Death penalty, torture, slavery…

… forced labour, rule of force, discrimination and lawlessness don’t have to bother you, dear citizen.

You just need to get out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and with it the Council of Europe and its European Court of Human Rights as quickly as you can!

This stronghold of human rights is nothing but trouble: It guarantees rights and freedoms to all people in Europe. It curtails state power. It criticises governance. It condemns governments for abusing their citizens. It protects the human rights of 820 million Europeans, but you don’t need this protection, because your government will take care of you and all your rights from now on.
 
Wait a minute: Wouldn’t this be the moment to become suspicious and interrupt the propaganda? All the on-going political discussions about the European Convention on Human Rights provide us with ready-made opinions and tempt us to skip the preceding thought process. Yet, we are not parrots, but responsible citizens, and in a democracy, all of us have the duty to make informed choices: We are supposed to thoroughly acquaint ourselves with a topic, ponder the available facts and form our own opinion based on our findings.
 
After decades of living in security and prosperity, we might be tempted to ignore attacks on human rights protection and shrug them off as unimportant, harmless, ridiculous or just plain stupid. Looking back on Nazi-Germany, European history and two world wars shows clearly, though, where such a path may lead. If we follow it, we might find ourselves all too quickly in a world ruled by death, torture, slavery and the law of the jungle again.

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