June 15, 2016
National Press Club
Washington, DC
Hosted by
Ibn Khaldun Center, Cairo, Egypt
and
Ahwaz Human
Rights Organization (AHRO)
Speaker Bios
Listed Alphabetically
Dr. Karim Abdian
Executive director
Ahwaz Human Rights Organization
A Human Rights activist in support of the rights of ethnic and national minorities in Iran.
Executive director of Ahwaz Human Rights Organization, an international advocacy NGO.
An Aerospace Engineer by profession, born and raised in Abadan in southwestern Iran and
completed his high school there. Came to the United States as a student in 1970, completed
and obtained an Engineering degree from the City University of New York in 1975 an MBA
from Lindenwold University in St. Louis and a PhD in International Economics.
Worked as an engineer and a scientist for 40 years in US Government, the U.S. defense and
aerospace industries – he is currently retired.
For the past 40 years, Karim worked tirelessly and passionately on behalf of the oppressed
and marginalized national, ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities in Iran. A former
political prisoner where he spent 2 years in the Evin prison in Tehran during the Shah for his
political actictivities.
Karim works closely with UN Human Rights Council, with UN Permanent Forum of
Indigenous peoples and with UN Minority Forum. From 2004 2008, served as a member of
the presidency of Unrepresented Peoples and Nations Organization (UNPO) a European
international NGO that represent over 40 nations and peoples unrepresented in the United
Nation.
A also the president of Ahwaz Educational and Human Rights Foundation and he is a senior
advisor to the Democratic Solidarity Party of Ahwaz (DSPA) and a member of the foreign
relations committee of Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran (CNFI) a coalition of
Iranian opposition groups.
A commentator on the Middle East and Iran issues, he writes a semi-weekly column in
Arabic in Sharq-Awsat, the most prestigious Arab daily based in London. He is a frequent
gust in English, Persian and Arabic media outlets such as VOA, Aljazeera, Al-Arabia, Radio
Farda, BBC, Kudissh-24, German Radio & TV, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, and
others.
Ali Al-Taie
Sociologist & Author of "Ethnic Identity Crisis in Iran"
Is Arab-American originally from al-Ahwaz. He earned his BA and MA in social science at the University of Tehran, his doctorate in sociology from the University of Oklahoma, where his dissertation (1982) included in the main the Causes of the Iranian 1979 Revolution. He worked for five years as local employee with the League of Arab States in its former Arab Information Center in Dallas, Texas. He taught sociology in several schools, and chaired a Social Science Department
until he resigned his position few years ago, to serve cultural consultant in the private sector. He has published in English, Arabic, and Farsi, including Ethnic Identity Crisis in Iran. He is currently engaged in two major research themes: The Phenomenon of the Arabs in Firdawsi’s Shah-Nameh; and The Arabs of al-Ahwaz. Dr. Al-Taie conceptualizes this particular theme under the title Tafris (Arabic=Persianization), which is the embedded ethnic ordeal imposed by the state since 1925.
Habib Azarsina
President
Azerbaijani Community - USA
Habib Azarsina was born and raised in city of Urmia in West Azerbaijan province in Iran. Habib came to the United States as a college student in 1976 and has been living here since then. He learned how to write in his native language of Azerbaijani here in the United States. As a student activist he has fought for the rights of all ethnic groups in Iran. He has been a US citizen for more than 20 years. Habib worked as a journalist and editor for Voice of America for more than
10 years. He has been an active member of Azerbaijani diaspora. He is very proud of organizing the first rally in front of the former Soviet embassy in Washington DC to protest Black January occupation of Baku by the Red Army. Habib considers himself a human rights activist and has tried to raise awareness about situation of non-Persian ethnic groups in Iran by organizing rallies in
Washington DC. He has written articles in Gozaar online magazine about situation of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran.
