UN General Assembly
1963

91. Uruguay will give every ounce of support in order to achieve this fundamental goal. Our country's territory is small, but we do not believe that the sacred principles of independence, justice and the rule of law, which we have ever held aloft with our banners, can be measured by a country's physical size. What a country thinks, and how its thought is applied and sustained —those are the important things. 92. It is only right, therefore, that we should reiterate that to our way of thinking human beings and their essential rights are sacred. We hold that it is absolutely indispensable to safeguard human personality in all its aspects, especially by ensuring freedom of thought, expression, association and assembly, and free access to all sources of culture. The idea of persecuting a citizen merely for criticizing or disagreeing with the government is alien to us. These ideals are bound up with all our past, forever stained with the bloodshed in our struggles for independence. Protection of individual rights goes back to the very beginning of our nationhood.