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Human Rights Summit Panelist Bios

  • Roza Akylbekova

    Roza Akylbekova is one of the founders of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights (KIBHR), where she has been integrally engaged since its inception in 1993. As director of KIBHR’s Public Resource Center, she helps organize and prepare written analyses, round tables, seminars, trainings, and courses on the status of human rights and civil freedoms in Kazakhstan. Since the arrest of KIBHR’s co-founder, Yevgeniy Zhovtis, she has served as its executive director. Ms. Akylbekova is also a coordinator for the NGO working group “Defending Children’s Rights,” which advocates for the implementation of international standards of children’s rights legislation. Throughout the course of her career, she has participated in and presented at numerous international conferences dedicated to human rights, including the OSCE’s Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw and various UNCHR conventions in Geneva.
  • Roby Alampay

    Roby Alampay is Executive Director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), a coalition of press advocacy groups from the Phillippines, Indonesia, and Thailand working to advance press freedom and freedom of expression in Southeast Asia. Based in Bangkok, SEAPA aims to unite independent journalists’ and press-related organizations in the region into a force for advocacy and mutual protection. Prior to this, Mr. Alampay worked as a journalist in Manila. He was an Asia Young Leaders Fellow at the Asia Society, and has regularly contributed to outlets such as The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Hong Kong Standard, The Nation (Bangkok), and The Jakarta Post. He has received numerous awards for his journalism and advocacy work, and in 2009 was among the recipients of the Outstanding Young Men Award handed out by the Philippine Jaycees, for the field of human rights advocacy. He holds degrees from the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of the Philippines.
  • Maziar Bahari

    Maziar Bahari is an Iranian-Canadian playwright, film-maker, and reporter for Newsweek. Bahari graduated with a degree in communications from Concordia University in Montreal. Soon after, he made his first film The Voyage of the Saint Louis about the fatal voyage of more than 900 German Jewish refugees in 1939. He has produced a number of documentaries and news reports for Channel 4 and BBC on subjects as varied as Ayatollah Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr and human rights in Iraq. A retrospective of Bahari's films was organized in November 2007 by the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. In 1998, Bahari became Newsweek magazine's Iran correspondent. In September 2009, Bahari was nominated by Desmond Tutu for the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord. During the 2009 Iranian election protests he was arrested without charge, and detained. He was coerced into a televised confession acknowledging Western journalists as spies Bahari was held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in Iran where he was interrogated daily. After 118 days in jail, Bahari was released on bail on October 20, 2009.  Bahari faces 15 different charges and has stated that he will not be able to safely return to Iran until the Islamic Republic falls. His arrest and detention were the subject of a November 22, 2009 segment of 60 Minutes and an article in Newsweek, "118 Days, 12 Hours, 54 Minutes", detailing his experience in prison.
  • Agnès Callamard

    Dr. Agnès Callamard is the executive director of ARTICLE 19, a human rights organisation defending freedom of expression and access to information globally. Dr. Callamard has founded and led HAP International (the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership) where she oversaw field trials in Afghanistan, Cambodia and Sierra Leone and created the first international self-regulatory body for humanitarian agencies. She is a former Chef de Cabinet for the Secretary General of Amnesty International and as the organisation’s Research Policy Coordinator, she led Amnesty’s work on women’s human rights and conducted human rights investigations in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Agnès worked previously with the Center for Refugee Studies in Toronto, and holds a PhD in Political Science from the New School in New York. She has published broadly in the field of freedom of expression, human rights, women’s rights, refugee movements and accountability.
  • Kamala Chandrakirana

    Kamala Chandrakirana is among the founders of Indonesia’s National Commission on  Violence against Women, a unique national mechanism for women’s human rights. She just completed eleven years of service, six of which was as Chairperson of the Commission. She is also active in various civil society organizations, such as the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), a leading anti-corruption advocate; ELSAM, a human rights think-tank; Syarikat Indonesia, a network of progressive Muslim activists pursuing grassroots cultural reconciliation to address past human rights violations; the Indonesian Institute for Social History (ISSI), placing past gross human rights violations as part of historical inquiry; Rahima, an education center on women’s rights within Islam; and YSIK, a national grant-making institution for social movements. She is also an active member of the Asia Pacific Women Law and Development (APWLD) and one of the founders of Musawah, a global movement for justice and equality in the Muslim family.
  • Rafendi Djamin

