Juno News - May 08, 2024


Sound of Freedom actor Eduardo Verástegui addresses CBC criticism of his movie


Episode Stats

Length

6 minutes

Words per Minute

182.91737

Word Count

1,180

Sentence Count

69


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Mr. Verastegui, what brings you out to the Make Europe Great Again conference?
00:00:03.600 Well, you know, I'm traveling around the world, you know, talking about this issue,
00:00:08.560 this terrible reality, which is child trafficking,
00:00:11.160 which is my number one mission in life is to end child trafficking.
00:00:13.860 I commit with my life, I give my life to end this.
00:00:18.920 And it started nine years ago with the movie Son of Freedom.
00:00:24.060 And now that the movie's out all over the world,
00:00:26.720 I don't want to, you know, look the other way around and say,
00:00:32.900 well, I did the movie, the movie's out, I did my work, I'm going to find something else.
00:00:38.040 No, yes, I'm doing a lot of other things, but this is going to be forever.
00:00:41.680 I'm never going to give my back to the children of the world.
00:00:46.480 I follow this principle, which is a universal principle.
00:00:49.360 Your children are my children, and I give my life to protect them.
00:00:53.080 And I have not just to say it, I need to execute.
00:00:56.800 So what I do, I travel around the world, what they invite me.
00:00:58.960 So I got an invitation to come here and to talk about these agreements
00:01:03.420 that I'm signing with prime ministers, presidents, governors,
00:01:06.640 because movies, they come and they go.
00:01:10.540 If you don't do something to leave a legacy, a permanent legacy behind,
00:01:18.320 and it was great, you know, you raise awareness, you open the eyes of this trolley.
00:01:24.660 But that's it, you don't resolve it.
00:01:26.300 So we need to do legislation.
00:01:28.340 We need to do many other things.
00:01:29.860 We need to inspire every parent to take care of their children,
00:01:32.740 to pay attention to what they're doing, to what they're watching on social media,
00:01:36.260 because you, child, can be kidnapped in your own house,
00:01:40.060 watching the Internet, talking to strangers, to maybe another kid,
00:01:44.160 but maybe he's not a kid, maybe he's an adult, he's another kid.
00:01:46.900 Next thing you know, they're exchanging pictures.
00:01:49.740 Next thing you know, he's being threatened by the pedophile.
00:01:54.580 You know, if you tell your mother, I will kill your mother, I will kill you.
00:01:57.360 Now these kids are kidnapped, traumatized.
00:01:59.640 Their purity and their innocence is gone.
00:02:01.820 Next thing you know, only God knows.
00:02:03.860 Imagine the worst.
00:02:04.600 So I want parents to know that this is happening,
00:02:09.120 because a lot of times they say,
00:02:11.240 well, I don't want to know about this, this is too ugly.
00:02:14.080 Precisely because it's too ugly.
00:02:15.400 Precisely because it's too dangerous.
00:02:17.240 You need to know because you have children and they are the target.
00:02:20.540 You need to open your eyes.
00:02:21.640 This is real.
00:02:22.700 It's better for you to be scared and do something about it
00:02:26.240 and nothing happen to your children
00:02:27.460 than avoiding the conversation.
00:02:31.600 Avoiding the conversation and then later on,
00:02:33.780 something happens to your children and it's too late
00:02:35.440 because you didn't want to talk about it.
00:02:38.920 No, let's talk about it.
00:02:40.180 Let's do something about it.
00:02:41.480 Let's put pressure in government so they can do something about it.
00:02:44.080 Everybody should be doing something about it, you know?
00:02:46.360 Have you had any success or any impact
00:02:48.380 on talking to potentially Canadian leaders on this issue?
00:02:50.820 It's an underreported story in Canada,
00:02:52.460 but this issue happens quite a lot in our smaller rural communities.
00:02:55.580 Would you be interested in actually talking with Canadian leaders on this issue?
00:02:59.120 Canada is some of the top countries around the world.
