The Keeper: A Human Rights Podcast

Episode 11 of The Keeper, and the second episode of our Solidarity Sabbath season, will bring you into the 21st century of anti-Semitism with a conversation with the United States’ top diplomat tasked with combating anti-Semitism. Elan Carr, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, joins Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett to speak about his work in the fight against anti-Semitism – what k...

In the first episode of the Lantos Foundation’s special Solidarity Sabbath podcast season, we take a deeper look at the origins and history of Anti-Semitism. It is often called “an ancient hatred” or “the oldest hatred”. We ask David Nirenberg, Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School, just how far back does it really go? Why has it been so enduring across time, geography, religion, cultu...

The Keeper podcast is back – this time with something new and a little different! Like so many other things, plans for the Lantos Foundation’s annual religious freedom initiative – the Solidarity Sabbath – fell victim to the COVID-19 outbreak this year. The Solidarity Sabbath usually offers a chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a persecuted or oppressed religious community. In a time of soci...

We were thrilled to be joined by Ensaf Haidar, the wife of imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. Raif’s unjust imprisonment and lashing has become an international human rights cause, thanks in no small measure to the tireless efforts of Ensaf. She has become the face of the movement to free Raif. Despite all of Ensaf’s apparent physical daintiness, there can be no mistaking her strength and deter...

In July of 1938, representatives of 32 nations were summoned to Evian France at the call of President Franklin Roosevelt to try to find a solution to the Jewish refugee problem - a crisis precipitated by the increasingly draconian and violent persecution of Jews in Germany and Austria. The conference, which began with high hopes and high-minded rhetoric, was to end in abject failure. The assembled...

We are happy to welcome back the Chair of the Lantos Foundation, Annette Lantos, for another episode of #TheKeeperPodcast! For more than two decades, by the side of Congressman Tom Lantos, she worked as the unpaid Executive Director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. Annette Lantos' evolution from wife, mother, and educator to activist began in the late 1970's when she first learn...

Joshua Wong was only 17 when he led the 2014 Umbrella Movement fighting for Hong Kong's democratization. His inspirational mobilization of over 100,000 Hong Kong citizens to engage in peaceful protest on behalf of democracy and the rule of law captivated the world and galvanized a generation of young people to become activists and to peacefully resist Chinese control of their government. Josh...

On July 16th the world witnessed a stunning and deeply concerning press conference in which the President of the United States seemed to argue that there was a credibility equivalence between US intelligence agencies findings on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and the laughable denials of Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who many believe to be a cold blooded killer. Another outrageo...

What does it mean to be a mother? The word brings to mind ideas of love, sacrifice, devotion, and a determination never to give up on one’s children. It is both an immense responsibility and a privilege to be a mother. So, what does it mean to be a mother of a whole people? Our guest, Mrs. Rebiyah Kadeer, is known as the “mother of the Uyghur nation”. She is the acknowledged global leader of the U...

On a bitter cold Christmas eve in 1944, a little Jewish girl, 13 years old but with her diminutive size and Shirley Temple curls looked closer to 8, kissed her mother goodbye and alone began to make her way towards the Swiss border. A short while earlier, they had fled from Hungary where Jews were facing deportation and death at the hands of the Nazi occupiers. The family had sought refuge in Swit...

Over fifty years ago the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the fierce urgency of now as he sought to make America at long last live up to the promises of our founding. Our guest on this episode of The Keeper is another man of the cloth, Father Patrick Desbois, who understands the fierce urgency of history and the need to document it and claim its secrets before all the witnesses to the p...

Bill Browder, founder of Hermitage Capital, has become an unlikely human rights crusader who was almost single-handedly responsible for the adoption of the Magnitsky Act, a groundbreaking piece of human rights legislation. Bill and Katrina recently had the chance to talk about his life and the singular, tragic injustice that transformed him from an international financier to an international advoc...

Recently, Katrina sat down to speak with Mr. Jared Genser and Dr. Yang Jianli. Jared is the founder of Freedom Now, an independent nongovernmental organization that works to free prisoners of conscience around the world. He is often referred to in the media as "the extractor" for his work as a leading human rights lawyer on behalf of prisoners of conscience. Dr. Yang Jianli, founder of I...