    Rafendi Djamin is the executive director of the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG). Based in Jakarta, HRWG is a coalition of more than forty national and local Indonesian NGOs representing a variety of issues including women’s rights, urban poor, trade advocacy, and development. He is the former convener of the Solidarity for Asian People's Advocacy Task Force on ASEAN and Human Rights, a platform of more than 60 NGOs from ASEAN countries. In October 2009, he was elected and appointed as the Indonesian Commissioner of ASEAN’s Inter Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). For nearly twenty years, Mr. Djamin has advocated for human rights, democracy and humanitarian issues in Indonesia, lobbying inter-governmental bodies and UN human rights mechanisms. He holds a Masters Degree in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands.
  • Gary Doer

    Gary Doer assumed his responsibilities as Canada’s 23rd representative to the United States of America in October, 2009. Prior to taking up his current position in Washington, Ambassador Doer served as Premier of Manitoba for ten years. During that time, he worked extensively with U.S. Governors to enhance Canada-U.S. cooperation on trade, agriculture, water protection, climate change and renewable energy. Ambassador Doer won three consecutive elections as Premier of Manitoba with successive increased majorities. In 2005, he was named by Business Week magazine as one of the top 20 international leaders on climate change. His government introduced balanced budgets during each of his ten years in office while reducing many taxes, including a plan to eliminate small business tax. As Premier, he led strategic investments in health care, education, and training and infrastructure. Ambassador Doer hails from Winnipeg. He is married with two daughters.
  • Yuri Dzhibladze

    Yuri Dzhibladze is the president of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, a Moscow-based public policy and advocacy NGO which he founded in 1998. The Center conducts public policy analysis, human rights monitoring, public education, and advocacy campaigns, focusing lately on freedom of association and assembly, and links between corruption and human rights abuse, among other issues. The Center is one of Russia’s leading organizations in promoting international cooperation in human rights and democracy by producing reports, coordinating coalitions, articulating NGO positions, and speaking at the UN, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the EU. Having begun his activism in the mid-1980s, Mr. Dzhibladze has participated in many civic initiatives, including missions to the conflict zones in the Caucasus and the Committee for Anti-War Actions during the first war in Chechnya. A graduate of Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy (MD), All-Russian Cardiology Research Center (Phd), Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (MA), and Stanford University Summer Program in Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Mr. Dzhibladze has authored books and articles and regularly speaks at conferences. He is a member of the Council on Civil Society and Human Rights with the President of Russia, a member of the Expert Council of the Ombudsman of Russia, a member of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy, and a member of the NGO Secretariat of the Community of Democracies.
  • Gamal Eid

    Gamal Eid is founder and executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, the Arab world's leading organization providing original research, legal aid, and technical, networking, and strategic support for the defense of freedom of opinion,  expression, and belief. A graduate of `Ain Shams University College of Law, Eid has been lead defense lawyer in many of Egypt's most important human rights cases, and writes and speaks regularly on international human rights and freedom of expression developments. He is also an experienced trainer on human rights research,  monitoring, and legal aid, and issues relating to the use of the internet in defense of human rights.
  • Maria del Lujan Flores

    María del Lujan Flores is Permanent Representative of Uruguay to the Organization of American States (OAS) since July 2006 and was President of the Permanent Council of the OAS in 2007. Previously, she was a professor of International Public Law at the University of Uruguay and has taken part in regular and post-graduate courses of International Public Law, Environmental Law, and Human Rights at the University of the Republic of Uruguay. She has been legal advisor to many government departments including the Uruguay Ministry Foreign Affairs and was Vice-President of the Inter-American Academy on Comparative International Law in the Inter-American Federation of Law. She has served as panelist, moderator, and Rapporteur in multiple forums, conventions and conferences in Uruguay and abroad.
  • Francisco Ricardo Soberón Garrido

    Francisco Ricardo Soberón Garrido is a human rights activist and founder and director of Asociacion Pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH), a non-governmental human rights organization in Peru. He previously led the National Human Rights Coordinator's Office and was a member of the steering committee of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. He was Vice President for South America of the International Federation of Human Rights from 1997 to 2001. He was awarded the National Order of Merit by the French government and the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award by the Institute for Policy Studies.
  • Bahey eldin Hassan

