Christy Turlington Burns Joins Lantos Foundation For Film Series

"No Woman, No Cry” Tackles Maternal Mortality

(Concord, NH, March 22, 2012) Fashion icon and film maker Christy Turlington Burns will present her film, “No Woman, No Cry “at Concord High School in the Christa McAuliffe Auditorium on Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 7pm.  “No Woman, No Cry” is a riveting documentary that follows four women in four countries including the United States, as they struggle to avoid adding to the grim maternal mortality statistics. This film has been selected as a feature presentation for The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s annual convention this summer.

Turlington Burns’ appearance is part of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice’s ongoing film series focusing on human rights around the world.

"When Hillary Clinton said in Beijing, 'human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights,' she elucidated for all of us the profound link between a decent and hopeful future for women and a productive and prosperous future for society,” said Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation. “In this powerful documentary we are reminded how far we have to go in achieving these goals."

Turlington Burns, who faced her own sense of mortality after the difficult delivery of her daughter, has dedicated her life to improving access to adequate health care for women around the world. She is the founder of Every Mother Counts, an advocacy campaign to increase support for maternal and child health.

“I am very honored that the Lantos Foundation for Humans Rights has selected No Woman, No Cry to be part of their ongoing film series focusing on human rights,” said Christy Turlington Burns, director/producer and founder of Every Mother Counts. “I hope the film will illustrate to the Concord community the challenges so many women around the world face in accessing maternal health care at critical times during their reproductive lives. It is a human rights injustice to allow women to die while bringing life into the world when we know how to prevent most of these senseless deaths. Educating an empowered community like this one can bring about lasting social change.”

Following the presentation Turlington Burns will join in a panel discussion with Dr. Barry D. Smith, former chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and current President of the New England OB/GYN Society and Katrina Lantos Swett.

Following the film and discussion, there will a reception.
Tickets are $20 and available through Red River Theatres or at the door the night of the event at Concord High School.

Coincidence? Russian President Orders Review of Khodorkovsky Case

As you know, we have been active on the issue of rule of law and democracy in Russia for years. We recently released a link to our mini-documentary and an op/ed highlighting the case of Russia's most prominent political prisoner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

We want to make you aware that in the wake of Russia's elections yesterday, The New York Times is reporting that outgoing President Dimitri Medvedev has ordered the prosecutor-general to review the legality of Mr. Khodorkovsky's conviction along with some 30 other cases. We think it is not a coincidence, as Mikhail's release has been one of the key demands of the democracy protesters.

While we do not want to be naively optimistic, we hope this is a sign that the Kremlin is prepared to make meaningful moves in the direction of reform. If so, we welcome it. There can be no doubt that the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky has to be part of any move toward true democracy in Russia.

View The New York Times Article

Can Enlightenment Come to Russia?

The Lantos Foundation is proud to announce the release of a compelling mini-documentary about Russia’s most prominent political prisoner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. We hope you'll take the time to read this email, and share it with your social media contacts.  

"The Man Who Believed He Could Change Russia”, is an engaging personal drama, and a powerful narrative about Russia’s retreat from democracy during Putin’s reign. Given recent events, this story is deeply relevant for all those who share Mikhail’s vision of a truly free Russia.

The mockery of justice and rule of law in Russia we have long highlighted in conjunction with the Khodorkovsky case was again on display this past week. Shockingly, Russian Interior Ministry officials announced plans to posthumously prosecute whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in detention under suspicious circumstances over two years ago after he uncovered massive tax fraud on the part of Russian government officials.

This abysmal “legal nihilism” and absence of rule of law is at the heart of what ails Russia.  Along with recent blatant electoral fraud, it is one of the reasons that hundreds of thousands of Russians have taken to the streets in opposition to Putin’s regime.

It is our hope that the people of Russia will have the courage and determination to bring about real reform in their country, and we owe them our encouragement and support. May we suggest something simple you can do? Please share this important message with friends and colleagues, by forwarding this email or posting to your social media sites.

