Media Advisory: "Human Rights Summit Opens Today in Geneva; 800 Victims, Dissidents, Activists, Diplomats Participating From 67 Countries"
08 March 2010

 Media Advisory

 
Human Rights Summit Opens Today in Geneva

800 Victims, Dissidents, Activists, Diplomats Participating From 67 Countries

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• MEDIA KIT WITH BACKGROUND ON SPEAKERS: ENGLISH;  FRENCH.
• PROGRAM BELOW

  Source: Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy (http://www.genevasummit.org)

  GENEVA, March 8, 2010 - Today and tomorrow, March 8-9, 2010, renowned dissidents, rights activists and experts will come together in Geneva, Switzerland, to urge action against rights abusers, boost democracy dissidents worldwide, and issue a call for internet freedom.

  Prominent figures addressing the second annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy include Caspian Makan, the fiancé of slain Iranian icon Neda Agha Soltan, Massouda Jalal, first female presidential candidate of Afghanistan, and Robert Boorstin, Google's Director of Corporate and Policy Communications, who will address censorship and internet freedom.The two-day schedule features more than 20 action-oriented presentations and skills-building workshops, exploring a variety of topics, with the objective of advancing the struggle of dissidents against state repression, internet freedom, and reform of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council.

  The 2nd annual Geneva Summit is organized by a global civil society coalition of 25 human rights groups, including Freedom House, Ibuka, UN Watch, and Burmese, Tibetan and Zimbabwean organizations, with support from the Canton of Geneva. (Click here for full list of sponsors.)

  Co-chairing the summit’s honorary committee are two of the world’s most recognized former dissidents: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Walesa and playwright Vaclav Havel, the former presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic.
  
  Other featured speakers include former political prisoners from around the world, including Rebiya Kadeer, champion of China’s Uighur minority and Nobel Peace Prize nominee; Bo Kyi, Burmese dissident, winner of the 2008 Human Rights Watch Award; Donghyuk Shin, survivor of North Korean prison camps; Simon Deng, Sudanese rights activist, former slave; and Phuntsok Nyidron, the Buddhist nun from Tibet who served 15 years in jail for recording songs of freedom.

  The Geneva Summit will also feature eminent governmental and intergovernmental advocates for human rights, including Italian MP Matteo Mecacci, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Rapporteur for democracy and human rights; Jan Pronk, former Special Representative in Sudan of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; and Canadian MP and former Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler, Special Counsel on Human Rights and International Justice for the Liberal party. 
  
  Last year’s summit, covered by CNN, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal, brought together former political prisoners Saad Eddin Ibrahim of Egypt, Ahmad Batebi of Iran, José Gabriel Ramón Castillo of Cuba and Soe Aung of Burma, along with other well-known rights activists.
  
  Admission is free. For accreditation and more information, visit http://www.genevasummit.org/. The full program is available below.----------------------------------------------------------------
   

  • The Geneva Summit will offer live webcast of all its sessions at www.genevasummit.org.
  • Follow GenevaSummit on Twitter for brief updates of the debates.
  • The Geneva Summit Facebook fan page will provide substantive summaries at the end of every panel session.
  • Archived video will be available on YouTube, shortly after each session.
    
     

  Media Contact

  To arrange interviews or for more information, contact:
  Arielle Herzog, media@genevasummit.org

  
   

  PROGRAM

  Monday, March 8, 2010

  8:00   Registration

  9:00   Welcome by John Suarez, International Secretary of Directorio on behalf of the Geneva Summit coalition

  9:10   Welcome by the Canton of Geneva, Isabel Rochat, Conseillère d’Etat
  

  9:20   Rising Powers, Rising Rights Compliance? Case Study of China

  • Chair: Amb. Alfred Moses, Chair of UN Watch
  • Rebiya Kadeer, Uighur rights champion, former political prisoner, Nobel Peace Prize nominee
  • Yang Jianli, Activist in 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, former political prisoner, founder of Initiatives for China
  • Phuntsok Nyidron, Buddhist nun, Tibet’s longest serving female political prisoner

  11:00   Tribute to International Women’s Day
                Women and the Right to Equality 

  • Irwin Cotler, Canadian MP, former minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Professor, Human Rights Activist
  • Massouda Jalal, Afghanistan's first female candidate for presidency, former Minister of Women's Affairs

  12:30   Lunch

  13:30   Authoritarianism and Dissent: 21st Century Horizons 

  • Chair: Matteo Mecacci, Italian MP, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Rapporteur for Rights and Democracy
  • Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo, Cuban dissident and prisoner of conscience
  • Tamara Suju, Venezuelan human rights lawyer
  • Donghyuk Shin, North Korean dissident, survivor of prison labor camps
  • Bo Kyi, Burmese dissident, former political prisoner
  • Dewa Mavhinga, Zimbabwean Lawyer and Researcher

  15:30   Genocide and the Humanitarian Challenge: Case Study of Sudan

  • Chair: Colum de Sales Murphy, President of the Geneva School of Diplomacy
  • Simon Deng, Sudanese rights activist, former slave
  • Jan Pronk, Former Special Representative in Sudan of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
  • Amer Adam Hesabu, Darfur refugee, Chair of Darfur Community in the UK

  17:00   Human Rights Advocacy: Skills-Building Workshops (concurrent):
  
               Defending Prisoners of Conscience and UN Mechanisms
               Jared Genser and Maran Turner, Freedom Now

               New Media for Human Rights: Activism in the Internet Age
               Yves Bennaim, New Media Consultant

               Human Rights Advocacy in the International Arena
               Paula Schriefer, Freedom House
   ____________________________
  
  Tuesday, March 9, 2010

  9:00   Censorship and Internet Freedom

  • Darius Rochebin, News Anchorman for Television Suisse Romande
  • Robert Boorstin, Director of Corporate and Policy Communications, Google
  • Alexander Ntoko, Head, Corporate Strategy Division, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

  10:30   Next Generation: Young Rights Defenders and the Blogosphere

  • Chair: Naomi Ichihara Rokkum, Vice-President of ILFRY
  • Ruslan Asadov, Co-Leader of the OL! Youth Movement, Azerbaijan
  • Diego Scharifker, Venezuelan student leader
    
  • Duy Hoang, spokesman of Viet Tan, an unsanctioned pro-democracy political party in Vietnam

  12:00   Lunch

  13:30   Free and Fair Elections — Case Study: Iran 

  • Chair: Stephane Bussard , UN correspondent for Le Temps
  • Caspian Makan, Human Rights Activist, Fiancé of Neda
  • David Suurland, Expert on Internet freedom, Activist for Iranian protest movement
     

  15:00   Freedom of Expression: Key Battlegrounds

  • Chair: Guy Mettan, Director of the Swiss Press Club, journalist, President of the Geneva Parliament
  • Pierre Fournel, Director of LICRA
  • Prof. Cole Durham, BYU legal scholar, member of OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief
  • Renata Arianingtyas, Program Officer for Pluralism, Tifa Foundation, Indonesia
     

  16:30   Towards the 2011 Reform: Can the UN Human Rights Council Be Fixed?

  • Chair: Frank Jordans, Associated Press reporter at the United Nations in Geneva
  • Edward Mortimer, Vice-president, Salzburg Seminar, former Chief Speechwriter and Director of Communications in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
  • Hillel Neuer, UN Watch Executive Director, vice-president of Conference of NGOs Geneva Special Committee on Human Rights

  18:30   Dissidents Announce Internet Freedom Declaration

              Concluding Remarks