Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast

In this episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Archit Sharma discuss the impact of technology on employment with our guests, Martin Kwan and Dee Masters. This area is a complicated web of issues, but our guests have the expertise to help us better understand the stakes. Dee is a leading employment barrister at Cloister’s Chambers with extensive experience in the intersection of Artificial Intell...

In this week’s episode of the Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir sat down with Munizae and Sulema Jahangir to discuss freedom of expression and internet shutdowns in Pakistan, and their implications for human rights in the country. Freedom of expression, attacks on civil society groups, a climate of fear continues to impede media coverage of abuses by both government security forces and mili...

In episode 5 of this season of the Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Yasar Cohen-Shah sat down with Belkis Wille, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, and former UN official Karl Steinacker to discuss the collection of refugee biometric data. In summer last year, Human Rights Watch reported that a database of biometric data captured by UNHCR from Rohingya refugees had been...

For Episode 4 of this season’s Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Alice Horrell sit down with Karen Schrier, Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Games and Emerging Media program at Marist college, and Florent Maurin, creator of The Pixel Hunt, a video games studio with a focus on reality inspired games, to discuss empathy games.

The third episode of this season of the Declarations Podcast delves into the topic of live facial recognition. Host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Veronica-Nicolle Hera sat down with Daragh Murray and Pete Fussey, who co-authored the “Independent Report on the London Metropolitan Police Service’s Trial of Live Facial Recognition Technology” in July 2019. Live facial recognition (LFR) has been a widely...

In this week’s episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panellist Yasmin Homer discuss the role of technology in the securitization of European borders with MEP Patrick Breyer and researcher Ainhoa Ruiz. It was 71 years ago that the 1951 UN Refugee Convention codified the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary and the obligation of states to protect them. In 2015 Angela Merkel famously declared, “Wir schaffe...

For this week’s episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Nanna Sæten speak about predictive policing with Johannes Heiler, Adviser on Anti-Terrorism Issues at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and Miri Zilka, Research Associate in the Machine Learning Group at the University of Cambridge. Predictive policing leverages the techniques of statistics and machine lear...

The Declarations Podcast is back for its sixth season, where we will be exploring the relationship between new technologies and human rights! In this episode we provide an overview of the topics we will be discussing in each of the season’s episodes. Maryam Tanwir, this season’s host, discusses these themes with our panellists who present what is at stake.

In our final episode of the season we are delighted to be joined by Kathleen Schwind. A 2015 Coca-Cola Scholar, Kathleen focuses her research on the issues of water security in the Middle East and North Africa. She has studied at MIT and the University of Cambridge and joins our host, Muna Gasim, to discuss the problem of water shortage and its interaction with p...

For this week's episode, host Muna Gasim and panelist Eddie Kembery speak to Alfredo Romero, one of the founding members of Foro Penal, a human rights organization that won the 2017 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for its work in Venezuela. Beginning with Alfredo’s own story, this episode is a masterclass in grassroots activism as we explore what has driven Foro Penal’s growth from four lawye...

This week, host Muna Gasim and panellist Akshata Kapoor welcome journalist Afrah Nasser for an in-depth discussion on human rights reporting, bias, gender inequity, and more in Yemen and the international community at large. Our discussion this week covers topics ranging from the role of objectivity in human rights reporting to both the benefits and pitfalls of technology and social media. Nasser...

This week, host Muna Gasim welcomes guest Tom Parker, counterterrorism practitioner and former UN war crimes investigator, for a discussion about situating the fight against terrorism within a human rights framework. They discuss the power of language, justifications for the use of force, peace standard interrogation, Guantanamo Bay, the state of policing, and more. 

This week, host Muna Gasim and panellist Neema Jayasinghe speak with Chamnan Chanruang from Thailand’s Future Forward party about the anti-monarchy protests currently ongoing in the country. Chanruang is a former Political Science and Law lecturer at Chiang Mai University, and has a professional background as a human rights activist. He has taken a stand against coup d’états and was also a key dri...

For this week’s episode, host Muna Gasim and panellist Eddie Kemberry are joined by Natalie Jones, Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, to discuss existential risk, the climate crisis, indigenous rights, and the ways that all three intersect. Natalie shares insights into the nature of global, existential risks and how we can think ahead to protect the rights of futur...

For this week's episode, we are delighted to welcome Alina Utrata, a Ph. D. candidate in Politics and International Studies and a 2020 Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, whose research focuses on the influence of technology on state and corporate power. She joins our host Muna Gasim and producer Sam Baron to discuss how Big Tech companies are impeding and restricting our human rights in...

For this week's episode, host Muna Gasim and panellist Ashling Williams are joined by Alex Raikes, the Strategic Director of Stand Against Racism & Inequality, for a discussion on the escalating and pervasive crisis of hate crimes in the United Kingdom. Alex discusses both the long-term prevalence and event-related spikes of hate-based crimes and incidents facing marginalized communities acros...

Our conversation this week turns to the question of Dalit rights in India, assessing the progress that has been made and what further change must come. To discuss this, we are thrilled to be joined by Dr. Sumeet Mhaskar from Jindal Global University. An Associate Professor at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, Dr. Mhaskar’s research takes in...

This week, host Muna Gasim and producer Sam Baron are joined by Zumretay Arkin, the Program and Advocacy Manager at the World Uyghur Congress, an umbrella organization based Berlin, Germany that advocates for the rights of Uyghur people, an ethnic group from Xinjiang in Northwest China. Despite the severe human rights abuses taking place against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China, Beijin...

This week, for the second in our two-part series focusing on the #EndSARS Movement, we are joined by three powerful activists working to end police brutality and abuse of power in Nigeria: Aisha Yesufu, Vome Aghoghovbia-Gafaar, and Lola Omolola. Our guests share stories about living in fear under SARS, insights about the power of the #EndSARS protests, and their visions for Nigeria’s future

For our first episode of 2021, we return to the 2018-19 Sudanese Revolution that overthrew Omar al-Bashir and his National Congress Party. Joined by Dinan Alasad and Aida Abbashar, the conversation highlights the course of the revolution, the importance of international attention and the mobilizing and uprising of Sudan’s youth. Our guests identify...

The topic of conversation this week is the ongoing climate crisis and our urgent need to act. We are joined by the remarkable Daze Aghaji, a university student and high-profile climate justice activist who has fought to combat the climate emergency at an international level. The climate crisis has the potential to impact all aspects of our lives and Daze urges us to tackle the...

This week, in partnership with Global Integrity, we are joined by Dr. Jackie Harvey of Northumbria University and Dr. Pallavi Roy of SOAS University of London to discuss the structures of political power in Nigeria and the underlying systems of corruption that culminated in the protests of the #EndSARS movement. This episode is the first in a two-part series focusing on human rights abuses in Nige...

In the second episode of Season 5, we are joined by Dan Sullivan, the senior advocate for human rights at Refugees international, and Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK to discuss the situation of the persecuted Rohingya minority in the context of Myanmar's second general election,  an event overshadowed by electoral events in the United States.

In the first episode of Season 5, the new team of panellists sets the stage for a broader discussion of human rights under threat. Through their experience with human rights issues in NGO work, academia as well as their personal lives, they problematise some aspects of human rights while highlighting its immense potential for positive change. This season, the theme of the podcast is "In the Firing...

In the past few months, online activism has exploded, enabling us to build transnational solidarity and make cross-topical connections like never before. In this episode, we talk about the possibilities and sometimes fraught experience of online activism,  the importance of doing due diligence, and guarding against burnout.