UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - Our friend, Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, has led more than forty human rights delegations to over than thirty countries.

Kerry established the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in 1987 to ensure the protection of rights codified under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. 

She has worked on diverse human rights issues such as child labor, disappearances, indigenous land rights, judicial independence, freedom of expression, ethnic violence, the environment, and women's rights.

Kerry serves as Chair of the Amnesty International Leadership Council and serves on boards or advisory committees for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, The Bloody Sunday Trust, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, the Gleitsman Foundation, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (Northern Ireland), and the International Campaign for Tibet, among others.

Kerry Kennedy is a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bars and has three girls, Cara, Maria, and Michaela. 

  Eddie Adams has won the Pulitzer Prize and is the recipient of more than 500 international, national and local awards and is one of the most decorated and published photographers in America, today.  His photos have been on the covers of hundreds of international publications.

In Vietnam he went on more than 150 missions.  In 1968 he photographed the indelible photo of the Saigon police chief shooting a Vietcong prisoner at point-blank range.  For this photo he received the Pulitzer Prize.  In 1977 his photographs of the boat people escaping Vietnam contributed to the U.S. Congress's decision to admit 200,000 Vietnamese to America.

  SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER , HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS WHO ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD

By KERRY KENNEDY CUOMO

KERRY KENNEDY has published a powerful, 

moving and inspiring book on human rights defenders around the world -- 

the Martin Luther Kings of their countries. 

The book is published by Crown Publishers/Random House

(ISBN 0-8129-3062-2) and the photographs are by EDDIE ADAMS. 

 Order Here

"You cannot kill an idea, you cannot imprison freedom.  

The lives of the common women and men in this book, heroes every one,

inspire all who believe in liberty and justice. 

This book is a tribute to the human spirit and proof of the capacity of one person

of courage to triumph over overwhelming evil."   

- President Nelson Mandela

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER highlights some 50 human rights defenders, including the following:

Disarmament

Costa Rica

Oscar Arias Sánchez

"War, and the preparation for war,

are the two greatest obstacles to human progress.

The poor of the world are crying out for

schools and doctors, not guns and generals."

Torture

Guatemala/United States

Dianna Ortiz

"To this day, I can smell the decomposing of bodies, disposed

of in an open pit.  I can hear the piercing screams of other people being tortured. 

I can see the blood gushing out of the woman's body."

Reconciliation

South Africa

Desmond Tutu

"We have a God who doesn't say, 'Ah…Got you! No. God says, 'Get up.'

And God dusts us off and God says, 'Try again.'"

Police Brutality

United States

Van Jones

"This guy is beaten, he's kicked, he's stomped, he's pepper-sprayed,

gagged (because they didn't want him bleeding on them),

and then left him in a cell.  Well, that's the sort of stuff your expecting

in Guatemala, but it happened just fifteen or twenty minutes from here."

Human Rights and Reconciliation

Argentina

Juan Méndez

"Is it morally defensible, after twenty years of searching,

that individuals still cannot find their relatives,

when there are people walking around who know the location of the bodies?"

Human Rights and Self-Determination  

Gaza

Raja Sourani

"The world may think that peace is on the way here,

but the reality on the ground is very different…

never before has the overall human rights situation deteriorated as dramatically."

The Powerless

Romania/United States

Elie Wiesel

"What I want, what I've hoped for all my life,

is that my past should not become your children's future."

Free Expression  

Czech Republic

Vaclav Havel

"You don't want to become involved with the dirt that is around you and one day,

all of a sudden you wake up and realize that you are a dissident,

and that you are a human rights activist."

Labels: United Nations, U.N.,  

~~~~~ MaximsNews.com, An Independent Voice from the U.N., provides commentary and analysis from leading world figures: King Abdullah II (Jordan), HRH Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein (Jordan), Sir Brian Urquhart, Hans Blix, Amb. Richard Holbrooke, Anwar Ibrahim, Bianca Jagger, Dr. Nafis Sadik, Shashi Tharoor, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Noeleen Heyzer, Masood Haider, Kerry Kennedy, Ian Williams, Stephen Schlesinger, Sen. Timothy E. Wirth, Marc Morial, Amb. Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka), Amb. Pierre Schori (Sweden), Amb. William H. Luers, Susan Roosevelt Weld, Rory Kennedy, Mehri Madarshahi, J. Michael Adams, Gloria Feldt, Jeffrey Laurenti, Rodney D. Smith, Ashley Bommer, Rory O'Connor, Genevieve Stamper, Max Stamper and others.

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