- Peter Takirambudde
Peter Takirambudde is the Ugandan born Executive Director of Human Rights Watch for Sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1995, he was a professor at the University of Botswana. He is a lawyer by training, and a graduate of Makerere University in Uganda. Takirambudde earned a degree in international business from Yale University, and has reported on human rights abuses in places such as Liberia and Cabinda On the subject of the Darfur conflict, …
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a prisoner in U.S. custody for acts of terrorism, including mass murder. In March 2007, after four years in captivity, including six months of detention at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — as it was claimed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing in Guantanamo Bay — confessed to masterminding the September 11th attacks, the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, …
- Scott Long
Scott Long (born June 5, 1963 in Radford, Virginia) is a prominent activist in the human rights movement working for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. He is currently Executive Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.
- Marc Garlasco
Marc Garlasco is a senior military expert for Human Rights Watch.
- Alex de Waal
Alex de Waal is a British writer and researcher on African issues. He is a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, as well as program director at the Social Science Research Council in New York City. De Waal is also a co-director of Justice Africa, London. De Waal received a D.Phil. in social anthropology at the University of Oxford for his thesis on the 1984-5 Darfur famine in Sudan. The next year he joined the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, …
- Jemera Rone
Jemera Rone is the Human Rights Watch East Africa Coordinator. She is an outspoken critic of the development of the oil infrastructure in East Africa, which she believes often comes at the expense of the local population, rather than to their benefit. Rone begins Human Rights investigations, and has overseen investigations in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and been involved with monitoring human rights in 24 different countries.
- Rebiya Kadeer
Rebiya Kadeer is a prominent Uyghur businesswoman and political activist from the northwest region of Xinjiang in the People's Republic of China. In 1999 she was detained, tried and imprisoned by PRC authorities on charges of "leaking state secrets", having sent newspaper clippings to her husband Sidik Rouzi, an expatriate living in the United States who is active in protesting Chinese policies towards the Uyghurs.
- Mike Farrell
Mike Farrell (born February 6, 1939) is an American actor, best known for his role as Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the popular television series "M*A*S*H" (1975-83). More recently, Farrell has starred on television series "Providence" and "Desperate Housewives".
- William Arkin
William M. Arkin (b. 1956) is an American political commentator, activist, journalist, blogger, and former United States Army soldier.
- Robert L. Bernstein
Robert L. Bernstein is an US publisher and human rights activist. He has devoted his life to the active defense of freedom of expression and to the protection of victims of injustice and abuse throughout the world. As one of the most influential voices in American publishing for over three decades, he is also a dominant force in the development of the international human rights movement.
- Igor Sutyagin
Igor Sutyagin was a Russian academic analyst of military technology. In 1998 he became the head of the subdivision for Military-Technical and Military-Economic Policy at the U.S. and Canada Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where he worked before he was arrested for treason. With a degree in physics as well as history, Sutyagin worked on topics relating to U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons development, deployment, and control, …
- David Rieff
David Rieff (born September 28, 1952, in Boston) is a nonfiction writer and policy analyst. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism. He has published numerous articles in "The New York Times", "The Los Angeles Times", "The Washington Post", "The Wall Street Journal", "Le Monde", "El Pais", "The New Republic", "Harper's", "The Atlantic Monthly", …
- Nguyen Dan Que
Dr. Nguyen Dan Que is a Vietnamese endocrinologist and pro-democracy campaigner. He is one of the leading dissidents against the communist government in Vietnam. Que's political activism dates back to the 1970s. He was first arrested in 1978, for criticising the Government. Following a period in prison without trial, Que was released and set up the High Tide Humanists group, which, according to Human Rights Watch, …
- Hania Mufti
Hania Mufti is a Jordanian national who has long lived in London and used to direct the Middle Eastern branch of Human Rights Watch. She was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in 2005 by Time Magazine. She previously worked for Amnesty International, where she was in charge of their investigations into Human Rights abuses in Iraq.
- Khaled Abou el Fadl
Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl (born 1963 in Kuwait) is a professor of law at the UCLA School of Law where he teaches Islamic law, immigration, human rights, international and national security law. He holds degrees from Yale University (B.A.), University of Pennsylvania Law School (J.D.) and Princeton University (M.A./Ph.D.). He also received formal training in Islamic jurisprudence in Egypt and Kuwait.
