Anwar Al-Bunni is a leading human rights lawyer now based in Berlin and founded the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research and he is centrally involved in efforts to secure international arrest warrants against the leaders of the Syrian regime under universal jurisdiction. In Syria, he spent his entire career defending often pro bono those who spoke out against the regime like intellectuals, peaceful political activists, and human rights defenders especially those involved in the ‘Damascus Spring’. He and his family suffered extreme harassment and was even disbarred from the Damascus Bar Association multiple times. In 2007 he was jailed for 5 years and tortured by prison staff before being forced to flee Syria when the regime intensified its brutal military response to the 2011 peaceful uprising.

Yara Bader is a Syrian journalist and human rights, activist. Yara leads the independent Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, founded in Damascus in 2004, along with her husband, leading human rights lawyer and free speech advocate Mazen Darwish.

Mouaz Moustafa is currently the Executive Director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), Political Director of United for a Free Syria (UFS), and serves on the Government Relations Committee of the Coalition for a Democratic Syria (CDS).

Mazen Darwish is one of the best-known Syrian human rights lawyers and journalists who have been centrally involved in efforts to achieve justice and accountability in Syria. Founder of the Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression (SCM) in 2004. Mazen has played a leading role in seeking to secure freedom and respect for human rights through the peaceful uprising in 2011 and until his arrest in 2012 with 13 of his SCM colleagues. Imprisoned and tortured until his release in 2015 when he left the country to continue his work in Paris and has, like Anwar Al-Bunni heavily involved through his work in helping to secure international arrest against key Syria regime leaders.

Majeda Khoury is a chef, human rights, and feminist activist from Syria. Khoury fled to the UK in 2017 after being imprisoned and having to leave Syria because of her human rights work. Khoury stated, “Since I arrived in London I have used my food as a way of bringing people together and raising awareness about the effects of the war in Syria on its civilian population, a cause which is very important to me.”

Riyad Avalar was arrested as a 19-year-old student who had gone to Syria to learn Arabic and spent 21 years in the Syria regime’s notorious prisons and fifteen of those years as ‘disappeared’. Tortured during that long time in prison for the “crime” of writing an article about one of the regime’s notorious prisons - Tadmur - which had been intercepted when he posted it back home to Turkey. However, he emerged from prison determined to do something to help secure the freedom of those still detained and founded The Association of Detainees and The Missing in Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP) - one of the regime’s worst prisons and described by Amnesty International as “a human slaughterhouse.’”

Najah al-Bukai is a Syrian artist living and working in exile in France. A former detainee who was tortured and has recorded through his paintings and drawings some of the most egregious crimes and conditions endured by prisoners in Syrian regime torture prisons. Born in 1970 in Homs, Syria, Najah Albukai studied successively at the Beaux-Arts in Damascus and then at the Beaux-Arts in Rouen. A victim of state brutality, he faced some of the worst horrors of the country’s regime. Najah was arrested and tortured several times between 2012 – 2015 in Damascus within the detention center known as Branch 227 and by the Syrian intelligence services. He managed to escape to Lebanon and arrived in France in 2017. His drawings and engravings illustrate the gripping torment he experienced in prison. He is a member of the agency of artists in exile.

Salwa Ismail is a Professor of Politics, with a focus on the Middle East, at SOAS University of London. She is a member of the London Middle East Institute and the Center for Palestine Studies. She has authored multiple books, including The Rule of Violence: Subjectivity, Memory, and Government in Syria (2018).

Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times. Visual Investigation is a new form of explanatory and accountability journalism. The Visual Investigations team combines traditional reporting with digital sleuthing and the forensic analysis of visual evidence to find truth and The Times is a pioneer in this field of journalism.

Ibrahim Alkasem is a Syrian human rights lawyer and co-founder of the Caesar Files group which he set up in order to help Syrians access information about their detained and forcibly disappeared relatives as well as obtain justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. A former political prisoner he was forced to leave Syria and is now based in Berlin, Germany.

Nerma Jelacic is Director for Management and External Relations at CIJA (Commission for International Justice and Accountability). A former journalist with the Observer and The Financial Times she is a seasoned investigative reporter specialising in the subjects of war crimes and organised crime.

Ahmed Helmi founded Ta’afi to help those like himself who were imprisoned and tortured for their peaceful activism against the Assad regime. Ta’afi is “a Syrian survivors’ led, survivors’ centered initiative that aims to support and protect victims of detention, torture, and enforced disappearance upon their release and settlement at a secure location, so that they may continue to peacefully support human rights change in Syria and pursue justice and accountability.”