    Bahey eldin Hassan is the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS),  an independent regional non-governmental organization founded in 1993 to promote respect for the principles of human rights and democracy.   CIHRS produces analysis on the difficulties of applying international human rights law and disseminating human rights culture in the Arab region and conducts advocacy in national, regional and international human rights mechanisms.  Mr. Hassan is also a member of the Board of the EuroMed Human Rights Foundation and  is a lecturer and author of several articles and papers on human rights and democracy in the Arab region.  He has edited several books in Arabic, including Bastion of Impunity, Mirage of Reform, CIHRS Annual Report  on the Human Rights in the Arab Region for 2009, From Exporting Terrorism to Exporting Repression, CIHRS Annual Report  on the Human Rights in the Arab Region for 2008, and Arabs between Oppression Inside and Injustice Abroad.
  • Vaclav Havel
    Vaclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, former dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovaki (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. He has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award. He was also voted 4th in Prospect Magazine’s 2005 global poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism. Beginning in the 1960s, his work turned to focus on the politics of Czechoslovakia. After the Prague Spring, he became increasingly active. In 1977, his involvement with the human rights manifesto Charter 77 brought him international fame as the leader of the opposition in Czechoslovakia; it also led to his imprisonment. The 1989 "Velvet Revolution" launched Havel into the presidency. In this role he led Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic to multi-party democracy. His thirteen years in office saw radical change in his nation, including its split with Slovakia, which Havel opposed, its accession into NATO and start of the negotiations for membership in the European Union, which was attained in 2004.
  • Sharon K. Hom

    Sharon K. Hom is executive director of Human Rights in China (HRIC) and professor of law emeriti at City University of New York School of Law, where she taught for 18 years. She has over 16 years of experience in U.S.-China law training and legal exchange initiatives, including serving as a faculty member and director of the China Center for American Law Study in China, on the U.S.-China Committee on Legal Education Exchange with China, and as a faculty member and program director for the U.S. Clinical Legal Education Workshop held in Beijing. Ms. Hom has advocated on behalf of cases and international human rights issues in a variety of fora, including before U.S. government, UN, and EU bodies, think tanks, and NGO and academic conferences. She has appeared as a guest on broadcast programs worldwide, and is frequently interviewed by major print media. Ms. Hom has led HRIC in its consultations with a number of companies on methods for doing business and investing in China responsibly and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of 2007’s “50 Women to Watch” for their impact on business. She has published extensively on Chinese legal reforms, trade, technology, and international human rights.
  • Hina Jilani

    A lawyer and civil society activist in the movement for peace, human rights and women's rights in Pakistan for the last three decades, Ms. Julani specializes in human rights litigation, and is especially concerned with the human rights of women, children, minorities, and prisoners. She has conducted several cases which have become landmarks in setting human rights standards in Pakistan. From 2000 to 2008, she was the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Human Rights Defenders. In 2006, she was appointed to the UN International Fact-Finding Commission on Darfur. She is also a member of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights. She co-founded Pakistan's first all-female legal practice in 1980 and is also one of the founders of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Women's Action Forum as well as having founded Pakistan's first legal aid center in 1986.
  • Kaitira Erwin Kandjii

    Kaitira Kandjii is the regional director of the Media Institute of South Africa (MISA), based in Namibia. He began his professional career as a journalist working for a daily newspaper and later worked as a senior journalist and then editor of the magazine, Bricks Community Magazine. Mr. Kandjii joined the University of Namibia in 1997 as a lecturer in media studies and taught the first group of media and journalism students. He later served in the government working as a communication specialist within the Ministry of Agriculture. Mr. Kandjii joined MISA in 2000 as an information officer where he rose through the ranks until his appointment to his current post. He has published articles on media policy, broadcasting and freedom of expression. He has a BA (Honors) and MA in Media Studies and Policies from the University of Natal, South Africa.
  • Mehrangiz Kar

    Mehrangiz Kar is a prominent Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and author. In 2000, after attending a conference at which she spoke out on constitutional reform, she was arrested upon return to Iran and ultimately sentenced to four years in prison on charges of acting against national security and disseminating propaganda against the Islamic regime. She was released after two months to the United States for medical treatment and currently remains in the U.S. Kar has served as a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the American University in Washington DC, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and Columbia University. Most recently, she was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard and is currently based at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She has been recognized as a “Scholar at Risk” through an international network of universities and colleges working to promote academic freedom and to defend the human rights of scholars worldwide that are in danger because of their work. In 2002, she was presented with the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy by U.S. First Lady, Laura Bush.
  • Oleg Kozlovsky

