[Tolik]

The Nobility Of The Human Spirit and The Power Of Freedom

Testimonies to human dignity & character

The Oslo Freedom Forum will bring together some of the world’s leading minds to honor heroic survivors of political oppression and persecution. The conference will showcase the testimonies and noble purpose of these men and women who risked their lives for freedom. With a guiding focus on civil and political rights, we will revisit the memoirs they wrote about their harrowing experiences. This literature of survival served to galvanize human rights movements across the globe and bears witness to the resilience of the human spirit. Featured speakers include Elena Bonner, Vladimir Bukovsky, Palden Gyatso, Kang Chol-Hwan, Armando Valladares, Ramón José Velásquez, Elie Wiesel, Harry Wu, and Leyla Zana.

They will speak before an audience of human rights advocates, social and business entrepreneurs, and leaders from a wide spectrum of disciplines, some of whom will also take the stage for panel discussions. Noted participants include Mohammed Ahmed Abdallah, Zainab Bangura, Aliaksandr Bialiatski, Emil Constantinescu, Jack Healey, Craig Johnstone, Jean-François Julliard, Vytautas Landsbergis, Leopoldo Lopez, Edward Lucas, Aidan McQuade, Greg Mortenson, Jacqueline Moudeina, Park Sang Hak, Hans Rosling, and Peter Thiel.

Our mission is to celebrate all that these remarkable individuals have done for humanity, inspire leaders from all walks of life with their narratives, and add valuable insight to the human rights movement.

Confirmed speakers bios

[Tolik]

Ping

[Tolik]

A minor point correcting the population numbers (source):

Latest Population Figures for Israel

(2009)

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On the eve of its 61st Independence Day, the country’s population stands at 7,411,000, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Some 5,593,000 of the population (75.5 percent) are Jewish Israelis, 1,498,000 (20.2%) are Israeli Arabs and the remaining 320,000 (4.3%) are immigrants and their offspring who are not registered as Jews by the Interior Ministry, including some 200,000 foreign workers.

According to the CBS statistics, since last Independence Day, the country’s population has risen by some 1.8%, with most of this increase being attributed to natural growth. 154,000 new babies have been born and more than 12,000 new immigrants have arrived. In total, the population of Israel grew by approximately 125,000 over the last year.

 

[Skid Marx]

Thanks for posting this.

[SunkenCiv]

The West isn't very interested in Russia either, a country that no longer has real elections, independent courts, or freedom of the press. Russia is a country where journalists, human rights activists, and migrants are killed regularly, almost daily. And extreme corruption flourishes of a kind and extent that never existed earlier in Russia or anywhere else. So what do the Western mass media discuss mainly? Gas and oil -- of which Russia has a lot. Energy is its only political trump card, and Russia uses it as an instrument of pressure and blackmail. And there's another topic that never disappears from the newspapers -- who rules Russia? Putin or Medvedev? But what difference does it make, if Russia has completely lost the impulse for democratic development that we thought we saw in the early 1990s? Russia will remain the way it is now for decades, unless there is some violent upheaval... At one time, the Nobel Peace Prize was the highest moral award of our civilization. But after December 1994, when Yasir Arafat became one of the three new laureates, its ethical value was undermined. I haven't always greeted each selection of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting with joy, but that one shocked me. And to this day, I cannot understand and accept the fact that Andrei Sakharov and Yasir Arafat, now posthumously, share membership in the club of Nobel laureates... Here are several citations from Sakharov: ... "All the wars that Israel has waged have been just, forced upon it by the irresponsibility of Arab leaders." "With all the money that has been invested in the problem of Palestinians, it would have been possible long ago to resettle them and provide them with good lives in Arab countries."