President Cyril Ramaphosa says the basic human rights of every South African are not negotiable.
He was delivering his Human Rights Day message to the nation.
Ramaphosa says the country’s forebears’ struggles for liberty and human rights have given South Africa the foundation and resilience to wage the battle it faces with the coronavirus pandemic.
“Government working in partnership with social partners and civil society has given effect to the principle that human rights are not negotiable. We have been able to weather the coronavirus storm in large part because of the strong culture of human rights in our country, human rights that were hard-won by the countless heroes and heroines of our struggle for liberation. They were firm in their conviction that freedom for some is freedom for none and that nobody must be left behind,” adds Ramaphosa.
Below is Ramaphosa’s address:
The President says the pandemic has changed the lives of South Africans but in order to forge ahead, they must unite in fighting it.
“It has almost become difficult to remember how life was just a year ago. Our unity as a nation has become our greatest strength against this pandemic. The heroes who protested at Sharpeville on March 21, 1960, they did so not for themselves alone but for all of us. In the same way, the struggles we wage today are not for our cause alone they are also for the men, women and children of tomorrow,” says the President.
