Every year, the world’s bravest human rights defenders and leading innovators bring their stories to the main stage of the Oslo Freedom Forum to shed light on the struggle for freedom around the world.
Join us at the 2021 Oslo Freedom Forum, taking place October 4-5 in Miami, Florida, for inspiring stories of nobility and triumph against monumental odds. In addition to main stage talks, we have an exciting array of interactive programming, including action-oriented panels, fireside chats, art exhibitions, and workshops with thought leaders. More information about our interactive programming will be announced in the coming weeks.
Check out these must-see speakers at the 13th annual Oslo Freedom Forum. More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (@Tsihanouskaya) is a former presidential candidate and leader of the democratic movement in Belarus. According to unofficial results, she received the most votes in the presidential election of Belarus in August 2020. However, the official results were falsified in favor of the country’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, and she was forced out of Belarus. Sviatlana has been officially recognized as the rightful winner of the elections by the U.S. and most European countries. She has been rallying pressure both inside and outside of Belarus to stop state-sponsored violence and peacefully bring about free and fair democratic elections to resolve the crisis in the country.
Filmon Debru is an Eritrean human rights activist and software developer who works to raise awareness about the expansive human trafficking cycle, which he survived. Debru fled Eritrea after experiencing human rights violations, and at a refugee camp on the Sudanese border, was kidnapped and repeatedly sold by smugglers. He endured daily torture, resulting in the loss of half of each hand. After eventually receiving medical care, Debru joined a project to raise awareness about human trafficking in Sinai and testified before the European Parliament, beginning his path of activism. Debru sought asylum in Germany, where he is currently a software developer at Siemens.
Akida Pulat (@Akida_P) is from the city of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. She graduated from the University of Washington and worked as a business analyst before becoming an activist in 2019 to advocate for the release of her mother, Rahile Dawut, a renowned professor and one of the millions of Uyghurs that China’s government has detained. Akida currently works as Outreach Director at Campaign for Uyghurs, where she continues to raise awareness about her mother’s detention and the unprecedented human rights abuses her people are facing.
Ahmed Albasheer (@AhmedAlbasheer1) is an Iraqi comedian and political satirist. He is the host of The Albasheer Show, a weekly political satire program that humorizes Iraqi politics. Ahmed began the show in 2014 as a tool to fight corruption, sectarianism, extremism, and terrorism in Iraq and the surrounding region. He was born and raised in Anbar, Iraq, and fled the country in 2011 after suffering injuries by a suicide bomber. Ahmed trained as a traditional journalist before switching to political satire, believing the latter to be a more effective tool of communication and influence. He was named one of the twenty most influential people in the Arab World by Swiss-based Global Influence Research Centre. Watch his comedy-skit at the 2020 Oslo Freedom Forum.
Wai Hnin Pwint Thon (@MissWHPT) is a Burmese human rights activist. For over a decade, she has been actively involved in advocating for human rights and democracy in Burma. Currently working at Burma Campaign UK, Wai Hnin has worked with families of political prisoners to bring international attention to their cases, and has conducted extensive research on Burma’s repressive laws. Her father, Ko Mya Aye, is a prominent human rights activist and one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Students Group in Burma and a prominent human rights activist. He is currently detained by the Burmese military.
Dr. Essam Daod (@EssamDaod) is a psychiatrist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist who grew up in Israel in a small Arab Palestinian village in Galilee. In 2015, he flew to Greece for a humanitarian rescue mission where he co-founded Humanity Crew and has been working with refugees ever since. Currently, he is an avid refugee mental health activist and researcher who has spoken in countless conferences and media outlets all over the world advocating for the importance of mental health support for refugees and people in crises. In 2018, he became a TED Fellow and speaker. In 2021, his work was featured in the docuseries “The Me You Can’t See” that was produced by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry for Apple TV.
Agnès Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) is the Secretary General of Amnesty International, the world’s largest non-governmental human rights organization. She previously served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions. In that role, she led ground-breaking investigations, including into the murder of Saudi Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
Glacier Kwong (@chungchingkwong) is a political and digital rights activist from Hong Kong, and a Research Fellow at the Hong Kong Democracy Council in Washington, DC. Previously, she was the founder and spokesperson of Keyboard Frontline, an organization dedicated to monitoring censorship and digital rights, and a columnist at Apple Daily. Glacier first got involved in activism in 2012 due to the Copyright Amendment Bill in Hong Kong. She is currently one of the leading voices of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, and is now living in exile.
Steve Jurvetson (@FutureJurvetson) is the co-founder of Future Ventures and a renowned venture capitalist that focuses on cutting-edge projects in technology and the creation of new industries. He has a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford, where he graduated top of his class, and has been an early investor in companies such as SpaceX, Hotmail, and Tesla. In 2017, he received the Visionary Award from SV Forum, and was appointed as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship by President Barack Obama in 2016. Steve has been widely recognized as one of the most visionary entrepreneurs of recent decades.
Berta Valle (@BertaValle) is a Nicaraguan journalist, human rights activist, and vocal critic of the Ortega regime. She is married to pro-democracy activist, presidential candidate, and former OFF speaker, Félix Maradiaga, who was recently imprisoned by Ortega’s regime in an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition in Nicaragua. Berta is currently in exile and campaigning to bring international attention to the regime’s abuses, including the unjust imprisonment of her husband and more than 140 political prisoners in the country.
Obianuju Catherine Udeh aka DJ Switch (@dj_switchaholic) is an acclaimed Nigerian disk jockey, musician, creative producer, activist, and Reagan Democracy Fellow. She uses her art to draw attention to injustice, corruption, and bad governance notably with songs such as “Pray Sote” (with a remix featuring Busta Rhymes) and the parody “Don’t Cry for Me Nigeria.” In October 2020, she joined a peaceful sit-in in Lagos as part of the #EndSARS anti-police brutality protests and was injured when the military opened fire on the sit-in. Her livestream of the shooting and testimony prompted death threats which forced her into exile.
Arthur Holland Michel (@WriteArthur) is a Peruvian-born writer and researcher. He currently serves as an associate researcher for the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, where his work focuses on the military applications of artificial intelligence and autonomy, and as a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. He has written about drones, surveillance, artificial intelligence, robots, and the arts for Wired, Vice, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Fast Company, and an Oxford Research Encyclopedia, among other outlets. His first book, Eyes in the Sky (2019), addressed the rise of advanced aerial surveillance technology. Arthur is a founder of the Center for the Study of the Drone, a research institute at Bard College in New York State, where he served as co-director from 2012 to 2020.
Featured Artist: Liza Donnelly
Liza Donnelly (@LizaDonnelly) is a writer and cartoonist with The New Yorker Magazine, where she provides commentary on culture and politics. Donnelly has created political cartoons and live-drawn cultural/political events for CBS, CNN, The New Yorker, Fusion, and others. She writes for The New York Times and CNN Opinion pages, The Washington Post, Politico, Ms. Magazine, and Medium, where she has a regular column focused on politics. Liza pioneered a form of digital visual journalism, or live-drawing, where she digitally draws events in real time and streams them online. She is the first cartoonist to be credentialed to the Academy Awards, five years in a row.
Liza will be a featured artist at the Oslo Freedom Forum, where she will be live-drawing the main stage speakers.
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