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Rushan Abbas is a Uyghur American activist and advocate from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. She is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs and was elected the Chairperson of the Executive Committee of World Uyghur Congress in October 2024. Abbas became one of the most prominent Uyghur voices in international activism following her sister's detainment by the Chinese government in 2018. Abbas also serves as Chair of the Advisory Board of Germany's Axel Springer Freedom Foundation and as a board member of the Task Force on Human Trafficking within the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum.

Joey Siu is a Washington, DC-based human rights advocate and Executive Council member of the World Liberty Congress, a global coalition of pro-democracy advocates. As a student leader, she played a crucial role during the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019, organizing both on-campus and city-wide demonstrations. She also co-founded a student coalition that focused on international advocacy efforts for Hong Kong.

Mai Khoi is an award-winning singer, composer, and activist. She rose to stardom in 2010 after winning the Vietnam Television Song and Album of the Year awards as one of the first female songwriters in Vietnam. As a pop star, Khoi released seven albums in genres of Vietnamese pop and dance, and made regular nationally televised performances. Several years later she became increasingly uncomfortable having to submit her work to government censors and, thinking she could reform the system from within, nominated herself to run in the National Assembly elections on a pro-democracy platform.

A prominent voice for Uyghurs, Rahima is a human rights activist and distinguished Uyghur singer who has played a pivotal role in leading the movement to end complicity and drive action against the genocide occurring in her homeland. 

Fengsuo Zhou was a key student leader who helped organize the great democratic movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989 while he was a physics student at Tsinghua University. He was elected to the Executive Committee of Beijing Independent Student Alliance after Li Peng declared martial law in 1989. He was number 5 on the 21 most wanted list of student leaders after the massacre in June 1989. After spending a year in prison, he was released in 1990 due to international support. He came to the United States in 1995 and received an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Business School in 1998.

Sunny Cheung is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Flow HK Media, with an audience group from more than 10 countries, which aims to combat authoritarian propaganda and promote democracy by providing in-depth analysis and investigative reporting. He also leads multiple diasporic projects overseas and advises the Hong Kong Democracy Council on human rights issues and Chinese politics in Washington, D.C. He has consulted for the U.S. State Department, the Taiwanese government, and different INGOs.  He was the SNF Agora-RDI Dissident-in-Residence for the 2023-2024 Academic Year.

Anna Kwok is the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), a leading nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and Hong Kongers in the United States. Under her leadership, HKDC advances Hong Kongers’ fight for basic human rights by fostering a coherent and collaborative community overseas. This is done through its three pillars of work: policy advocacy, diaspora empowerment, and research and education. HKDC actively monitors and documents the plight of political prisoners, as well as the Hong Kong government’s attempts to influence American businesses and foreign policy. HKDC is sanctioned and censored by the PRC and HKSAR governments.

Mu Sochua is an outspoken activist and a former opposition politician from Cambodia. She left for the US as the Vietnam war was spreading and returned in 1991 to rebuild Cambodia, first by founding Khemara, an NGO for women’s empowerment, and then by joining politics. She won a seat in Parliament, serving as Minister for Women’s and Veteran’s Affairs from 1998-2004. During her tenure, she led a nationwide campaign to combat human trafficking and domestic violence. As the government became increasingly corrupt, Sochua made the decision to step down and join the official opposition, becoming Vice President of Cambodia’s National Rescue Party that was unconstitutionally dissolved in 2017 which forced her into exile.

Kimhun Thit serves as the Chairwoman of the Cambodia National Rescue Party Americas & Overseas Women's Affairs. In 2023, Kimhun founded the Khmer Democratic Rescue Foundation (KDRF), a 501c3 organization aimed at providing aid to those that are fighting for democracy. She plays a pivotal role in advancing legislation that supports democracy and human rights in Cambodia and fights against transnational repression.

Wu'er Kaixi is an outspoken pro-democracy activist and one of the most prominent student leaders of China's 1989 Tiananmen Square movement. An ethnic Uyghur born in Beijing in 1968, he helped found an independent student union at Beijing Normal University and became a leading voice in the spring 1989 protests. He publicly rebuked Premier Li Peng in a nationally televised meeting that May, becoming a household name across China. After the June 4 crackdown, he was placed second on the government's most-wanted list and escaped through Hong Kong under Operation Yellowbird, living in France and the US before settling in Taiwan in 1996. From exile, he has continued as a political commentator and human rights advocate, today advancing the cause of democracy through his work with the Federation for a Democratic China.

