《议报》记者 张维 报道
2018年2月19日
今天（19日，星期一）下午1:30，第10届日内瓦人权与民主峰会在位于日内瓦的联合国总部第23会议厅开幕，20几位来自中国（含西藏和香港）、刚果、古巴、伊朗、朝鲜、巴基斯坦、俄国、土耳其、越南、乌干达、委内瑞拉、津巴布韦等专制国家的人权人士以及近百位来自民主国家的议员、外交官、学者、商人、学生和记者出席了开幕式。
开幕式由联合国观察的执行主任Hillel Neuer主持，其理事长、原美国驻罗马尼亚大使Alfred Moses致欢迎词，欧洲议会议员、欧洲自由民主党主席 Hans Van Baalen 致开幕辞，全球马格尼茨基法案的主要推手Bill Browder等致辞，中国公民力量创办人楊建利博士致开幕式结语。
开幕式结束后，峰会的演讲者在加拿大驻日内瓦联合国使团的会议厅与来自加拿大、瑞典、英国、西班牙、荷兰、芬兰、爱尔兰、比利时以及欧盟的人权官员座谈。楊建利、香港铜锣湾书商林荣基就桂敏海案与瑞典驻日内瓦联合国大使Veronica Bard女士进行了深入交流。
明天日内瓦人权与民主峰会将进行一天的会议，楊建利、林荣基、西藏前良心犯果洛晋美将在有关中国人权状况的时段演讲。
日内瓦人权与民主峰会由联合国观察牵头、包括中国公民力量在内的25个世界非政府组织联合举办，会期一般设定在联合国人权理事会开始年会前的那个星期，向联合国人权理事会发出世界范围内民间的声音。
附：楊建利开幕式结语
Concluding Remarks at the Opening Session of 10th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy
YANG Jianli
It’s wonderful to see so many old and new friends here at the 10th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. I want to express my profound gratitude to Hillel and his terrific team for putting together just another important assembly of people’s voices in the week leading to the opening of the annual session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The camaraderie, and the sharing of experiences and strategies at this Summit has always given me hope, even during the darkest days for human rights when too many eyes have adjusted the shadows that power and greed cast on the existence of our brothers and sisters around the world, and when what has been gained in principle, what has been recognized in fact, has been eroded by an acceptance that it is better to accommodate the evil—and hope it changes on its own—than to seek to change it through pressure, denouncement, and direct confrontation.
In this room today are human rights heroes coming from all over the world. They are brave defenders of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) whose 70th anniversary this year will mark. What is best in mankind, what is most hopeful about us, are beautifully articulated in the Declaration. These are a distillation of all human experience, all the warnings and screams of our combined human history as well as the principles of light and hope by which we should organize ourselves as a human family.
But, sadly, we must ask again and again how it is that it is so readily ignored and even so casually traduced by some of its signatory states.
In next two days, we will hear from our heroes from around the world and they they will testify what becomes of us, of the mankind, of our world, when these principles are ignored and how a handful of trouble makers can keep the boat of the entire humanity afloat. I think you will agree with methat they are not only defenders of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but savers of the humanity itself.
We should be grateful to these heroes for reminding us that tyranny’s desperate wars against fundamental human dignity are bound to fail. History progresses and older methods of control are swept away as concentrated and illegitimate power faces increased opposition from more and more forces demanding freedom from domination, as has been most recently evidenced by protests in Iran and will surely be proved again and again by the people’s struggle in China, Congo, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Tibet, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and other world remaining autocracies. This is the promise of our time.
