December 1989

I am proud and deeply moved to have this opportunity to speak with you here today; but at the same time, I am also filled with a sense of sorrow and shame. I am moved because you have chosen to honor me with the 1989 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, and because it attests to the fact that I have not been, and am not now, alone. But I am filled with sorrow to see that in this land of my birth human dignity has once again been trampled upon. What is more, having had my own basic human rights stripped away, I am now more acutely aware than ever how far we are from accomplishing what we must in the cause of advancing respect for all human beings.