CyberDissidents.org
| Founded | 2008 |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Fields | Human rights |
|
Key people
|
David Keyes, Director |
| Website | http://cyberdissidents.org |
CyberDissidents.org is a division of Advancing Human Rights, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. CyberDissidents.org focuses on the human rights of online political activists. The group believes that highlighting the plight of individual democratic dissidents in the West affords a measure of protection against government oppression.
Founded in 2008, CyberDissidents.org originally focused on autocratic Middle Eastern countries. The organization’s co-founder and director, David Keyes, served previously as coordinator for democracy programs under Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky. Keyes has written for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, National Review, The Jerusalem Post and other publications.
Relying on a broad network of bloggers in the region, CyberDissidents.org monitors, analyses and publicizes dissidents’ activities in the West. Its staff meet frequently with policy-makers in the United States, Middle East and Europe. CyberDissidents.org promotes linkage between foreign aid and human rights.
The organization aims to utilize the findings of psychology professor Paul Slovic who studied the phenomenon of indifference in the face of humanitarian disasters. Professor Slovic has written that highlighting individuals is the most effective way of provoking sympathy and concern for a cause. This is seen in the organization’s “Featured CyberDissident” which focuses on a particular dissident’s story.
Now incorporated into Advancing Human Rights, CyberDissidents serves as a database of dissident writing and can be found at the AHR website.
Bernard Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, served on CyberDissidents.org’s board of advisers for the first two years of its existence.
In 2011, Keyes partnered with founding chairman emeritus of Human Rights Watch, Bob Bernstein,to form Advancing Human Rights.
Syrian dissident Ahed Al Hendi is the coordinator for Arabic programs at CyberDissidents.org. Al Hendi fled Syria and is currently a refugee living in the United States. Imprisoned and tortured by the Syrian government, Al Hendi has worked with the Samir Kassir Foundation in Lebanon as its Syrian researcher and writes frequently in favor of democracy in the Middle East. He has been cited in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and writes for several Arabic papers including Al Mustaqbal. In 2010, he was a featured speaker at the Bush Foundation Conference on CyberDissidents where he met with President Bush.
...
Wikipedia