An NIF Zoom event discussion regarding the 11-year anniversary of the Arab Spring and the state of freedom, democracy, and human rights in the region.

Disclaimer: NIF events are by email invitation only and are non-transferable. Please note that when registering for any of our events, all required fields must be properly filled out. We reserve the right to deny entry for those who fail to do so, i.e. inputting “NA” in the “organization” or “job title” section.

Speakers

Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)

Amr Hamzawy, Senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and Director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Radwan Masmoudi, Founder and President of the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID)

Fouad Ibrahim, Saudi political scientist and author

Moderator

Khaled Saffuri, Founder and President of the National Interest Foundation (NIF)

About our Speakers: 

Sarah Leah Whitson is the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). Previously, she served as executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division from 2004 – 2020, overseeing the work of the division in 19 countries, with staff located in 10 countries. Whitson has led dozens of advocacy and investigative missions throughout the region, focusing on issues of armed conflict, accountability, legal reform, migrant workers, and human rights. She has published widely on human rights and foreign policy in the Middle East in international and regional media, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, and CNN. She appears regularly on Al-Jazeera, BBC, NPR, MSNBC, and CNN. Previously, Whitson worked in New York for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. Whitson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is on the boards of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, Artistic Freedom Initiative, Freedom Forward, ALQST for Human Rights, and Sinai Foundation for Human Rights. She speaks Armenian and Arabic.

Amr Hamzawy is a senior research scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and Director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He studied political science and developmental studies in Cairo, The Hague, and Berlin. He was previously an associate professor of political science at Cairo University and a professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo. Between 2016 and 2017, he served as a senior fellow in the Middle East program and the Democracy and Rule of Law program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C. His research and teaching interests as well as his academic publications focus on democratization processes in Egypt, tensions between freedom and repression in the Egyptian public space, political movements and civil society in Egypt, contemporary debates in Arab political thought, and human rights and governance in the Arab world. His new book On The Habits of Neoauthoritarianism – Politics in Egypt Between 2013 and 2019 appeared in Arabic in September 2019. Hamzawy is a former member of the People’s Assembly after being elected in the first Parliamentary elections in Egypt after the January 25, 2011 revolution. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a weekly op-ed to the All Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

Radwan Masmoudi is the Founder and President of the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID), a nonprofit think tank based in Washington D.C. dedicated to promoting freedom, democracy, and good governance in the Arab and Muslim worlds, as well as improving relations between the United States and the Muslim World. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Center’s quarterly publication, Muslim Democrat, a member of the Board of Directors of the International Forum for Islamic Dialogue (IFID), the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies (ACSIS), the Executive Committee of the Network of Democrats in the Arab World (NDAW), and served as a member of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy, between 2012 and 2022. Dr. Masmoudi holds a Masters and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has published several articles and spoken at major international conferences on the compatibility between Islam and Democracy, and the democratic transitions in Tunisia following the Arab revolutions of 2011.

Fouad Ibrahim is a Saudi political scientist who specifically studies Islam and Shi’ism in Saudi Arabia. Ibrahim is an editor at Saudi Affairs and has published numerous academic articles. Ibrahim received his M.A. in Religion and Ph.D. in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. He has published in both Arabic and English, with articles such as, “The Jurist and the State: Shi’i Political Thought” (1998), “Saudi Arabia: State’s Identity Crisis” (2011), and “Future of Saudi Arabia: Discourse, Throne, and Coalitions” (2017). His most noteworthy book, published in 2006 by Saqi Books, “The Shiʻis of Saudi Arabia” traces the evolution of Shi’ite opposition in Saudi Arabia since the late 1970s during the reform movements. Ibrahim’s work ranges from contextualizing the 1979 Iranian Revolution within the history of Shi’ism to the ascension of Abdullah to the Saudi throne.

About our Moderator: 

Khaled Saffuri is the Founder and President of the National Interest Foundation (NIF), a nonpartisan think tank and nonprofit organization established in April of 2018 which is focused on bettering relationships between the United States and countries across the globe through the promotion of smarter foreign policy. Mr. Saffuri has previously served as a Principal at Meridian Strategies providing international business and government clients with unparalleled strategic and public affairs consulting services, and also founded and ran one of the United States’ prominent and most active organizations to represent the Middle East and Muslim-Americans. He has worked for many years with Members of Congress and has testified in front of Congressional Committees, advising them on international issues and leading Congressional delegations to the Middle East. Due to his extensive background and expertise, Mr. Saffuri is a regular contributor to a number of important media outlets in the United States and internationally including CNN, CBS, and BBC and contributes articles and written publications to outlets such as The Washington Post and The American Conservative. 

Note: additional speakers may be announced later.