- Source: We Have A Dream: A Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution
We Have A Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution was an international summit organized by the Geneva-based non-governmental organization UN Watch, and attended by an international collection of non-governmental organizations to discuss issues of discrimination and persecution, particularly those of racism, sexism, homophobia, and discrimination against minorities. It occurred over two days, September 21 and 22 of 2011, across the street from a United Nations conference referred to as Durban III.
The summit was created in response to the United Nations' inclusion of countries that commit particularly atrocious human rights abuses, especially in the Human Rights Council, such as China, Syria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran. This claim has been supported by the Human Rights Foundation, a partner of the summit, whose President, Thor Halvorssen, refers to Durban III as “the last act in a tragicomedy” that underscores the UN's complacency with “despotic regimes which speak pretty words about human rights while they kill, torture, or jail their opponents”.
Speakers
= Burma
=Thaung Htun: Activist
= Canada
=Irwin Cotler: Member of Canadian Parliament
= China
=Geng He: Dissident, wife of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng
Yang Jianli: Dissident
= Cuba
=Fidel Suarez Cruz: Dissident
Bertha Antunez: Women's rights activist
= Darfur
=Adeeb Yousif: Activist
= Democratic Republic of the Congo
=Judith Registre: Women for Women International
= France
=Anna-Isabelle Tollet: Journalist and author
Phillipe Robinet: Publisher, co-founder of Oh! Editions
= Iran
=Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi: Activist
Marina Nemat: Author, Former prisoner
Ahmad Batebi: Dissident
= North Korea
=Ma Young Ae: Defector, former intelligence officer
= Rwanda
=Bertha Kayitesi: Genocide survivor
= South Sudan
=Luka Biong Deng: Director of KUSH, former minister
John Dau: Genocide survivor, human rights activist
= Syria
=Nasser Weddady: Civil Rights Outreach Director, AIC
Rami Nakleh: Dissident
= Tibet
=Ngawang Sandral: Activist
= Uganda
=Jacqueline Kasha: LGBT activist
= United States
=David Keyes: Co-founder of Cyber Dissidents
Maran Turner: Director of Freedom Now
Joel Brinkley: Journalist
= Uyghur
=Rebiya Kadeer: Activist, former prisoner
= Vietnam
=Thuy Tran: Activist and writer
= Zimbabwe
=Grace Kwinje: Dissident and journalist
References
External links
Official website
Speech by Yang Jianli