San Francisco photo exhibition addresses issues of human rights

Saturday December 14, 2002

BY ANGELA WATERCUTTER
Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The portraits are black and white, as stark as the messages they convey. Stories of suffering, endurance, struggle and hope, they capture images of 51 defenders of human rights from five continents.

They are the faces of ``Speak Truth to Power,'' a traveling exhibit by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Eddie Adams and interviews by activist Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, which opened Saturday at the San Francisco Public Library. Adams was a longtime photographer with The Associated Press.

``I think people often feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems we face as a society,'' said Cuomo, chairwoman of Amnesty International's leadership council. The activists, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, ``are all living testaments to the ability of one individual to make a difference.''

The opening was loosely tied to the Dec. 10 anniversary of the 1948 signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Three of the featured activists spoke at the event, telling stories of their struggles and making personal pleas for human rights.

Harry Wu has lobbied world governments to help stop abuses in Chinese prison camps, where he spent nearly two decades before his release in 1979. He often speaks on Capitol Hill about what he sees as the hypocrisy of a U.S. foreign policy that permits trade with China but prohibits it with Cuba.

``If we don't raise the issue of human rights, our money flew into China just like a blood transfusion to a dying communist regime,'' Wu said in an interview.

At Saturday's ceremony, an audience member asked Wu how he felt about China's charges that he had betrayed his country.

``It is true that I received the title of traitor from the Beijing government, and I'm honored,'' Wu said to a round of applause.

Wu said he hopes the United States challenges China on its human rights record and backs principles with sanctions.

Another speaker was Sister Dianna Ortiz, an Ursuline nun and outspoken advocate of torture survivors who was abducted and raped by Guatemalan security forces in 1989 while serving as a missionary.

``Torture has become the plague of the 21st century, and it is a form of terrorism,'' Ortiz said. ``We are using our horrible experience as an instrument to break the silence.''

Van Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, also spoke.

Jones founded the center, which focuses on human rights abuses in the criminal justice system, in 1996 and has worked with people who have suffered police harassment and brutality.

The U.S. justice system focuses too much on criminalizing social problems and mostly benefits those who administer the prison system, Jones said.

``It's a tough issue to work in the United States because people don't know how much profiteering goes on in the prison system,'' Jones said. ``Our job is to try to lift the veil.''

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On the Net:

Speak Truth to Power: http://www.speaktruthtopower.org/

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)