New York, Jan. 22 (AP): Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the George Bush administration’s harshest critics, compared the homeland security department to the Nazi Gestapo and attacked the President as a liar.

“We’ve come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of homeland security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended,” Belafonte (in picture) said in a speech to the annual meet of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters.

“You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel,” said Belafonte.

Messages seeking comments from homeland security and White House officials were not immediately returned.

Belafonte’s remarks on Saturday ? part of a 45-minute speech on the role of the arts in a politically changing world ? drew a standing ovation from an audience that included singer Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, and members of the arts community from several dozen countries.

Belafonte acknowledged that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks demanded a reaction by the US, but said the policies of the Bush administration were not the right response.

President Bush, he said, rose to power “somewhat dubiously and... then lies to the people of this nation, misleads them, misinstructs, and then sends off hundreds of thousands of our own boys and girls to a foreign land that has not aggressed against us.”

Two weeks ago, during a visit to Venezuela, Belafonte called Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world”.

The Harlem-born Belafonte, who was raised in Jamaica, said his activism was inspired by an impoverished mother “who imbued in me that we should never capitulate to oppression”.