Mary Kaldor is a Professor of Global Governance and Director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit in the LSE Department of International Development. Professor Kaldor pioneered the concept of new wars and global civil society and her work on the practical implementation of human security has directly influenced European and national politics. Her books include New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War, Human Security: Reflections on Globalization and Intervention and International Law and New Wars, co-authored with Professor Christine Chinkin.

Kristyan Benedict is crisis response & tactical campaigns manager for Amnesty International UK. One of his main areas of responsibility is Syria.

Kate Starbird is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington (UW) in the Department of Human-Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE). She is a research pioneer in the area of crisis informatics and online rumour.

Stephen Rapp is an ambassador and an international lawyer with several years of experience prosecuting cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity including playing a historic role as Senior Trial Attorney and Chief of Prosecutions at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he headed the trial team that achieved the first convictions in history of leaders of the mass media for the crime of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. He is also a former Ambassador-at-Large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the US State Department.

Paul Conroy is one of the world’s best-known photojournalists who has worked in combat zones in different parts of the world including Syria, Libya, and the Balkans.

Paul is also a best-selling author of Under the Wire which recounts the epic, untold account of his and legendary foreign correspondent Marie Colvin's last, tragic assignment together. Described as “a rare and touching portrait of an extraordinary woman driven by an unquenchable desire to 'bear witness’, it is as much a tale of courage and survival as it is the poignant account of a friendship forged amid the carnage of war.”

Scott Gilmore is an international lawyer with Hausfield in Washington, DC. Scot represents plaintiffs in complex cases involving human rights, environmental justice, terrorism, whistleblowers, and gross corporate misconduct. Recognized as a “Lawyer of the Week” by The Times of London, he was also named to Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Environmental & Energy Law Lawyers (2021) and 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers (2020)

Toby Cadman is head of chambers at Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers in London. Toby is an international law specialist in the areas of international humanitarian law, public international law, terrorism, extradition, prison law, mutual assistance, and human rights law. He lectures extensively on international humanitarian law, criminal procedure, and human rights law and has provided extensive advice and training to judges, prosecutors, and defense lawyers throughout the Balkans and Southeast Asia.

Anne Barnard is an American journalist who works for The New York Times. She covers climate and environment for the Metro desk. She was Beirut bureau chief from 2012 to 2018. She joined The Times in 2007 after covering the Middle East and the Iraq war for The Boston Globe. She also worked as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Moscow Times.

Roy Gutman is one of the most distinguished foreign correspondents and journalists of his generation. Roy's honors include the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, the George Polk Award for foreign reporting, the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting, and a special Human Rights in Media Award from the International League for Human Rights. In 2016, The American Academy of Diplomacy named him to the Arthur Ross Media Award and in 2018, the American Bar Association named him to receive the Francis Shattuck Security and Peace Award.

Shevan Vanderlugt is a human rights defender and LGBT activist who was imprisoned and tortured by the Assad regime in Syria. He now lives in the Netherlands where he has become a citizen after managing to flee from Syria. He is also a life coach and motivational speaker drawing in his life story and personal experience in helping others. He is also currently completing a book about his experience in Syria.

Ramzi Choukair is a French Syrian actor and theatre director, who currently lives in Marseille, France. As a director, he is known for Al-Zîr Sâlem, Prince Hamlet, and The Women Assembly. Ramzi acted in plays such as Romeo and Juliet by André Serre, Les Epines by Manuel Gigi, The Seagull by Tatiana Arkhabitsova, Hiroshima mon amour by Julien Bouffier, and Chronicles of a City We Never Know by Mohamad Al Rashi and Wael Kadour. As an actor, he won the Helen Hayes Award for Best Actor in 2016.

Estelle Renavant is a leading French theatre producer now living in Marseille.

Marc Nelson was born and raised in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Marc earned his bachelor of arts degree from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, an art education teaching certificate from Western Illinois University, and a Masters in Art degree from Eastern Illinois University. Marc’s paintings and drawings have been featured on CNN, BBC, DW, AJ+, NPR, CBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post (link) Enab Baladi, and other news and human rights agencies. He has held exhibitions across Iowa and Illinois, and his work appears in public and private collections around the world. Marc’s work has been included in international publications and documentaries. Marc and his wife, writer, and educator Jill Bartelt, live and work in Kewanee, Illinois.