Head of Center for International Justice at The Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Oslo. Chair of the Board of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers’ and Translators’ Association (NFFO). Member of the board of Truth Hounds (Ukraine). Freelance journalist and columnist. Writer of fiction and non-fiction.

Aarti Narsee is an civic space and gender rights expert. She currently works as a Policy and Advocacy officer for the European Civic Forum. In her former role at CIVICUS, she researched and documented trends in civic space in Europe and Central Asia for the CIVICUS Monitor. Through her intersectional feminist approach, she monitors and provides commentary on the intersections between gender rights and civic space. As a former journalist and avid storyteller, Aarti has written extensively about gender, LGBTQI+ and human rights. Aarti is a Chevening Alumna and holds a Masters in Gender, Policy and Inequalities from the London School of Economics and Political Science (The LSE).

Abetare Krasniqi is a specialist in hate crime and has worked as an investigator and acting head of what is now called the National Competency Environment in Hate Crime.
She works in an EEA-funded project position, which ha...

is a Polish lawyer, educator, and human rights activist. He was the Polish Ombudsman for Citizen Rights from 2015 until July 2021. He was awarded the Rafto prize in 2018.

Adele Matheson Mestad is a Norwegian lawyer. She is the director of the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution, a position that the Storting appointed her to March 26, 2019. Previously, Matheson Mestad worked for ten years as a lawyer for the Government Attorney.

Agnes Callamard is Secretary General of Amnesty International. Previously, she was Special Rapporteur appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council..

Ali Dorani is a cartoonist, SA and human rights activist known as Mr. EatenFish. He is from Iran and has been well known for artworks he created in a remote prison (Immigration Prison Camps) in Papua New Guinea and Australia. His cartoons are about his own life as an immigrant (Refugee) and sexual assault victim. He has been sharing his stories with the world since 2015. My work has been published in hundreds of articles and numerous international newspapers such as Washington Post, The Guardian, ABC News, France 24, BBC

Sami joik artist and an associate professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Tromsø, specializing in Indigenous Rights Law. One of the cofounders of the Sámi publishing house and record label Dat.

Minister of Culture and Equality, Norway

Anine Kierulf is an associate professor of constitutional law at the University of Oslo and special advisor to the Norwegian Human Rights Institution. She is a much used commentator on constitutional law, human rights and freedom of expression, and is on the board of the Fritt Ord foundation.

Anniken Scharning Huitfeldt (b. 1969) is a Norwegian historian and politician for the Labour Party. She has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2021. She previously served as Minister of Children and Equality from 2008 to 2009, Minister of Culture from 2009 to 2012 and Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion from 2012 to 2013.

Arizza is the Co-Founder and President of KRIS, a non-profit organization that promotes peace through education and youth leadership. KRIS has trained over 1,000 Filipino youth leaders on peacebuilding, supported hundreds of youth and youth organizations in their initiatives for education and development, and reached millions through its education campaigns. In 2021, KRIS was recognized as one of Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) in the Philippines and received the YouthLED Democracy Award from The Asia Foundation. Arizza is also one of ten young leaders hand-picked by the former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to eradicate violent extremism through the global Extremely Together initiative. She is also the Managing Director of DIGInspire, a communications agency providing strategic marketing services to top companies across diverse industries in the Philippines.

Arne Jensen is a senior advisor at the Association of Norwegian Editors. He was until recently for many years secretary general in the same organization. Jensen has a background as a journalist and editor in several newspapers and has also worked as advisor in the Norwegian Press Association, primarily with issues related to transparency and access to information. He has written and edited several subject books, and is a widely used speaker and lecturer. For several years he chaired the Press Openness Council and he was also for many years chair of the advisory board of the Foundation for a critical and investigative press. He was a member of the state-appointed committee which four years ago put forward proposals for new regulations for the protection of whistleblowers.

Astrid Hoem is the Chair of the Youth organization of Norwegian Labour Party, and a survivor of the terrorist attack at Utøya in July 22, 2011.

