human rights document.