Salah Bayaziddi
US Representative
Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan
Salah joined the Komala party at a young age and became an activist in the Kurdish struggle against oppression of the Iranian regime. In 1982, he was arrested by the regime’s security. Salah survived over two years of gruesome torture and solitary confinement for his belief in a free Iran that allows for the equality of all. Following Salah’s release from prison, he was under strict watch by the regime. From 1984 to 1990, Salah was deprived the right to study, deprived the right to work, deprived the right to travel abroad, and many more oppressions to human rights. In 1990, Salah had to escape Iran illegally through the mountains of Turkey. He approached the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ankara, Turkey. He was then accepted as a new immigrant to Canada. In 1991, Salah resettled in Toronto, Canada. He remained active in the Komala party, and striving for Kurdish and Iranian rights. Following the 14th Congress in July 2014, Salah was elected as a member of the Central Committee of Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
In 1979, Salah joined the Komala party at a young age and became an activist in the Kurdish struggle against oppression of the Iranian regime. In 1982, he was arrested by the regime’s security. Salah survived over two years of gruesome torture and solitary confinement for his belief in a free Iran that allows for the equality of all.
Following Salah’s release from prison, he was under strict watch by the regime. From 1984 to 1990, Salah was deprived the right to study, deprived the right to work, deprived the right to travel abroad, and many more oppressions to human rights.
In 1990, Salah had to escape Iran illegally through the mountains of Turkey. He approached the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ankara, Turkey. He was then accepted as a new immigrant to Canada.
In 1991, Salah resettled in Toronto, Canada. He remained active in the Komala party, and striving for Kurdish and Iranian rights.
Following the 14th Congress in July 2014, Salah was elected as a member of the Central Committee of Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
During the 1990s, Mohtadi strongly advocated the need for a radical change in the Iranian oppositions’ way of thinking. He argued that they should adapt to the needs of the time and put democracy first.
An accomplished writer, Mohtadi has written intensely on Kurdish and Iranian politics. He left his doctoral studies in London in 1997 to dedicate his time to the Komala cause. He had a pivotal role in making deep political changes in the Komala Party, including its affiliation to social democracy. Since then, he has presided over a period of rapid revival and growth for the party.
Mohtadi stands for a democratic, pluralist and non-centralist Iran that lives in peace with its diverse cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic population, its neighbors and the world.
An experienced Kurdish leader and a well-known figure in the Iranian opposition, Mohtadi is now the official leader of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
Dr. M. Hossein Bor
Of Counsel
Entwistle & Cappucci LLP
Dr. M. Hossein Bor is the Chairman of American-Baluch Council and a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia. Currently, he serves as Of Counsel to the law firm of Entwistle & Cappucci LLP (www.entwistle-law.com) headquartered in New York. His areas of practice include
international law, international relations, energy and petroleum, international trade, international transactions, corporate law, contracts, and administrative law.
Dr. Bor has a wide range of experience in both public and private sectors. During 2001-2004, Dr. Bor assisted and advised the US Government on counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and policy formulations towards the Middle East and South Asia. Dr. Bor also represented the Interim
Government of Afghanistan on pro-bono basis and assisted that Government in raising resources for its rule-of-law program directed at strengthening the Ministry of Justice, the Court Systems, and the Office of the Attorney General. Prior to that, Dr. Bor served as Energy and Economic
Advisor to the Embassy of the State of Qatar in Washington, DC from 1982 to 1998.
Dr. Bor also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Catholic University of America from 1999 to 2003. He has written extensively on various issues relating to the Middle East, including the critically regarded book Iran and Its Nationalities: The Case of Baluch Nationalisn, Karachi:
Pakistan Adab Publication, 2000. Dr. Bor has also appeared widely on television and radio broadcasts, including the Voice of America and BBC. As the Chairman of American-Baluch Council, Dr. Bor represents and advocates the rights of Iranian Sunnis and the Baluch in the US. Dr. Bor
also works on a pro bono basis in promoting human rights of Iranian Sunnis and other religious and ethnic minorities including Iranian Arabs, Baluch, Kurds, Turks, and Turkmens. He has written extensively on minorities in Iran and has testified numerous times on human rights of Iranian Sunnis and Baluch in the US Congress. Dr. Bor received a Master’s degree in Comparative Law from George Washington University Law School and Ph.D. and Master’s Degree in International Law and International Relations from the American University in Washington, DC.
