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Civil rights
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Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, etc; individual freedom of belief, speech, association, and the press; and political participation. Contrast with economic, social and cultural rights. Civil and political rights are included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and elaborated upon in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The theory of three generations of human rights considers these to be first-generation rights, and most (but not all) of them are considered to be negative rights.
Examples of civil rights and liberties include the right to get redress if injured by another, the right to privacy, the right of peaceful protest, the right to a fair investigation and trial if suspected of a crime, and more generally-based constitutional rights such as the right to vote, the right to personal freedom, the right to freedom of movement and the right of equal protection.
Laws guaranteeing civil rights may be written down, derived from custom, or implied.
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Timeline
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54 Violence erupts in Caesarea regarding the a local ordinance restricting the civil rights of Jews, creating clashes between Jews and pagans. The Roman garrison, made up of Syrians, takes the side of the pagans. The Jews, armed with clubs and swords, meet in the marketpla The Governor of Judaea, Antonius Felix orders his troops to charge. The violence continues and Felix asks Nero to arbitrate. Nero, sides with the pagans and relegates the Jews to second-class citizens. This decision does nothing but increase the Jews' anger.
1872 Reconstruction: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act of 1872 into law restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
1961 American civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob.
1964 American civil rights movement: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi, after disappearing on June 21.
1965 Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. begin a march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery.
1965 Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully end a march from Selma, arriving at the capitol in Montgomery. Four Klansmen shoot and kill Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo as she drives marchers back to Selma at night after the march.
1966 James Meredith, civil rights activist, is shot while trying to march across Mississippi.
1968 American civil rights movement: A civil rights protest staged at a white-only bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina is broken-up by highway patrolmen, leading to the deaths of three college students.
1969 Riots in Curaçao, marking the start for a movement for Afro-Caribbean civil rights on the island.
1985 December 24 Right wing extremist David Lewis Rice murders civil rights attorney Charles Goldmark as well as Goldmark's wife and two children in Seattle. Rice suspected the family of being Jewish and Communist and claimed his dedication to the Christian Identity movement drove him to the crime.
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Encyclopedia
Civil and political rights are a class of rights ensuring things such as the protection of peoples' physical integrity; procedural fairness in law; protection from discrimination based on gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, etc; individual freedom of belief, speech, association, and the press; and political participation. Contrast with economic, social and cultural rights. Civil and political rights are included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and elaborated upon in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The theory of three generations of human rights considers these to be first-generation rights, and most (but not all) of them are considered to be negative rights.
Examples of civil rights and liberties include the right to get redress if injured by another, the right to privacy, the right of peaceful protest, the right to a fair investigation and trial if suspected of a crime, and more generally-based constitutional rights such as the right to vote, the right to personal freedom, the right to freedom of movement and the right of equal protection.
Laws guaranteeing civil rights may be written down, derived from custom, or implied. In the United States and most continental European countries, civil rights laws are most often written. As civilizations emerged and their laws were formalized through written constitutions, some of the more important civil rights were granted to citizens. When those grants were later found inadequate, civil rights movements emerged as the vehicle for claiming more equal protection for all citizens and advocating new laws to restrict the effects of discrimination.
Implied rights are rights that a court may find to exist even though not expressly guaranteed by written law or custom, on the theory that a written or customary right must necessarily include the implied right. One famous (and controversial) example of a right implied from the U.S. Constitution is the "right to privacy", which the U.S. Supreme Court found to exist in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut. In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the court found that state legislation prohibiting or limiting abortion violated this right to privacy. As a rule, state governments can expand civil rights beyond the U.S. Constitution, but they cannot diminish Constitutional rights.
By region
United States
Civil rights can refer to protection against public (government) and or private sector discrimination. In the United States, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects citizens against many forms of State discrimination, with its due process and equal protection requirements.
Civil rights can also refer to protection against private actors or entities. The U.S. Congress subsequently addressed the issue through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Sec. 201. which states: (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin or sex. This legislation and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 are constitutional under the Commerce Clause, as the Supreme Court has ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment only applies to the State. States generally have the power to enact similar legislation, provided that they meet the federal government under the doctrine of police powers.
The terms civil rights and civil liberties are often used interchangeably in the United States. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."
The United States Constitution recognizes different civil rights than do most other national constitutions. Two examples of civil rights found in the US but rarely (if ever) elsewhere are the right to bear arms (Second Amendment to the United States Constitution) and the right to a jury trial (Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution). Few nations, not even including a world organization body such as the United Nations, have recognized either of these civil rights. Many nations recognize an individual's civil right to not be executed for murdering another, a civil right not recognized within the US.
Germany
The civil rights are declared in the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, especially in articles 1 - 19.
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