If we work together, we can increase pressure on what Alexey Navalny has called the gang of “crooks and thieves” that currently rules the Kremlin. At the very least, we must try to shame them into dropping the outrageous and bizarre trial of the late young hero Magnitsky and grant freedom to Khodorkovsky, a man whose only real crime was daring to challenge Putin’s authority.

Paul Rusesabagina Remarks, 2011 Lantos Prize

My dear friends of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, please help me to thank Ms. Katrina Lantos Swett and the entire staff and Board Members of the Lantos Foundation for their conviction to human rights. They have stood up to threats and protests designed to silence our pleas for human rights and freedom in my beloved Rwanda.

My dear friends, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply, deeply humbled to receive the prestigious Lantos Foundation Human Rights Award. I am an ordinary man. I feel incredibly honored to be elevated to the same class as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Professor Elie Wiesel, who have received this award before me. Please help me to thank these 2 distinguished and towering figures who have contributed so much to the advancement of humanity. (Applause) They are now high on the list of my mentors, and I hope they will be kind enough to share with me their precious knowledge and wisdom. As I receive this award, I ask you join me in committing to the idea that never again must mean never again.

In 1994, I watched my country dissolve into chaos and mayhem.  I was a hotel manager, not a soldier nor a politician. Still, I listened to the little voice inside me, my conscience, and tried to do everything that I could to stop the violence and to shelter the 1,268 who had come to my hotel for shelter. Some who at first could pay, some who just ran to us for safety, but we all made it through hell.  I am proud to say that the Milles Collines Hotel was the only public place in Rwanda where no one died, no one was beaten and everyone who sought shelter made it through the Genocide alive.

Today I tell my story – the story of those who died during the terrible genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Over 400,000 Tutsis. Another 400,000 Hutus. I try to provide a voice to the voiceless. As you may know, a humanitarian can often measure his success by how harshly his work is criticized, and my critics often say that I deny the genocide. Nothing can be further from the truth. I am here as a living testament to that genocide. To those who died. To provide testimony about the horrible people in that Hutu elite government, in the military, and in the militias who caused those deaths. The genocide was a terrible, defining moment in my life and in that of my country. And it must not be forgotten.

17 years after the genocide , we don’t have two armies fighting to the death for power control, nor do we have roving gangs of militiamen killing innocent villagers by the thousands every 10 minutes. We have a country that, on the surface, appears to be peaceful. But it is a country with no space for political dissent or real democratic action. The potential violence is just below the surface.  As the human rights abuses spread and media suppression grows, things get more dangerous. I am calling upon the international community to work with me for a truth and reconciliation process to break the historic cycle of violence in Rwanda and replace it with sustainable peace.

But what I have found over the years is that Rwanda has unfortunately not changed so much. The leaders who caused the genocide are now gone, and this is an excellent thing. But Rwanda has new leaders now, and as we say in Kinyarwanda, the dancers have changed, but the music stays the same.

Now I spend my time as a humanitarian. Reminding people that we must never forget. And saddened that we forget all too often.

In addition to talking about 1994, I also cannot stay silent about what is happening in Rwanda today. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press do not exist. Political oppression is the norm. Opposition leaders are arrested and killed. Today in Rwanda, leaders insist that a dictatorship is necessary to safeguard the people. In fact, as with all dictatorship it only serves to safeguard itself.

And the current government – the government that we all believed in 1994 had saved Rwanda from the genocide – is now responsible for unthinkable violence next door in the Congo. Over six million people dead in a war driven by conflict minerals. With so much that the United Nations says that war crimes have been committed by the current Rwandan government. Crimes against humanity. And possibly even a new genocide.

I see my native country, the home of my heart, and I cannot stay silent. I fear that it is now a dormant volcano, waiting to erupt again.

As Katrina knows only too well, raising my voice comes at a price. During the genocide I and my family were often in terrible danger. Now, I am threatened once again on a regular basis.

