For Thomas Wainggai

For 30 years, Amnesty International has been fighting for the freedom of opinion,

against torture and against the death penalty.

But Amnesty International doesn't take a stance on the opinions of the people it defends.

Mr. President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

I'm French and I'm 26 years old.

At the age of 26, Nguyen Chi Thien, a poet from your country

trusted the "may 100 flowers bloom" motto.

It was in 1957.

North Vietnam's government had decided

to give back the freedom of speech

to artists, intellectuals and clergymen.

Nguyen Chi Thien believed in the influence

of words and created a literary review.

He lived one year of hope,

barely,

because one year later, in 1958, all publications were suspended

and Nguyen Chi Thien was sentenced to two years in prison.

Between that first conviction and today, Nguyen Chi Thien will have spent

more than half his life in prison, over 30 years.

More than my entire life.

Nguyen Chi Thien was released in early 1961

and arrested again in November.

Yet, he committed no act of violence. There was no indictment, no trial.

He was declared "under-developed citizen"

and sent to a re-education camp.

He remained prisoner until 1964,

when he was released before getting imprisoned again from 1965 to 1968.

The work was exhausting in the camp,

the food insufficient, the medical care precarious,

the humiliations and bullying a daily occurrence.

Prison did not break Nguyen Chi Thien.

It inspired a volume of poetry, Flowers from Hell .

My verses are in fact no verses

They are simply life's sobbings

Dark prison cells opening and shutting

The dry cough of two caving in lungs

The sound of earth coming down to bury dreams

All the sounds of a life not deserving half its name or even the name of death:

No verses are they!

In 1979, Nguyen Chi Thien left a manuscript

of his poems at the British embassy in Hanoi.

He wanted his work to be heard. And it was.

Published in Germany and England, it received a prize in 1989.

For that crime, he was imprisoned again.

It took 10 years for the detention to be

recognized and the trial to be announced.

In 1989, an Amnesty International delegation

detached to Vietnam was not able to check up on him.

It was believed Nguyen Chi Thien was held secretly and in dire conditions

in the Ba Sao camp and that his health status was critical.

Mr. President,

my name is Emmanuelle Béart and I am an actress.

I know the beauty of a text and the value of words.

Sharing them is my profession.

I'm here to ask you, respectfully, to release Nguyen Chi Thien

I'm waiting with confidence.

Please accept, Mr. President, the assurances of my consideration.

The prize given to Nguyen Chi Thien is called "the freedom to write".

You and I who are free,

let us write for him

and for the prisoners of conscience all over the world.

Silence can be beautiful as well, you'll see...

Mr. President,

I would like to sing for a prisoner.

I have to plead a case.

Augustine Eke has been convicted,

he will be executed.

One day at the market,

he was buying shoelaces.

The police arrested him,

He had been reported,

He had been accused

of taking part in an armed robbery.

It could have happened to me.

It could have happened to me.

Two witnesses had reported him,

because they had been tortured.

The trial was botched, everything was rigged.

Where is the truth?

The only thing that was proven was

that on that day, Augustine Eke was buying shoelaces.

Where is the truth?

It could have happened to me.

Maria Nonna Santa Clara

and one of her colleagues, Angelina Llenaresas

left work in Naga City to go to Santa Cruz.

The first was 35 and a social worker.

The other was 25 and a volunteer.

A woman from the village explained that when they left,

three men in plain clothes were following them.

Later, thanks to a photograph,

Maria Nonna Santa Clara

was officially identified.

Late in the afternoon, priests witnessed an army Jeep

aboard from which this woman cried for help.

Maria Nonna Santa Clara and Angelina Llenaresas

went missing on April 26, 1989.

Madam President,

I'm asking you.

Where are they?

It must have been an hour since he's moved.

Nothing around him has moved either.

He must move.

He runs the risk of a stiff arm like the other day.

He should stand up,

walk and go in circles.

It's time.

What time is it? It's the afternoon.

It's less hot.

The guard won't pass by again.

He passes by once a day.

How many days has he been here?

More than a year now.

He recounts his life.

He has seen his death in dreams.

Against those damp walls,

he makes a mark each day near the door in order to remember,

so as not to become insane.

He sings on Sundays the tunes of his childhood.

The light grows dim.

Around noon, he can see his hands.

The light is so weak.

To go blind.

He was afraid of it at the beginning.

Today, he isn't afraid anymore.

Or maybe he is, but of other things.

When the guard comes,

as soon as he hears him,

his only visit, the only human being,

he walks to the back of the room,

sits and wait there.

He prepares himself to receive the light.

It used to be a source of happiness for him.

He could almost see the sun.

But now, it hurts him.

He's suspicious of it.

It hurts him too much afterward.

He still folds his two blankets,

He has some water left.

When he wakes up during the night,

as he does several times,

when the silence is too loud,

he likes to drink his water. It's fresh at that hour.

He'd like to keep some bread

but it would be too stale

and he's too hungry during the day.

Something has been scaring him for some time.

He feels like he can't hear or see in his head

the voices and images of his wife and son.

They're slowly disappearing.

They pull away, farther and farther.

Now, he's afraid that he's too weak.

He finds his teeth weird.

He never had a trial.

He was never convicted.

No one knows where he is.

He's losing hope.

He will call the guard.

He will ask to see the doctor.

He will say that he has things to say.

He will be lying.

He has to hold up until tomorrow.

Tomorrow he'll be stronger.

This man is called Alirio de Jesus Pedraza Becerra.

He's 41.

He is a lawyer.

He hasn't committed any crime.

He went missing July 4, 1990. He was buying some bread

when 8 armed men pretending to be from the secret service seized him.

He is a defender of human rights

in Colombia.

I lived for a year in Africa.

I was 21 then.

I spent some time in Port Etienne, Mauritania

and then in Senegal.

I'm a photographer

and I've spent my life taking pictures

of the faces of people of all ages,

chief among them those of children.

In the Orient and the Occident.

I am devastated to learn of the deaths of two young shepherds.

Mamadou Ba and his brother Abdoulaye Ba.

It happened in your country, Mr. President.

In the valley near the frontier with Senegal, in June 1989.

The eldest was 12

and kept with his brother a herd of sheep and goats.

Abruptly,

this peaceful and traditional picture gets torn up.

Officers of the National Guard hurl themselves

at the children and slit their throats.

Why this atrocity?

We know there are ethnic issues everywhere,

and Mauritania is no exception.

But how do national guards come to murder children in cold blood?

Is it due to a difference in language, religion

or skin color?

How can this monstrosity be justified?

It's so far from what the Koran teaches.

We know of this particular atrocity

but unfortunately it's not an isolated one.