FULL PROGRAM OF TOMORROW’S SPEAKERS BELOW

• See below the full conference program.
• Live webcast available at www.genevasummit.org.
• For interviews or other press inquiries, contact: Arielle Herzog Hadida, Coordinator, secretariat@genevasummit.org.

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PROGRAM

9:00   Welcome
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, on behalf of the NGO Coalition
9:10    Opening Speech: Political Prisoners and The Legacy of Nelson Mandela
Prof. Irwin Cotler, Canadian MP, former Justice Minister, lawyer for Nelson Mandela
9:30    Women’s Rights, Human Dignity and Equality
Moderator: Daniel Schwammenthal, Journalist
Dalia Ziada, Egyptian human rights activist
Dr. Rakhshinda Perveen, Pakistani women’s rights activist
Annick Cojean, Le Monde journalist, author of book on women raped by Col. Qaddafi
Tenzin Dhardon Sharling, Youngest MP in Tibet’s Parliament-in-Exile
11:00  Russia Today, Iran’s Press TV and The Battle for Objectivity
Moderator: Guy Mettan, President of the Swiss Press Club
James Kirchick,Journalist who hijacked Russia Today interview to expose anti-gay laws
Potkin Azarmehr, Iranian journalist, activist, expert on Iran’s Press TV
12:00  The 2014 Geneva Summit Courage Award
Presented by Ambassador Alfred H. Moses, UN Watch Chair
Chen Guangcheng, Escaped Chinese dissident known as the “Barefoot Lawyer”
Response and conversation with Madeleine Brot, Radio Télévision Suisse
13:00  Networking Lunch
14:30  The Fight for Fundamental Freedoms
Moderator: Philippe Robinet, President of Kéro, publisher of human rights literature
Nagmeh Abedini, Wife of jailed Iranian Pastor Saeed Abedini
William Browder, The man behind the Magnitsky List, CEO of Hermitage Capital
Biram Dah Abeid, Mauritanian anti-slavery activist, 2013 UN Human Rights Laureate
Dang Xuong Hung, Vietnamese diplomat who defected
16:00 Resisting Authoritarianism
Moderator: Alana Goodman, Journalist
Damarys Moya Portieles, Cuban opposition leader, former political prisoner, victim
Ahn Myong Chul, North Korean prison guard who became a human rights activist
Moayad Iskiaf, Syrian journalist and human rights activist
Ali Al Ahmed, Saudi dissident and human rights activist (via Skype)
17:00  Action: How Parliamentarian and Activists Can Effect Change
Moderator: Hillel Neuer, UN Watch
Mu Sochua, Cambodian MP, Council of Asian Liberals, Liberal International
Yang Jianli, Chinese dissident, founder of Initiatives for China
Jacob Mchangama, Director of Legal Affairs at Denmark’s Center for Political Studies
Taha Bawa, Founder of goodwall.org, a new humanitarian social network
18:00  Signing of Outcome Declaration

ORGANIZED BY AN INTERNATIONAL NGO COALITION

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GENEVA, Feb. 24, 2015 – The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch today led a coalition of 20 NGOs in giving a rare UN platform to the Nigerian girl who jumped off a truck to escape from Boko Haram, the student leaders of the Hong Kong umbrella protest, and courageous dissidents and victims from China, Cuba, Iran, Tibet, Pakistan, Turkey, North Korea and Venezuela.

The 2015 Geneva Summit for Human Rights, which opened yesterday in a packed UN chamber below the Human Rights Council, concluded today in an adjacent conference center before an audience of 500 human rights activists, diplomats, journalists and students.
The summit aims to place critical human rights situations on the world agenda days before foreign ministers gather on Monday in Geneva to open the annual session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Worldwide media coverage focused on the Nigerian girl who escaped the Boko Haram kidnapping (“Bring Back Our Girls”); a memorial to the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists by two of their Paris colleagues, Philippe Val and Caroline Fourest; and the bestowal of awards to jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, and to Masih Alinejad, creator of a viral Facebook page that allows Iranian women to show hijab-free photos of themselves.
Notable speakers also included:
· Alex Chow & Lester Shum, Student leaders of Hong Kong protest movement
· Pierre Torres, French Journalist held hostage by ISIS for 10 months
· Yeon-Mi Park, 21-year-old North Korean defector
· Il Lim, North Korean defector and former slave laborer
· Ashiq Masih, Husband of Asia Bibi, Christian mother of five on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy
· Dicki Chhoyang, Cabinet member in Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government-in-exile
· Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader persecuted by Maduro regime (by video)
· Yang Jianli, Former Chinese political prisoner, survivor of Tiananmen Square massacre
Canada, the Czech Republic and the U.S. co-sponsored yesterday’s UN opening session. Some 15 governments also met privately with the dissidents and victims at a meeting hosted by the Canadian Mission in Geneva.

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GENEVA, May 23, 2014 – Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch presented its annual Moral Courage Award on Thursday to Canadian cabinet minister Jason Kenney, one of the country’s most influential national figures, a decision that drew strong praise from the Dalai Lama, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Tibetan spiritual leader who sent a special envoy to the Geneva ceremony attended by UN officials, ambassadors, and community leaders.

“UN Watch honors Minister Kenney for demonstrating the courage to lead in upholding the founding principles of the United Nations, and defending the true principles of human rights,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

“When others have been silent while serial perpetrators of human rights abuses like Iran and Syria seek to hijack the UN’s human rights and anti-racism causes, Minister Kenney has been a clear and consistent voice for their millions of victims, opposing tyranny, hypocrisy and injustice.”

In an emotional moment, the Dalai Lama’s envoy placed a traditional Tibetan scarf upon Kenney to recognize his outspoken defense of oppressed Tibetans.

“I have great admiration for your leadership, the concern and active support you have shown for the Tibetan cause, and your role in enhancing Canada’s diverse multi-ethnic and multicultural society,” wrote the Dalai Lama in remarks submitted for the event.

“I have been impressed by your efforts to support the rights of oppressed people around the world.”
Many other community leaders also sent their congratulations.

Last night’s ceremony was held next to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, by the shores of Lake Geneva.

Previous winners of the UN Watch award include Spanish prime minister Josa Maria Aznar, British parliamentarian John Mann, and North Korean dissident Dong-hyuk Shin.

UN Watch’s international advisory board includes Nobel Peace Prize Laureate David Trimble, Chinese dissident Yang Jianli and Katrina Lantos Swett, Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The Geneva non-governmental organization is best known for bringing dissidents, human rights defenders and victims to testify before the United Nations, including most recently from China, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Venezuela.

Each year, together with 25 NGOs, UN Watch assembles top dissidents to spotlight the world’s most critical human rights issues at its annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.

Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose was in attendance, as were numerous Canadian diplomats.

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UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer highlighted the importance of bringing victims to meet UN officials.

In January, when UN human rights chief Navi Pillay called for a full-fledged international inquiry into “serious crimes” committed by North Korea, she referenced the case of Shin and having just met him.

The UN Human Rights Council recently named commissioners to investigate the human rights record of North Korea.

“Shin Dong-hyuk isn’t just somebody who was sent to a concentration camp,” said CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who recently interviewed the North Korean survivor. “This is somebody who was born into a concentration camp. And for the majority of his life up until he was probably 22 or 23, he had no idea that there was another kind of way to exist.”

Shin told Cooper the stunning story of how he escaped from Camp 14, a brutal political prison in North Korea.

Shin was made to watch his mother and brother executed. Having been born and raised within the camp’s perverted moral universe, he was the one who had informed on their plan to escape.

“UN Watch has decided to grant the Moral Courage Award to Dong-hyuk Shin for bearing witness to atrocities and stirring the conscience of mankind to protect the fundamental human rights of the voiceless victims of North Korea,” said executive director Hillel Neuer.

“No one would have blamed him for seeking a life of quiet and recuperation. Instead, Shin dedicates his life to speaking out for those left behind,” said Neuer.

UN Watch has brought numerous North Korean victims and activists to speak at the UN, and leads NGO campaigns to confront the murderous dictatorship within the world body.

UN Watch is best known for organizing the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, a key gathering for dissidents, and for bringing victims to testify before the United Nations Human Rights Council, including from China, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Venezuela.

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Mr. Kasparov has been a key voice on the international scene to promote U.S. passage of the Magnitsky Act of sanctions against Russian officials and to appeal for similar measures in other countries. He was listed byTime Magazine as one of the Top 100 people whose moral example is transforming the world.

“Russia’s status in the world and at the UN entails responsibility,” said Neuer. “Russia is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights. Article 2 of Russia’s constitution guarantees its citizens ‘the recognition, observance and protection of human and civil rights and freedoms.’ In practice, these freedoms are being systematically violated.”

Mr. Kasparov will receive the 2013 Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award in Geneva on Wednesday, June 5, 2013, at a gala dinner, attended by the diplomatic community, marking UN Watch’s 20th anniversary. The event will be held in Geneva’s historic Hotel des Bergues, site of the first assembly of the League of Nations in 1920.

Morris B. Abram (1918-2000) worked closely with Rev. Martin Luther King, winning key legal battles for the equal rights of African-Americans. Over three decades, Abram was a leading figure at the UN Commission on Human Rights and the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

Garry Kasparov was born in 1963 in Baku, Azerbaijan. He came to international fame as the youngest world chess champion in history in 1985 at the age of 22. He defended his title five times, including a legendary series of matches against arch-rival Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov broke Bobby Fischer’s rating record in 1990 and his own peak rating record remained unbroken until 2013.

In 2005, then in his 20th year as the world’s top-ranked player, Kasparov retired from competitive chess to join the vanguard of the Russian pro-democracy movement. He founded the United Civil Front and organized the Marches of Dissent to protest the repressive policies of Vladimir Putin.

In 2012, Kasparov was elected to the Coordinating Council of the united opposition movement. In the same year, he was named chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Vaclav Havel.

Garry and his wife Daria are active with the Kasparov Chess Foundation in promoting the teaching of chess in education systems around the world. Now in over 3500 US schools, the foundation recently launched centers in Europe and Africa, with South America soon to come.

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GENEVA, May 25, 2012 – Top Chinese dissident Dr. Yang Jianli was awarded the 2012 Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award by UN Watch on Wednesday night, in the presence of more than 150 ambassadors, U.N. officials, human rights activists and community leaders, attending the non-governmental group’s annual gala dinner in Geneva.

“Dr. Yang is a survivor of the Tiananmen Square who has devoted his life to helping his brothers and sisters in distress, and to advancing the cause of human rights for all,” said UN Watch director Hillel Neuer. “He spent five years in prison for defending democracy and helping victims. Dr. Yang is a role model for activists, dissident and concerned citizens everywere.”

The UN Watch award inscription cited Yang’s “brave deeds and inspiring words.”

Dr. Yang currently resides in the U.S. where he heads the Initiatives for China activist group. He accepted the award “on behalf of the great multitude of victims of human rights abuse, in China and elsewhere.”

“A government that systematically deprives its citizens of human rights is inherently unstable,” said Yang in his acceptance speech, adding that such regimes constitute a threat to the stability of the whole world.

Addressing an audience that included the UN delegates from a dozen nations, including the US, France, Canada, South Korea and Honduras, Yang said that China’s government “systematically and routinely imprisons, tortures and exiles its best and brightest, for no other reason than exercising the right to speak freely.”

China pursues “cultural genocide on the Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian peoples,” and institutes “foreign policies and models of repression that enable the morally bankrupt regimes of North Korea, Iran and Syria to suck the freedoms and dignities from their people.” Click here for full bio of Yang Jianli.

The UN Watch prize honors the legacy of the late Morris Abram, a legendary U.S. civil rights advocate, lawyer, activist, community leader and diplomat. Born in the American South, Abram founded UN Watch in 1993, after representing the U.S. at the United Nations’ European headquarters in Geneva.

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GENEVA, Oct. 27 – Afghan women’s rights hero Dr. Massouda Jalal visited UN Watch headquarters today as part of a Europe-wide campaign to warn the international community not to legitimize the Taliban at an upcoming December summit in Bonn of 90 governments on the future of Afghanistan.

