Dr Agnès Callamard
Executive Director

Agnès took up the post of ARTICLE 19 Executive Director in October 2004. She has had a distinguished career in human rights and humanitarian work. Agnès is a former Chef de Cabinet for the Secretary General of Amnesty International and, as the organisation’s Research Policy Coordinator, led Amnesty’s work on women’s human rights. Agnès has conducted human rights investigations in a large number of countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. She founded and led HAP International (the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership) where she oversaw field trials in Afghanistan, Cambodia and Sierra Leone, and worked extensively in the field of international refugee movements with the Center for Refugee Studies in Toronto.

She has written and been published widely in the fields of human rights, women’s rights, refugee movements and accountability, and holds a PhD in political science from the New School for Social Research in New York.


John Barker
Senior Operations Director

John has worked for ARTICLE 19 since 2000 and previously managed the organisation’s Africa Programme, based in Johannesburg. Before joining ARTICLE 19, he managed and developed the broadcasting policy and legislation work of the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s Windhoek regional office.

John has vast experience and knowledge of human rights campaigning and advocacy, freedom of expression and access to information, broadcasting policy, and community or alternative media. He is skilled at facilitating and co-ordinating national and international networks. He is also proficient in leading strategic and operational planning processes, impact-based monitoring, project development and management, and organisational change and management.

John has an honours degree in applied photography, film and television from Westminster University, and a higher diploma in journalism and media studies from Rhodes University.


JUDr. Barbora Bukovská
Senior Director for Law and Director for Europe

Since 1994, Barbora has worked with different organisations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia on cases involving equal opportunities, access to justice, the rights of prisoners, deprivation of liberty, reproductive rights and others. In 2001, Barbora founded the Centre for Civil and Human Rights in Kosice, Slovakia, where she led efforts to eliminate the practice of forced sterilisation of Romani women in Slovakia, as well as other human rights abuses. From 2006 to 2008, she was the Legal Director at the Mental Disability Advocacy Centre, an international organisation based in Hungary, working on the rights of people with disabilities in Europe and Central Asia.

Barbora is a member of the Czech Bar Association and the Bar Association of the State of New York, and is qualified to practise law in those jurisdictions. Within her legal practice, she has filed more than 50 cases on various issues to the European Court of Human Rights and has published a number of reports and articles on a broad range of human rights.
Barbora graduated from the Law School of Charles University in Prague and earned a doctorate in law in Slovakia, and an LLM degree from Harvard Law School. In 1998 and 1999, she was a visiting scholar at Columbia University Law School in New York.


David Banisar
Senior Legal Counsel

David has worked in the field of information policy for nearly 20 years and was previously Director of the Freedom of Information Project at Privacy International. He has authored books, studies and articles on freedom of information, freedom of expression, media policy, whistleblowing, communications security and privacy. He has also served as an advisor and consultant to numerous organisations, including the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the UN Development Programme and the Open Society Institute.

David is a non-resident fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and a visiting research fellow at the School of Law at Leeds University. He was also a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Policy Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC. He has a Juris Doctor in law and public policy from The Columbus School of Law, at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.


Martin Clark
Interim Senior Director for Regions (working with Africa and the Middle East)

Martin was previously Deputy Director of Campaigns for Amnesty International’s International Secretariat, where he worked for more than 10 years. He currently works part-time for ARTICLE 19 and also as a freelance consultant to a variety of national and international campaigning organisations on strategy, evaluation, campaign management and capacity-building. Martin has a degree in mathematics and philosophy from Manchester University.


Henry Omusundi Maina
Director: ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa

Henry has worked in the human rights sector for ten years, where he specialised in criminal justice and human rights education at the Legal Resources Foundation. He also has expertise in advocacy and governance. Henry is skilled in programme management and fundraising, and has a masters degree in international development, law and human rights from Warwick University in the UK.


Paula Martins
Co-ordinator: ARTICLE 19 Brazil

Paula is a lawyer who has worked for many years with NGOs in Brazil on issues such as housing rights, indigenous land rights and disability rights. She has also developed capacity-building programmes and materials on human rights themes. She has experience in co-ordinating human rights projects, researching and documenting human rights violations and legal counselling on legal matters of public interest.

Before joining ARTICLE 19, Paula worked with Human Rights Watch as a researcher on Angola, and as a focal point on housing rights with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. She was a visiting fellow to the Federation Internationale des ligues des Droits de l’Homme in Paris and with the European Roma Rights Center in Budapest. She has an LLM in public interest law, with a specialisation in international human rights law.


Tahmina Rahman
Director: ARTICLE 19 Bangladesh

Tahmina joined ARTICLE 19 in 2008. Previously, she was Deputy Director of the International Mobilisation Programme for Amnesty International’s International Secretariat where she oversaw programmes in a number of South Asian, African and European countries. Tahmina has held management and policy positions in various international NGOs, including Oxfam GB, Water Aid and HAP International where she ran a successful field programme promoting beneficiary rights and humanitarian accountability in Cambodia. She has also worked extensively on gender mainstreaming and women’s rights in development and humanitarian programmes.

Tahmina has an LLM from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and was a MacArthur fellow at the Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard University.


