Hassan Shire is the executive director of the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (DefendDefenders) and Chairperson of the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network (PAHRD-Net). Under Shire’s leadership, DefendDefenders provides emergency protection, advocacy, awareness raising, capacity building, and technological support to human rights defenders. Shire founded and co-directed the Dr. Ismail Jumale Human…
Šimon Pánek is the Chairman of the Board of the Prague Civil Society Centre, a new institution working in former Soviet Union countries. Šimon Pánek was the co-founder and executive director of People in Need, a humanitarian organization based in Czech Republic. People in Need provides humanitarian aid and solidarity for human rights and civil society,…
Sofia Montenegro is a prominent Nicaraguan journalist, researcher, feminist, and civil society activist. Montenegro began her activism career when she fought in the Sandinista Revolution against the Somoza dictatorship. Montenegro edited Barricada, the official Sandinista newspaper. In 1994, she founded the Center for Communication Research, a nonpartisan research organization. She later became an outspoken opponent of…
Matteo Mecacci is the president of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), an organization working to defend the people of Tibet’s human rights. Meccaci served as the representative of the Transnational Radical Party and No Peace Without Justice at the United Nations in New York from 2000 to 2008, where he coordinated various campaigns to…