International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights

7 March 2014

Excellencies,
Mr Mayor,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a joy to be back among you to open the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights.

I’ve been looking forward to this event. I anticipate a rich palette of vivid stories, and debates that are profoundly, and perhaps painfully, well informed.

I have deep respect for the curiosity and empathy that drives so many reporters and film makers to leave their comfortable lives and investigate the pain of others, often far away.

And I have profound admiration for many of those people whose stories will be told in the films that this Festival will show. These are individuals who have resisted tyranny, often at great cost to themselves, so that all may enjoy their human rights.

The essence of this Festival is its freedom, and this freedom of speech is vital to us all. Because in some measure all other human rights depend on freedom of expression: the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. A free society is one in which all voices can be raised in comment, criticism and celebration. It is one where all people can access information and thus fully participate in the decisions that shape their lives.

Because it is so powerful, this beautiful, deep and inspiring ideal of freedom of expression has always been under threat. Today is no exception. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights I hear daily reports of unacceptable acts of intimidation and violent reprisal against free speech.

The chilling effect of such intimidation is very real. And yet, the human urge to expression cannot be stifled. Despite this abuse, every day people create new websites and newspapers, new radio stations, new movies. The ideas that they generate are sometimes so powerful that tyrannies may tremble and fall.

Why is that?

I believe that empathy is one of the most powerful words in our language. Empathy is not the same as pity, and it doesn’t necessarily involve advocacy of causes or ideas. It is about putting ourselves into the shoes of some other person, so that by the force of our imagination and our recognition of shared human feelings, we see the world from that person’s point of view.

Empathy is about realizing that in a very fundamental way there is no difference between us. All of us are born free and equal in dignity and rights. These rights, which are universal and inalienable, are also indivisible and interdependent. So when the rights of one of us are violated, all of us feel pain, and outrage.

That force can be more powerful than violence.

Thanks to the admirable organisers of this Festival, in the next few days free voices will speak to us, in empathy, about the pitiless conflict in Syria. About sexual trafficking, and shameful abuse of migrants. About today’s increasing rise of racism and hatred in many countries. About the aftermath of the terrible Cambodian genocide, and the paradox of new technologies, which enhance our right to information but also place our right to privacy under threat.

These are challenging and controversial issues, and I want to celebrate the fact that we are able to raise them.

Thank you.