People

Tags Share The International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC) is an organization that was started and led by womxn and two-spirit peoples during the Standing Rock Indigenous Uprising of 2016, while peacefully protecting the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The organization has extended its reach by establishing chapters across…

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Tags Share ALFREDO ROMERO was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and is the Executive Director of human rights organization Foro Penal Venezolano (FPV). FPV was founded in 2005 to provide pro bono legal assistance to victims of arbitrary detention, due process violations or other human rights violations, including torture or cruel and inhuman treatment. Under Alfredo’s…

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Tags Share JUST LEADERSHIP USA is dedicated to cutting the US correctional population in #halfby2030. JLUSA empowers people most affected by incarceration to drive policy reform. Mass incarceration is the most significant domestic threat to the fabric of our democracy. The reason for such high incarceration rates is not serious crimes but misguided policies such…

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Tags Share ANDREA JAMES is the Founder and Executive Director of Families for Justice as Healing, the founder of the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, a 2015 Soros Justice Fellow, and the author of Upper Bunkies Unite: And Other Thoughts On the Politics of Mass Incarceration. Andrea worked within the…

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Tags Share Natalia Taubina holds law enforcement agents accountable for human rights violations and protects victims of police abuse in Russia. As Director of the Public Verdict Foundation, Ms. Taubina and her team of attorneys litigate on behalf of citizens wrongfully arrested, beaten, tortured, and illegally detained by police. Ms. Taubina is also a powerful…

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Tags Share Adilur Rahman Khan is one of Bangladesh’s most devoted human rights defenders. In his decades of activism, he has established a nationwide network of rights defenders and leads Odhikar, the country’s premier human rights organization. Odhikar monitors an extraordinary array of human rights violations in Bangladesh, including restrictions on freedom of expression, abuse…

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Tags Share At the height of the Arab Spring, when many wondered how the energy of the uprising could be harnessed to promote lasting political freedoms, Ragia Omran made a bold move. She co-founded the Almasry Alhurr Movement, calling for government accountability, social justice, and an end to emergency rule. Through the Front to Defend…

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Tags Share Through her work with the Rural and Migrant Ministry, Librada Paz has played a key role in the historic advancement for the rights of farm workers. In 2003, when Paz and her colleagues at the RMM organized a march throughout New York State, they not only galvanized farm workers, but brought attention to…

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Tags Share In December of 2013, Uganda’s parliament did the unthinkable: it passed a law that criminalized homosexuality; the statute carried penalties up to and including life in prison. Frank Mugisha set to work. As the Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), Mugisha has long risked his personal safety for the cause of LGBT…

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Tags Share The work of anthropologist and human rights activist Abel Barrera Hernández has made him a local hero both in his hometown of Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero and throughout Mexico. In 1994, after 12 years of study in theology and anthropology with a focus on indigenous peoples’ human rights, Barrera returned to his hometown…

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Tags Share Magodonga Mahlangu is a women’s rights campaigner from Zimbabwe who in 2009 was awarded the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award by U.S. President Barack Obama. Mahlangu is a leader of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), founded with Jenni Williams. When presenting the award to Magodonga and WOZA, Obama commented: “By her example,…

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