54 articles
Ahmed Mansoor
Ahmed Mansoor (born 1969) is an Emirati engineer, poet, and human rights activist, 2015 Martin Ennals Award laureate and the "million-dollar dissident" targeted by NSO Pegasus spyware; imprisoned in the UAE since 2017.
Ali Hewson
Ali Hewson (Alison Stewart), Irish businesswoman, Bono's wife since 1982; co-founded ethical fashion label Edun in 2005, took LVMH's 49% stake in 2009, and wound the loss-making brand down in 2018.
Alok Dixit
Alok Dixit, Indian activist and former journalist, founded the Stop Acid Attacks campaign (2013) and Chhanv Foundation (2014), Noida-based, and opened the Sheroes Hangout survivor cafés in Agra and Lucknow.
Alon-Lee Green (אלון-לי גרין)
Alon-Lee Green (אלון-לי גרין), Israeli activist, co-founder and national co-director of the Jewish-Arab movement Standing Together; 2011 social protest leader, former Knesset adviser, TIME100 Next 2024 honoree.
Anna Hazare
Anna Hazare (Kisan Baburao Hazare, born 1940) is an Indian Gandhian social activist from Ralegan Siddhi, Maharashtra, whose 2011 hunger strikes against corruption led to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013.
Annie Glenn
Annie Glenn (Anna Margaret Castor Glenn, 1920-2020), wife of astronaut-senator John Glenn for 73 years and American advocate for people with communication disorders, overcame a severe 85% stutter via Hollins therapy in 1973 and became an Ohio State adjunct speech pathology professor.
Arab Barghouti
Arab Barghouti (Arabic: Arab al-Barghouthi) is a Palestinian campaigner, son of imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, advocating his father's release and Palestinian prisoners' rights; he leads the Free Marwan campaign from Ramallah, an IT entrepreneur.
Arfan Bhatti
Arfan Qadeer Bhatti (born 1977) is a Norwegian Islamist, former head of Profetens Ummah, convicted in 2026 to 30 years forvaring for complicity in the 25 June 2022 Oslo Pride terror shooting; he was extradited from Pakistan and has appealed.
Arun Manilal Gandhi
Arun Manilal Gandhi (1934-2023), also Arun Gandhi, Indian American peace activist, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi; founded the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence and the Season for Nonviolence.
Aviva Chomsky
Aviva Chomsky (born 1957), daughter of Noam Chomsky, is an American historian at Salem State University and author of Undocumented, They Take Our Jobs!, Central America's Forgotten History, and Is Science Enough?, active in Latin American solidarity and immigrants' rights movements since the 1980s.
Baba Amte
Baba Amte (Murlidhar Devidas Amte, 1914–2008), Indian Gandhian lawyer and social activist, founded the leprosy rehabilitation community Anandwan in Maharashtra, led the Knit India marches and Narmada anti-dam campaigns, and won the Magsaysay, Templeton, and Gandhi Peace awards.
Beth Holloway
Beth Holloway, also Beth Holloway Twitty, is the American teacher and advocate, mother of Natalee Holloway, who vanished in Aruba in 2005; she founded the Natalee Holloway Resource Center and International Safe Travels Foundation and faced Joran van der Sloot's 2023 confession.
Brigitte Gabriel (حنان قهوجي)
Brigitte Gabriel (حنان قهوجي), Lebanese-born American activist and founder of ACT for America (2007), an SPLC-designated anti-Muslim group; former Middle East TV anchor, author, and 2025 Menachem Begin Prize recipient.
Camila Batmanghelidjh
Camila Batmanghelidjh, also known as Kamylā Batmanghelych, was an Iranian-born British psychotherapist and charity leader who founded Kids Company in London in 1996 and led it until its 2015 closure.
Carlos Eduardo Espina
Carlos Eduardo Espina, Uruguayan-American immigration activist and Spanish-language TikTok creator with over 20 million followers; Vassar 2020, UNLV law 2024; founder of Migrantes Unidos; 2024 DNC speaker.
Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Manning (born 1987), formerly Bradley Manning, is an American former Army intelligence analyst who leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, was sentenced to 35 years in 2013, and was released in 2017 after Obama commuted her sentence.
Daniel Haqiqatjou
Daniel Haqiqatjou, American Muslim writer born in Houston to Iranian parents, founder of The Muslim Skeptic and Alasna Institute, known for anti-feminist, anti-liberal writings and public debates.
Douglas Gowan
Douglas Gowan (c. 1942–2018) was a British NFU consultant and whistleblower who traced deformed livestock near Brofiscin and Maendy quarries in south Wales to Monsanto's PCB dumping, survived a 1970s corporate smear campaign, and gave a final testimony recorded by Michael Sheen.
Eglantyne Jebb
Eglantyne Jebb (1876–1928) was a British teacher and social reformer who founded Save the Children in 1919 and drafted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Ethel Kennedy
Ethel Skakel Kennedy (1928-2024), American human rights activist, widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, mother of 11 children, founder of RFK Human Rights, and 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.
Gauri Lankesh (ಗೌರಿ ಲಂಕೇಶ್)
Gauri Lankesh (ಗೌರಿ ಲಂಕೇಶ್), Kannada journalist and activist, editor of Lankesh Patrike and Gauri Lankesh Patrike, critic of right-wing politics, shot dead in Bengaluru on 5 September 2017; trial ongoing, no convictions as of 2025.
Georgiy Gongadze
Georgiy Gongadze (Георгій Гонгадзе), Ukrainian investigative journalist, Georgian-born, founder of Ukrayinska Pravda; kidnapped and murdered in September 2000; Melnychenko tapes implicated President Kuchma; ECHR ruled against Ukraine; General Pukach convicted.
Georgy Gapon
Georgy Apollonovich Gapon (Георгий Аполлонович Гапон, 1870–1906), Russian Orthodox priest and police-linked labor organizer, founded the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers, led the 9 January 1905 Bloody Sunday march, and was hanged by SR militants in 1906 after exposure as an Okhrana agent.
Henry Dunant
Henry Dunant (Jean-Henri Dunant, 1828-1910), Swiss businessman and founder of the ICRC; witnessed Solferino 1859, wrote A Memory of Solferino (1862), initiated the first Geneva Convention (1864), won the first Nobel Peace Prize (1901).
Iqbal Masih
Iqbal Masih (اقبال مسیح), 1983–1995, Pakistani Christian boy sold into bonded carpet-weaving at age 4, escaped via the BLLF, helped free thousands of child laborers, won the 1994 Reebok Human Rights Award, and was murdered at 12 in Muridke.
Jane Addams
Jane Addams (1860-1935), American social reformer and pacifist who co-founded Hull House in Chicago with Ellen Gates Starr in 1889 and won the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize, the first American woman so honored.
Jeanne Gapiya-Niyonzima
Jeanne Gapiya-Niyonzima (born 1963) is a Burundian HIV/AIDS and human rights activist who in 1994 became the first woman in Burundi to disclose publicly she was living with HIV.
Jenna Miscavige Hill
Jenna Miscavige Hill (born 1984), American former Scientologist, niece of church leader David Miscavige, daughter of Ron Miscavige Jr.; author of the 2013 memoir Beyond Belief and co-founder of ExScientologyKids.com after leaving the Sea Org in 2005.
John Froines
John Froines (1939–2022) was an American chemist and Chicago Seven defendant, acquitted of all charges in the 1969–70 trial, later OSHA Director of Toxic Substances and a UCLA public health professor.
John Perry Barlow
John Perry Barlow (1947-2018), Wyoming rancher, Grateful Dead lyricist, and EFF co-founder, wrote the 1996 Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, the defining cyberlibertarian manifesto against government control of the internet.