Aya Amead is a veteran media professional, who started her career as one of the first females to present an English radio show during the Libyan uprising in 2011.

Barbara Trionfi is Executive Director of the International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists dedicated to safeguarding and fostering media freedom and promoting quality, independent journalism.

Bård Vegar Solhjell (b. 1971) is the Director General of Nordad and a former Norwegian politician for the Socialist Left Party. He served as Minister of Education from 2007 to 2009, and as Minister of the Environment from 2012 to 2013, both in Stoltenberg’s Second Cabinet. Starting in March 2018, he is the Secretary-General of WWF Norway.

President of the International Publishers Association (IPA).
A trailblazer in the global publishing scene, Bodour Al Qasimi is creating a positive impact on the world by pushing IPA’s agenda on freedom to publish and intellectual property rights. In 2019, Bodour Al Qasimi’s work in the field of women’s empowerment crossed a unique milestone as she established PublisHer – an informal networking body that seeks to increase the number of women in leadership roles within the publishing industry.
As the CEO...

Historian, author and speaker. Janney is Director of John L Nau Institute at University of Virginia. She is professor in the History of the American Civil. As an award-winning author and speaker, she has manage to draw the lines from American Civil War and Human Rights history and ideology into the current political context.

Works as an advisor at Safemuse- Safe Havens for Artists and is the leader of the human rights organization FIVAS.

Charlotte Harder is Head of Communications and Press, Danish Union of Journalists. Before, she has worked for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, and 3 years as a reporter in Washington DC, covering US politics, economics and life. She also used to be a EU correspondent, spending 5 years in Brussels. Before joining the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, she has been working for the Danish news agency Ritzau, the leading newspaper Berlingske Tidende and the Danish TV channel – TV2.

Christine Sørensen (b. 1981) is Government Affairs and Public Policy Manager at Google.

Dex Hunter-Torricke is Vice President of Global Communications & Public Engagement for Meta’s Oversight Board, the independent body established in 2020 to make decisions on the most significant content moderation challenges on Facebook and Instagram. He previously served as head of communications for SpaceX, and in roles for Google, Facebook and the United Nations.

Dr. Dmitry Dubrovsky is an expert on human rights in Russia and focuses primarily on issues relating to xenophobia, ultra-right nationalism, hate crimes, and hate speech as they relate to freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.

Dmitry Muratov is a journalist, editor, and co-founder of the Russian pro-democracy newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Muratov has been a vocal critic of the authoritarian developments in Russia and of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. He supported the protests in Belarus in 2020 and is a member of the opposition party Jabloko.
He shared the 2021 Nobel peace prize with Maria Ressa for th...

Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen (b. 1998) is an artist, climate activist and front figure in the band ISÁK. In 2018, she won NRK’s ​​Sternekamp. In 2021, she debuted as a writer with Derfor må du vite jeg er same.

Even Alexander Hagen is the Chairman of the County Council of Innlandet

Farzana Kochai (b. 1992) is an Afghan politician. She has been a member of Afghan Parliament (Wolesi Jirga).

Veteran journalist, media innovator, and senior executive, Fatemah Farag is the Founder and Director of Welad Elbalad Media Services LTD, a company dedicated to community media development and media excellence in Egypt. She is the first Arab woman and first Egyptian to have been voted to the Executive Committee and Board of WAN IFRA and is the former Arab Region Director for WAN IFRA’s Women in News Program (WIN).

Felicia Anthonio is a #KeepItOn Campaign Manager at Access Now, an international not-for-profit organization with a mission to extend and defend digital rights of users at risk. The #KeepItOn campaign, is a global initiative that unites over 270 organizations working to end internet shutdowns worldwide. Anthonio leads the campaigns global advocacy efforts by raising awareness about the devastating impact shutdowns have on people’s lives as well as engaging with policy-makers and key actors at national, regional and global levels to end internet shutdowns.

