Hari Kunzru Quotes

I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A. I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.

We need to make clear the federal government does not have authority to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process or, for that matter, to use lethal force on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil if they don't pose imminent threats.

To me, that means getting back to the point where our Constitution means that you don't tap people's phones and poke into their e-mail and you don't arrest people and keep them hidden for a year and a half without charging them.

These are show trials. If the defendant is convicted, he goes to Guantanamo Bay. If he is acquitted, he goes to Guantanamo Bay. If the trial is abandoned, he goes to Guantanamo Bay. I don’t know why they are holding this trial.….

It is good that the Canadians are raising the flag among Western countries to raise the issue of human rights abuse throughout the Middle East.

Our expectation is that the Russian Federation does its part to protect its own citizens in full respect of human rights principles.

It's common knowledge that most of the guys at Guantanamo are nobodies. Many were turned in by bounty hunters.

Well, summary executions would be very effective. But we have impediments—they're called the Constitution and due process. And we have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution.

Guantanamo Bay has likely created more terrorists in the world that it has detained.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Human rights and fundamental freedoms may be limited to meet the just requirements of national security, public order, public health, public safety, or public morality…. realization of human rights must be considered in the regional and national context bearing in mind different political, economic, legal, social, cultural, historical and religious backgrounds

No man’s life shall be taken away, no man’s honor or good name shall be stained, no man’s person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered or in any way punished … unless it be by virtue of equity of some express law of the Country.

As we approached our work, my colleagues and I looked to the U.S. Constitution for guidance. It states, 'No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.' No person, no exceptions.

I'm not guided by what Human Rights Watch says.

Guantanamo Bay can be and has been visited repeatedly by the International Red Cross and other human-rights groups for observation in an open, regular, and transparent manner. Detainees receive the same medical care as the guard force and are able to participate in their daily prayer sessions.

I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression.

We have no quarrel with a policy that seeks to support human rights.

Defending human rights should be an important objective of foreign policy, and that, too, will sometimes be hard to reconcile with an economic agenda, especially when it comes to dealing with rich but repressive players like China and Russia.

We have laws against torture. The Constitution says nothing whatever about torture. It speaks of punishment; 'cruel and unusual' punishments are forbidden.

That's one of the things that I'm going to talk about, is the need for the Human Rights Council to actually deal with human rights. We've got countries on the Human Rights Council right now like Venezuela and Cuba.

What I'm trying to bring attention to is that human rights is a big important part of how to prevent conflict in the first place if we focus on how the governments are treating their people.

Human rights is something that wasn't hard to be inspired to write about because there have been so many violations of those rights.

I am waiting for the day when the German Bundestag debates the violation of human rights in Saudi Arabia.

The detainees at GTMO are treated exceptionally well - so well that some have even declined to be resettled, instead choosing to stay at GTMO.

We need to do more to stop Iran's persecution of different religious faiths, including Sunni Muslims, Christians, and Bahais. We must do more to protect the Iranian's people's right to freedom of expression.