Sacramento Peace Action Holds Annual Candlelight Vigil on Human Rights Day

SACRAMENTO - Sacramento Area Peace Action held their annual Human Rights Day candlelight vigil on Tuesday, Dec. 10, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the corners of 16th and J streets in Sacramento.

This year the group celebrated the 76th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They also demanded that the US government respect the human rights of the Palestinian people.

“As we prepare to celebrate Christmas this year, the Holy Land is bathed in blood.,” said Mario Galvan, Board Member of Sacramento Area Peace Action. “A modern ‘Slaughter of the Innocents’ is revealing, yet again, that the human race still hasn't learned to live together in harmony, accepting our diversities of language, race and religion. But the dream of a peaceful world is still alive; a candle of hope still burns in countless hearts,”

“Seventy-six years ago, at the end of the two most brutal wars in human history, that took at least 120 million lives, the survivors tried to ensure that it would never happen again,” Galvan stated. “They created an institution for the prevention of war, the United Nations, which produced a document that provides a path to peace: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Tragically, many governments have since put both the United Nations and its Universal Declaration aside. They put their faith in military alliances, and their perpetual wars have the world bleeding in many places,” he explained.

“We the people, if we really are a democracy, must turn our governments away from the path of war. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights can be our guiding light. We must reclaim it, proclaim it, and call for its enforcement at all levels of society. With our governments drunk with power, the real changes we need have to come from ourselves. We need to reclaim our humanity and our sanity, and come together in the quest for peace. It has to start with us,” Galvan concluded.

Sol Gibson, a Sacramento activist, told me why she was at the vigil. “Silence is compliance and I always use my voice to stand up to end war and racism,” she said.

Describing the current U.S.-backed Israeli genocide against the people of Gaza, Gibson said, “The only way to describe it is like being in a relationship with a narcissistic abuser. Yet you have a friend that says the abuser is 'really not all that bad.' The abuser will always gaslight you to make you feel that you’re in the wrong when you are the victim."

After the vigil, 10 of those that attended the vigil ate dinner together at the Spaghetti Factory. They read and discussed the Declaration, as well as discussing how they got involved in peace activism. For more information about Sacramento Area Peace Action, go to: sacpeace.org.