Introducing Citizens' Rights Watch to the World

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Aug 11, 2014, 07:51 ET

LONDON, August 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Citizens' Rights Watch, or "The Citizens", was recently incorporated in London under UK law with incorporation number 9162648 of 2014, with headquarters in London. The new organization is an independent, non-governmental, non-profit, and goal-oriented organization devoted to the protection of human rights and working to end human rights abuses. The Citizens' primary concern is to promote and protect internationally recognized human rights, while offering its assistance to the struggling citizens of the world who are deprived of these rights.

"DR. ZOI ALIOZI, THE CITIZENS GENERAL SECRETARY" (PRNewsFoto/Citizens' Rights Watch)

"THE CITIZENS LOGO" (PRNewsFoto/Citizens' Rights Watch)

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140811/700706-a )

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140811/700706-b )

The Citizens has a global reach, focusing its attention on citizens' rights advocacy and human rights activism. Its mission is to draw the international community's attention to cases wherein citizens' dignity and rights are abused. The Citizens focuses on monitoring, research and analysis in the field of human rights, as well as the promotion of democracy and the rule of law on a national and international level.

Citizens' Rights Watch is guided by international human rights law norms as incorporated into the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as other international human rights law instruments, and the customary international law of human rights.

Citizens' Rights Watch's motivation in engaging with this work is driven by a belief in the contribution that NGOs can make to the human rights world. NGOs are the embodiment of democracy, and the practical manifestation of the real power of the people on a day-to-day basis. In that sense, The Citizens can become a substantial political tool that can provide the citizens of the world with real choices of action in accordance with their democratic principles, and can be used to pressure governments in an unprecedentedly powerful way.

The growth of organized civil society in the global arena and of NGOs as organizational manifestations of the human rights movement has dramatically altered the global political, economic and social landscape. The Citizens anticipates contributing pragmatically to the human rights world and eventually making a difference in the lives of people, by fuelling further uncoerced collective action for the rights of citizens all around the globe.

It is important to highlight that human rights are creations of international law, meant primarily to protect the individual from the State's interference in the enjoyment of its citizens' freedoms; consequently, the relationship between the state and the individual is one that is in constant need of examination, critical analysis, re-evaluation, as well as constant accountability testing. Public support and condemnation of abuses of human rights by governments is important to The Citizens' realization, since as a human rights organization, Citizens' Rights Watch can become most effective when the calls for improvement of the protection of citizens' rights are supported by solid public advocacy and political activism.

Citizens' Rights Watch (The Citizens) is founded by a number of human rights specialists, lawyers, businessmen, and academics, led by Dr. Zoi Aliozi, Human Rights specialist and lawyer, who is appointed as CRW Secretary General, and CRW Trustees Council members formed of Dr. Roger Cook, Dr. Sudha Menon, Mr. Miguel Rodriguez, Mr. Stefan Teodosić, Mr. Ahmed Jumaa, Ms. Athanasia Zagorianou. In addition to CRW Researchers team, Ms. Lynn Hamilton, Mr. Eric Helms, Ms. Helen Mitchell, Mr. Garib Darwish, Ms. Brittany Renken, Mr. Andres Felipe, Mr. Jim Taylor.