Editorial
An examination of the human-rights situation in the world reveals that organizations dedicated to the defense of human rights are able to function freely only in democratic societies. In countries subjected to dictatorial regimes, where the watchfulness of human-rights activists is most needed, they are often persecuted and imprisoned in order to silence them. However, even in democratic states, proud of the rule of law and of their independent judiciary system, the protection of minority rights and of the individual's freedom to oppose national consensus should not always be taken for granted.
Governments and public opinion are frequently more sensitive to human¬rights violations abroad than to those committed in their own country. Thus in the 1970s and 1980s, British public opinion was very much concerned with Israel's systematic violations of Palestinian rights and freedoms, while being much less upset by the brutal persecution of Irish nationalists in Ulster, meted out by Brit
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