1. A person in South Africa registers to vote.

2. The Chinese government punishes a couple for having a second child.

3. The government of Turkey burns down villages of Kurds – an ethnic minority of southeast Turkey – and forces them to move to new towns.

4. A Brazilian child is denied a school education because the family can’t afford to pay for books.

5. The Burmese military overthrows a democratically elected government.

6. A criminal in El Salvador is held in jail for months without being charged with any crime.

7. A fourteen-year-old girl in Burma is sold by her impoverished family to a house of prostitution where she must work until she earns enough to repay the money given her parents.

8. Garment workers in Sri Lanka are forced to work long hours in poorly lit shops and to wait months to be paid.

9. A Native American asserts her right to collect eagle feathers for a religious ceremony.

10. People fleeing armed violence in Haiti are refused admission to the US as refugees.

11. A man with a disability is sentenced to death in the US for a crime he committed when he was 14.

12. The government kills advocates for democracy in China during a peaceful demonstration.

13. Women in Afghanistan are not allowed to attend school or hold jobs.

14. During World War II, Japanese-Americans are forced from their homes and held in concentration camps in the US.

15. Students in Germany read in the newspaper about politics in their country and human rights in other countries.

16. During elections the government of Croatia allows only government candidates to appear prominently in the state-run media.

17. Activists in Guatemala start a cooperative to provide food and education for homeless children.

18. Children in Pakistan are forced to work in carpet factories for little pay and long hours; they cannot go to school.

19. The city council removes books from the public library that it considers immoral or unpatriotic.

20. Native peoples of Nicaragua establish a university to maintain their cultural traditions and better the education of their people.

21. Parents in the area of Chernobyl, whose children have birth defects resulting from a nuclear accident, demand information from the Russian government.

22. Students in Europe and North America boycott soccer balls made by child laborers and write letters to Pakistan and India to end this abuse.

23. Native Americans are forced to attend boarding schools where they are forbidden to speak their tribal languages.

24. Workers in Poland demand the right to form a union.

25. A terrorist from Ireland bombs a public restaurant in England.

26. Ethnic Ogoni people in Nigeria protest the mining of oil in their traditional homeland.

27. A woman in Iran is beaten for not covering her face in public, an illegal act.

28. Australian aborigines regain land taken by the government and are allowed to make official their names for traditional landmarks.

29. Palestinians demonstrate for statehood.

30. A teacher insults a student for answering a question incorrectly.

31. In Saudi Arabia the hand of a thief is cut off, a punishment endorsed by religious teachings.

32. Students in the Philippines form clubs to debate current political policies.

Source: Patrick Manson, Human Rights Educators’ Network, Amnesty International USA.