Before the bomb exploded, Jeremy Irons deactivated it. Since it was announced that the 71-year-old English actor would preside over the jury of the 70th Berlinale, protests began over the comments Irons had made in the past about abortion or same-sex marriage.
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This Thursday in Berlin, at the beginning of the wheel, Irons, accompanied by his fellow jurors, including directors Kenneth Lonergan, Kleber Mendonça Filho and actors Luca Martinelli and Bérénice Bejo, asked to read a statement: "It is a privilege to be here, but before I start, I want us not to waste time or for the Berlinale to suffer for it, and I want to clarify comments from the past that I already said publicly that I regretted and for which I asked for forgiveness. "
Irons, Oscar winner for The Mystery Von Bulow , has insisted that this manifesto read it personally and not as president: "In the past I have referred to issues such as same-sex marriage, sexual abuse and abortion. I want to make my posture clear forever. " And he has listed his opinions on the three themes: "First, I wholeheartedly support the international movement that supports women's rights. We have to fight for equality and condemn all kinds of abuse. Second, I applaud the legislation for the marriage of same sex, and I hope it extends to more societies. Third, I support women's right to abortion if she decides so. "
He was referring to interviews (as in The Guardian in 2013) in which he had said: "Abortion, in addition to a crime against someone helpless, harms women, is a very serious damage to their psyche and even their body. The Catholic Church says that we cannot accept it and thanks to this courage someone denounces it. " In an interview in 2013 he had criticized the gay marriage in The Huffington Post , and minimized the protests of British television stars of the seventies about sexual harassment: "They had searched for it a bit and were relatively harmless." In the press conference in Berlin, to another question, he explained that his education was very marked by Catholicism.