- Lisa Anderson
Lisa Anderson is the dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She has been on the Columbia faculty since 1986 and, just prior to her appointment as dean, served as chair of the political science department at Columbia. Dean Anderson also served as director of Columbia's Middle East Institute from 1990 to 1993. She has announced that she will leave the deanship and return to the faculty in 2007.
- Rosa Brooks
Rosa Brooks is an op-ed columnist for the "Los Angeles Times" and a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Brooks' work has appeared in publications ranging from Harper's Magazine to the "Washington Post", and in 2005 she began a weekly column for the Los Angeles Times. Most of her columns focus on foreign policy, human rights, and national security issues. She is known for her edgy, satirical style.
- Akbar Mohammadi
Akbar Mohammadi (born 1972 - died July 30 2006) was an Iranian student involved in 18th of Tir crisis in Tehran University. He was given a death sentence for his role in the Iran student riots, July 1999 - Iran's biggest pro-democracy demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. His sentence was later reduced to 15 years in prison. On July 30 2006, he died at Evin prison at the age of 37. He had been on a hunger strike for more than a week, …
- Brahim Dahane
Brahim Dahane is a Sahrawi human rights activist and President of the ASVDH, a banned human rights organization. Born in 1965, he lives in El Aaiun, in the parts of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco, where he is the manager of an Internet café. At the age of 22, he participated in demonstrations to welcome the United Nation's MINURSO mission to El Aaiun.
- Kati Marton
Kati Marton (b. 4 February 1949) is an American author and journalist. Her career has included reporting for ABC News as a foreign correspondent and National Public Radio as well as print journalism and writing a number of books. She is the chairwoman of the International Women's Health Coalition, and a director (former chairwoman) of the Committee to Protect Journalists and other bodies including the International Rescue Committee, …
- Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'Im
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. His specialties include human rights in Islam and cross-cultural issues in human rights, and he is the director of the Religion and Human Rights Program at Emory. An-Naim was formerly the Executive Director of the African bureau of Human Rights Watch. He argues for a synergy and interdependence between human rights, religion and secularism, …
- Mahnaz Afkhami
Mahnaz Afkhami (Iran/U.S.) is Founder and President of the Women's Learning Partnership, Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies, and former Minister for Women's Affairs in Iran. In exile in the United States, Ms. Afkhami has been a leading advocate of women's rights for more than three decades, having founded and served as director and president of several international non-governmental organizations that focus on advancing women's status.
- Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman
Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman is an Egyptian who is believed to be in United States custody in one of the CIA's "black sites". Also known as "Asadullah" ("ie The lion of God.") Human Rights Watch reports he is the son of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheikh" who was convicted of involvement in the first al Qaeda bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993. Mohammed is alleged to have run a training camp, and have had a role in planning the 9-11 attacks.
- Muzafar Avazov
Muzafar Avazov was an Uzbekistan torture victim. He died in 2002, apparently from religiously-motivated state torture. Human Rights Watch recorded his death as "suspicious" with apparent signs of torture, highlighting Uzbekistan's repression of independent Muslims. Individuals who had seen the body told Human Rights Watch that it showed clear signs of torture.
- Cheam Channy
Cheam Channy (born 15 February 1961) is a Cambodian politician and member of parliament for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP). He was elected as a representative for Battambang Province in the 1998 National Elections, then again for Kompong Cham province in 2003. On 3 February 2005, a vote in the Cambodian National Assembly removed the parliamentary immunity from Channy, fellow MP Chea Poch and party leader Sam Rainsy.
- Musaad Aruchi
Musaad Aruchi is alleged to be a senior member of the al Qaeda leadership. Some of his files, secured when he was captured, in Pakistan, in April 2004, lead to the capture of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. Human Rights Watch lists Aruchi as one of detainees in CIA custody.
- Álvaro Noboa
Álvaro Fernando Noboa Pontón is an Ecuadorian businessman and politician. Noboa is actively involved in politics, running for president in 1998, 2002 and 2006. Noboa is the wealthiest man in Ecuador. He assumed control of the Noboa Group of companies after a lengthy legal battle with his siblings following the death of his father, a banana magnate and billionaire, in 1993. His foundation Crusade for a New Humanity draws on his personal fortune to fund social projects.
- Thant Myint-U
Thant Myint-U is an historian and a former United Nations official. He was born 31 January 1966 in New York city to Burmese parents and is the grandson of former UN Secretary-General U Thant. He was educated at Harvard, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and the University of Cambridge. He received his PhD in history from Cambridge University in 1996.
- María Corina Machado
María Corina Machado Parisca is a founder of the Venezuelan volunteer civil organization "Súmate", along with Alejandro Plaz. In 2003, "Súmate" led a petition drive for a constitutional presidential recall of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. "The Wall Street Journal" says she faces conspiracy charge stemming from a $31,000 grant from the National Endowment for Democracy for "non-partisan educational work".
- Anas Al-Liby
Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai'i alias Anas al-Liby (born March 30 1964 or May 14 1964), a Libyan, is under indictment in the United States for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. His aliases in the indictment are Nazih al Raghie and Anas al Sebai. In the FBI and State Department wanted posters about this individual, …
- Luis Giampietri
Luis Giampietri Rojas is a retired admiral of the Peruvian Navy and a politician with the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance party. Giampietri ran successfully as Alan García's vice-presidential candidate in the 2006 Peruvian election, and was sworn in on 28 July 2006. Giampietri was one of the naval officers implicated in the massacre on El Frontón, a prison island off of the coast of Callao. The massacre took place during Alan García's administration, on June 18, …
- Mohamed Elmoutaoikil
Mohamed Elmoutaoikil is a Moroccan Sahrawi human rights-defender active in Western Sahara, born in 1966 in Assa in southern Morocco. He was jailed after he was arrested during the "riots and demonstrations" in El Aaiún. He was previousely jailed in 1992 for one year after Sahrawi demonstrations in his hometown of Assa, and has been arrested several times since then. He is a father of three.
- Adel Flaifel
Colonel Adel Jassim Flaifel is a former colonel in the State Security and Intelligence Service of Bahrain who is accused of committing, or overseeing, acts of physical and psychological torture in the 1990s. He was released from his duties in December 2002 but government officials did not clarify the exact reason for his removal. Despite being removed from his position, Flaifel has never been formally charged of torture in Bahrain because of Royal Decree 56 of 2002, …
- Néstor Almendros
Néstor Almendros was a Spanish cinematographer. One of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers. Néstor Almendros Cuyas was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, but moved to Cuba at age 18 to join his exiled anti-Franco father. In Havana, he founded a cinema club and wrote film reviews. Then he went on to study in Rome at the Centro Sperimentale. He directed six shorts in Cuba and two in New York.
- Guglielmo Verdirame
Guglielmo Verdirame (born 1974 in Reggio di Calabria, Italy) is a university lecturer in law at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He is a leading expert on UN accountability issues and on refugee law. Before coming to Cambridge, he was a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford between 2000-2003. He holds a Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics, where he studied with Christine Chinkin, …
- Sina Motalebi
Sina Motalebi is an Iranian journalist, based in London. He started his career in 1991 as a film critic and later began to write political and cultural columns and commentary for several reformist newspapers. Currently he is working for the Persian Section of BBC World Service as a multimedia producer. He graduated from Tehran University, Faculty of Law and Political Science. After most of the Iranian reformist publications were banned by the Islamic government, …
- Chingiz Mustafayev
Chingiz Mustafayev (August 29 1960- July 15 1992) is a national hero of Azerbaijan, he was one of Azerbaijan's most noted journalists, even though the corpus of his work spans less than a year. With no formal journalistic training, he created a video anthology of the Karabakh war - documenting the brutality of a war that ultimately cost his own life. He was the man behind the TV camera, who filmed the scene of Khojaly Massacre in 1992.
- Kashmir Khan
Kashmir Khan belonged to the Shura Nizami (military council) of Hezb-e Islami. Human Rights Watch, quoting the Afghan Support Project, reports that the Hezb-e Islami attacked Kabul through regular rocket bombardment, causing extensive civilian casualties, and damage to property. In 2002 the Hezb-e Islami is reported to have split, with the hard-line Islamists, including Kashmir Khan, remaining with the party's leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
- Otakhon Latifi
Otakhon Latifi was a noted journalist and politician from Tajikistan. He was born in the town of Pendjikent. Under the Soviet Union, he was both "Pravda" and "Izvestiya"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s correspondent in Tajikistan at various times. He also served as head of the Union of Journalists of Tajikistan. Latifi branched into politics in 1989, becoming deputy chairman of the Tajik Council of Ministers.
- Isa Khan
Isa Khan is a detainee in Guantánamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. Human Rights Watch issued a "Letter to President General Pervez Musharraf" calling on the Bush administration to "release detainees who were Taliban soldiers or who have no connection to Al Qaeda, …