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A 'human right' is, by definition, timeless. It cannot adhere to some societies and not others, at some times and not at other times.

There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience.

The respect for human rights is nowadays not so much a matter of having international standards, but rather questions of compliance with those standards.

Some values must be universal, like human rights and the equal worth of every human being.

People say that human rights is a Western construct foisted on others. But that's not true. Equality, dignity, respect and justice are as much an integral part of the Islamic tradition.

Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian - a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer.

The idea of human rights as a fundamental principle can be seen to underlie throughout Islamic teachings.

The idea that being human and having rights are equivalent - that rights are inherent - is unintelligible in a Darwinian world.

It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

We are all human beings and I believe that we all should have equal rights.