Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate Elie Wiesel has launched a campaign to secure the release of three prominent prisoners from Israel, Iran and China.

Mr Wiesel’s Foundation for Humanity has set up a petition demanding the freedom of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo and the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

The petition says: "While we and our families celebrate this holiday season let us remember these and so many more political prisoners and their families around the world.”

Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel has called for the establishment of an interfaith centre near the site of the September 11 terror attacks rather than the controversial “Ground Zero mosque.”

Elie Wiesel has condemned the French government’s decision to expel Roma immigrants but cautioned that a comparison with the Nazi round-ups was not appropriate.

The Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor described the repatriation of Roma people from France to Romania and Bulgaria as unacceptable.

As a former refugee, Mr Wiesel expressed his solidarity with the Roma and called on French president Nicolas Sarkozy to stop the crackdown.

But he also said: "It is necessary to be careful with the language.

“These Roma are sent to Romania, to Hungary, not to Auschwitz.

A play on the Madoff financial scandal that Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel branded "obscene" and "defamatory" is set to open in New York.

The renowned human rights campaigner had threatened legal action over the play, which depicted a fictional conversation between disgraced financier Bernie Madoff and Mr Wiesel.

But despite opposition from the Holocaust survivor, Imagining Madoff will go ahead, although in a small Hudson theatre rather than in its original Washington location.

Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has launched a campaign in support of a Russian Jewish businessman facing embezzlement charges.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of the Yukos oil company and once known as Russia's richest man, is already serving an eight year prison sentence and could face another 22 years behind bars if he is convicted in a related theft case.

But Mr Wiesel, a prominent human rights campaigner, said he considers Mr Khodorkovsky a political prisoner and believed that the case was political.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel has sparked outrage in Jerusalem for an open letter he wrote to US President Barack Obama urging him not to ‘politicise’ Jerusalem.

The American-based academic and Holocaust survivor wrote to President Obama: “For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics.

"It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain.

“The first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory."