"Together for Never Again!"

SOS is a distress signal and a special indication of latent and current threats to human rights – because they are fragile; because they cannot be taken for granted; and because in socially challenging times, they are constantly questioned and challenged.

"We need an awareness of this fragility and vulnerability."
Jan Philipp Reemtsma

Human rights

Open society and liberal democracy are based on the central foundation of human rights, which represent a unifying and binding concept of humanity: dignity, respect, freedom and equality. This binding nature is the basis of every political and democratic discourse. Human rights are something fundamentally political, but not to be taken for granted. Human rights oblige us to ensure that they apply to everyone without restriction.

"There is only one human right."
Hannah Arendt

Civil society's commitment to respecting and strengthening human rights remains essential for the maintenance of democratic systems that are based on the fundamental values of human dignity and equality, so that democracies can actually and repeatedly fulfill their promise of a peaceful, just and free society for all people. The Siamese intertwining of democracy and human rights is evident and indissoluble.

SOS Human Rights Austria takes its position from the conviction that without an open society and liberal democracy, there will soon be no more guaranteed freedoms of human rights. All our activities and efforts are aimed at ensuring the dignity, respect and protection of minorities.

"If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them."
Sir Karl Popper

There can be no democracy without human rights. And there can be no human rights without democracy.