Actor Nicolas Cage Speaks Out on Behalf of Gulf Coast Hurricane Survivors Ahead of Fifth Anniversary in Amnesty International Video

Actor is Filmed Walking in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and Meeting with Community Leaders About Recovery Crisis

NEW ORLEANS, La., Aug. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --  With tens of thousands of hurricane survivors still prevented from returning or rebuilding five years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- and the Gulf Coast now reeling from the disastrous oil spill -- actor Nicolas Cage is speaking up on behalf of victims in a video produced by Amnesty International USA.

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In the film Cage talks with local community leaders in New Orleans as he tours the storms' devastation in the Lower Ninth Ward.  "People in the Gulf Coast have the right to return to affordable safe housing," says Cage, who participated in Amnesty International's Annual General Meeting in New Orleans last spring and is among Amnesty International's celebrity "luminaries."

Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, also speaking in the film, urges the U.S. government to put human rights at the core of the response to the oil spill and future disasters, to avoid human rights violations similar to those that occurred after the hurricanes.

The video was released along with an update to Amnesty International's groundbreaking April report, "Un-Natural Disaster: Human Rights in the Gulf Coast," which says the catastrophic oil spill is compounding the botched recovery from Katrina and Rita for the region's most vulnerable residents. To read the report please visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org/dignity/pdf/unnaturaldisaster.pdf

Amnesty International is calling on the federal government to create a citizens' advisory council to ensure that local residents' concerns are addressed fairly in the government's oil spill recovery planning.

Amnesty International has said the oil spill is having severe consequences for human rights, particularly on the right to health and a healthy environment and the right to an adequate standard of living and to gain work, which are threatened by the spill's impact on marine wildlife on waterways and coastlines - a source of livelihood for many Gulf residents.  The group also said disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups and poor communities are disproportionately impacted.

For more information please visit: www.aiusa.org

SOURCE Amnesty International

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