Societies have located the beginnings of human rights in religious documents. The Vedas, the Bible, the Qur’an and the Analects of Confucius are some of the oldest written sources which address questions of people’s duties, rights, and responsibilities. Some early reforms were reflected in the biblical books of Chronicles and Ezra, which state that Cyrus released the followers of Judaism from slavery and allowed them to migrate back to their land.

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