Chiang Min-yen has long been active in Taiwan’s civil society. He previously served as a researcher at the Taiwan Economic Democracy Union and Secretary-General of the Taiwan Citizen Front, where he studied China’s economic coercion, organized youth communities, and advanced legal reforms promoting freedom, equality, solidarity, and sustainability. During the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, he organized solidarity rallies in Taiwan, supported protesters seeking political asylum, and later co-founded Flow HK and Hong Kong Outlanders to sustain the diaspora’s pro-democracy movement. In 2023, as an Open Technology Fund fellow, he examined how China’s AI-chip development enables digital authoritarianism, a research agenda he continues today. Chiang is pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science at Georgia State University and serves as Deputy Director for Economic Security at DSET. His OSINT-based policy research focuses on Taiwan’s critical supply-chain security and the geopolitics of emerging technologies, particularly semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and their democratic implications.

Sreynin Chhoeun is a Cambodian American youth advocate, community organizer, and public health professional committed to advancing democracy, human rights, social justice, and civic engagement. As Vice President of Global Cambodia Youth Network (GCYN), Sreynin works to connect Cambodian youth and diaspora communities around the world, amplify their voices, and create opportunities for meaningful civic participation. Sreynin believes that lasting change begins at the grassroots level, through community organizing, storytelling, and empowering young people to lead. Through advocacy, international engagement, and community partnerships, Sreynin works to build stronger connections between Cambodian communities and the broader global movement for freedom, democracy, and human rights.

Linda Ou is a Cambodian democracy and human rights advocate. She serves as Vice Chair of Foreign Relations for the Independent Cambodian Government of 23 October and as President of the Khmer Democratic Rescue Foundation, and she co-founded the KDRF Indradevi Women's Academy, a global leadership program that gives underserved women and young people access to media training, leadership development, and the skills to take part in public and civic life.

Her advocacy concentrates on women's legal empowerment, migrant workers' rights, and support for opposition figures and human rights defenders targeted by transnational repression. Working with civil society organizations, foreign policy teams, and international institutions, she presses for global attention to Cambodia's democratic backsliding and for free and fair elections. Diaspora-led organizing and coalition building are how she connects conditions on the ground to policy conversations abroad, an approach aligned with the priorities of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70): inclusive justice systems, accountability, ethical governance, and protection for communities at risk.

Ry Kea is a retired Modesto City Schools teacher who now works on Cambodian democracy from the diaspora. He serves as General Secretary of the Cambodia National Party of America and chairs Education, Human Resources, and Labor for the Independent Cambodian Government of October 23, the government in exile Sam Rainsy declared in October 2025 on the anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreements. It was announced through the Cambodia National Resistance Council, the body that carries forward the Cambodia National Rescue Party — the opposition that took 55 of 123 parliamentary seats in 2013 before Cambodia's Supreme Court dissolved it in November 2017 and barred 118 of its senior officials from politics for five years. The government in exile's stated aims are restoring democratic rule, defending Cambodian sovereignty, and confronting state-protected organized crime.

Kea is also Dean of the Dr. Kem Ley Freedom Academy, a year-long leadership program run by the Khmer Movement for Democracy that trains young Cambodians in organizing, public speaking, and community project work. The academy takes its name from Kem Ley, the political commentator and founder of the Grassroots Democracy Party who was shot dead at a Phnom Penh gas station in July 2016, days after he criticized the ruling family's wealth.

Nurcan Baysal is a Kurdish human rights defender, journalist and writer.
She was born and grew up in Diyarbakır. She has worked for poverty and development programs at the United Nations Development Programme and various other non-governmental organizations. Following the ISIS attacks in 2014 she volunteered for the establishment of Yezidi camps in Northern Iraq and Turkey. Baysal is a founder of the Diyarbakır Institute for Political and Social Research (DISA), the Development Centre Association in Diyarbakır and the Platform to Save Women Kidnapped by ISIS. She is also one of the Middle East advisors of the Global Fund for Women and the Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism.
Among her books are three non-fiction works, O Gün (That Day), Ezidiler: 73. Ferman (Ezidis: The 73rd Decree), O Sesler (Those Voices-Diyarbakır: A City Under Siege), Geride Kalanlar (Those Left Beyin- Turkey’s Lanmine Issue), a book of short-stories, Yok Zamanı (The Time of Nothingness) and a research book, Kürdistan’da Sivil Toplum (Civil Society in Kurdistan).
Since 2013, Baysal has been featured as a columnist in various newspapers and media outlets. Her articles focus on human rights violations, poverty, refugees, humanitarian issues and the Kurdish question. She is a member of PEN Turkey and an honorary member of English PEN.
Baysal won the Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life in 2010 and the “Turkey’s Changemakers” award in 2012 for her work in poverty alleviation. In 2017, she was awarded the “Brave Women Journalists Award” presented by the Italian Women Journalists Association. In 2018, she was named Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk by Front Line Defenders. She also received the Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award in 2020.

