The Parrot's Perch

From Amnesty International, Tempe:

The next regular monthly meeting will be our "Lunch and Liberate" gathering on Sunday, May 6th from 12:30 - 2:00 pm at "Boulders on Broadway" (530 W. Broadway Rd, Tempe - see the map on the "Home" page). Our Guest Speaker is Karen Keilt, author of "The Parrot's Perch". Karen escaped corruption, violence and oppression in Brazil. She left behind all the trappings of an extravagant, wealthy lifestyle in exchange for her freedom. She brings to us an amazing tale of intrigue ---and violation of human rights. Come, learn, and help!

Here is the letter the President Obama wrote upon reading The Parrot's Perch.

The Huffington Post has blogged about my book "The Parrot's Perch". Click HERE to read it. If you haven't read the book yet, you can order a copy from Amazon.com and BN.com It's available in Hardback, Paperback and as an e-book. Follow all the latest developments on this website and you can read all the reviews HERE.

Please share the article with everyone you know and post it on FB and Twitter too. Thanks so much.

Big Hugs
Karen

Hello All!!

I am so excited to share some wonderful news with you this morning!! On November 23 the following article was published in The Economist. Brasil is finally on it's way to reversing the 1979 Amnesty Law that offered protection to corrupt government officials!! The President of Brasil has agreed to form a Truth Committee that will be the first step toward stopping the Human Rights Violations that go on every day in Brasil.

“It’s not by chance that the police replicate a pattern of human-rights violations like that in a military dictatorship,” says Atila Roque, Amnesty International’s Brazil director. Brazil’s security apparatus was built by the generals and has barely been reformed. Each year Rio de Janeiro state police alone kill around 1,000 civilians, most of them poor and black. They are often accused of resisting police action—even those who are shot in the back of the head or show signs of beatings. Many police officers take part in protection rackets and kill those who get in their way. Patrícia Acioli, a judge who had sentenced around 60 officers belonging to death squads and militia groups, was herself shot dead on August 11th. A senior police officer has been arrested on suspicion of ordering the attack."

Following that article another one was published in The New York Times on December 2.

I have been writing to Amnesty International for a couple of years, and have just recently been contacted by the International Center for Transitional Justice . I have also sent copies of my book to them and to Presidents Rousseff and Obama. I hoped that my letter to President Rousseff might in some small way start a chain reaction. I suppose I will never know if it had any impact but the gratitude that I feel through knowing that along with the thousands of other victims who have cried in vain or also posted their stories on Brasil's Collective Memory Blog that some small breath of relief can finally be taken.

I am certain that the road to this recovery and change is coming as a result of the collective elevated global consciousness. For your part in contributing to that change I want to thank each one of you who encouraged me and supported me in my endeavor to tell my story.

I am beyond ecstatic today! Thank you!!

Karen Keilt

PS.....Please share this message of hope with everyone!!

Here is what “New York Times” Bestselling Author Stephen Singular has to say about The Parrot's Perch:

"The author deftly weaves a narrative showing how quickly innocence can be destroyed and how one false step can lead to disaster. She’s as good at capturing the heat of Brazil as she is at depicting the cool of Harvard University, and the result is a drama that never slows down or allows readers to catch a breath."

Here is what James C. Raymond, Author, The Gnashing of Teeth has to say about The Parrot's Perch:

Parrot’s Perch is not for the faint hearted reader! It IS for the reader who wants a pulse-pounding journey through the deep and dark canyons of Brazil’s uber wealthy jet set, where their lifestyle, ambitions and habits collide, sometimes with consequences no one –including the reader –could have predicted, transpire with unrelenting velocity.

Settings stretch from Boston Ivy league neighborhoods to Sao Paulo’s most sophisticated, baronial estates in the surrounding hills, to lavish, chic clubs and spas, to a notorious underworld peopled by graft, greed and unimaginably cruel officials.

The story opens the door to places where power and money can solve almost anything, and greed and corruption provide those solutions, thanks to a political and social climate where both thrive in an unholy, symbiotic nightmare.

Keilt creates a convincing, movie-like journey you won’t soon forget, in a country where the entire world will soon rub shoulders during the upcoming Olympics. Get a head start on where you might be going, and what currents flow beneath the throbbing beat of this magnificent nation, which despite its music, color, passion and vigor, seems to make no excuses for how it makes itself work.

Click HERE for more reviews from Amazon.com

In April 2010 the Brazilian Supreme Court voted to ratify a 1979 law offering protection from prosecution to torturers. What? Is that right? How can that be? But, yes, you read it right! Now, do I have your attention? Read this again!!

In April 2010 Brazil voted to protect torturers from prosecution. Tom Cahill of Amnesty International said that "this ruling places a judicial stamp of approval on killings, torture and rape" and continued by saying...."in a country that sees thousands of judicial killings every year at the hands of security officials and where many more are tortured in police stations and prisons, this ruling clearly signals that in Brazil nobody is held responsible when the state kills and tortures its own citizens."

When I read that this abomination of law was ratified I was taken back to my own experience in Brazil, and it was then that I decided to tell my story. A parrot's perch is not an innocuous sounding beautiful apparatus it seems to be, instead, in this case it is a torture device used to extract confessions, to humiliate and to degrade by cruel and evil men.

