receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Article 20: 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. 2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association (1) . Nevertheless, despite the importance of the declaration as a mor- al document in the history of humanity, many countries have failed to live up to its principles according to many professors in international law. In his study, “The Failure of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, Jacob Dolinger, Professor of Law at the State University of Rio De Janeiro attributes this failure to “the absence of force of law as it is a mere declaration with no effect over the horrors suffered by many peoples since its adoption by the UN. Therefore, it is not correct to incorporate it in the realm of International Law”. Accord- ing to Dolinger, the Declaration has been a total failure because “the majority of the UN members do not comply with its principles, and the international organisation has practically never come to the help of communities under most cruel persecutions, terrible atrocities, and real genocides, despite a series of United Nations proclamations” (2) . The failure of many of countries to adhere to the principles of the Declaration magnifies the responsibility of the media, not only in mon- itoring and revealing violations committed by governments, but also in educating the public about its basic rights, especially those who may not be aware of such rights. However, the media constantly face chal- lenges in countries, where press freedom is not allowed and indepen- dent journalists are harassed and targeted in different ways. As for de- mocracies, where press freedom thrives locally, the spaces available to unmask human rights violations by dictatorial governments elsewhere remain limited due to different priorities on their political agendas. In
(1) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN Website.
(2) Jacob Dolinger, The Failure of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (University of Miami Law School Institutional Repository, 1 August 2016).
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