Abduweli Ayup is a Uyghur linguist and writer who was imprisoned for teaching children his own language. Born in Kashgar in 1973, he lectured for nine years at Northwest Minzu University and Xinjiang University before a Ford Foundation scholarship took him to the University of Kansas, where he earned a master's in linguistics in 2011. He returned home and opened a Uyghur-medium kindergarten in Kashgar in 2012. Authorities shut it within a year and refused to license the school he tried to open in Ürümqi.

Police arrested him in Kashgar in August 2013 and held him incommunicado for nine months before filing charges. He was accused of collecting illegal donations for the schools, convicted of misusing public funds after a one-day trial, sentenced to 18 months, and released in November 2014. He fled China in 2015 for Turkey, founded Uyghur Hjelp there in 2016, and has lived in Bergen since 2019 under the International Cities of Refuge Network.

Uyghur Hjelp documents the disappeared. Ayup compiled its public registry of Uyghur intellectuals imprisoned in China — 449 names as of the end of 2022, among them 51 university professors — and a companion list of 518 imams detained between 2016 and 2018. The registry states plainly that the real number is far higher. He testified before the Uyghur Tribunal in 2021, received the Linguapax International Award and the Linguistic Society of America's Excellence in Community Linguistics Award in 2023, and wrote the prison memoir Black Land. He still teaches Uyghur to diaspora children in Bergen.

Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal is a Thai democracy activist, publisher, writer, and conscientious objector working at the intersection of freedom of expression, human rights, education, and social justice. He is the founder and managing director of Sam Yan Press, an independent publishing house that translates and publishes works on democracy, philosophy, social movements, minority rights, and critical thought. Under his leadership, Sam Yan Press has published more than 100 titles and was shortlisted for the 2026 IPA Prix Voltaire.
Netiwit has organized numerous campaigns promoting student rights, academic freedom, democratic participation, labour rights, and the protection of cultural heritage. He is also a co-founder of initiatives supporting young conscientious objectors in Thailand and has advocated publicly for the recognition of the right to refuse compulsory military service on grounds of conscience, religion, and belief.
His activism has led to repeated legal and political pressure. He is currently facing a criminal case connected to his refusal to participate in military conscription. Despite these risks, he continues to work with civil society organizations, affected communities, students, workers, writers, and international partners to strengthen democratic participation and nonviolent social change.
Netiwit is also involved in campaigns to protect the historic Chao Mae Thapthim Shrine in Bangkok and to support migrant and construction workers affected by wage theft and insecure working conditions. His documentary, The Last Breath of Sam Yan, received major documentary and heritage conservation awards in Thailand.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Chulalongkorn University with first-class honours and was a Buddhist Ministry Initiative International Fellow at Harvard Divinity School. He will continue his graduate studies in Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School. His work draws together activism, publishing, spirituality, nonviolence, and international solidarity.

Teng Biao is a Chinese human rights lawyer and legal scholar whose research focuses on China's criminal justice, human rights, social movements, and political transition. In 2003 he and two fellow doctors of law petitioned the National People's Congress to review the constitutionality of China's custody and repatriation system, after a young migrant worker named Sun Zhigang was beaten to death in detention. The State Council abolished the system within weeks. Teng co-founded the Open Constitution Initiative that same year and China Against the Death Penalty in 2010, and served as counsel to the blind activist Chen Guangcheng and the dissident Hu Jia.

He is one of the earliest promoters of the Rights Defense Movement in China and of Charter 08, the manifesto for which Liu Xiaobo received the Nobel Peace Prize. A former lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law, he was detained repeatedly, including for more than two months during the 2011 crackdown on China's "Jasmine" protests. He now teaches at Hunter College and the University of Chicago. His awards include the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic (2007) and the National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Award (2008).