5th IQBC: Buddhism – Human Rights – Queer Rights vs. Abuse

After the last IQBC, which had the title “Buddhism is Trans” my volunteers and I had to realize, that people would have liked to attend and be part of the conference with this exciting title. But they were afraid of attending because of the bullying and threatening they have gone through among social networks and also in the real world. Still, in the 21st century, queer people are persecuted, brought into jail, tortured or killed, because of being queer.

But queers are humans. And human rights are for every human being, not only for straight, cis people: Human rights are also for queer people.

Therefore, I would like to point to some of the human rights in the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

In Article 1 it says:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
It doesn’t say, “but queer humans are excluded.”

In Article 2 it says:
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration,
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. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.”

There is no exclusion of 2SLGBTQIA+ people at all.

And finally in Article 5 it says:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment.”

This is especially important to queer people all around the globe who have to face torture, cruelty, hate crime, respectless behavior and more.

In these times in which politics seems to be like a backlash towards queer rights, this 5th IQBC had to have this challenging title pointing to human rights that are rights for each human being. Queer rights are human rights.

For further information about the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, please, have a kind look on this link.