CNN Interview with Carter Center Human Rights Defenders, Jimmy Carter

Sept. 7, 2007

The following is a transcript of the CNN/Jim Clancy interview with Carter Center Human Rights Defenders, Jimmy Carter.

CLANCY: Well, our job is to cover the world for and you almost every day it seems we show you images of humans suffering from places like Darfur. We tell you stories about individuals standing up to defend the rights of the defenseless. But who are these people? What drives them? What do they go through, to stand up for what we all know is right but don't necessarily do ourselves? Now, we're going to take a few minutes here to introduce you to some of these people and hear in their own words what they face.

SAAD EDDIN IBRAHIM, IBN KHALDUN CENTER: Telling the truth to a dictator is unforgivable sin. And they will track you all your life until you disappear or...

CLANCY: Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim is Egypt's leading human rights defender. He served three years in jail only to see the nation's high court dismiss all charges, charges he said were based on his criticism of President Mubarak and the government.

IBRAHIM: They arrest you and detain you and then they find a crime for you to try you on. After the fact.

ZAINAH ANWAR, SISTERS OF ISLAM: The fact that we're working on women's rights and on women's -- on human rights, when you, you know, accused of being anti-Islam, anti-god, anti-Sharia law.

CLANCY: Zainah Anwar is executive director of Malaysia's sisters in Islam, a Muslim feminist. She asserts there's nothing in Islam that discriminates against women except the men who interpret it that way.

ANWAR: When, actually, the struggle that we're involved in is a struggle for a just Islam, and that is very Islamic.

GERARD JEAN-JUSTE, HAITIAN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER: Death threats. Arrest. Almost killed. And then almost (inaudible). The people are in dire needs. We have to satisfy that.

CLANCY: Father Gerard Jean-Juste is a catholic priest who ran a soup kitchen in one of Haiti's poorest parishes. His goal? More aid and education for the poor in Haiti's economically divided society.

JEAN-JUSTE: We are Americans. We are in America, 600 miles from Florida. Too much suffering. Too much misery. We must get rid of it.

JESSICA MONTELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, B'TSELEM: We faced a great deal of hostility from the public.

CLANCY: Branded Arab lovers by some Jessica Montell is executive director of the Israeli human rights group. The group has been highly critical of the government's tactics dealing with the Palestinians.

MONTELL: The big challenge is confronting this idea that anything can be justified in the fight for security. That counterterrorism then is a -- it's a blank check to do almost anything.

CLANCY: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter invited those four leading human rights activists to come here to the Carter Center, along with activists from more than 20 nations. President Carter, joins us now. I think this is a question, I want to begin here. I think you can answer this. What drives these people?

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I think a commitment to basic human rights on the local level. They are courageous people. They have been willing to sacrifice their freedom or their -- sometimes their lives in order to protect the integrity of the universal declaration of human rights. I think some of them look at it from a global point of view, some of them from a strictly local point of view, what affects them and their families and their neighbors and the people for whom they feel responsible. And to me, they're heroes.

CLANCY: One of the questions that always comes up, what are these governments, what are these groups really afraid from the defenders of human rights? We asked some of the defenders, they're here at the Carter Center question center that question. Let's listen.

IBRAHIM: They are afraid of truth, they are afraid of sharing power. Simply put, they are afraid of the people. They want to continue to rule as an autocracy, to have monopoly over power, wealth and prestige. And anyone who question that becomes an enemy, not of them but of the state, of the nation. They feel insecure being sharing with others. They feel insecure to see people are being educated. Don't be afraid of sharing. Don't be afraid of getting rid of underdevelopment. Don't be afraid of helping your brother to live like god's children.

CARTER: A government, sometimes this starts out as ostensibly benevolent becomes infatuated with power and their commitment to stay in power sometimes benefiting from corruption becomes so overwhelming that they stamp out all dissenting voices. And force them either into exile or put them in prison or otherwise persecute. Quite often as you know in extreme cases those human rights defenders are killed.

CLANCY: Has the U.S. contributed to the decline of human rights around the world with this war on terror, this obsession with security at all costs?

CARTER: Grossly. One of the main factors in the escalation of human rights abuse has been the lack of leadership in the United States. And the demonstration by the united states that we have rejected long-standing international agreements against torture, against the imprisonment of people without access to legal counsel, caught access to one's own family or even without access to the charges that have -- that have caused their -- their long-term imprisonment. Those kind of things have set a horrible example for the rest of the world.

CLANCY: Fortunately a lot of the people that are out there trying to defend human rights, get encouragement from messages like the one that you just gave us. And as a result, they are more determined than ever to carry on. Let's listen to what some of the human rights defenders had to say.

IBRAHIM: Don't ever underestimate what few individual, determined individual, can do, to change the course of history. I'm determined to continue fighting. No matter what the Tierney does to me.

MONTELL: Once you know the truth, once you see the injustice, you can't not know it anymore. So -- and once you know, I think there is no choice but to be working against the injustice.

ANWAR: It is my country. This is my religion. I have a right to shape it, to influence it. And I have a right to live in my country, you know, in peace, you know, with everybody else.

JEAN-JUSTE: We going to keep as human right defenders, we going to keep educating the people. We in our generation, in our time, we can succeed. Let's try. Let's try. Don't be afraid. Let's keep trying.

CLANCY: Determination that should serve as an inspiration to the rest of us. Our thanks to the human rights defenders and their defender, former U.S. President, Jimmy Carter.

We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back after this.