Neil Hicks
Director, Human Rights Promotion
Human Rights First
Neil Hicks advises Human Rights First programs on a wide variety of international human rights issues, and serves as a resource to the organization in identifying opportunities to advance human rights around the world. Neil also writes and conducts advocacy on issues relating to human rights promotion in the Muslim world, and on the impact of counterterrorism measures on human rights. Between 2002 – 2007, Neil was the director of the Human Rights Defenders Program.
Neil is a member of the Egypt Working Group, a bi-partisan group of policy experts that has been advocating for democratic change in Egypt since prior to the popular uprising that overthrew President Mubarak in February 2011.
Before joining Human Rights First, Neil worked as a researcher for the Middle East Department of Amnesty International in London, where he worked between 1985 and 1991. He has also served as human rights project officer of Birzeit University in the West Bank.
In 2000-2001, Neil took a year-long sabbatical from Human Rights First; he spent his leave as a Senior Fellow in the Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program of the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. Neil is the author of many reports and scholarly articles, including, “Transnational Human Rights Networks and Human Rights in Egypt,” in Anthony Chase and Amr Hamzawy (ed.) Human Rights in the Arab World, Independent Voices, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, and The Impact of Counter Terror on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: A Global Perspective, in Richard Wilson (ed.) Human Rights in an Age of Terrorism; Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Neil holds a B.A. (Hons.) in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from St. Cuthbert’s Society, University of Durham (1983) and studied at the Arabic Language Unit of the American University in Cairo (1981/82). He studied international refugee law at the Refugee Studies Program, Oxford University (1991). Neil has taught Human Rights in the Middle East at Fordham Law School. Neil has published articles on human rights in such publications as The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Al-Ahram Weekly.
Ava Homa
Kurdish writer, editor and university lecturer
Ava Homa is a critically acclaimed writer, speaker, and activist. She holds a Master’s degree in Creative Writing, another in English Language and Literature, and a diploma in Editing. Her writing has appeared in various publications across Canada, United States, and England. Her collection of short stories, Echoes from the Other Land, was nominated for the Frank O’Conner Short Story Prize and secured a place among the ten winners of the CBC Readers’ Choice Contest, running concurrently with the Giller Prize. For more information please visit her website: www.AvaHoma.com
Saad Eddin Ibrahim
Chair, Ibn Khaldun Center, Cairo Egypt
Currently:
Professor of Political Sociology at the American University in Cairo; Secretary General of the Egyptian Independent Commission for Electoral Review (ICER); President of Cairo’s Union of Social Professions; Trustee of the Arab Thought Forum (Amman, Jordan); Member of the Club of Rome (Paris); Chairman of the Board of the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies; Member of the World Bank’s Advisory Council for Environmentally Sustainable Development (Washington D.C.); member of the Board of Minority Rights Group (London); Middle East International Forum (Terra Media); Transparency International’s Council on Governance; International Bureau for Children Rights’ Board of Directors; and chairman of the board of Egyptian Enlightenment Association.
Formerly:
Taught at Cairo University; the American University of Beirut; Indiana-Purdu University; De Pauw University; University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); and University of Washington. Served as Director of the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Cairo; Founder and first Secretary General of the Arab Organization for Human Rights (Cairo); Sec. General of the Arab Thought Forum (Amman, Jordan), Secretary General of the Arab Council of Childhood and Development; Master Juror of the Agha Khan Award of Islamic Architecture (Geneva); President of Al-Sabbah Publishing House; Board Member and Head of Arab Affairs of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
Awards:
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The Whistle-Blower Award of The London-based Censorship Index. (2002)
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The New York-Based Lawyer’s Committee Award. (2002)
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The Freedom House BetteBao Lord Award for Defense of Human Rights (2002).
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The German Ulrich-Zwiner Prize for Peace, International Understanding and Human Rights (2002).
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The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Award for Academic Freedom (2001).
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The Freedom House Award for Promotion of Religious Tolerance (1999).
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The Jordanian Order of Independence (1990).
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The Bahrain Merit Award of Educational Research (1988).
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The Kuwait Award in Social and Economic Sciences (1985).
Author of the following books: Sociology of the Arab-Israel Conflict; Kissinger and the Middle East Conflict; American Presidential Elections and the Middle East; Arabism in Egypt; Population and Urbanization in Morocco; Bridging the Gap: Intellectuals and Decision Makers in the Arab World; The New Arab Social Order; Egypt in Quarter of a Century; Bedouins of Saudi Arabia; Society and State in the Arab World; Egypt and the Arab World; Rehabilitation of Sadat; the Great Arab Sedition in the Gulf; and Family, Gender and Population in the Middle East; Egypt, Islam and Democracy. Edited several books and authored over one hundred scholarly articles in Arabic and English periodicals, some of which were translated into as many as 13 languages; most cited of which are those on Islamic Activism, Civil Society, and Democratization in the Arab World.
Media:
Has appeared on all major world TV networks (CNN, BBC, CBS, NBC); and has his own weekly show (off the Limelight) on the main channel of the Egyptian TV.
Education:
B.A. honors, Cairo University (1960); Ph.D. University of Washington (1968).
Born in Mansura, Egypt (Dec. 3, 1938), Married to Dr. Barbara Lethem Ibrahim, has a daughter (Randa) and a son (Amir).
Mehrangiz Kar
Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and author of Crossing the Red Line
Mehrangiz Kar is a writer, attorney, and activist specializing in women's rights and family law. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Gender and Women's Studies Department of California State University Northridge (CSUN). Prior to this fellowship, she worked as a senior expert at Family Health International (FHI), a Washington DC-based international development organization, where focuses on Islamic law and gender in the Middle East.Having practiced law in the Islamic Republic of Iran for 22 years, she published numerous books and articles on issues related to law, gender equality and democracy in Iran and abroad. She was formerly a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Brown University, University of Cape Town, Wellesley College, and Brookings Institution. Kar has received several international awards for her human rights endeavors including National Endowment for Democracy’s Democracy Award, Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize, and the Human Rights First Award.
Haideh Sahim
Haideh Sahim is a translator of Persian and a scholar of Iranian studies. She has taught Persian language and literature and the history of Iran and Islam at New York University, Columbia University, Hofstra University and Queens College in New York. She served as Executive Director of the International Society for Iranian Studies and is an officer of the American Association of Teachers of Persian. She also participated in the Encyclopædia Iranica project at Columbia University.
Ms. Sahim is a graduate of Tehran University and New York University, where she concentrated on Iranian Linguistics and Ancient Culture and Iranian history, respectively. She has carried out research on Iranian dialects and Jews of Iran and has spoken and published widely on these subjects.
Major publications, in addition to numerous encyclopedia entries, include “Two Wars, Two Cities, Two Religions: The Jews of Mashhad and the Herat Wars,” chapter in The Jews of Iran: The History, Religion, and Culture of a Community in the Islamic World, Houman Sarshar, ed. (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), pp. 75-108; “Jews of Iran in the Qajar Period: Persecution and Perseverance”, in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, Robert Gleave, ed. (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005) 293-310; “Jewish Languages Enter the Modern Era: Languages and Literatures of Jews of Iran and Afghanistan” and “Iran and Afghanistan”, in The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times, Reeva S. Simon et al, eds. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003) 133-41 and 367-88; “Languages and Dialects of the Jews of Iran and Afghanistan”, in Esther’s Children: A Portrait of Iranian Jews, Houman Sarshar, ed. (Beverly Hills, CA: Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History, 2002), 175-96 and 283-294, respectively; and “The Dialect of the Jews of Hamedan,” in Irano-Judaica III (1994) 171-81.
