ACTIVISTS across the world today marked the 75th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In Bangladesh, hundreds of opposition Nationalist Party supporters protested as the country gears up for a general election on January 7.

The party, led by former prime minister Khaleda Zia, is boycotting the election, leaving voters in the south Asian nation of 166 million with little choice but to re-elect Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League for a fourth consecutive term.

The gathering took place weeks after a massive opposition rally on October 28 after which some 10,000 opposition activists have reportedly been arrested.

The Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights (Codir) called for the international community to focus upon the abuse of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran to mark Human Rights Day.

Codir general secretary Gawain Little said that Human Rights Day “gives us the chance to expose these abuses and call for the rights of the people of Iran to be upheld.”

The UN cited the failure of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to uphold basic human rights.

Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have erased basic rights and freedoms, with women and girls deeply affected. They are excluded from most public spaces and daily life, and the restrictions have sparked global condemnation.

The UN mission to Afghanistan, highlighting the Taliban’s failures in upholding rights obligations, said it continues to document extrajudicial killings, torture and ill-treatment, corporal punishment, arbitrary arrest and detention, and other violations of detainees’ rights.

Fiona Frazer, the representative of the UN High Commissioner in Afghanistan, said: “We pay tribute to and express our solidarity with Afghan human rights defenders, many of whom are paying a heavy price for seeking to uphold the fundamental tenets of the universal declaration of human rights: peace, justice and freedom.”