    Oleg Kozlovsky is a founder and coordinator of the Russian youth democratic movement Oborona (“Defense”) whose aim is to defend democracy and civil rights by non-violent protest. He is also a member of the Bureau of Federal Board of Solidarnost (“Solidarity”) which includes nearly all liberal democratic opposition forces. He started his civic/political career at Amnesty International in 2000 and later was involved with the SPS (“Union of Right Forces”) political party, holding various positions there including the co-chairman of SPS Moscow Youth and as a Member of the party’s Moscow Board. Mr. Kozlovsky was a member of the democratic opposition coalition Executive Committee of the Other Russia as well as an organizer of Dissenters’ Marches and Dissenters’ Days - the country’s largest protest rallies. He has faced harassment by the government for his activities, has been arrested numerous times and served several short-term jail sentences for his role in preparing and participating in peaceful protest rallies. He has been banned entry into Belarus since 2006. His articles in Russian and in English have been published by a variety of publications including The Washington Post, RobertAmsterdam.com, Huffington Post, and Ezhednevny Journal. Mr. Kozlovsky received the 2008 Human Rights Award from Human Rights First.
  • Frank La Rue

    Frank La Rue is the UN Special Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression and founder of the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights (CALDH), both in Washington DC and Guatemala, the first Guatemalan NGO to bring cases of human rights violations to the Inter-American System. CALDH was also the first Guatemalan NGO to promote economic, social and cultural rights. Mr. La Rue also brought the first genocide case against the military dictatorship in Guatemala. As a human rights activist, his name was presented to the Nobel Peace Prize committee in 2004.  Mr. La Rue has previously served as a Presidential Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala, as a Human Rights Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, as President of the Governing Board of the Centro-American Institute of Social Democracy Studies and as a consultant to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mr. La Rue holds a B.A. in Legal and Social Sciences from the University of San Carlos, Guatemala and a postgraduate degree in U.S. foreign policy from Johns Hopkins University.
  • Maria Leissner

    Maria Leissner was the president of the Swedish 75 Liberal Party between 1995 and 1997. She has been adviser to the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Ambassador of Sweden to Guatemala. In 2004–2005 she was head of an international project on democracy in Iraq, organized by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). Maria Leissner has also been involved in multiple election observation missions around the world. Since 2006 she has chaired the Delegation for Roma issues in Sweden, and in January 2007 she was appointed Ambassador for Democracy in development cooperation.
  • Dr. Wen-cheng Lin

    Dr. Wen-cheng Lin is President of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and Editor-in-Chief of the Taiwan Democracy Quarterly. He is also Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Professor in the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies at National Sun Yat-sen University. He has served in public office as Senior Advisor to the National Security Council (2003-2004) and Supervisory Board member of the Straits Exchange Foundation (2003-2005). Dr. Lin received his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. His research interests include China’s foreign policy, cross-strait relations, negotiation, national security, and East Asia security.
  • Rebecca MacKinnon

    Rebecca MacKinnon is a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy where she is working on a book about China, the Internet, and the future of freedom in the Internet age. Ms. MacKinnon is cofounder of Global Voices Online, a global citizen media network that amplifies online citizen voices from around the world. She is also a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative to advance principles of freedom of expression and privacy among Internet and telecommunications companies and is also on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Fluent in Mandarin, Ms. MacKinnon has lived in China on and off since childhood. She served as CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 1998-2001 and later as CNN’s Tokyo Bureau Chief and Correspondent. She was a Research Fellow at Harvard at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government as well as the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and was Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre where she taught online journalism and conducted research on the Internet, China, censorship, and the role of technology companies promoting or preventing free expression. While there she launched Creative Commons Hong Kong. In 2009 she carried out research and writing on China, the Internet and freedom of expression as an Open Society Fellow.
  • Hamidah Marican

    Hamidah Marican is executive director of the Sisters in Islam (SIS), a non-governmental organization in Malaysia working on the rights of Muslim women within the framework of Islam.  Sisters in Islam is at the forefront of the women's movement which seeks to end discrimination against Muslim women in the name of religion. The group's activities in research, advocacy and public education help to promote the development of Islam that upholds the principles of equality, justice and freedom within a democratic state. Hamidah was formerly BP's Regional Diversity & Inclusion Manager for Asia and brings with her many organizational development skills including Strategic Thinking/Planning, Change & Transition Management, Leadership & Management Development, Cross Cultural Training, and Managing Diversity & Inclusion at the workplace with a focus on under-represented minorities. She is actively involved in the Living Values Education Program (LVEP) programs under UNICEF sponsorship. She conducts values workshops for educators, students and parents-all on a voluntary basis.
  • Elisa Massimino

