Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization headquartered in New York City that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policymakers, companies, and individual human rights abusers to denounce abuse and respect human rights, and often works on behalf of refugees, children, migrants, and political prisoners.
Human rights in Uzbekistan have been described as "abysmal" by Human Rights Watch, and the country has received heavy criticism from the UK and the US for alleged arbitrary arrests, religious persecution and torture employed by the government on a regional and national level. Amnesty International stated that freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly continue to be restricted, and that relations between gay men are illegal.
Peter Steinbrueck is an American architect and politician from Seattle, Washington. He is the principal and founder of Steinbrueck Urban Strategies and was a city councilmember from 1997 to 2008. He also served as a Seattle Port Commissioner from 2018 to 2022.
Dr. Massouda Jalal is the first woman in the history of Afghanistan who ran for the Office of the President of Afghanistan in 2002, 2004, and again in 2019. Dr. Jalal emerged as a leading voice of Afghan women after her election as the Representative to the 2002 Loya Jirga as she became one of the frontrunners for the position of Interim President of Afghanistan, opposite to ex-president Hamid Karzai.
Omid Memarian is an Iranian journalist and blogger. He was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2005-2006 and was a Rotary Peace Fellow at the Journalism School in 2007-2009, where he received his master's degree. In 2013 he edited Sketches of Iran: A Glimpse from the Front Lines of Human Rights. Since 2007, Memarian has taught training courses for journalists at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) among other media organizations.
Juan E. Méndez is an Argentine lawyer, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and a human rights activist known for his work on behalf of political prisoners.
Human rights in Afghanistan are severely restricted, especially since Taliban's takeover of Kabul in August 2021. Women's rights and freedom are severely restricted as they are banned from most public spaces and employment. Afghanistan is the only country in the world to ban education for women over the age of eleven. Taliban's policies towards women are usually termed as gender apartheid. Minority groups such as Hazaras face persecution and eviction from their lands. Authorities have used physical violence, raids, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, enforced disappearances of activists and political opponents.
Habib Malik is a retired associate professor of history and cultural studies at the Lebanese American University (LAU). His father Charles Malik was a leading figure in the drafting and adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Maung Zarni is a Burmese educator, academic, and human rights activist. He is noted for his opposition to the violence in Rakhine State and Rohingya refugee crisis. Zarni is a co-founder of several activist platforms, including the Free Burma Coalition (1995-2004), the Free Rohingya Coalition (2018-present), and Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia (2018). He is also a Fellow at the Documentation Center - Cambodia, specializing in Genocide, and serves as an advisor to Genocide Watch (USA).
Sima Samar is a Hazara woman and human rights advocate, activist and medical doctor within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women's Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. She is the former Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and, from 2005 to 2009, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan. In 2012, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions in the world."
Scott Long is a US-born activist for international human rights, primarily focusing on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. He founded the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, the first-ever program on LGBT rights at a major "mainstream" human rights organization, and served as its executive director from May 2004 - August 2010. He later was a visiting fellow in the Human Rights Program of Harvard Law School from 2011 to 2012.
Charles Habib Malik was a Lebanese academic, diplomat, philosopher, and politician. He served as the Lebanese representative to the United Nations, the President of the Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations General Assembly, a member of the Lebanese Cabinet, the head of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigration, as well as being a theologian. He participated in the drafting of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is a research center at Harvard Kennedy School founded in 1999. The center's scholars address issues related to human rights, including human security, global governance and civil society, economic justice, and equality and discrimination.
Teng Biao is a Chinese lawyer and political activist. He is a lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He has been a vocal supporter of human rights activists such as Chen Guangcheng and Hu Jia. He has been arrested at least twice, in March 2008 and in February 2011. He was also a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School from (2015-16) and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Kenneth Roth is an American attorney, human rights activist, and writer. He was the executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) from 1993 to 2022.
Abraham (Avi) Bell is an Israeli Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and at Bar-Ilan University's Faculty of Law.
University Human Rights Centers are centers established at universities for the purpose of promoting human rights and social justice locally, nationally, and globally through education, fieldwork, and other efforts.
Wazhma Frogh is an Afghan women's rights activist.
Tamara Adrián is a Venezuelan politician, who was elected to the National Assembly of Venezuela in the 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election. She is noted as the first transgender person elected to office in Venezuela, and only the second transgender member of a national legislature in the Western Hemisphere. Some early media coverage credited her as the first transgender member of a legislature in the Americas, but this was later corrected due to the election of Michelle Suárez Bértora to the Senate of Uruguay in 2014.
Asila Wardak is an Afghan human rights activist, women's activist, former diplomat, and the first Afghan woman elected as a member to the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation's Independent Human Rights Commission. Wardak is one of the co-founder of the Afghan Women's Network. She served as Minister Counselor at the Afghanistan Mission to the United Nations. She also worked as the head of the human rights issue for Afghanistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
