1- Can you please tell our readers about your academic and professional career, your main motivations and what led you to become an internationally recognized human rights expert?

I grew up in Montreal, Canada, raised in a strong Jewish home and in a Jewish school, and enriched by a neighborhood where cultures mixed easily — my neighbors were Chinese, Greek, Italian and Jamaican. I was always surrounded by different voices, different stories. That shaped my sense of the world early on.

My father worked as a lawyer for people who could not afford one. Many of my grandparents’ family members were murdered in the Holocaust. My home was full of books, debates, and stories — some joyful, some tragic, but all rooted in a deep awareness of history and justice. I knew injustice wasn’t theoretical — it was personal. From early on, I understood that freedom isn’t a guarantee — it’s something people lose, fight for, and often never get back.

At Concordia University in Montreal, along with my major in political science, I studied a great books program of philosophy, literature and art history, from the ancient Greeks until modernity. I fell in love with the big questions — what makes a society free? Why do some regimes collapse and others endure?

From there, I went on to law school at McGill, and encountered a great influence on my life and work, Professor Irwin Cotler, Canada’s former Justice Minister and one of the world’s most respected human rights lawyers. I took every course he taught and worked as his research assistant. But his impact began even earlier: I first saw him as a child, leading a protest in Montreal for the freedom of Jewish political prisoners in the Soviet Union. His passion, clarity, and moral courage left a lasting impression. In class, he didn’t just teach law — he made it feel like a calling. He challenged us to imagine leading a human rights organization. At the time, I thought it was just an exercise. But less than ten years later, I found myself doing exactly that. Cotler didn’t just teach generations of students — he inspired us to act, to speak out, and to believe that law, when guided by conscience, could truly change lives.

I then did graduate work on comparative constitutional law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Along the way, I clerked at Israel’s Supreme Court, then practiced law in New York at a major firm. I worked on civil rights cases — including one involving racial discrimination in the U.S. military. That opened my eyes to how legal tools could be used to fight injustice, even inside powerful institutions.

But honestly, I always had a foot in advocacy. As a teenager, I wrote an article for my school paper criticizing the UN for its double standards. I was maybe 15. Years later, when I heard there was an opening at a small NGO in Geneva called UN Watch, I took a leap — and that leap became my life’s work.

At UN Watch, we stand up for people most of the world ignores — political prisoners in Venezuela, jailed women’s rights heroes in Iran, democracy activists from Hong Kong, whistleblowers from Russia. We’re a tiny team, but we amplify voices that authoritarian regimes try to silence.

One of our most important platforms is the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, where we bring oppressed dissidents from around the world — Uyghur survivors, North Korean defectors, Cuban artists — and give them the microphone.

Sometimes we’re the only ones saying what everyone else is afraid to say.
When Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza was imprisoned for calling Putin a war criminal, we fought hard to keep his name in the public eye. When he was finally freed, he told us it made a difference — knowing people on the outside hadn’t forgotten him.

Or when I stood up in Geneva and denounced the UN for electing dictatorships like China and Cuba to the Human Rights Council. They tried to silence me. They cut my mic. But we didn’t stop — and our speeches have now been seen by millions online.

This work isn’t easy. It’s not always popular. And yes, I am the most hated man at the UN — but that’s fine. Because if the regimes in Tehran, Pyongyang, and Caracas are upset with me — along with some so-called activists from the West who are apologists for terrorists and anti-Western regimes — then I know I’m doing something right. At the end of the day, I do this because I believe in the power of truth — and in the idea that one voice, even a small one, can still make a difference.

2- Which countries currently face the greatest challenges in relation to the most important violations of human rights and how do you see the actions of international organizations in relation to monitoring such violations? Is there effectiveness in investigating the complaints?

Sadly, the the best indication of where to find the worst human rights abuses is to look at the world body that is meant to be investigating them: the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council. The members today include, for example, China, Cuba, Qatar, Sudan, and Vietnam.

That’s right: China’s Communist regime is a member. China is oppressing 1.5 billion people, a fifth of humanity, yet it has never once been criticized by any UN Human Rights Council resolution, inquiry, or special session. On the contrary, they sit on that body as a judge.

So my organization decided, at our recent 17th annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy — which we held right across the street from the Council headquarters in Geneva, and with our opening event held inside the UN headquarters itself — that the world needed to know the truth about China.

So we invited Times Wang as a witness. His father Wang Biingzhang is the father of the Chinese pro-democracy movement. They kidnapped him in June 2002, and he’s been languishing in prison for over two decades.

The world needs to know what China is doing to the Uyghurs. Rounding them up in camps. Attempting to eradicate their entire culture. So we also invited Rahima Mahmut, a Uyghur human rights activist, as one of our speakers.

The world needs to know what China is doing to the people of Tibet. Also trying to destroy their culture. So we had with us Namkyi as a witness. For protesting China’s oppression at the age of 15 they threw her in prison. She was there for three years. She managed to escape. She walked non-stop for 10 days and escaped to India.
And the world needs to know what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to Hong Kong. Once a great island of freedom in Asia, its democracy has been strangled by Beijing. So we invited Sebastien Lai to bear witness about his father Jimmy Lai, publisher of a major pro-democracy newspaper. A very successful man, Jimmy Lai could have escaped abroad, but he said no. He chose not to abandon ship, to stay with his people. They threw him in prison. He’s 77 years old.

Another regime sitting as a judge on the UNHRC is the police state of Cuba. The world needs to know what the Havana dictatorship is doing to its people. So we invited Osiris Puerto Terry. He happened to be standing next to the historic pro-democracy protests in July 2021, and he got shot multiple times.

Sudan also sits on the UNHRC. The world needs to know the truth about the war there that has just killed 150,000 people. 11 million people forced from their homes. So we invited Niemat Ahmadi, a leading women’s rights defender from Sudan, a survivor of the Sudan Genocide.

Vietnam sits on the UNHRC. A one-party Communist regime, the world needs to know about they silence all dissent including on social media. So we invited Van Trang Nguyen, who........

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