Brazil's own recently elected President Dilma Rousseff was herself a victim of torture after her participation in a misguided attempt to call attention to the horrific Human Rights violations in her beloved country. At the time, Ms. Rousseff (then a political activist) and her group of fellow students kidnapped US Ambassador Charles Elbrick in an attempt to show the world what was happening in Brazil. Their effort failed, and after Mr. Elbrick was released unharmed, Ms. Rousseff and her cohorts were thrown into jail and tortured.

Brazil is poised to become a powerhouse in the global economy. And now Brazil is set to host the 2014 World Cup, and shortly afterwards in 2016 it will host the Summer Olympic Games. There is no better global stage than this for supporters to stand up and say STOP THIS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS.

Please take the time to read my book The Parrot's Perch available on Amazon.com and at BN.com, in hardback, paperback, Kindle and e-book. Please ask your local library to carry this book, and take the time to help spread the word.

Author Karen Keilt to be featured on Blog Talk Radio

How do you overcome such obstacles as suicide, a child's death, torture, crime or a major illness?Meet Rev Sue Henley, author of "Because of Sean" and ordained spiritual Peace Minister with the Beloved Community and Universal Life Church. Meet Karen Keilt, author of the recently released novel and soon to be released motion picture, "The Parrot's Perch". And meet Phil Finn, who overcame what most felt was a certain death sentence of cancer. Author and psychologist Kenneth Weene will be the special guest host on Blog Talk Radio and will delve into human tragedy to discover how we can learn to cope with such tragedy. This show will center on three people listed above who have not only gone through such strife in life, but ultimately came out winners. The show will air live on Blog Talk Radio on 8/25/11. Show time is 8PM EST, 7PM CST, 6PM Mountain, 5PM PST. And as always, if you wish to listen to the show via archived files, they are always available on the site, the day after the show airs. Call in at 213-769-0952 or visit the chat room 8PM EST, 7PM CST, 6PM Mountain, 5PM PST.

Click HERE to listen

The Parrot's Perch - By Karen Keilt

Based on a true story, this international thriller about torture and corruption at the highest levels of law enforcement takes place in the seemingly tranquil upper-class world of two American families living in sexy, lush, Samba-soothed Brazil. Rogue American DEA agents "Red" Tucker and his partner Jack Kelly find a wealthy mark at Harvard and arrest him, then follow the arrogant student-turned-drug dealer home to Brazil.

In Rio de Janeiro well-to-do bother and sister, Freddy and Catlin Lauria are headed down diverging paths. Freddy is a ne'er do well ivy leaguer caught up in the treacherous, violent world of drugs and addiction, and seething in anger over a perceived slight from his father. Catlyn is on the the road to Olympic fame and a happily-ever-after life with her high-society fiancee in the sparkling bright world of world-class show jumping.

Disaster strikes when their worlds collide and Catlin is put to the test of ultimate survival. Can Cat endure the ultimate test of sibling rivalry and torture and still come out golden?

From Harvard to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, the action is hard and fast, kinda like Gossip Girls meets White Palace with a feel of The Departed.
As two families struggle to save the Olympic equestrienne and her husband from a fate worse than death, the Parrot’s Perch becomes a reality no one wants to believe.

About the author:

Born and educated in Sao Paulo, Brasil, Karen moved to the US at the age of 27. Karen has enjoyed an eclectic career including Riding Master and General Manager of a men's pro hockey franchise though she always gravitated back to her love of writing; first as a newspaper columnist in South Carolina, and later writing four screenplays including: "The Parrot's Perch", "Bethebotu", a children's fantasy about pink dolphins and mermaids, "The Gnashing of Teeth", an adaptation of the coming-of-age novel by James Raymond about the Korean War and "Maracanazo", a wonderful story about two young men from different worlds both dreaming of winning the World Cup. Karen enjoys traveling, hiking, Anusara Yoga, amateur photography, and horseback riding and lives in Carefree, AZ with her husband and their dog Curly Canyon Dog.

On April 30, 2010, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled to uphold a 1979 law stating that crimes committed by members of the military regime were political acts and therefore covered by amnesty. That law remains in place today. The Court's ruling makes it clear that the Amnesty Law violates Brazil's international obligations and that it represents an obstacle in the search for truth.

Amnesty International has condemned the Brazilian Supreme Court's blocking of this recent reinterpretation of the 1979 Amnesty Law that protects members of the former military government from being put on trial for extrajudicial killings, torture and rape.

"The ruling places a judicial stamp of approval on the pardons extended to those in the military government who committed crimes against humanity," said Tim Cahill, Amnesty International's Brazil researcher.  

In April 2010, Mr. Cahill went on to say, "In a country that sees thousands of extra-judicial killings every year at the hands of security officials and where many more are tortured in police stations and prisons, this ruling clearly signals that in Brazil nobody is held responsible when the state kills and tortures its own citizens," said Tim Cahill.

In 2014 Brazil will host The World Cup, followed soon after by the 2016 Summer Olympics. It is the author's sincere hope that the newly elected President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff will use all the powers of her office to put an end to torture and corruption once and for all.