Dr. Jalal, a pediatrician who was Minister of Women’s Affairs and Afghanistan’s first woman to run for president, heads a delegation of Afghan women activists lobbying policymakers in Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Geneva.

“The Taliban are gaining power,” she told UN Watch today, “and there is great danger for educated women.”

The Taliban and religious extremism are being supported by the Iranian regime, which is increasing its influence in the region, said Jalal.

“The situation is very critical. The level of corruption in the Afghan government doesn’t allow for reform,” she said.

“If you’re not part of the extremist majority, you have no chance of having your voice heard. They dominate the political system as well as the media, influencing public opinion.”

Dr. Jalal expressed grave concern that the December Bonn Conference on Afghanistan will legitimize and empower Taliban and other religious extremists by allowing them to participate.

“The international community should be empowering the democrats and educated women,” said Dr. Jalal. “Why is my organization, the Jalal Foundation—which represents a large part of the civil society—not being invited to participate?”

Dr. Jalal also met in Geneva with the UN rights office, the UN refugee agency and the Canadian mission.

In 2010, Dr. Jalal received UN Watch’s Morris Abram Human Rights Award, and the organization has helped to promote her work internationally. UN Watch arranged Dr. Jalal’s recent Paris meeting with Philippe Robinet of Oh! Editions, the influential publisher of human rights testimonies.

Her European tour was coordinated by the Brussels-based South Asia Democratic Forum.

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GENEVA, April 1 — UN Watch is proud to announce that Spanish journalist and human rights activist Pilar Rahola will be the 2011 recipient of the Geneva-based human rights group’s Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award.

The prize honors the legacy of the late U.S. civil rights advocate and diplomat, born in the American South, who founded UN Watch in 1993 after serving at the United Nations in Geneva. The prize will be presented at the organization’s 18th Anniversary Gala Dinner next week.

Ms. Rahola was chosen for her tireless championing of the rights of women and children, defending the rule of law, and combating intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism.

As a member of the Spanish national parliament from 1993 to 2000, Ms. Rahola fought political corruption, working on the Roldán Commission. In recognition of her investigation of government wrong-doing, she received the parliamentary prize, “Azote del Gobierno” (“Scourge of Government”). Since leaving politics for journalism, Ms. Rahola has become a regular columnist at La Vanguardia in Spain, La Nacion in Argentina, and Diario de America in the U.S, as well as a frequent participant in radio and television programs.

Ms. Rahola’s work on women’s rights includes her authorship of the 2000 book “Mujer Liberada, Hombre Cabreado” (Liberated Woman, Bad-Tempered Man). She also wrote “Historia de Ada: Los Derechos Pisoteados de los Ninos” (Ada’s Story: The Violation of Children’s Rights), a 2002 book commissioned by Oxfam International that confronted the critical issues of child prostitution, AIDS, child labor, and child soldiers.

The book’s name comes from Ms. Rahola’s reflection on what might have become of her own daughter, Ada, whom she adopted in 2001, had she remained in a Siberian orphanage. It also explores the state of children’s rights worldwide through the stories of individuals. Her 1993 adoption of a son, Noe, inspired her to write the book “Letter to My Adopted Son,” which relates the fears, struggles, and yearning of her experience. The book has become a classic text on adoption.

Ms. Rahola has been an outspoken opponent of contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance. In 2003 she was awarded the “Betera en Lilà” prize for her struggle against gender inequality and violence. In 2004, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Santiago de Chile for championing fundamental human rights. She has been recognized by many others for her commitment to the principles of human rights, democracy and anti-racism.

Rahola is also a vigorous opponent of the inhumane treatment of animals. Her columns in La Vanguardia and other newspapers have sharply criticized bullfighting and other forms of animal abuse. She has been active with the Association Defensa Derechos Animal, a leading Spanish NGO for the well-being of animals, and Fundación Altarriba – Amigos de los Animales, an animal welfare foundation.

Previous recipients of UN Watch human rights awards include Esther Mujawayo, an activist for victims of the genocide in Rwanda; Nazanin Afshin-Jam, the founder and president of Stop Child Executions; and Dr. Massouda Jalal, the first woman in Afghanistan to run for president and to serve as Minister for Women’s Affairs.

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