Experts - human rights

Aslı Erdoğan

Aslı Erdoğan

Aslı Erdoğan born in Istanbul, studied Computer Engineering and Physics (MS in 1993) and worked as a high energy research physicist at CERN, Geneva where she completed her thesis in Higgs Physics there. After a 2-year stay in South America, she returned to Istanbul and started to live as a free lance writer. Aslı has written several books: novels, novellas, collections of short stories and poetic prose, and selections from her political essays. She has worked as a columnist and a journalist  since 1998, mostly for RADİKAL, a left-wing intellectual newspaper and Özgür Gündem, a bilingual paper of Kurdish press, for which she is still writing. She has treated controversial topics as state violence, discrimination and human rights. Aslı’s books have been translated into several languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Arabic and Bosnian.

Jan Kavan

Jan Kavan

 MA in journalism at the Charles University, leader of the 1960s student movement in Prague. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion in Czechoslovakia in 1968 he was forced to emigrate to the UK. He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Politics at the University of Reading and in the St Anthony’s College, Oxford University. Founder of Palach Press Agency in London in 1974, which later became the main press agency for Czechoslovak opposition in the Western Europe. It was also the main distributor in the world of documents and reports issued by human rights movement Charter 77. He also formed the Jan Palach Information and Research Trust (JPIRT) which provided Czechoslovak dissidents with books and technical equipment and supported underground university courses. Founder of the East European Cultural Foundation (EECF) and the prestigious quarterly East European Reporter, which published all important documents and articles written by dissidents in Eastern and Central European countries. Returned to Prague from political exile in November 1989 and was elected in June 1990 to the Federal Assembly (Parliament). A notable academic career included posts as the Visiting Professor of Politics and History at the Adeplhi University in New York and as the Karl Loewenstein Fellow in Politics and Jurisprudence at the Amherst College in Massachusetts. He holds several honorary degrees, including the Honorary Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Honorary Doctor of Humane letters at the Adeplhi University. 1973-1989 lecturer at the Institute of Adult Education in London. 1998-2002 Minister of Foreign Affairs. 1999 - 2002 Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign and Security Policy. President of the 57th session of the United Nations General Assembly (2002-2003). June 2002-2006 Deputy to the Czech Parliament, where he worked as Vice-President in the Foreign Affairs Committee. Foreign affairs adviser to the President of the Chamber of Deputies (Parliament) 2007- . Winner of numerous awards for achievements in the strife for democracy and human rights.

Miroslav Kusý

Former Czechoslovak dissident, one of the signatories of Charta '77. After the Revolution of 1989 has occupied a number of prominent posts including that of the Member of the first Federal Parliament, Cabinet Minister, Rector of Comenius University and Chief of Staff of the President of Czechoslovakia Vaclav Havel as his Chancellor for Slovakia. Founder of the Department of Political Science of Comenius University (1990). Founder and the Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights Education at Comenius University in Bratislava, founder and Chairman of the Milan Simecka Foundation, member of the Academic Council of the Comenius University and member of committees and councils at home and abroad (incl. Czech Republic, Poland, Italy). President of the Slovak Helsinki Committee and Honorary Member of the Czech Helsinki Committee. After the 1998 parliamentary elections, Advisor of the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for human rights and minority issues. 

Jan Lityński

Jan Lityński

Participant of the students' manifestations in March 1968, for which he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. In 1976, he became co-founder of the “Information Bulletin”, the first uncensored Polish magazine. In 1977, he was a co-editor of “The Worker”, an independent magazine advocating the formation of free trade unions. A member of the Committee for Social Self-Defence of the Workers' Defence Committee, he cooperated with the Intervention Office of the Committee for Social Self-Defence of the Workers' Defence Committee. In 1980, he was an advisor for the “Solidarity” Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union. In 1981, when martial law was in force, he was arrested. After escaping while on leave from prison he joined the “Solidarity” underground movement, during 1984, he became a member of the Regional Executive Committee of the “Solidarity” Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union, Mazowsze Region. In 1989, he was elected to Sejm from the wałbrzyskie voivodship. Between 1989 and 2001 he was a deputy to the Sejm, he was, among others, a chairman of the Social Policy Committee and the Intelligence Committee. Since 1990 in the Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action (ROAD), then in the Democratic Union and the Freedom Union (vice-chairman). He was an author of publications in the Polish and foreign press, among others in “The Criticism”, “Plus”, “Mazowsze Weekly”, “Res Publica” and other uncensored magazines before 1989. He was published in the Polish and foreign press after 1989, among others in “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Rzeczpospolita”, “Dziennik”, “Polityka”, “Newsweek”, “Zeszyty Literackie”. Book publications include, among others: “The Polish Peasants' Party 1945-47 – a resistance model”, “Solidarity – problems, question marks”. He was honored with the Commodore's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Commodore's Cross with the Star. Currently an advisor for Polish President Bronisław Komorouski on issues relating to political parties and political environments. 

Katarzyna Przybysławska

Katarzyna  Przybysławska

PhD in law (Jagiellonian University), with a specialty in human rights and refugee law. Co-founder and president of the Halina Nieć Legal Aid Center, a non-governmental organization devoted to the protection of human rights through free legal aid and UNHCR’s implementing partner. Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford Fellow, member of the Commission of Experts on Migrants to the Ombudsman’s Office.

Eliška Sláviková

Eliška Sláviková

joined the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA) in February 2008. She is carrying out research and project activities on Western Balkans, Latin America, Democracy and Development, Human Rights in Foreign Policy. In 2002-2007 she worked in the People in Peril Association, a Slovak NGO providing relief aid and development assistance, defending human rights and freedoms worldwide, where she established and supervised the Democratization and Human Rights Program. She was managing development projects in Kosovo, BiH, Serbia, Ukraine and Cuba. In the period of 2000-2002 the worked in the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy in Prague as the editor of the “Integrace” journal focued on EU issues and the integration process. She received MA degree in the International Teritorrial Studies at the Charles University in Prague.  

Luboš Veselý

Born in Prague. Graduated at the Institute for International Studies at Charles University (BA) in 2002. Student of Russian and Eastern European Studies at the Institute for International Studies at Charles University (MA). Part-time employment at the Foreign Politics Department of the Office of the Czech President in 2001-2002. Founding member, and since 2001 President of the Association for International Affairs. Former member of Prague Model United Nations Secretariat. Since 1998 works for People in Need Foundation (Human Rights and Democratization Projects). Author of several articles in International Policy, Respekt and Literární noviny magazines. Co-author of the Czech part of The Dictionary of Dissidents.

  

Unni Wikan

Unni Wikan
Graduated from Sociology at the University of Oslo (1965-66), social anthropology at the University of Bergen (1967-68) and Arabic at the American University in Cairo (1968-69). Visiting professor at a number of universities across the world, among them Harvard University, USA; Beersheba University, Israel; L´école des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris; and London School of Economics (LSE). She has conducted field work in Egypt, Oman, Yemen, Indonesia, Bhutan and the Nordic countries. In 2004 awarded with the prestigious Norwegian Fritt Ord Award. Main fields of research: cultural theory, religion, poverty and development, gender, health, emotions, communications, immigration and integration, social welfare, human rights, and honor.

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