    Elisa Massimino is President and CEO of Human Rights First, one of the nation’s leading human rights advocacy organizations. Established in 1978, Human Rights First works in the United States and abroad to promote respect for human rights and the rule of law. Massimino joined Human Rights First in 1991 and served as the organization’s Washington Director for more than a decade before being named chief executive in September 2008.  Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. As a national authority on human rights law and policy, she has testified before Congress dozens of times and writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals. In May 2008 and 2009 the influential Washington newspaper The Hill named her one of the top public advocates in the country. Massimino holds a law degree from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Massimino serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches human rights advocacy. She is a member of the bar of the United States Supreme Court.
  • Azar Nafisi

    Azar Nafisi is author of the national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, a portrait of the Islamic revolution in Iran and how it affected one university professor and her students.  Earning high acclaim and an enthusiastic readership, Reading Lolita in Tehran is an incisive exploration of the transformative powers of fiction in a world of tyranny.  The book has spent over 117 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.  Reading Lolita in Tehran has been translated in 32 languages, and has won diverse literary awards, including the 2004 Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from Booksense, the Frederic W. Ness Book Award, the 2004 Latifeh Yarsheter Book Award, an achievement award from the American Immigration Law Foundation, a Persian Golden Lioness Award for literature, as well as being a finalist for the 2004 PEN/Martha Albrand Award. Nafisi is a Visiting Professor and the executive director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where she is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature. She held a fellowship at Oxford University, and taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai before her return to the United States in 1997. In 1981, she was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the mandatory Islamic veil and did not resume teaching until 1987. Azar Nafisi conducted workshops in Iran for women students on the relationship between culture and human rights; the material culled from these workshops formed the basis of a new human rights education curriculum. Azar Nafisi has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.  She is the author of Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabokov’s Novels.  She is currently working on a book entitled Republic of the Imagination, which is about the power of literature to liberate minds and peoples. She lives in Washington, DC.
  • Julia Neiva

    Julia Neiva is one of the founders of Conectas Human Rights and currently the coordinator for its Justice Program. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Human Rights Center and also founder of several not-for-profit organizations in Brazil. Julia has worked in human rights for more than 8 years, coordinating studies, advocacy, and training programs, and providing legal services for human rights activists from Latin America, Africa and Asia. She has facilitated working groups on human rights in Brazil, the U.S., and other countries of the Global South. Over the past several years, Julia has worked at the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the Global Affirmative Action Praxis Project in Brazil. She was also a consultant on the Elaboration of Parallel Shadow Reports on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – Angola, spearheaded by the Open Society Institute-Angola. She received her LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School, where she was also granted a Human Rights Fellowship. Julia attended Law School at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo and later received the title of Specialist in Human Rights from the Law School at the University of São Paulo.
  • Carlos Ponce

    Carlos Ponce is the founder and director of Consorcio Desarrollo y Justicia or “Development and Justice Consortium” and several other not-for-profit human rights, democracy, and social development organizations in Latin America. He has been an advisor to more than 47 NGOs in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States and is currently promoting the creation of an effective Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy. Mr. Ponce has been promoting human rights and democracy for more than 20 years and has extensively researched and written about Latin American political behavior. He has written bills that have been introduced in the Venezuelan Congress and enacted into law and several of his human rights, justice, and environmental recommendations are now part of the Venezuelan Constitution. Mr. Ponce has served as an advisor to the Executive Secretary of Venezuela’s National Human Rights Commission as well as the Venezuelan Congress and has taught at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello. Mr. Ponce has received a Fulbright Scholar Award along with numerous other recognitions and honors in Latin America and has been invited as a guest speaker by numerous institutions worldwide. He is a member of the World Movement for Democracy Steering Committee and the International Steering Committee of the Community of Democracies.
  • Michael H. Posner

