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Hayat Akbari is a former refugee and passionate advocate for human rights who has spent years standing up for the dignity and rights of refugees, people seeking asylum, and migrants affected by immigration detention. Drawing from his own experience of displacement and detention, Hayat brings a deeply personal voice to advocacy at national, regional, and international levels. As a Committee Member of the International Detention Coalition (IDC), he works with others with lived experience to challenge harmful detention practices and promote humane, rights-based alternatives.
He also chaired the Youth Working Group at the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), supporting young refugees and people seeking asylum leaders to raise their voices and drive change across the region. Hayat’s work is grounded in empathy and the belief that those affected must lead the fight for justice and lasting change.
Reem Alabali Radovan has been Germany’s Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development since 2025 and is a member of the Bundestag, representing the constituency of Schwerin. Previously she served as Minister of State at the Chancellery, Federal Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration (2021–2025) and was the first Federal Government Commissioner for Anti-Racism (2022–2025).
Born in Moscow in 1990 to Iraqi parents, Radovan moved with her family to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1996. She studied political sciences at Freie Universität Berlin and, before being elected to parliament in 2021, held various roles in refugee and integration policy, most recently Commissioner for Integration for the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state government.
Parwana Amiri fled Afghanistan with her family and has been living in Germany since 2022. During her years of flight, she began working as a writer, poet and political activist and campaigning for the rights of refugees. Among other things, she published the poetry collection "We will fly higher" and "Brief an die Welt aus Moria". In 2025, she completed her vocational baccalaureate in Germany and volunteers as a Young Advocate for Terre des Hommes Germany.
Yaroslava Dokhniak is a Ukrainian artist originally from Luhansk, a city currently under Russian occupation. After the Russian invasion began in 2022, she fled and lived in the UK for two years. During this time, she worked with several refugee organisations. Her art often explores themes of war, loss and forced migration. Through illustration and visual storytelling, Yaroslava raises awareness of the experiences of refugees and aims to influence perspectives on these issues. She originally designed the visual for this year's Human Rights Award, entitled "Bars", for the collaborative project "Graphics: The Damages of Immigration Detention in Art" by IDC and Amnesty International Malaysia. She currently lives in Kyiv. @yaroslava.arts
Saskia Esken was appointed chairwoman of the Bundestag Committee on Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth in May 2025. She was also co-leader of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) from December 2019 to June 2025. She has been a member of the Bundestag, representing the Calw/Freudenstadt constituency, since 2013.
After finishing secondary school (Abitur), Esken worked in various unskilled jobs in the food service industry, as a driver, and as a typist.
In 1991, she qualified as a computer scientist and went on to spend several years in software development. She joined the SPD in 1990. As a member of the school parent–teacher association, and most recently as deputy chair of the Baden-Württemberg Parents’ Advisory Council, she was actively involved in education policy for many years. She also has considerable experience as a local politician.
Dr Sabine Fandrych has been a member of the Executive Board and Secretary General of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) since July 2021. She studied political science, ethnology and Portuguese linguistics at the LMU Munich. She completed her doctorate at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Hamburg in 2000.
Between 2000 and 2007, she was head of the FES office in Angola and consultant for organisational development and reintegration policy at GIZ. From 2007 to 2010, Ms Fandrych headed the FES office in Ethiopia and at the African Union. In 2010, she joined the FES in Germany as head of the FES office in Baden-Württemberg. From 2017 to 2021, she headed the department of the FES Political Academy in Bonn.
Carolina Gottardo has been leading IDC's efforts to end immigration detention and promote alternatives since November 2020. She is the Executive Director of the organization.
She is a migrant lawyer and economist who has worked on human rights issues for more than 20 years in different countries. Her areas of expertise are migration, asylum and gender. She is a migrant from Columbia and has a specialist background in public policy, advocacy and government relations. Carolina works closely with the UN and is a member of the Global UN Women Expert Working Group to address the human rights of women in the Global Compact for Migration, a co-lead of the UN Migration Network Workstream on Alternatives to Detention and a former steering Committee member of the UN Migration Multi-Partner Trust Fund.
She is also a member of the board of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), the Women in Migration Network (WIMN) and the European Philanthropic Initiative for Migration (EPIM). Carolina has a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Economics from the Universidad de los Andes, as well as a MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dr Anna Grebe is a moderator, speaker and consultant who specialises in youth policy. Her work focuses on promoting human and children’s rights by helping key stakeholders in politics and society take young people’s views seriously and embed them in institutional structures. To advance this goal, she hosts a wide range of guests on her podcasts “Berufsjugendlich” and “22 Millionen”.
www.annagrebe.de
Prof Dr Constantin Hruschka is Professor of Social Law at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences in Freiburg and an expert on asylum and migration law. He has also conducted research at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich, focusing on the implications of large-scale immigration.
Professor Hruschka has worked as a lawyer in Munich and held positions with the Swiss Refugee Council (SFH), the Federal Administrative Court of Switzerland and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Dr Najat Maalla M'jid has been appointed Special Representative on Violence against Children by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 2019. Dr M’jid, a medical doctor in pediatrics, has over the last four decades devoted her life to the promotion and protection of children’s rights. From 2008 to 2014, she served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.
Among other positions, Dr M’jid worked as an international expert on developing and monitoring integrated child protection strategies and policies, as well as on social and development policies.
The NaGaN project brings the soundscapes of Turkey, Armenia, the Levant, Egypt and Greece to life on stage. The focus is on the traditional instruments the oud and the kanun, which are complemented by other classical instruments from the region. The project features selected pieces from folk and classical traditions.
Tarek Charbel is a multi-instrumentalist and ethnomusicologist from Lebanon who lives and works in Berlin. He interprets the musical traditions of various Middle Eastern countries and has chaired conferences and participated in numerous world music festivals and workshops in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
Dima Dawood is a kanun player from Syria who now lives in Berlin. She combines her artistic practice with an academic background in social work, musicology, and German studies. Since 2017, she has performed with various Berlin ensembles and projects, and has played internationally with the Italian orchestra Almara, among others.
Dr Asma Hedi Nairi is the MENA Regional Manager at the International Detention Coalition (IDC), where she leads advocacy, research, and capacity-building initiatives to promote rights-based alternatives to immigration detention across the Middle East and North Africa. A Tunisian human rights activist and researcher, Asma holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology.
She began her career with Amnesty International Tunisia, focusing on equal rights, youth engagement, and refugee protection. After relocating to Turkey, she worked extensively on refugee integration and humanitarian response with organizations such as UNHCR, Building Markets, and the Human Development Foundation.
Bridging policy engagement, fieldwork, and academic inquiry, Asma conducts independent research on the role of communication and media in shaping public perceptions of migrants and refugees. Her recent published work examines the representation of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisian media and its impact on migrants' rights and social inclusion.
Martin Schulz is President of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. From 2017 to 2021 he was a Member of the German Bundestag. He was party chairman of the SPD, candidate for chancellor-ship and longtime member of the European Parliament, where he served as president in two terms from 2012 to 2017.
Martin Schulz is a laureate of the Charlemagne Prize for his outstanding contribution to the strengthening of the European Parliament and democratic legitimacy in the EU.
