Carter, Sanders will discuss human rights at Carter Center

Annual Human Rights Defenders Forum scheduled.

Well, they definitely won’t lack for opinions.

The Carter Center said Thursday that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will make an appearance there with former President Jimmy Carter May 8. What’s being described as “a conversation about human rights “will close the first day of the Carter Center’s annual Human Rights Defenders Forum.

The conversation isn’t open to the public, although plans are to livestream it, the Carter Center said.

More than 70 activists, peacemakers and community leaders from 31 countries will convene May 8 and 9 “to discuss strategies for protecting human rights in the wake of rising authoritarianism.”

Among those scheduled to attend the forum, “Freedom from Fear: Securing Rights in Challenging Time,” are Olga Zakharova, founder and director of Russia’s Freedom Files; Musa Mahmodi, executive director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission; and Maryam Al-Khawaja, a special adviser on human rights in Bahrain. Others slated to speak are Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom and Andrew Gilmour, representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. These daytime sessions, including a concluding Q&A with President Carter, will be webcast live on cartercenter.org.

Awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts (and) to advance democracy and human rights,” Carter earlier this month talked human rights at Emory University.

Being a human rights advocate isn’t for everybody — especially not now, the former president suggested while delivering the Centennial David J. Bederman Lecture at Emory University School of Law:

“If you run for office to be a champion for human rights, it may not be the most popular thing you do,” he quipped.

And right now in this country, he suggested, it may be a matter of playing the long game.

“The will of the American people now is kind of America First and let’s not impose our commitment to human rights on other people, which I think is a tragedy,” Carter said near the end of his speech. “But I don’t see how to change it with the current administration in Washington.”

No word if the Carter-Sanders talk will dip into politics, but if it does, the two will have something to chew over: When Sanders waged his populist Democratic primary contest against Hillary Clinton, Carter kept mum for a while but wound up backing the eventual nominee.

More information on the forum and the Carter Center’s work can be found at www.cartercenter.org.

MARK WILSON / GETTY IMAGES Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., shown at a news conference on climate change, is scheduled to take part in what’s being described as “a conversation about human rights” with former President Jimmy Carter on May 8 at the Carter Center.