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Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National
or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities
The Declaration in the Rights of Persons Belonging to National
or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities was adopted by
the UN Commission on Human Rights in its resolution 1992/16, 21
February 1992 and by the General Assembly in its resolution 47/135
on 18 December 1992.
Article 1
1. States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic,
cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within
their respective territories, and shall encourage conditions for
the promotion of that identity. [...]
Article 2
1. Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic
minorities (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities)
have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice
their own religion, and to use their own language, in private
and in public, freely and without interference or any form of
discrimination. [...]
5. Persons belonging to minorities have the right to establish
and maintain, without any discimination, free and peaceful contacts
with other members of their group, with persons belonging to other
minorities, as well as contacts across frontiers with citizens
of other States to whom they are related by national or ethnic,
religious or linguistic ties.
Article 4
2. States shall take measures to create favourable conditions
to enable persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics
and to develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and
customs, except where specific practices are in violation of national
law and contrary to international standards.
3. States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible,
persons belonging to minorities have adequate opportunities to
learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother
tongue.
4. States should, where appropriate, take measures in the field
of education, in order to encourage the knowledge of the history,
traditions, language and culture of the minorities existing within
their territory. Persons belonging to minorities should have adequate
opportunities to gain knowledge of the society as a whole.
Source: UN Doc. E/CN.4/1992/48 & Corr. 1 (1992) at 16-19
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