Help promote human rights in the Middle East and North Africa

Experts

DAWN's experts are the driving force behind the organization's mission and vision. Our experts complement our research work and bolster our advocacy efforts.

Hala Aldosari

Hala Al-Dosari is a Saudi women's activist. She was awarded the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism by Human Rights Watch in 2018.

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Khalil al-Anani

Dr. Khalil al-Anani is a Senior Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

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Mohamad Bazzi

Mohamad Bazzi is an associate professor of journalism at New York University, where he teaches international reporting.

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Joel Beinin

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University.

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Diana Buttu

Diana Buttu is a lawyer specializing in negotiations, international law and international human rights law.

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Juan Cole

Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. 

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Mohamed Dhia Hammami

Mohamed Dhia Hammami is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

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Muhammad Kamal

Muhammad Kamal is a research assistant at DAWN, where he works on human rights protections in Egypt and across the region.

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Mohammad H Fadel

Mohammad Fadel is a Professor and Toronto Research Chair for the Law and Economics of Islamic Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, which he joined in January 2006.

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Dalia Fahmy

Dr. Dalia Fahmy is Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University where she teaches courses on US Foreign Policy, World Politics, International Relations, Military and Defense Policy, Causes of War, and Politics of the Middle East.

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Nader-Hashemi

Nader Hashemi

Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

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Kholood Khair

Kholood Khair is a Sudanese political analyst and the founding director of Confluence Advisory, a "think-and-do" tank based in Khartoum.

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Michael Lynk

Michael Lynk is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of Western University in Ontario. From 2016 to 2022, he served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

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Yassin al-Haj Saleh

Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian writer and political dissident. He writes widely on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world for a variety of international Arabic-language publications.

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Madawi Al-Rasheed

Madawi is Visiting Professor at the LSE Middle East Centre. In January 2017, she returned to the MEC from a sabbatical year at the Middle East Institute, the National University of Singapore.

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Michael Sfard

Michael Sfard is a leading Israeli human rights lawyer and the author of The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine, and the Legal Battle for Human Rights.

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Sussan Tahmasebi

Sussan Tahmasebi is a women's rights and civil society activist and the Executive Director of FEMENA, an organization that promotes gender equality and supports women human rights defenders, their organizations and feminist movements in the Middle East and North Africa.

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"Democracy remains the most effective way to tackle terror, stop bloodshed and political violence in Arab countries."

- JAMAL KHASHOGGI, Al-Arabiya, June 12, 2016