11th Geneva Summit – Mar. 26, 2019

9:30 Welcome

• Hillel Neuer
  Executive Director of United Nations Watch, on behalf of 25 NGO co-sponsors of the Geneva Summit

9:45 Opening Address

• James Kirchick, Journalist, author, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution

10:00 Struggle for Democracy in Latin America

Moderator: Centa Rek, Senior Legal and Policy Associate, Human Rights Foundation

• Juan Carlos Gutierrez, Human Rights Lawyer, President of the World Jurist Association’s Human Rights Institute
• Diego Arria, Advocate for Venezuelan human rights, former Ambassador to the UN and President of the Security Council
• Felix Maradiaga, Nicaraguan opposition leader targeted with false criminal charges

 Political Prisoners as a Looking Glass into the Resurgent Authoritarianism

• Prof. Irwin Cotler, Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General, advocate for political prisoners, legal scholar

11:00 Why our Father is in Prison: a Conversation with the Family of Raif Badawi

Interviewer: Dr. Elham Manea, Professor at the University of Zurich

• Ensaf Haidar, Human rights activist, wife of Saudi political prisoner Raif Badawi
• Najwa Badawi, Daughter of Raif Badawi
• Tirad Badawi, Son of Raif Badawi
• Miriyam Badawi, Daughter of Raif Badawi

11:30 Confronting Oppression, Defending Human Rights

Moderator: Michael Levitt, Canadian MP, Chair of Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee

• Ketty Nivyabandi, Poet and exiled Burundian democracy activist, led a movement of women-only protest
• Nurcan Baysal, Award-winning Kurdish journalist and activist, recently detained by Turkey
• Abdalaziz Alhamza, Co-founder and spokesperson for Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a citizen journalist group reporting Syrian war news and human rights abuses by the Islamic state

12:10 Presentation of 2019 International Women’s Rights Award

Presenter: Michael Beuret, Journalist, Head of Editorial Content at Fondation Hirondelle

Recipient: Nimco Ali, Co-Founder of Daughters of Eve, advocate for women and girls at risk for female genital mutilation, survivor

————– 12:30 Lunch —————-

14:00 Do Human Rights Matter? 

• Ambassador Alfred H. Moses, Chair of United Nations Watch

14:15 Supporting Political Prisoners

Moderator: Yang Jianli, President of Initiatives for China, former political prisoner

• Nguyen Van Dai, Vietnamese human rights lawyer just released from prison
• Richard Ratcliffe, Husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, British-Iranian citizen imprisoned in Iran on spurious charges
• Vicente de Lima II, Brother of Philippines Senator Leila de Lima, currently imprisoned for criticizing President Duterte’s Drug War

15:00 Panel Discussion: How can we make a difference? 

Moderator: Paulina Neuding, European Editor of Quillette, Swedish writer and columnist

• James Kirchick, Journalist, author, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution
• Michael Levitt, Canadian MP, Chair of Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee
• Dr. Elham Manea, Professor at the University of Zurich
• Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of United Nations Watch, on behalf of 25 NGO co-sponsors of the Geneva Summit

16:00 Presentation of Geneva Summit 2019 Courage Award

• Dhondup Wangchen, Tibetan flimmaker and activist, jailed 6 years in Chinese prison

16:30 End of Summit