Posts Tagged ‘goodwill ambassador’

Freedom House: new Ambassadors for Freedom Program

September 10, 2026

On 10 September 2026 Freedom House launched the Ambassadors for Freedom program, a new global initiative bringing together a group of democracy advocates to champion solutions to the 20-year decline in global freedom. Carolina Barrero, Nazanin Boniadi, Anaïse Kanimba, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Anna Kwok will serve as the inaugural ambassadors. Ambassadors will work in partnership with Freedom House to spotlight threats to freedom, engage policymakers and the public, and inspire a new generation to safeguard democracy.

Initial Freedom House Ambassadors

Carolina Barrero
Barrero is a Cuban political leader, human rights defender, and political analyst. A prominent figure of Cuba’s 27N and San Isidro prodemocracy movements, her activism led to repeated arbitrary detention, surveillance, house arrest, and ultimately forced exile in 2022. She is president and executive director of Ciudadanía y Libertad, where she leads efforts to strengthen independent civil society, political participation, and democratic institutions in Cuba, and is a PhD Fellow at the University of Miami.

Nazanin Boniadi
Boniadi is an Iranian-born actor, producer, and human rights advocate. She has partnered with charitable organizations since 2008 to campaign for the rights of disenfranchised populations across the world, with a focus on the unjust conviction and treatment of Iranian youth, women, and prisoners of conscience. She sits on the board of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. As an actress, she has starred in dozens of television series and films.

Anaïse Kanimba
Kanimba is a global development strategist, human rights activist, and freedom technology leader. She is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, during which her father, Paul Rusesabagina, saved more than 1,200 people. Kanimba co-led the international campaign that secured her father’s release after he was forcibly rendered to Rwanda and illegally detained there. She is program director for freedom technology at the World Liberty Congress, founder of the Africa Bitcoin Institute, and a 2025 McCain Global Leader.

Vladimir Kara-Murza
Kara-Murza is a Russian politician, author, and former political prisoner. He was twice poisoned, reportedly by Russian secret services, for his work securing sanctions against high-ranking Russian rights abusers through the Global Magnitsky Act. In 2022 he received a 25-year treason sentence for denouncing the invasion of Ukraine. He was freed in a 2024 prisoner exchange. He is vice president of the Free Russia Foundation, a contributor at The Washington Post, and is an advisor at major rights organizations.

Anna Kwok
Kwok is a Washington, DC-based China policy strategist and well-known Hong Kong prodemocracy activist. In response to her work, in 2023, Hong Kong authorities issued a HK$1 million (US$129,000) bounty for information leading to her capture, and in 2026 they imprisoned her father based on fabricated charges. Kwok serves as a Technology and Human Rights Fellow at The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and chairs the board of the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC).

https://freedomhouse.org/article/freedom-house-launches-ambassadors-freedom-program-names-five-leading-human-rights

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Danny Glover uses his image to brush up venal Venezuela

March 30, 2018

The way celebrities involve themselves in human rights (positively or negatively) has been a topic in this blog several times [see e.g. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2014/02/28/and-the-nominees-are-oscars-for-human-rights/ and recently https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/11/10/helen-hunt-joins-list-of-celebrities-that-show-insensitivity-on-human-rights/]. Venezuela has played the game getting star power on its side, but the president of the New York based Human Rights Foundation, Thor Halvorssen, is quite right that when it concerns a UNICEF goodwill ambassador matters become more serious: “…the moment Danny Glover travels to Venezuela using the seal of the United Nations’ highest office that deals with children, then Glover’s statements deserve higher scrutiny,” Thus HRF’s demand that UNICEF should strip Danny Glover from its honorary Ambassadorship.

 

This Saturday in Caracas, Glover praised Maduro’s government for “advancing humanity through education, health, and other aspects that honor humankind.” Meanwhile, the dictatorship’s economic policies have brought over 30 million Venezuelans into the worst humanitarian crisis in the 200-year history of the country. In 2017, Venezuelans lost 24 pounds in average due to hunger and undernourishment and, according to NGO Caritas, 33% of Venezuela’s 10 million child population has stunted growth.
 
[HRF adds: “Danny Glover has behaved unspeakably in his support for the Venezuelan regime and his motivation is unbridled greed. Eleven years ago, Glover received close to 20 million dollars from the Venezuelan regime to produce a film that was never made, and the funds have yet to be returned to the Venezuelan people. The payment was a crude payoff, masked as a production budget, in order to ensure that Glover was a permanent public relations agent for the Venezuelan government. In doing so, Glover violated American laws regarding registration as a foreign agent. But most of all, he lost all credibility as a spokesperson for human rights,”]

(Early this year, the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC), Netherlands, opened an investigation against the Venezuelan regime for crimes against humanity, while the Organization of American States (OAS) has created a commission to investigate gross human rights violations committed by the regime and refer their results to the ICC.)

https://mailchi.mp/e97c4e3f959c/hrf-to-un-fire-danny-glover-from-unicef-ambassadorship?e=f80cec329e

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World Health Organization reconsidering Mugabe as “goodwill ambassador”

October 22, 2017

he head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is rethinking his decision to name Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, as a goodwill ambassador.  The move provoked global outrage. WHO member states and activists alike noted that Zimbabwe’s health care system, like many of its public services, has collapsed under Mugabe’s regime. “I’m listening. I hear your concerns. Rethinking the approach in light of WHO values. I will issue a statement as soon as possible,” Tedros, a former Ethiopian health minister, tweeted on Saturday night.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, came closest when he said he thought Mugabe’s appointment “was a bad April Fool’s joke”. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/10/23/mugabe-wins-chinese-peace-prize-this-time-for-real/]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it was an embarrassment to give the ambassador role to Mr Mugabe, because his “utter mismanagement of the economy has devastated health services”. The main opposition party in Zimbabwe, MDC, described the appointment as “laughable”…“Mugabe trashed our health delivery system. He and his family go outside of the country for treatment in Singapore after he allowed our public hospitals to collapse.”

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) also condemned the decision by the World Health Organization (WHO): “The irony of the World Health Organization’s decision to praise Robert Mugabe is staggering. This a strongman infamous for seeking medical attention for himself abroad. His recent visits to Singapore for medical treatment have cost Zimbabwean taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Mugabe can’t get adequate treatment in his own country because his kleptocratic regime has left Zimbabwe’s hospitals and health industry in a state of ruin,” said HRF president Thor Halvorssen. “Dr. Tedros should nullify Mugabe’s appointment immediately and also issue a strong public condemnation of his repressive rule”.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/21/un-lambasted-after-naming-mugabe-goodwill-ambassador

HRF condemns World Health Organization for appointing Robert Mugabe as “goodwill ambassador”

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