"Cease the Hypocrisy"

US Told to Cease Hypocrisy On Issue of Human Rights

The Daily Observer

At least 400 intellectuals and other personalities around the world have called on the United States to close its detention centers and to cease its deliberate violations of human dignity in the name of the so-called war against terrorism.

Among the intellectuals are nine Nobel Prize winners: Nadine Gordimer (South Africa); Wole Soyinka (Nigeria); Harold Pinter (UK); Mairead Corrigan Maguire (North Ireland); Dario Fo (Italy); José Saramago (Portugal); Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala), and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Argentina).

Also, Alice Walker, Danny Glover, Ramsey Clark and Howard Zinn, from USA; Albert Kasanda, Republic of Congo; Jitendra Sharma, India; Samin Amin, Egypt and Gerard Depardieu and Pierre Richard, France; Eduardo Galeano and Mario Benedetti from Uruguay, and the Cuban artists Silvio Rodríguez y Pablo Milanés.

Below we reproduce the full text of the declaration:

"The 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights will begin next March 20th in Geneva, coinciding with the broadcasting of the new footage of the US military torturing Iraqi prisoners.

The United States and its EU allies have successively prevented this Commission from condemning the massive and systematic violations of human rights promoted in the name of the so-called war against terrorism.

"The EU governments have refused to admit the testimonies and evidence submitted by citizens of their countries, who have been victims of several forms of torture at the Guantánamo navy base. They have also allowed the flight of CIA aircraft carrying prisoners to illegal detention centers in Europe and elsewhere.

We, the undersigned call upon intellectuals, artists, social activists, and men and women of goodwill everywhere to join our claims: the Commission on Human Rights or the Council that will substitute it, must demand the immediate closing of the arbitrary detention centers created by the United States, as well as the ceasing of all the deliberate violations of human dignity."

Tags: Guatemala, United States, Human Rights, Guantánamo, News