Murat Çelikkan, was born in 1957 in Ankara. He studied at Middle East Technical University, Department of Management. He was imprisoned twice, first in 1978 because of his socialist activities, and again in 1980 in the operations during the coup which targeted all opposition groups. He was exonerated in both cases. In 2011, he and a group of activists formed the Truth Justice Memory Center, the goal of which is to bring to light the rights violations experienced during wartime and under authoritarian administrations, contribute to the settlement of this past from a ‘transitional period justice’ perspective, and conduct legal efforts to allow groups subjected to rights violations to find justice. As co-director and manager of the Center’s communications program, he conducted projects to achieve recognition of human rights violations and the crime of ‘forced disappearances,’ and strengthen collective memory around these issues.
Due to his support to the campaign launched by the newspaper Özgür Gündem, which had been closed by a decree law, by serving as the paper’s chief editor for a day on 28 May 2016, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail on 16 May 2017. After turning himself in to Kirklareli E-Type Closed Prison on 14 August, he was released on probation on 21 October 2017.
In 2018, he received the human rights award presented annually by the Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders .

Mwatana Organization for Human Rights was established in 2013 by Radya al-Mutavakel and Abdulrashid al-Fakih in order to defend and protect human rights in Yemen. The fuse war was lit in September 2014 when an armed group of Houthis captured the capital of San’a and began advancing toward the country’s second-largest city of Aden. In response to this, an international coalition under the leadership of Saudi Arabia attacked Houthi forces by air in March 2015. The Organization has provided documentation of human rights violations occurring during this ongoing armed conflict. In the civil war, which the United Nations has identified as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” forces led by the United States and Saudi Arabia as well as Houthi attacks have killed thousands of civilians, women and children, injured countless more, and destroyed hospitals, homes, parks, marketplaces and schools. The Organization has documented these attacks and destruction and made it known to the public. In accordance with the Ottawa Treaty which Yemen signed in September 1998, it has demanded and continues working for the cessation of the use of land mines by Houthi forces, the detection of mine fields, the destruction of mines in stockpiles, the cleaning of mines still buried, and the payment of reparations to victims of the mines. It has worked to research and document the situation of journalists who disappeared in the course of duty, or were arbitrarily arrested. The reports it has prepared are used as a reference by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Albie Sachs was born in 1935 in South Africa. He graduated from the Department of Law in Cape Town University and began to work as a lawyer at the age of 21. He was imprisoned, without any trial, for 168 days because he defended those who were tried by racist and repressive security laws of the Apartheid regime. He completed his Ph.D. on the legal system of the Apartheid at Sussex University in England, where he went in 1966 as an exile. In 1988, he lost one of his arms and eyes due to a bomb explosion, deployed in his car by security agents of the South Africa in Maputo, Mozambique, where he was working as a law professor. He returned to his country in 1990 and dedicated himself to the preparation of a democratic constitution in South Africa. He played an active role in the negotiations for a democratic constitution of the South Africa at the African National Congress. He was elected the member of the Constitutional Court in the 1994 elections and has worked to consolidate human rights in the country's justice system for 15 years. He received numerous awards due to his works on human rights and justice and his books.

Ayse Kadioglu is Professor of Political Science at Sabanci University since 1998. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University. She continues to hold a fellowship at Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. She was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, Center for European Studies in 2018. She was the Acting President of Sabanci University and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University. She was a Member of the Executive Board of the Istanbul Policy Center/Stiftung Mercator Initiative and the Education Reform Initiative at Sabanci University. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul. She has been a member of Yale Law School’s ongoing annual Middle East Legal Studies Seminar since 2004. She is one of the Advisors for the online network Free Speech Debate that publishes in 13 languages. She was a deputy member of the Board of Directors of the Hrant Dink Foundation in Istanbul (2011-2015). She was a Visiting Scholar and Senior Associate Member at St Antony’s College, Oxford University in 2005 and 2010. She was a member of the Advisory Board of Bucerius PhD Program in Migration Studies, Zeit Stiftung (2010-2013). She was a member of an Advisory Group of Council of Europe and co-authored the report titled Living Together: Combining Diversity and Freedom in 21st Century Europe in 2011.

Ercan Kesal, graduated from Ege University Faculty of Medicine in 1984. He has worked as a medical doctor in various towns and villages in Ankara between 1984 and 1990. He has worked in private health sector and opened polyclinics and medical centres after he moved to Istanbul in 1990. He has been in the executive board of Özel Okmeydanı Hospital, which he established, since 1997. He received his master degree from the Department of Psychology at Istanbul Commerce University, Institute of Social Sciences. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at Yeditepe University. He is also an actor and script writer. He played in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s movie ‘Uzak’ and has received prizes in several national and international festivals. He published his first poems and writings during his school days in the Faculty of Medicine. He published in “Son Reçete” magazine during his compulsory service. He is one of the founders of Era Publishing. He wrote in “Şizofrengi” journal. He has written essays and stories in Radikal and Birgün regularly on Sundays. He has been publishing story books since 2013.

