Se og hør Václav Havel, tidligere president i Tjekkia, L. Craig Johnstone, nestleder i FNs høykommissær for flyktninger, Ladan Boroumand, iransk menneskerettighetsaktivist, Palden Gyatso, tibitansk munk og dissident, Vladimir Bukovsky, tidligere sovjetisk dissident, Jung Chang, forfatter av boken "Ville svaner", Armando Valladares, kubansk menneskerettighetsaktivist, Leopoldo López, opposisjonspolitiker i Venezuela, og Amnesty-veteranen Jack Healey.
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Palden Gyatso:
“The only reason I could get out of prison after thirty-three years was not because the Chinese government released me. The reason why I could get out of prison was because many NGOs and human rights organizations had been working on my behalf since 1983. Thanks to the work of these human rights organizations, I was released in 1992.”
Oslo Freedom Forum: Palden Gyatso from OsloFreedomForum on Vimeo.
Vladimir Bukovsky:
“In China, in Cuba, in North Korea, and in Vietnam people are still living the very same nightmare in which we lived, expecting every moment to be dragged to their version of gulag or praying for their friends and relatives who are already there. For other nations which have just emerged from their totalitarian past this past is still the present because they still live in the shadow of it.”
Oslo Freedom Forum: Vladimir Bukovsky from OsloFreedomForum on Vimeo.
L. Craig Johnstone:
“I would say that mine is the most depressing of jobs. On the other hand, mine is the most rewarding and the most fulfilling. If you look at the vocabulary of my job, it is slaughter, starvation, mutilation, malnutrition, rape, brutality, persecution. This defines the group of people that end up being in my charges, or the charges of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.”
Oslo Freedom Forum: L. Craig Johnstone from OsloFreedomForum on Vimeo.
Armando Valladares:
“Man is nature’s marvelous being. To destroy him, to torture him for his ideas must be more than a violation of human rights, but a crime against all of humanity.”
Oslo Freedom Forum: Armando Valladares from OsloFreedomForum on Vimeo.
Jack Healey:
“Recently I think in the last number of years we have lost some momentum in the human rights movement movement— I do believe that, and we have to get that momentum back.”
Oslo Freedom Forum: Jack Healey from OsloFreedomForum on Vimeo.
Václav Havel:
“Dictatorial regimes and their behavior are a phenomenon that must be confronted constantly… It is very important to explain and stress over and over again that people fighting for human rights are not doing this just for themselves, but they are opposing the humiliation of individuals wherever they may be.”
Ladan Boroumand:
“Truth is the indispensible path to reform. In its mirror, we can find out where we have gone astray and ponder the nature of the evil perpetrated by our persecutors, helped by our silence or our indifference… To remedy the irremediable, we should first make amends ourselves, take responsibility, break the silence.”
Jung Chang:
“For much of the century, the world was full of unashamed Holocaust deniers, apologists for Communism, and Mao worshippers. Then, personal experiences like those of our speakers became widely read, and entered the consciousness of the general public. No amount of impersonal history lessons or dry political analyses can produce that impact, the impact of touching people’s hearts, opening their eyes, and stirring their minds.”
Leopoldo López:
“We are guided by the truth and the hope of overcoming poverty in peace and democracy. We will contrast our proposal with a government that talks about poverty but has done nothing to overcome poverty, a government that uses the poor in order to put together an authoritarian regime to bring about class conflict and confrontation in all aspects of Venezuelan life.”