Mona Silavo
AHRO Representative at EU parliament, Brussels
Ms. Mona Silavi is a human right and women rights activist from Ahwaz . She obtained her bachelor in psychology and specialized in children and adolescence psychology in Damascus university ,faculty of psychology and education . She started her activities in Damascus ,and was a member of Ahwazi Arab student association . During the early months of her stay in Syria ,the uprising of 2005 took place in Ahwaz ,consequently a large number of Arab ethnic right activist and their family members fled to Syria to ask asylum through the UNHCR office in Damascus . Ms.Silavi ' s assistance and guidance to the new refugees was soon discovered by the Iranian embassy in Damascus and during the subsequent years until her fled from Syria after the breakout of the war in 2012 ,she was constantly harassed and was interrogated in the Iranian embassy multiple times .As a result of this discovery her family was also gravely affected. Mr.Yousef Silavi ,father of Ms.Silavi is one of many victims of enforced and involuntary disappearance since 2010. According to Silavi this disappearance can only be interpreted as an act of revenge against her civil activities ,as he was in no shape or form involved in any activities of political or civil nature. Since 2014 Ms.Silavi lives in Belgium as a political asylee . She is also the representative of Ahwaz Human Rights Organization in Brussels . In March 2016 Ms.Silavi alongside other Ahwazi Arab women rights activist in diaspora established the Voice of Ahwazi Woman Organization in an attempt to raise the awareness of Ahwazi women about their right in the light of Iranian patriarchal society on one hand and their struggle in their tribal community on the other and secondly to draw the international attention to the plight of women in Iran ,especially women of ethnic groups .
Elahé Sharifpour Hicks
Executive Director
Partners for Rights
Elahé Sharifpour Hicks is a leading Iranian-American human rights activists. Ms. Hicks, who was educated in Iran at the University of Tehran Faculty of Law and Political Science, came to the United States in 1987. She obtained an LLM from Fordham Law School in New York in 1991 and began her career with international organizations focusing on human rights issues. She contributed to a report on the legal system of the Islamic Republic of Iran published by the (then) Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in 1992. Between 1994 and 2003 she was the researcher on Iran for HRW, where she wrote numerous reports on human rights issues in Iran and conducted advocacy with Iranian officials. She traveled to Iran repeatedly on human rights missions during that
period, meeting with many leading Iranian activists. Ms. Hicks was instrumental in bringing prominent human rights lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, on her first advocacy visits to the United States in 1996 and 1998. Throughout her time with HRW, Ms. Hicks supported the work of the U.N. Special Representative on Iran, who, for most of that period was Maurice Copithorne of Canada.
Ms. Hicks has also worked for the United Nations serving as a human rights officer in both Haiti and in Iraq. In 2004, she was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations high level task force on U.S. – Iranian relations, chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski and former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. Since 2004 Ms. Hicks has worked as an independent broadcaster and commentator for Voice of America television and Radio Free Europe providing regular broadcast content on human rights issues to the Persian speaking audience.
Ms. Hicks has developed a project for training Iranian lawyers on using United Nations human rights mechanisms in their legal practice in Iran. To date 18 lawyers have benefited from this training, carried out in Geneva, and they have passed on their expertise to hundreds of their colleagues practicing in a variety of human rights fields throughout Iran.
In 1997, she wrote a report for HRW about the religious and ethnic minorities in Iran. see the link:
Also in 2001 as HRW representative, she went to Iran to attend the trial of 13 Iranian Jews who were sentenced to death in Shiraz.
Joe Stork
Deputy Director for the Middle East Division
Human Rights Watch
JOE STORK is Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, based in Washington, DC. He supervises the research and reporting of field staff, represents the division in meetings with government officials, and responds to inquiries from the media. His current work focuses on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by states and armed groups and freedom of religion issues in Egypt. He has covered developments in Bahrain for HRW since his first visit there in 1996.
Before joining Human Rights Watch, he co-founded the Middle East Research & Information Project (MERIP) and from 1971 to 1995 was the chief editor of Middle East Report, its bimonthly magazine. His books include Erased in a Moment: Suicide Bombing Attacks against Israeli Civilians (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002) and Routine Abuse, Routine Denial: Civil Rights and the Political Crisis in Bahrain (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1997). He co-authored the introductory essay for Political Islam, a book he co-edited and which was published by the University of California Press in 1997. From 1999 to 2006 he served as chair of the Middle East Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom.
Anthony N. Vance
Director of Public Affairs
Bahai’s of the United States
Anthony Vance oversees the development of the office’s programs and strategic direction. He
joined the office in 2010 after spending four years at the Baha’i World Center in Haifa, Israel
representing it to the diplomatic community, civil society, and parts of the host government. A
lawyer by training, he spent 21 years in the U.S. Agency for International Development in legal
and managerial positions in Washington, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Botswana, and Egypt. Anthony
holds a B.A. in Economics, an MBA, and a J.D. from Harvard University.