Özlem Dalkıran, is an activist and works as an independent translator. She is an active member of the Citizens’ Assembly (formerly known as Helsinki Citizens Assembly). She is a long-standing and prominent human rights campaigner. She is a founding member, former head of media and former chair for two terms of Amnesty International Turkey. She is a member of advisory board of Open Society Foundation Turkey. She has conducted numerous research about women’s right in south-eastern Turkey and human rights in Turkey. She conducted a research on ‘Cinema and Human Rights’. She later became the coordinator of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly’s Refugee Support Program. She worked as a coordinator at Bianet newsportal as the Coordinator of as the Independent Communication Network. She was a member of the International Hrant Dink Award Committee between 2010-2016.

Ronald Grigor Suny, is Wiliam H. Sewell Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan; Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago; and Senior Researcher at the Higher School of Economics, National Research University, St. Petersburg, Russia. He is the author of The Baku Commune, 1917-1918; The Making of the Georgian Nation; Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History; The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union; The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States; They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else: A History of the Armenian Genocide; and co-editor of A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire. His current research project is on tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Armenians.

Sarkis was born in 1938 in Istanbul. He received painting and interior architecture education at Mimar Sinan University. He organized his first exhibition in Istanbul Sanat Gallery in 1960. Sarkis, who moved to Paris in 1964, received a prize in Paris Biennale in 1967. He was the director of Strasbourg Ecole des Arts décoratifs between 1980 and 1990. He ran a seminar at the Institute des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques between 1988 and 1995. He received Grand Prix National de Sculpture in 1991. He has worked with many tools and methods, including interdisciplinary installations, during his career. His works were exhibited in numerous museums and galleries such as Louvre Museum, MAMCO, Gugenheim Museum, Musée d’Art Contemporaine, George Pompidou Museum. Sarkis lives in Paris and continues to inspire people.

Serj Tankian was born in 1967 in Lebanon. As a musician, songwriter and guitarist, he achieved a great success with the rock band System of a Down. After the band, he pursued his career alone. He made solo albums and composed soundtracks for movies and theatres. He founded his own record label, Serjical Strike Records, in 2001, and helped many talented musicians make albums. With his musician friend Tom Morello, he established the Axis of Justice non-profit organization, which aims to enhance cooperation between musicians, music lovers and grassroots organizations for social justice. His stance towards human rights, social justice, the recognition of genocide, environmentalism and other current issues influenced his style of music. He believes in the role of art in the dissemination of human rights and diversity, continues to inspire and enlighten people with his works.

Zainab Salbi, founded Women for Women International, a grassroots humanitarian and development organization dedicated to serving women survivors of wars by offering support, tools, and access to life-changing skills to move from crisis and poverty to stability and economic self-sufficiency. She launched The Nida’a Show, a talk show dedicated to addressing and inspiring women in the Arab world (www.nidaashow.com). The show features women and men from all walks of life in addition to global and Arab celebrities. In November 2016, she launched The Zainab Salbi Project, an original global series in collaboration with Huffington Post and AOL. In her new series, she travels the world shedding light on global issues through the personal stories of people who are struggling, surviving and thriving in a sea of conflict. She is the author of several books and currently the editor at large at Women in the World in association with The New York Times.

Rakel Dink became involved in human rights activism following the tragic assassination of her husband, the prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist and founder of Agos newspaper, Hrant Dink.

Born to an Armenian family in Silopi, southeastern Turkey, Rakel moved to Istanbul with tens of kids from Anatolia in order to receive education in Armenian Schools. She met with Hrant Dink at Camp Armen, where Armenian children orphans or those away from their families would spend their summers. Rakel and Hrant got married and became managers at Camp Armen in the following years until the property was seized by the state.

Following the death of Hrant Dink in January 2007, Rakel devoted her life to preserving her husband’s legacy. She established the Hrant Dink Foundation in 2007, with a mission to protect and uphold human rights in Turkey, preserve the identity and culture of minorities, address polarization, and normalize Turkish-Armenian relations. Rakel continues to be an optimist and maintains that despite the various challenges that she was forced to overcome throughout her life, she has been surrounded by love and kindness. She is hopeful for the future of Turkey and finds joy in her work and her family.