It seems that authoritarian leaders do not appreciate the work of humanitarians. And sometimes they will go to extreme means to stop it. But the preparation for this award has made me realize though that I am not alone. I want to very much thank Katrina and everyone at the Lantos Foundation not just for this award, but for their support in recent weeks. As the Rwandan government and its advocates tried to silence my voice, they were steadfast in standing up for what was right. In standing up for free speech, and for the prospect of truth, reconciliation and peace in my native Rwanda. They stood up for the power of words to heal our differences. With a few more people like those at the Lantos Foundation, the world will be a much better place.

In closing, I would like to leave you with the words of a great man, Mr. Albert Einstein. He said:

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

I hope you will join me in saying that never again must mean never again. I hope you will join me in doing something when we see evil. In confronting it. I hope you will join me in being ordinary people, who take every opportunity to do the right thing.

I thank you all for listening to my words today. And I thank the Lantos Foundation from the bottom of my heart for this award. Thank you.

Democracy Denied - Op-ed By: Katrina Lantos Swett

A month ago, there was a surprising moment at a sporting match in Russia when Vladimir Putin was booed in public for the first time in anyone’s memory. This brief episode turned out to be a small revelatory event that unmasked a significant truth: the Russian people were determined to reclaim their democracy.

Unfortunately, their chance at a true democracy was denied during Sunday’s Duma elections which were neither free nor fair. Even Mikhail Gorbachev has now denounced the elections as fraudulent.  Apart from rampant ballot stuffing and widespread reports of people voting at multiple polling places, there were many other forms of intimidation intended to gain votes for Putin’s United Russia party, including harassment and fines for Russia’s independent election monitoring group, Golos, and the shut-down of popular internet media sites.

Though these efforts produced laughable results from outlying regions where United Russia received over 99% of the vote out of seven parties on the ballot, overall Putin’s party only garnered 49.5% nationwide.  One would think that if you worked so diligently to steal an election, you should go big or go home.

It is well known that much of the election tampering took place before a single ballot was cast. The most credible and vibrant opposition parties were prohibited from running in the elections, and the country’s entire media apparatus was used as a propaganda machine for Putin’s United Russia.  As one independent Swiss election monitor said, “These elections were like a game in which only some players were allowed to play, and on top of it the field was tilted in favor of one of the players.”

When the Russian people gave their verdict on this outrageous and undemocratic manipulation, their answer was a resounding rejection of much more than electoral fraud. They were saying no to the rampant corruption that characterizes the current Russian government at every level. They were saying no to the shadow war against the free press that has seen more than 150 journalists who sought to expose government misdeeds slain under highly suspicious circumstances. They were saying no to the “legal nihilism” in which the Judiciary is used as an instrument for persecution and blackmail by the government. And perhaps they were also saying no to the slanderous historic notion that the Russian people want a strong Tsar to rule and protect them instead of a vibrant democracy.

In the aftermath of last week’s election, one thing is clear. VladimirPutin has lost much of his legitimacy and perhaps his inevitability as well.  Unfortunately, this message is not sitting well with the current government.  This week major pro-democracy demonstrations have taken place in Moscow and the regime has reacted with mass arrests and the movement of additional security forces into the Capitol.

Today Russia finds itself at a cross-road, and it must move towards genuine democracy or towards greater repression.   As Americans, we must support the Russian people in their pursuit of freedom and democracy, both for their sake and for ours.  Let us hope that the on-coming Russian winter will not freeze the new signs of a “Russian spring.”

Link for cspan video

Remarks by Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett; Lantos Prize Event 2011

Good Morning, I am Katrina Lantos Swett and along with my sister Annette and my mother Annette, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2011 Lantos Human Rights Prize award ceremony. Many years ago when I was a very young, newly minted lawyer working on Capitol Hill for then Senator Joe Biden, I was being romantically pursued by another Hill staffer. This young man, who shall remain nameless, had the most thought provoking pick-up line that I was ever on the receiving end of. And although I never actually went out on a date with him, I also never forgot his question. It was the following:

“If tonight as you prepare to go to bed, the light in your room grows brighter and brighter and you find yourself miraculously in the presence of God and He tells you, I will answer any single question for you; what would you ask? I thought long and hard about how I would use such a precious opportunity. I didn’t want to ask a question that I probably already knew the answer to such as what is the greatest thing in life? Love! Or how can we achieve peace and reconciliation? Forgiveness and mutual understanding.

