Does Democracy bring Human Rights?

Before exploring the relationship between democracy and human rights, one should identify the latter. To put it simple, there are two types of human rights; positive and negative. Negative rights such as freedom of speech, property and worship. These rights do not require the government to spend any of its resources to provide them to its citizens. Take for example the freedom to worship. How much does it cost the government of Saudi Arabia to allow Christians or Buddhists to worship freely in the kingdom? The answer is nothing. On the other hand, positive rights such as providing an access to public education, health care, social security or a minimum standard of living take effort, finances and time to be spent by the government. So in terms of positive rights poor countries might have an excuse explaining their inability to provide these rights(privileges) to their citizens. However, this is not the case in almost all of the Arab World as governments generally are afraid and hesitant to provide any kind of negative rights for their citizens fearing instability, fundamentalism or other labels that are used accordingly.

So what is the relationship between democracy and human rights and does the existence of one lead automatically to the other? The answer is yes. Basically those who lack the necessary health or education to play an effective role or secure any means of livelihood are unlikely to have the capacity for democratic agency. It is also true the other way around. Just look at Europe today, where the history of the past century has shown social exclusion among Arabs and Muslim immigrants led to civil and political alienation on the part of those excluded and provides a breeding ground for political intolerance, violence and terrorism.