    Michael H. Posner was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on September 23, 2009. Prior to joining State Department, Mr. Posner was the Executive Director and then President of Human Rights First. As its Executive Director he helped the organization earn a reputation for leadership in the areas of refugee protection, advancing a rights-based approach to national security, challenging crimes against humanity, and combating discrimination. He has been a frequent public commentator on these and other issues, and has testified dozens of times before the U.S. Congress. In January 2006, Mr. Posner stepped down as Executive Director to become the President of Human Rights First, a position he held until his appointment as Assistant Secretary. Before joining Human Rights First, Mr. Posner was a lawyer with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago. He lectured at Yale Law School from 1981 to 1984, and again in 2009. He was a visiting lecturer at Columbia University Law School since 1984. A member of the California Bar and the Illinois Bar, he received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall) in 1975, and a B.A. with distinction and honors in History from the University of Michigan in 1972.
  • Sima Samar
    Sima Samar is the Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and United Nations Special Reporter on the situation of human rights in Sudan. She was awarded the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award (ADHRA) in 2008. Dr. Samar is Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and founder of the Shuhada Organization. She was recognized for her contributions to advancing human rights and especially women’s rights and welfare in Afghanistan. In 1984, the communist regime arrested her husband, and Samar and her young son fled to the safety of nearby Pakistan where she worked as a doctor in the refugee branch of Mission Hospital. Distressed by the lack of health care facilities for Afghan refugee women, she established the Shuhada Organization and Shuhada Clinic in 1989 in Quetta, Pakistan. The Shuhada Organization was dedicated to the provision of health care to Afghan women and girls, training of medical staff and education. Samar returned to Afghanistan in 2002 to assume a cabinet post in the Afghan Transitional Administration led by Hamid Karzai. In the interim government, she served as Deputy President and then as Minister for Women's Affairs.
  • Hassan Shire Sheikh

    Hassan Shire Sheikh is the Executive Director of the The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project where he has actively participated in shaping the structure and proceedings of the new UN Human Rights Council based in Geneva and the Universal Peer Review seeking to assess the performance of member states in compliance with international human rights standards. Mr. Sheikh is a human rights defender from Somalia, with over 15 years of experience working in the region. He was the Coordinator of African Human Rights Defenders Project at York University Centre for Refugee Studies and in 1996, was founder and co-director of the Dr. Ismail Jumale Human Rights Centre a Somali human rights organization in Mogadishu. He was also a participant of the All Africa Human Rights Defenders Conference, Global Human Rights Defenders summit, and the World Movement for Democracy. He has testified as an expert on Somalia at the US Congressional Sub-Committee of Foreign Relations on Africa, the US Department of State, and other agencies. He has engaged in numerous advocacy missions on rights violations of human rights defenders across the region. He holds a Masters degree in Economics and has authored, published and co-published numerous human rights reports.
  • Nigel Sheinwald

    Nigel Sheinwald took up his position as British Ambassador to the United States in October 2007. In that role he leads the Embassy in Washington and nine Consulates-General around the United States. He had an earlier posting to Washington in 1983-87 as First Secretary (Political) in the Embassy. Before becoming Ambassador in Washington, Nigel served as Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the Prime Minister from 2003-2007. Nigel was the UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels from 2000-2003. Before that he was Europe Director in the FCO (1998-2000). He had an earlier posting in the UK Representation in 1993-95 as Head of its Political and Institutional Section. He began his career in EU work as Deputy Head of the FCO's European Union Department in 1989-92.  Nigel's first foreign posting was in Moscow in 1978-79. He was also Head of the Foreign Office's Anglo-Soviet Section in 1981-83. Nigel has had a wide variety of other appointments in the FCO in London. From 1995-98, he was the FCO Press Secretary and Head of News Department. He was Deputy Head of the Foreign Office's Policy Planning Staff in 1987-1989, responsible for transatlantic relations and other issues. He also worked in London on the Japan Desk (1976-77) and on Zimbabwe (1979-81), including the Lancaster House Conference. Nigel was born in 1953 and educated at Harrow County Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. He is married with three sons. 
  • William H. Taft IV

    William H. Taft, IV, chairman of Freedom House’s Board of Trustees is a retired partner in the Washington office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson and the Warren Christopher Visiting Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy at Stanford Law School. Taft served in various positions during the Nixon and Ford administrations. During the Reagan Administration, he was General Counsel at the Department of Defense, as well as the Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary. He served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO during the Gulf War, and as the chief legal advisor to Colin Powell at the Department of State. During this time, Taft emerged as a dissenter to controversial interrogation methods for military detainees. He also opposed the Department of Justice’s position on interrogations under Alberto Gonzalez. Taft resigned his post after President Bush’s re-election and returned to private practice, continuing to voice his support of the Geneva Convention. He attended Yale University and earned his law degree from Harvard Law School.
  • Dr. Alejandro Toledo

