Freedom House Launches Ambassadors for Freedom Program, Names Five Leading Human Rights Defenders as Inaugural Advocates
WASHINGTON—Today Freedom House launched the Ambassadors for Freedom program, a new global initiative bringing together a group of the world’s foremost democracy advocates to champion solutions to the 20-year decline in global freedom. Carolina Barrero, Nazanin Boniadi, Anaïse Kanimba, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Anna Kwok will serve as the inaugural ambassadors. Ambassadors will work in partnership with Freedom House to spotlight threats to freedom, engage policymakers and the public, and inspire a new generation to safeguard democracy.
“Freedom House has always believed that lasting change is driven by courageous individuals willing to stand up for freedom, often at great personal cost,” said Freedom House CEO Jamie Fly. “These ambassadors are some of the world’s great champions of the power of freedom and speak from personal experience as targets of repressive regimes themselves. Their courage is an example to us all and we are thrilled to welcome them as Freedom House Ambassadors.”
Freedom House Ambassadors
Carolina Barrero
Barrero is a Cuban political leader, human rights defender, and political analyst. A prominent figure of Cuba’s 27N and San Isidro prodemocracy movements, her activism led to repeated arbitrary detention, surveillance, house arrest, and ultimately forced exile in 2022. She is president and executive director of Ciudadanía y Libertad, where she leads efforts to strengthen independent civil society, political participation, and democratic institutions in Cuba, and is a PhD Fellow at the University of Miami.
Nazanin Boniadi
Boniadi is an Iranian-born actor, producer, and human rights advocate. She has partnered with charitable organizations since 2008 to campaign for the rights of disenfranchised populations across the world, with a focus on the unjust conviction and treatment of Iranian youth, women, and prisoners of conscience. She sits on the board of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran. As an actress, she has starred in dozens of television series and films.
Anaïse Kanimba
Kanimba is a global development expert and human rights activist. She is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, during which her father, Paul Rusesabagina, saved more than 1,200 people. Anaïse co-led with her sister Carine Kanimba an international campaign to free Rusesabagina, who was detained illegally in Rwanda from August 2020 to March 2023. In this role, Anaïse advocated and wrote about wrongful detention, transnational repression, and autocratic leadership for a range of major publications.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
Kara-Murza is a Russian politician, author, and former political prisoner. He was twice poisoned, reportedly by Russian secret services, for his work securing sanctions against high-ranking Russian rights abusers through the Global Magnitsky Act. In 2022 he received a 25-year treason sentence for denouncing the invasion of Ukraine. He was freed in a 2024 prisoner exchange. He is vice president of the Free Russia Foundation, a contributor at The Washington Post, and is an advisor at major rights organizations.
Anna Kwok
Kwok is a Washington, DC-based China policy strategist and well-known Hong Kong prodemocracy activist. In response to her work, in 2023, Hong Kong authorities issued a HK$1 million (US$129,000) bounty for information leading to her capture, and in 2026 they imprisoned her father based on fabricated charges. Kwok serves as a Technology and Human Rights Fellow at The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and chairs the board of the Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC).
Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to create a world where all are free. We inform the world about threats to freedom, mobilize global action, and support democracy’s defenders.
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