Should infidel organisations support human rights film festivals?

[Kent Stevens]

Human rights film festivals are staged each year throughout the world and film selections specifically dedicated to human rights issues. Should infidel organisations support such events at least in small ways? By an infidel organisation I mean any organisation that is atheistic, agnostic, humanist, rationalist, freethinker or similar in nature.

Some ideas for supporting such events would be:
- publicising a human rights film festival among members once a year
- donating at least some money to help fund such festivals in return for some publicity about the infidel organisation.

In countries where human rights are strong, infidels tend to also be protected. Many infidels would support a modern conception of human rights. By supporting such events infidels look like they don't need religion to be good. Alternatively, human right film festivals are too left wing and take the focus off from what infidel organisations are supposed to do.

A link to the Human Rights Film Network is here http://www.humanrightsfilmfestival.org/index2.php?navId=123

[Kent Stevens]

Another question is does anyone care about human rights in this forum? What do people think about human rights?

[Condraz23]

I am a great supporter of human rights, but I don't see how a festival is going to change anything. The purpose of a festival is to celebrate and have a good time. But when it comes to human rights, there is no need for any celebration. The situation is already worse enough as it is. A more effective option would be charity donations, but they do not fix the underlying cause of the problem.

Human rights violations are a result of corrupt governments in third-world countries, and no amount of donations can help overcome this issue.

[JamesBannon]

Human rights violations are a result of corrupt governments in third-world countries, and no amount of donations can help overcome this issue.
And in a few first-world governments I can think of.

[Dick Springer]

I am a great supporter of human rights, but I don't see how a festival is going to change anything. The purpose of a festival is to celebrate and have a good time. But when it comes to human rights, there is no need for any celebration.

I am sure that there is fun and games at film festivals, but that fact is not relevant here. Film festivals are a venue where films can be shown and seen by distributors and others who can influence public opinion. I strongly endorse them; the human rights message does not get out to anywhere near the extent that it should.

[Converse02]

I think its a good idea.

Increases atheist visiibility.
And lets ppl know atheists can stand for something and have values.

[Kent Stevens]

What I liked about human rights festivals are that they attract a diverse age range of people. In comparision some secular groups tend to have over representation in the over fourty age group.

The human rights film festival I went to this year seemed to focus too much on the situation with Palestine and Israel. However, it did not really say much about the situation in Zimbabwe with its horrendous inflation or the killing that is going on Sudan.

However, the film festival did look at the concerns of children, women and deaf people though. There were a couple of items about the war in Iraq.

[QueenOfBlasphemy]

Yeah, I think it's a great idea - it associates atheists with the same human values.

[Kent Stevens]

Sometimes there is conflict where human right groups strongly criticise the United States but ignore the death threats that have been made against people who criticise certain religions.