Forouzan Jamshidnejad is a Norwegian-Iranian actor. She plays in Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider. Forouzan started with acting as a five-year-old and has been in several plays and TV series in Iran. In Iran she has won several awards, among them the award for Best Actor at Fajr International Theater Festival in 2005 as a 17-year-old. She made her film debut in Mitra in 2021. Holy Spider is her second feature film.

Frode Haltli began playing the accordion at the age of seven. As a child he played folk music but soon moved into different forms. Playing music by different acclaimed composers from different genres, including classical music, he swiftly developed exceptional instrumental skills alongside a deep understanding of new music.

Guzel Yakhina is an award-winning Russian author and screenwriter. She received the Big Book literary prize and the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award for her 2015 debut novel Zuleikha.

Gvantsa Jobava, is the vice president of international Publishers Association and the past president of Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association and the head of the publishing program for Georgia’s activities. She has been the editor and international relations manager at Intelekti Publishing, one of the biggest publishing houses in Georgia, since 2010, and has been promoting Georgian publishers’ interests and rights and organizing domestic and international events and book fair participation since 2013.

Head of News division at NRK, Norwegian Broadcasting. Chair of the board, Faktisk (Norwegian fact checking organization). Previous vice president of World Editors’ Forum.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt is the former Prime Minister of Denmark, a position she held from 2011 to 2015. She also served as leader of the opposition and party leader in the Danish Parliament and as a member of European Parliament. She is currently the co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, the independent body established in 2020 to make decisions on the most significant content moderation challenges on Facebook and Instagram.

Henry Elkus is Founder and CEO of Helena. He cares immensely about creating systems that can be leveraged to enact global, scalable, and systemic change. Henry dropped out of Yale in his second year to lead Helena full time.

Seyran Ateş is a human rights activist, women’s rights activist, lawyer, author and mosque founder and has been campaigning for equality between men and women in society for over 30 years. Her commitment is characterised by fearlessness, civil courage and her assertion assert herself against fanaticism and lack of freedom. Out of her tireless commitment to a contemporary, progressive Islam, Seyran Ateş founded the Ibn Rushd – Goethe Mosque in Berlin, which differs from traditional mosques, in that all the tasks in the mosque are also taken on by women.

Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide is Chair of The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence at the Norwegian Parliament. She served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2021, the first woman to hold the position. Previously, she was the Minister of Defence from 2013 to 2017.

Ingunn Trosholmen (Labor Party) took over the mayoral position in Lillehammer after the election in 2019.
Trosholmen is a trained teacher, as well as a social scientist f...

Irene Khan, is the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. An internationally recognized advocate for human rights, gender equality and social justice, she teaches at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and is co-author of The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights, which has been published in seven languages.

ISÁK has been a hype in Sápmi music for a long time, renowned for its energetic live shows and intense presence. Since their debut in 2017 the trio has experienced an overwhelming response in Norway, and now the «sensation from Sápmi» is finally ready to take on the rest of the world.

Jacob Mchangama is a Danish lawyer, human-rights advocate, and social commentator. He is the founder and director of Justitia, a Copenhagen-based think tank focusing on human rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.

Jakob Nielsen is a Danish journalist. He is the Editor-in-chief for altinget.dk and mm.dk, and has written several books.

Joanna Krawczyk, Deputy Director East at the German Marshall Fund of the US, Obama Leader, Golden Pen of Freedom Award Laureate 2022.

Owner and Chair of Ferd, Norway, and Chair Council of Ethics Norway. Ferd is one of the largest privately held industrial and financial groups in Norway. Ferd’s value adjusted equity was USD 4,2 mrd as of 30.06.22. The company has 70 employees and is owned by Johan H. Andresen and his two daughters Katharina and Alexandra. It has roots back to 1849 and consists today of five business areas, out of which four are fully commercial and one is dedicated to scaling social entrepreneurs.

