“Responding to the call of Irony, the instrument of free spirits, we have recalled to mind those human rights, those fundamental freedoms proclaimed more than sixty years ago; we have compared them with the cruel violations perpetrated by so many States against their peoples – violations which have gone unpunished. It required a black brush and the mark of shame. But, to us, it seemed necessary to add the magical rhythms of a poet and prophet, Guillaume Apollinaire”.

Stéphane Hessel, a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, who fought for the free French and was deported as a resistant, took part in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the creation of the State of Israel. He has been a French ambassador, a defender of illegal immigrants and member of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.

Pascal Lemaître was born in Brussels in 1967 and studied at La Cambre where he now teaches. He works in publishing and for the press in Europe and the United States. He has published many children’s books, among them four albums written by Toni Morrison. He assists his wife Emmanuèle Phuon, who is a dancer- choreographer, in the “Khmeropédies” project which links the Khmer tradition with contemporary dance.