00:03:02.160 The number one consumer of child sex in the world is the United States.
00:03:06.040 Canada is in the top five.
00:03:07.760 So definitely we are planning.
00:03:10.100 I just spoke to someone from Canada actually last night
00:03:12.380 and that person is going to connect me with other, you know,
00:03:16.740 leaders from every sector, you know,
00:03:20.100 business sector, media sector, political sector,
00:03:23.780 to do a private screenings for all these sectors in Canada in different cities
00:03:27.520 and then hopefully to sign an agreement with whoever wants to participate in the government
00:03:33.740 because this is not a left or right issue.
00:03:35.860 This is just children.
00:03:38.500 This is humanistic.
00:03:39.260 We all should be paying attention to this regardless of your belief system or whatever.
00:03:44.740 You know what?
00:03:45.140 Children are children and we need to protect them, you know?
00:03:47.600 And I am planning already to come to Canada very soon to do something about it over there.
00:03:53.540 Your film, Sound of Freedom, was a success in Canada, of course,
00:03:56.380 but we had our state broadcaster journalists who review films,
00:04:00.160 write off your film as a far-right fantasy
00:04:03.280 and kind of diminishing the issue of child sex trafficking.
00:04:06.860 What do you say to people who try to write off your film
00:04:09.760 and diminish the issue that you're fighting for?
00:04:12.300 You know, some of them are pedophiles, some of them.
00:04:14.220 I'm not saying that that person is because I don't know.
00:04:16.720 But we have done some investigations
00:04:19.840 and it happens to be that those who review the film in a very bad way,
00:04:24.740 in a very negative way, first of all,
00:04:27.060 turned out that they have never seen the movie.
00:04:31.660 So how can you destroy a movie that you haven't even seen it?
00:04:34.560 You may not like it.
00:04:35.540 It's good.
00:04:36.440 Hey, we're good for, like, artists' objectives.
00:04:38.600 You can say, I don't like the acting, I don't like this, it's too long for me.
00:04:41.160 Hey, it's all good.
00:04:42.280 But when you're attacking the problem,
00:04:45.980 like, this is not real, this is a conspiracy, ta-da-da-da-da-da-da,
00:04:50.500 there's something suspicious there.
00:04:51.980 It's like, who's going to be against a movement that is saving children?
00:04:55.960 And listen, we always send an invitation to left and right.
00:04:59.820 Unfortunately, sometimes a lot of people from the left, they don't respond.
00:05:03.420 Maybe there's a reason, because many of them, they are trying to legalize pedophilia.
00:05:12.640 So maybe this movie is like too much light in the darkness, that they get, you know, hurt.
00:05:18.440 But it's real.
00:05:20.340 This is, I mean, there's people who are trying to legalize pedophilia.
00:05:24.500 They already are taking the word pedophilia to replace by minor attraction.
00:05:30.160 And that's how they're going to keep going, keep moving.
00:05:32.240 And then what is gender ideology equals sexual abuse of children?
00:05:40.320 Because eventually, if you identify as a child, and now you want to play with another children,
00:05:48.180 so that's, they're very tricky, they're very smart, they're very sneaky, they're very evil, you know?
00:05:52.780 So I will always be with my eyes open if someone is trying to destroy this film because of,
00:05:59.260 not because of objective reasons, artistic reasons, but because of the movement.
00:06:04.860 Many of them are involved in the crime.
00:06:07.060 No question, no doubt about that, you know?
00:06:08.880 Again, I don't know about this person.
00:06:10.260 I hope not, of course, because, you know, can you imagine being involved in this crime?
00:06:13.960 Eventually, you're going to go, you know, you're going to be gone soon because God's children are not for sale.
00:06:21.380 You don't want to mess up with God's children.
00:06:23.660 Eventually, I'm telling you, it's not good news for anyone that is hurting children.