Amnesty illustrated Human Rights Declaration for children described as ‘problematic’
The municipality of a well-known Jewish settlement on the occupied West Bank, Ariel, bought 300 copies of an illustrated and simplified edition of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, published by Amnesty International, for distribution among 5-year-olds in kindergartens in the settlement.
Before the books could be distributed the Israeli Education Ministry intervened and recalled them claiming that they included ‘problematic content.’
Supervisors from the Israeli Education Ministry objected to two illustrations – one of a topless woman, seen in part-profile, and the other of a bloodstained rag doll, illustrating torture.
A more surprising reason for the rejection of the books was that two of the articles in the Human Rights Declaration itself were deemed to have ‘problematic content.’ These were Article 14, dealing with the right to asylum, and Article 18, on freedom of religion. The articles were specially summarised for the children’s book in the following two sentences:
If we are frightened or being treated badly in our own country, we all have the right to run away to another country to be safe
We all have the right to profess our religion freely, to change it, and to practise it either on our own or with other people
The settlement’s Mayor Ron Nachman said that his attention had been called to these ‘two sentences, which are not exactly what we teach the children.’
The Education Ministry confirmed to Israeli newspaper Maariv that it saw the illustrations and the two sentences to be problematic, and said that the book was ‘not suitable for 5-year-olds.’
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For further details on the book and its illustrations see Amnesty International, http://www.amnesty.org.uk/books_details.asp?BookID=95
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