    Dr. Alejandro Toledo was democratically elected President of Peru from July 2001-July 2006. He was born in a small and remote village in the Peruvian Andes, 12,000 feet above sea level. One of sixteen brothers and sisters from a family of extreme poverty, he worked as a street shoe shiner and simultaneously sold newspapers and lotteries to supplement the family income. Thanks to an accidental access to education, Dr. Toledo was able to go from extreme poverty to the most prestigious academic centers of the world, later becoming one of the most prominent democratic leaders of Latin America. He is the first Peruvian president of indigenous descent to be democratically elected in five hundred years. President Toledo first appeared on the international political scene in 1996 when he formed and led a broad democratic coalition in the streets of Peru to bring down the autocratic regime of Alberto Fujimori. This coalition had the support of the international democratic community. Before becoming President, Dr. Toledo worked for the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, and the United Nations in New York. During his academic years, Professor Toledo was a visiting scholar and a research associate at Harvard University and Waseda University in Tokyo. He is currently an economics professor (on leave) at the University of ESAN in Peru.
  • Arnold Tsunga

    Arnold Tsunga is Director of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Africa Regional Programme and one of the leading human rights lawyers in Zimbabwe. He previously held the position of Executive Director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), as well as acting Executive Secretary of the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ). Arnold Tsunga also sits on a number of Boards of human rights groups, provides leadership on a voluntary basis to several non-profit organizations and has written numerous articles on the human rights and rule of law situation in Zimbabwe and the region. Although he has been harassed, threatened, arrested and beaten several times, he continues to represent people who have been arrested unfairly under the repressive conditions in Zimbabwe, especially those who have been physically abused while in custody. For his dedication to defending human rights in spite of the threat to his own life, Arnold Tsunga received both the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders and the Human Rights Watch Human Rights defender Award in 2006. 
  • Iryna Vidanava

    Iryna Vidanava has been active in promoting civil society and independent media in Belarus for more than a decade. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of 34 Multimedia Magazine, an award-winning independent youth publication. Ms. Vidanava has also served as International Coordinator for the Assembly of Pro-Democratic NGOs, Belarus’ largest third sector umbrella organization, and held leadership positions at the Belarusian Students’ Association and Youth Information Center. A historian by training, Ms. Vidanava is a PhD candidate at Belarus State University, where she has also lectured. The recipient of a Muskie Fellowship, she received an MA in Public Policy from the Institute of Policy Studies at Johns Hopkins University in the United States and has also completed certificate programs in Non-Profit Studies at John Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies and in International Relations at the School for Advanced International Studies.
  • Jennifer Windsor

    Jennifer L. Windsor is Executive Director of Freedom House, a non-partisan, non-profit organization which supports the expansion of freedom in the world through its analysis, advocacy, and action. Freedom House's flagship publication, Freedom in the World, is an annual comparative assessment of the state of political rights and civil liberties in every country in the world.  Freedom House conducts a variety of overseas programs including support to human rights defenders, civic groups, and independent media in Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. From 1991 to 2001, Jennifer worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), serving as the Deputy Assistant Administrator and Director of the Center for Democracy and Governance.  She began her service at USAID working on democracy and governance issues in Africa, and also served as special assistant/deputy chief of staff to then USAID Administrator Brian Atwood.   From 1986-1989, she worked on Capitol Hill on foreign policy issues with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Congressman Ted Weiss. Ms. Windsor is a graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and Harvard University.  Ms. Windsor has served as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and has written numerous articles on democracy and has regularly appeared on NPR, BBC, VOA and other news outlets.
  • Mr. William "Bill" Zabel
    Mr. Zabel is a founding partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, a law firm in New York, Washington, DC and London.  His legal specialty is the law of trusts, will and estates, with an emphasis on sophisticated income, gift and estate tax planning as well as matrimonial law.  He has published numerous professional tracts as well as a well-received book for laypersons, The Rich Die Richer and You Can Too (William Morrow & Co.). For many years he has been active in the cause of human and civil rights, serving as Chairman of Human Rights First since 2000 and as legal advisor to the Soros network of foundations around the world.  He is also a Trustee of New York University and The New School and is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and on the boards of amfAR, Lincoln Center Theater, and the Academy of American Poets among many other civic and philanthropic organizations. Mr. Zabel is a summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University and an honors graduate of the Harvard Law School.  He is a resident of New York City and Bedford, New York with his wife, Deborah Miller.  They have three sons.