THE world celebrated Feb. 14 as the Valentine's Day when people exchange roses and gifts to express their love and affection to one another. This is not only a celebration of love between young couples and lovers but also an expression of affection and devotion between fathers and mothers and their children as well as friends and colleagues at work. Expressing the feeling of love is a human right as long as it does not cause any harm to others. Love is a beautiful feeling that adds value and meaning to our lives. Every religion has encouraged its followers to love others, and this includes the love between a mother and her children and the intimate affection between a husband and wife. The pinnacle of this wonderful feeling of love lies in our attachment and closeness to God with an earnest desire to follow His teachings in order to achieve His satisfaction and reward. Love is a noble quality, which emanates from our respect to others. Love by this meaning will not be restricted to just exchanging greeting cards on special occasions and distribution of gifts such as a bouquet of flowers or a packet of chocolates or a beautiful piece of jewelry. However, every gift is significant being an expression of sincere love and mutual respect. It's quite natural that exchange of gifts would boost love and affection between individuals. This exchange of gifts stresses the importance of developing positive relations with others. Positive relations will strengthen our social fabric while negative attitudes and actions will destroy it. The most important aspect of positive relationship is mutual respect between members of the family and society and between law enforcement authorities and individuals. This is part and parcel of human rights irrespective of its social and personal details. All accepted human rights are well known. It covers a human being's right to have a decent life, the right to enjoy freedom and equality in rights and responsibilities. All these rights are well documented in official rules and laws in all languages. But quite often people try to violate laws and breach the rights of others. Here arises the human rights issues. Some issues are genuine supported by clear evidence while others are projected by the media to realize some vested interests including political motives. We can see the media giving high importance to human rights issues. Topmost among them is racial discrimination against an individual at social and official level. At the family level, a weak member will have the right to get protection against oppression and abuse committed by guardians and relatives. At the society level, the rules and regulations ensure nice treatment of women, children and workers, protecting them from injustice, harassment and negation of legitimate rights, including inheritance, wage and gender equality. At the official level, the law protects a citizen's right to citizenship, equality, security and public services and the right to express their opinion. Laws are enacted to protect human rights and not to curtail them. Educated citizens will respect the law of the country, which is enacted for their protection and not the laws that were created to restrict their freedom. People would resist and oppose such Draconian laws. Purchase of a gift for one's loved one is the simplest of person's right. Preventing people from purchasing natural flowers with a particular color or wearing dresses having a special color on a special day and banning traders from selling such gifts and flowers are a violation of human rights. Let's allow people to express their feelings of love and affection, which is not a crime. The feelings of love, affection and respect and positive interaction among people are essential to make our lives meaningful and enjoyable. If the world celebrated Valentine's Day on Feb. 14, let us make every day of our life a day of respect for human rights.
