Amnesty International (AI) has organized a film festival in Vancouver (Nov 6 to 9) at Pacific Cinemateque. One of the films being shown is "Israel's Secret Weapon", a film that Canpalnet premiered in Canada with the presence of the producer, Giselle Portenier. It is a film we are pleased is being shown at the AI film festival. We encourage people to see it whenever possible.
But Amnesty International also has peremptorally cancelled the showing of another important film they had advertised, scheduled, and which is available. This film deals with the violations of the human rights of Venezuelans by those who orchestrated an unsuccessful coup to overthrow that country's elected president, Hugo Chavez.
Amnesty had been pressured by pro-coup forces to cancel the film and has capitulated. Amnesty now says that the human rights of ordinary Venezuelans are too controversial and "political" a matter for them, and therefore they have cancelled the showing of the acclaimed documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Though they lack the determination to resist political pressure for censorship, AI still acknowledges that the film is relevant to the human rights concerns they had wanted to "highlight".
This selective attention to human rights is contrary to the avowed mandate of Amnesty. We regard the human rights of Venezuelans no less important than those of Palestinians, or our own. And we understand well that a world in which the rights of some can be sacrificed is a world in which the rights of all are unacceptably insecure. So we choose solidarity instead of selective concern.
As people who have been involved in defending the human rights of Palestinians and Jewish-Israeli dissidents we also want to make known, that in the cases of these people too, Amnesty has been very "selective". It is far from upholding its advertised mandate of universal standards without favour to any political system.
This statement began with reference to the film "Israel's Secret Weapon", a film about Israel's extensive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, but most especially a film about the kidnapping, imprisonment and torture of the Jewish-Israeli whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu. To this day, that means for 18 years, Amnesty has refused to recognize Vanunu as a "prisoner of conscience". Instead they have defended the Israeli government's trial and imprisonment of Vanunu. AI says the Israeli government has the right to do so because Vanunu broke his oath of secrecy as a technician, employed at what he was told was a nuclear power facility, when he confirmed for ordinary people around the world, and in his own country, who before that were ignorant of the fact that the Israeli government secretly and deceitfully had produced one of the most extensive arsenals of nuclear weapons in the world. Linked to no government, receiving no payment whatsoever, Vanunu revealed this as a matter of conscience, opposing nuclear weapons everywhere. AI priorizes his employment contract over what prominent peace activists around the world have recognized as his courageous act of conscience.
Never being an advocate for his full human rights, Amnesty only recently has stated he has "suffered enough" -- no kidding, 11 1/2 years in solitary confinement -- and should be released.
And how many Palestinians, who have been arrested and imprisoned and tortured by the Israeli military -- without ever seeing a court or facing a charge --"administrative detention" the Israeli government has called it for decades, a term of "detention" that under Israeli law can be endlessly renewed, how many of these suffering people have had Amnesty work for their rights and freedom?
We do not ask you to boycott the Amnesty film festival. We do ask you to educate yourself, to write to Amnesty and protest their cancellation of one chance to educate yourself by viewing and discussing the film "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". We ask you to sign a petition on this matter.
Above all we encourage you to defend the human rights of all peoples, whether Amnesty International chooses to be selective or not.
Canpalnet
To voice your opinion to Amnesty International, write to:
Don Wright , Regional Development Coordinator, BC/Yukon
Amnesty International Canada
dwright@amnesty.ca
Phone- (604) 294-5160
Fax- (604) 294-5130
To read and sign the petition protesting AI's cancellation of the film on Venezuela and to find additional information on the human rights situation, go to:
www.petitiononline.com/vendoc/petition.html
For more information on the film festival check www.amnesty.bc.ca/filmfest.html
