Announcement
Aug 23, 2023

Announcing Speakers at the 2023 Oslo Freedom Forum in New York

On Sept. 28, some of the world’s top human rights advocates, innovators, and creatives will take the stage at New York City’s The Town Hall for the 2023 Oslo Freedom Forum in New York (OFF in NY).

Join the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) for an afternoon of theater talks and performances by the world’s top freedom fighters and dissidents. Tickets for daytime programming ($25 Theater Pass and $10 Student Pass) are available for purchase on Ticketmaster.

Following theater programming, a special Speaker Gala will take place in the evening at the Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room. The Gala will be a unique opportunity to spend time with OFF speakers and HRF leadership while enjoying additional talks, performances, and fine dining.

Gala tickets ($1,500 single and $10,000 eight-person table) are available for purchase on Eventbrite. You may also sponsor students and activists to attend OFF in NY. Gala tickets include access to afternoon theater programming.

Meet the Changemakers Taking the Stage in New York

Sanaa Seif OFF in NY 2023

Sanaa Seif is a British-Egyptian filmmaker, producer, and political activist. She’s been imprisoned three times under the Sisi regime — most recently from 2020 to 2021 — after being abducted by security forces as she tried to get a letter to her imprisoned brother, writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah. She leads the international campaign for her brother’s freedom. Her efforts have led world leaders, elected officials, and hundreds of cultural figures to join the call to #FreeAlaa.

Tobias Rose-Stockwell OFF in NY 2023

Rose-Stockwell’s forthcoming book, “Outrage Machine: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy—And What We Can Do About It,” examines how their algorithms favor content that sparks strong emotional responses, fueling anger and confusion, and the effects of this phenomenon on democracies, social movements, and even intimate personal relationships. Earlier in his career, Rose-Stockwell led civil-war reconstruction efforts in Southeast Asia.

Gulbahar Haitiwaji and Kalbinur Sidik OFF in NY 2023

Haitiwaji worked as an engineer in the Uyghur Region before leaving with her two daughters to join her husband, who had sought asylum, in France. In 2016, she was deceived into returning to China and vanished into the camps. Her daughter campaigned tirelessly for her mother’s release, and in 2019, she was allowed to leave. Her book, “How I Survived a Chinese ‘Reeducation’ Camp,” is the first published account describing life inside the camps.

Sidik served as an elementary school teacher in the Uyghur Region for 28 years until March 2017, when she was forced to work as a Chinese-language instructor in an internment camp. After teaching in an all-male camp for six months, she was transferred to an all-woman facility holding around 10,000 women. She was forced to have an IUD fitted in 2017 and undergo sterilization in early 2019. She reached safety at the end of 2019.

Kristen Ulmer OFF NY 2023

Kristen is a high-performance facilitator and thought leader on fear/anxiety, who draws from her experience as the world’s most ‘fearless’ woman big-mountain extreme skier for 12 years, from intently studying Zen for 15 years, and from facilitating thousands of clients and high-profile groups all over the world. Her book, “The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won’t Work and What to Do Instead,” is an industry game-changer. Ulmer’s work seeks to shift the way people deal with fear, changing it from fighting a draining battle into a healthy, flowing relationship with this misunderstood emotion.

For any questions about tickets and registration, please contact us at [email protected]

More details about the speakers and overall program will be released weekly on our Twitter and Instagram.

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