1) Oral Statement to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights
Fifth Sixth Session, 26 July to 13 August, 2004
Agenda Item 5 ©) Prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities
Speaker: Mr. Silis Muhammad
We, the Afro descendant minorities, numbering over 250 million souls in the region of the Americas and Slavery Diaspora, do not have collective human rights protection under the United Nations.
We have been bringing our prayers to the Working Group on Minorities for more than eight years. This Working Group, made up of five Sub-Commissioners, has done its very best to help us, and to recognize us and cause others to recognize us.
The Working Group on Minorities has organized three regional seminars for Afrodescendants and they are planning a fourth in Brazil. We want you to know that through these seminars Afrodescendants are coming together as a human family and asking for recognition and human rights protection. We call upon Member States to contribute to the UN Annual Appeal Minorities Project in order to help fund these seminars.
The UN is the greatest law-giver in civilized society. If we cannot call upon the UN, made up of civilized men and women, to grant us protected collective human rights, then who else, can we call upon?
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