Darío Ramirez
Director: ARTICLE 19 Mexico and Central America

Darío has experience in the areas of international human rights law, public international law, media law and journalism, refugees and women’s rights. Before joining ARTICLE 19, Darío was Deputy General Director of the Unit for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights at Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior. Prior to this, he worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Darío holds a bachelor degree in international relations and an LLM in public international law from the University of Amsterdam.

Trustees

Galina Arapova

Galina is a media lawyer and director of the Mass Media Defence Centre in Russia. The author of over 50 publications on Russian media law and freedom of expression, Galina is a practising media lawyer with experience in defamation, privacy and international standards for free expression. She regularly takes cases to the European Court on Human Rights, mainly to argue violations of article 10 (relating to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Galina also works as a trainer on the legal aspects of defamation, freedom of expression and freedom of information throughout Russia, the CIS countries and worldwide.

Galina has been a member of the ARTICLE 19 International Board since 2001.

Charlie Beckett

Charlie is a journalist, author and commentator who runs Polis, a news media think-tank at the London School of Economics that acts as a forum and research centre for international journalism issues. A former journalist with the BBC and Channel 4 news, Charlie has expertise in media change, financial journalism, and humanitarian and development communications. He published, among other articles and reports, Supermedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World in 2008.

Charlie joined the ARTICLE 19 International Board in 2009.

Lydia Cacho

Lydia is a freelance journalist and investigative reporter, who specialises in human rights reporting. Lydia has first-hand experience of the harassment and violence experienced by journalists in her native Mexico. In 2005, she was arrested on a charge of criminal defamation, forcibly extradited to another state, and beaten and abused in prison after publishing a book which exposed links between government officials, business leaders and organised crime in child pornography.
A feminist activist, Lydia also founded a shelter for women and children who are victims of trafficking, or domestic or sexual violence. She is currently working on a sixth book documenting the global sex trafficking trade.

Lydia joined the ARTICLE 19 International Board and the ARTICLE 19 Mexico board in 2009.

Evan Harris

Dr Evan Harris is a British Member of Parliament, having represented his Oxford West and Abingdon constituency for the Liberal Democrats since 1997. Evan is a medical doctor and has been active on issues of public health, science and medical ethics during his political career. He is also an active campaigner on anti-racism, refugee rights and human rights, with a particular interest in freedom of expression, anti-discrimination and the separation of religion and the state. He currently sits on the Joint Commons / Lords Select Committee on Human Rights.

Evan joined the ARTICLE 19 International Board in 2009.

Liz Kennedy

Liz is a human resource management consultant who has worked with a range of public and private sector organisations, including the BBC, CNN, the Advertising Standards Authority and broadcasters in Bosnia and Georgia. She specialises in management development, organisational change, design and development, equality, pay and reward strategies, and skills development.

Liz has been a member of the ARTICLE 19 International Board since 2008.

Lawrence Mute

Lawrence Murugu Mute is a commissioner for the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights where he leads on issues of policy and legislation in relation to human rights. Lawrence is a lawyer by training and an outspoken advocate for freedom of expression, freedom of information, community broadcasting and the rights of the disabled in Kenya and around Africa. He is also a poet, having published an anthology of poems in 2001.

Lawrence joined the ARTICLE 19 International Board in 2009 and the ARTICLE 19 Kenya board in 2008.

Malak El Chichini Poppovic

Malak is executive director of Conectas Human Rights, an international non-governmental organisation which builds collaboration between human rights practitioners. Based in Sao Paolo, Brazil, Malak has extensive experience working with the United Nations, particularly with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees which she has represented in several countries. She has written various articles on refugees, civil society, human rights and humanitarian affairs.

Malak joined the ARTICLE 19 International Board in 2009 and the board of ARTICLE 19 Brazil in 2008.

Sue Lloyd Roberts

Sue is a television journalist, working mainly for BBC news and current affairs, and BBC World. She was one of the first video-journalists in the UK, working for ITN, and subsequently also undertook investigative reporting for Channel 4. She has reported from many of the world’s political hotspots, including the former Soviet Union, China, Burma, Nepal, Tanzania, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Sue’s groundbreaking style of investigative reporting has garnered many awards, including the Amnesty International television news award and the One World television news award.

Sue joined the ARTICLE 19 International Board in 2009.

Heather Rogers

Heather is a barrister, specialising in the field of media law. Her areas of work include defamation, breach of confidence and privacy, reporting restrictions and contempt of court, and judicial review. She has been involved in a number of key freedom of expression cases in the UK. She is a member of Doughty Street Chambers in London, a legal practice that is well-known for its commitment to human rights.

Heather has been a member of the ARTICLE 19 board since 2004.

Catherine Smadja

Catherine is head of special projects, policy and strategy at the BBC. She previously served the French government as a senior civil servant and as special advisor on media policy to the Secretary State for Culture and Media from 1997 to 2000. She was subsequently seconded to the British Department of Culture, Media and Sport where she was responsible for broadcasting policy and director of the switchover programme.

Catherine joined the board of ARTICLE 19 in 2005. She was appointed Chair of the ARTICLE 19 board in 2008.