Jennifer Lopez sang “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” on Saturday to a leader who has been characterized as one of the most repressive in the world.
“We wish you the very, very, happiest birthday,” Lopez said to Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, and then she sang to him at a huge celebration at a resort in the central Asian country.
The singer’s spokesman told CNN Sunday that “had there been knowledge of human right issues of any kind, Jennifer would not have attended.”
Human Rights Watch, in a report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, recently called Turkmenistan “a country marked by extraordinary levels of repression.”
Read more: cnn.com
