Every day somewhere in the world a child, a woman, a man stops speaking their mother tongue. The world's languages are disappearing faster than ever before in human history. Control over someone's language has become one of the primary means of exerting power over other aspects of people' s life.
Language is one of the essential keys to cultural and personal identity.
The present situation poses therefore a great risk to human diversity. Ariel Dorfman, the respected Chilean writer, took part in the tribunal and highlighted the fundamental importance of such diversity. It's essential to understand that every language in the world, whether five or five billion people speak it, has equal rights. When you destroy a language, you destroy the capacity of human beings to be as diverse and as plural and as expansive as possible. They listened to the testimonies of five witnesses seeking to ensure their linguistic human rights.