New York  - A public opinion poll conducted in 25 countries showed "remarkable" support for the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years after it entered into effect, WorldPublicOpinion. org said Tuesday.

A majority of residents in all the countries polled, including those ruled by authoritarian regimes, endorsed the human rights of their citizens to have freedom opinion, including the right to criticize governments, to demonstrate peacefully and to have a media free of government control.

Those polled also uphold the right of people to be treated equally irrespective of religion, gender, race and ethnicity; and the right of people to hold their governments accountable for food security, healthcare and education.

The people surveyed said they respect the will of the people and government leaders should be freely elected, the poll said.

"It is remarkable to find this high degree of consensus on so many questions regarding human rights, especially given how much conflict there has been on these issues over the last decades," said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion. org.

"While practices sometimes lag behind principles, the norms expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are prevalent around the globe," Kull said.

Kull's research group is managed by the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. The poll was conducted in two waves of interviews from December 2007 to April 2008 and from July to October 2008. More than 47,000 people were interviewed in Islamic and Western countries, and in Asia - including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

The Asian countries included China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea. Kenya and Nigeria were the only two African countries, while Islamic countries included Egypt, Azerbaijan and Jordan. Western countries included Italy, France, Britain and Germany. Russia and Ukraine were also part of the study.

Those countries overwhelmingly - more than 80 per cent on average - wanted the UN to do more and have the powers to promote human rights. In China, which is governed by a one-party government, 51 per cent of those interviewed wanted the UN to do more to promote human rights. (dpa)