Editing Civil and political rights (section)

==Social movements for civil rights==
{{Main|Civil rights movements}}

[[File:Savka Dabcevic Kucar.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Savka Dabčević-Kučar]], [[Croatian Spring]] participant; Europe's first female prime minister]]
Civil rights guarantee equal protection under the law. When civil and political rights are not guaranteed to all as part of equal protection of [[law]]s, or when such guarantees exist on paper but are not respected in practice, opposition, legal action and even [[Rebellion|social unrest]] may ensue.

Civil rights movements in the United States gathered steam by 1848 with such documents as the Declaration of Sentiment.<ref>"Signatures to the Seneca Falls Convention 'Declaration of Sentiments{{'"}}. American History Online, Facts On File, Inc.</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=March 2014}} Consciously modeled after the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], the [[Declaration of Rights and Sentiments]] became the founding document of the American women's movement, and it was adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention, July 19 and 20, 1848.<ref>Cullen-DuPont, Kathryn. "Declaration of Rights and Sentiments". ''Encyclopedia of Women's History in America'', 2nd ed. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2000. American History Online. {{ISBN?}}{{page?|date=February 2024}}</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=March 2014}}

Worldwide, several [[political movement]]s for [[equality before the law]] occurred between approximately 1950 and 1980. These movements had a legal and constitutional aspect, and resulted in much law-making at both national and international levels. They also had an activist side, particularly in situations where violations of rights were widespread. Movements with the proclaimed aim of securing observance of civil and political rights included:
* the [[civil rights movement]] in the United States, where rights of black citizens had been violated;
* the [[Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association]], formed in 1967 following failures in this province of the [[United Kingdom]] to respect the Roman Catholic minority's rights; and
* movements in many Communist countries, such as the [[Prague Spring]] and [[Charter 77]] in [[Czechoslovakia]] and the uprisings in Hungary.

Most civil rights movements relied on the technique of [[civil resistance]], using [[nonviolent]] methods to achieve their aims.<ref>[[Adam Roberts (scholar)|Adam Roberts]] and [[Timothy Garton Ash]] (eds.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=BxOQKrCe7UUC&q=Civil+resistance+and+power+politics ''Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230820072155/https://books.google.com/books?id=BxOQKrCe7UUC&q=Civil+resistance+and+power+politics |date=2023-08-20 }}, Oxford University Press, 2009. Includes chapters by specialists on the various movements.</ref> In some countries, struggles for civil rights were accompanied, or followed, by [[civil unrest]] and even armed rebellion. While civil rights movements over the last sixty years have resulted in an extension of civil and political rights, the process was long and tenuous in many countries, and many of these movements did not achieve or fully achieve their objectives.