Articles

Deva Woodly is a professor at Brown University. Her research covers media and communication, political understanding of economics, race, and social movements, focusing on the public discourse surrounding social and economic issues, and how these influence democratic practice and public policy. She is also the author of two books: Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements , and The Politics of Common Sense: How Social Movements Use Public D

Nila Ibrahimi is a 16-year-old Afghan women’s rights activist who narrowly escaped the Taliban following their return in August 2021. Upon the overthrow of Kabul in August 2021, Nila’s online notoriety as an activist and her status as a member of the Hazara ethnic community rendered her a target of the Taliban. Nila now resides in Canada with her family and continues to raise her voice to injustice as she raises awareness and fights for the all the women left behind in Afghan

Behrouz Boochani is an award-winning Kurdish writer, journalist, scholar, cultural advocate, and filmmaker. His memoir No Friend But the Mountains  (Pan Macmillan 2018, translated by Omid Tofighian) was written during his seven years of incarceration by the Australian government in Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island prison. His new book, Freedom, Only Freedom , was published by Bloomsbury in November 2022. This interview was conducted on 4 November 2023.

Frances Hui is policy and advocacy coordinator for the Committee for Freedom and Hong Kong Foundation. Having become an activist at the age of 14, Hui left Hong Kong to study journalism in the USA in September 2016. After returning to Hong Kong, she became the first Hong Kong activist to be granted political asylum in the United States following the adoption of the National Security Law in 2020.   CJLPA : I’d like to begin by thanking you, Frances, for speaking with The Cambr

Anwar al-Bunni is a Syrian human rights defender who has fought for the right to freedom of speech and for democratic reform in Syria. He has defended individuals including Riad al-Turk, Kurdish protestors, and various media outlets shut down by the Syrian regime. Anwar’s interest in defending the human rights of Syrians against its oppressive government came after he was beaten and tortured by the Syrian forces during the Hama military sweep of 1981. After his escape from Sy

Susie Alegre is a leading international human rights lawyer who has worked on the most challenging legal and political issues of our time, such as human rights and security, combating corruption in the developing world, and protecting human rights in light of the rise of artificial intelligence. In our interview, Susie unravels the key issues she exposes in her book Freedom to Think , which received wide acclaim and was chosen as a Book of the Year in the Financial Times  and

Ali Safavi is a member of Iran’s Parliament in Exile, National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and President of Near East Policy Research (NEPR), a consulting and policy analysis firm in Washington, DC. A sociologist by career, Safavi studied and taught at UCLA, California State University Los Angeles and University of Michigan from 1972 until 1981. An activist during the anti-Shah student movement in the 1970s in the US, Safavi has been involved in Iranian affairs sinc

Mansour al-Omari is a Syrian human rights defender and legal researcher. He holds an LLM in Transitional Justice and Conflict. Al-Omari works with international and Syrian human rights organisations to hold the perpetrators of international crimes in Syria accountable. In 2012, al-Omari was detained and tortured by the Syrian government for 356 days for documenting its atrocities while working with the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression as the supervisor of the

Raji Sourani is a Palestinian human rights lawyer and Founder and Director of the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights. He was an Amnesty...

Oleksandra Matviichuk is a prominent human rights defender, currently leading the Center for Civil Liberties and coordinating the...

‘Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy,...

Anastasiia Marushevska is Editor-in-Chief of Ukraїner International. Ukraїner, conceived by journalist and writer Bohdan Lohvynenko as a...

Wassim Hassan is a Syrian political activist. He is a member of the The Syrian Women's Political Movement and the Mouatana Movement, a...

Gus John is an award-winning writer, education campaigner, and lecturer. His work spans the fields of education policy, management, and international development. Since the 1960s, John has been active in issues surrounding education and schooling in Britain’s inner cities, and he has worked in several universities including the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, the UCL Institute of Education, the University of London, and Coventry University. He is a respected public spea

We are the Restitution Study Group (RSG), a New York-based non-profit founded in 2000 to campaign for innovative approaches to healing...

In our society and social theory, there is a fine line between a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ decision. While society uses moral justifications to determine a right or wrong choice, social theory relies on adaptive preference formation, the ‘unconscious altering of our preferences in light of the options we have available’.[1] Adaptive preference formation argues that individuals make decisions based on the options made available to them, thus if they have limited options, they may

Anna Gallina is a Legal Consultant at eyeWitness to Atrocities. Julianne Romy formerly worked as a Legal Advisor at eyeWitness to...

‘It is authority and not truth that makes the law’[1] German philosopher Hannah Arendt says in her book On Violence : ‘The authority does...

Moneim Adam is a human rights attorney and the Gisa Group’s Program Director for the Sudan Human Rights Hub (SHRH). He began his career...

Francisco B González Centeno is an officer for the International Criminal Court (ICC) from Buenos Aries, Argentina. He holds an MSc in...

Helena Wray is a professor of migration law at the University of Exeter. Her extensive experience in this area spans several...

Ali Ghaderi is a young refugee from Iran. He arrived in the UK five years ago through a family reunification scheme which was available...

Nadia Murad is a Yazidi human rights activist. In 2014, she was abducted from her hometown in Iraq, Kocho, by the Islamic State, as part of the Yazidi genocide. After her escape, she founded Nadia's Initiative, which advocates for survivors of sexual violence. In 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Denis Mukwege for her fight to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflicts. CJLPA : Throughout history and to present day, we see that w

Marie-Claire Kakpotia Koulibaly is a feminist and activist fighting to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and forced marriages....