In the end I decided I would ask God a very personal question because I believe that to the extent he works in this world, it is most often through us. And so the question I determined I would ask was: “What will be the greatest moral challenge I will face in my life and will I be equal to it? Will I meet it in a way that makes you proud?” Our honoree this year, Mr. Paul Rusesabagina, has answered that question and has done so resoundingly in the affirmative.

World renowned author, Nobel Laureate and last year’s recipient of the Lantos Prize, Professor Elie Wiesel has written that “Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must, at that moment, become the center of the universe” Seventeen years ago when Rwanda desperately needed to be the center of the universe the world instead turned away. As a genocidal assault was unleashed on the Tutsi people, the community of nations, to their everlasting shame, stood by and did nothing and as a consequence nearly a million Rwandans were massacred in just 100 days. But while the mighty and powerful found reasons and excuses to turn away, Paul Rusesabagina, a self-described “ordinary man” did not turn away. Paul’s brave and profoundly decent actions as the manager of the Hotel Des Milles Collines, helped save the lives of over 1,200 hundred Tutsis and moderate Hutus who had taken refuge in his hotel.

What is remarkable about Paul Rusesabagina’s achievement is that it was not the result of a grandiose plan to thwart the evil that was raging outside the gates of his hotel. No not at all. Paul would be the first to say that minute to minute – day to day- making it up as he went along, he was simply determined to do one more thing to try and save lives for one more day. Where did he find the strength and humanity to do this-to live out the idea that he was indeed his brothers’ and sisters’ keepers? I don’t know, but I do know that we can perhaps hope to find similar strength and humanity from following his example.

Paul’s story is one that particularly resonates with my family because it reminds us of the heroic rescue mission of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, including my father Tom Lantos. In 2012 we will celebrate the centennial of Raoul Wallenberg’s birth and it is fitting indeed that Paul has previously been awarded the Wallenberg medal for his outstanding humanitarian actions on behalf of the defenseless.

I spoke earlier of wanting to inquire of God what might be the great moral test of my life. Paul met his great test and he would have been more than justified in seeking a life of quiet and peace in which he could be recognized for his good works but also left alone to enjoy the simple ordinary pleasures of his family and friends. Perhaps it is not surprising that Paul instead chose the path less travelled and more fraught with risk. While recognizing the significant progress that has been made in Rwanda under President Kagame, Paul has nonetheless dared to speak out against the serious challenges to democracy and human rights that exist in Rwanda today. His call for a peace and reconciliation process is the right prescription for a country that still faces deep rooted tensions that, if not addressed could pose a serious risk to the people of this region who have already suffered so much. Sadly, Paul’s willingness to publicly confront these issues has made him the target of bitter attacks on his character and motives. Unfortunately these attacks appear to be consistent with a disturbing pattern of censorship, intimidation and even violence that has been directed against those who have dared voice concerns about the government of Rwanda. This pattern is not unique to Rwanda. As Mark Twain observed, history may not repeat itself but it often rhymes. Raoul Wallenberg was arrested and sent to the Soviet Gulag for his heroic deeds during the Holocaust, Martin Luther King Jr. who was hailed in America when he became the youngest Nobel Laureate, became the subject of bitter denunciation when he spoke out against our involvement in the Viet Nam war, and last year’s recipient of the Nobel prize, the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, languishes in a Chinese prison for daring to write about a democratic future for his country. I suppose we could say that Paul is in good company and as he told me just a few weeks ago, “I am not threatened and I will not be silent” As Charlie Clements, the director of the Harvard Carr Center for human rights said recently: “It has never been Paul Rusesabagina’s nature to stay in his place. He would not have saved lives in the hotel had he stayed in his role as hotel manager”

We are so proud at the Lantos Foundation to be adding our recognition to the many others that Paul has rightly received. This “extra” ordinary man never wielded a gun, never swung a machete, but he used his words and his humanity to find a small path in the darkness and helped hundreds of his fellow human beings follow that path to safety. Paul Rusesabagina has set a path for us to follow as well.

Thank you very much.