International Day of Peace
The International Day of Peace (in French called Journée internationale de la paix) is celebrated on the 21 of September beginning from 2003. Thus it is a very young holiday that was founded on the 36th session of the United Nations General Assembly. In the beginning the holiday was celebrated on the second Tuesday of September, i.e. on the day when the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly was opened. The decision about celebrating the International Day of Peace on the 21st of September was adopted on the 55th session of the UN General Assembly. This day has been proclaimed as the day of refusal from violence and cessation of fire all around the world. All countries were proposed to abstain from acts of war on this day.
Every year various peace-promoting events are organized by the UN on the 21st of September. They are traditionally started by a ceremony at the Bell of Peace. The ceremony is started by a speech of the UN Secretary General who then strikes the bell. After that there is a minute of silence, and the chairman of the UN Security council makes his speech.
The main dedication of this day, as is understood from its name, is promotion of peace and specifically absence of war. According to peace activists none of the wars going on in the world is justified, and thus the global community should unite their strengths and efforts to reduce the number of military actions on Earth and eliminate the threat of their further flaring up, as well as occurrence of new conflict leading to deaths of thousands of innocent people.