Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce Knowles have been blasted by human rights campaigners after the stars agreed to wear gemstones to promote the diamond industry at last week’s Golden Globe awards.
Lopez and Knowles wore the gems as part of the Raise Your Right Hand campaign, the industry’s attempt to counteract the negative publicity attracted by Leonardo DiCaprio’s new movie ‘Blood Diamond’. A donation of $10,000 was made to an African charity of the stars’ choice for wearing the jewels.
Human rights groups have attacked J.Lo, Beyonce and Hollywood to stop their distasteful promotion of the gems, because of the way African rebels used amputation to terrorise civilians while searching for their gems.
Speaking of the Raise Your Right Hand campaign, Global Witness campaigner Alex Yearsley says: “It's rather disgusting if you think about Sierra Leone and the hands that got hacked off there.
"It's an attempt to hit back at the film. You can imagine the PR campaign that came up with it.
"But the industry didn't do much for the Sierra Leonean women with no right hand when all this was going on."