Coordinator for the Freedom of Expression Committee in Börsenverein, The German Publishers and Booksellers Association, and Freedom of Expression Week from 2016 to 2022. Co-organized the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade from 2017 to 2019. He studied Sociology and Philosophy in Florida, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

John Peder Egenæs is Secretary General of Amnesty International in Norway. He has worked in Amnesty since 1990, and been Secretary General since 2007.

Jørgen Watne Frydnes (b. 1984) is a Norwegian administrator and politician. Frydnes has been CEO of Utøya AS since 2011. In 2020 he was elected member of the Norwegian Nobel Committee for the period 2021–2026. He is a board member of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

Regina Pérez is a professional journalist and social communicator. She has been working in journalism for 12 years, where she has worked both as reporter and editor. During her first years in journalism she worked at the CERIGUA news agency on issues such as freedom of expression and of freedom of the press. She then worked for 7 years in the newspaper La Hora, where she worked with digital media, as a reporter, editor and later as editor-in-chief. Since November 2020 she has been working at Prensa Comunitaria (Community Press) where she covers issues related to human rights, indigenous peoples, criminalization and historical memory.

Kadafi Zaman is a Norwegian journalist and presenter. He is known as a reporter for the Norwegian TV network TV2 and for the documentary series Norway behind the façade.

Karam S. Nachar is a Syrian writer and academic. He is co-founder and co-editor of Al-Jumhuriya, an award-winning independent media platform that provides in-depth coverage and analysis from Syria and the Arab world.

Mr. Khaled Emam is a renowned young international human rights lawyer and Executive Director of the Justice Call organization. With a background in law and international relations, Khaled has dedicated his professional career to advancing the rights of individuals and communities in need. As the organizing partner of the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY), Khaled has played a key role in fostering youth engagement in the development of inclusive and sustainable societies.

Kira Yarmysh (b. 1989) is educated at the prestigious MGIMO diplomatic school in Moscow. She worked in communications in the airline industry before becoming Aleksey Navalny’s press spokesperson in 2014. She has served several shorter prison sentences since 2018 and lives in political exile in Western Europe today.

Kjersti Løken Stavrum is a Norwegian editor and media executive. She was secretary-general of the Norwegian Press Association from 2013 to 2016. She is CEO of the Tinius Foundation and head of Norwegian PEN. She is currently head of the Norwegian Free Speech Commission.

Knut Olav Åmås (born 19 January 1968) is a Norwegian writer and editor. He is currently the Executive Director of Stiftelsen Fritt Ord, a Norwegian private foundation, whose aim is to support freedom of expression and a free press.

Consultant, managing director of World Expression Forum AS, chair of the Freedom to Publish Committee in the International Publishers Association and chair of Norges Televisjon.

Kristian is a Co-owner and Partner at Dalberg Media, a global, mission-driven group, which seeks to empower and mobilize people to solve global challenges by collective, sustained action. Kristian is part of the founding group of Dalberg Media and has led its establishment as well as its expansion on several continents.
Until March 2023, Kristian was also Head of UNLEASH ..

Academic, diplomat and politician. Former deputy minister/state secretary with the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway. Research field: Terrorism and violent extremism. Member of the 22 July Commission / Breivik inquiry. Published author. Board member. Chair of the Board of Lillehammer Museums.

Daughter of a human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, a former Memorial board member murdered in Chechnya for her human rights work in 2009. Lana Estemirova is a graduate in international relations from the London School of Economics and is the presenter of the Trouble with the Truth podcast and works for the Justice for Journalists Foundation.

Leandro Demori is the Executive Editor of The Intercept Brasil, and is a board member of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). He is the author of “Cossa Nostra in Brazil: The History of the Mafioso Who Took Down the Empire” (Companhia das Letras, 2016).

Lisa Ann Cooper is the founder and CEO of several social enterprises in Norway that are focused on creating social change with a focus on diversity and inclusion, arts, culture and youth. She has founded Catalysts, a mentoring program to promote the strengths and well-being of young people across Norway.

Lise Klaveness is the director of the Norwegian Football Association, nominated as the coming president of the association.