Fancy receptions...
Or in the grand auditorium of the Christiana Theater.
The speakers of the Freedom Forum were a varied bunch united by a common cause.
There were the world leaders and "big names" like Former Romanian President Emil Constantinescu...
Chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov...
Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson.
Former Malaysian Prime Minster Anwar Ibrahim...
And Polish ex-President Lech Walesa...
Then there were journalists and professors, like Benjamin Skinner, who is devoted to studying slavery and human trafficking and has witnessed it first-hand...
Or Lubna al-Hussein, a Sudanese journalist fighting for the non-ridiculous treatment of women after she was jailed for wearing PANTS.
But the most captivating speakers that moved the entire room to tears and received standing ovations were the courageous souls that had come the farthest, that had endured the most, and that were standing up for what is right at the risk of their own lives and personal security.
People like Lidia Yusupova, Kasha Jacqueline, Mukthar Mai, and Gilbert Thuyabonye, whose stories I will try to convey in a few short paragraphs.
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Just look at the face of Lidia Yusupova and you can tell she has been through a lot.
A Chechen lawyer and human rights activist hailed by the BBC as the bravest woman in Europe, she has lived through the wars in Chechnya after having suffered the loss of several friends, colleagues and family members all around her.
Yusupova made it her life's work to document allegations of executions, disappearances, rape, and torture in Chechnya after war broke out again in 2000.
Not only does she provide victims of human rights abuses with legal assistance, she also informs the international community of the violations committed by the authorities on both sides of the conflict.
** I should also add that during our stay in Oslo we just HAPPENED to be staying in the same hotel as the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his hundreds of secret servicemen. On the second night, Lidia's room was broken into by what could only have been these Russian thugs. There was a morning where I was walking hastily out the front entrance of the hotel with my big camera bag at my side when I noticed Medvedev coming my way with his entourage. Before I realized what was happening there were 4-6 huge scaryfaced bodyguards in my face, two of them grabbed my shoulders and one of them grabbed my bag and I thought I was going to die. It was SCARY.
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Kasha Jacqueline is a Ugandan lesbian activist fighting against pending Anti-Homosexuality laws.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 criminalizes homosexuality threatening those found “guilty" with severe punishments, including the DEATH PENALTY.
But not only that, it compels anyone suspecting homosexual conduct to notify the authorities or face three years in prison. So basically parents have to turn in their own children if they suspect them of gayness. It's like the Salem Witch Trials. It's ridiculous.
Kasha is, I believe, rather new to the speaking circuit, but she was one of the most charismatic, having the ability to use humor and self-deprecation to drive the points across on some really serious issues.
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Mukhtar Mai is a rural Pakistani woman who was gang-raped as a form of "honor revenge" on the orders of tribesmen of a clan more powerful than hers.
Apparently it's not uncommon in these more rural regions to carry out revenge on someone by going after a family member. The victim is then expected to commit suicide from the unbearable shame, often by becoming a suicide bomber. (Did you know that's often how suicide bombers are created? I had no idea, but makes much more sense than people who simply step forward to do it.) But instead, she chose to stand up and speak out against this barbaric practice and she fears for her life on a daily basis.
(In Iraq, a woman named Samira Jassim confessed to organizing the rapes of over 80 women in order to later convince them to become suicide bombers. SUPER OMG.)
She relayed instances where even a one-and-a-half year old CHILD was gang raped.
Her testimony was chilling and the room was dead silent during her entire presentation.
Brave brave brave woman. Mukhtar Mai.
Only once the entire week did I see her smile.
But I did, and I happened to catch it on camera when she looked at me.
And it was beautiful.
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Gilbert Thuyabonye is a Tutsi man from Burundi who experienced the horrific reality of the centuries-old war between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes firsthand.
On October 21, 1993, Gilbert and his classmates were in school. The Hutu classmates at the Kibimba school, their parents, some teachers and other Hutu tribesmen, forced more than a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into a room where they beat and burned them to death.
After nine hours of being buried by the corpses of his beloved friends, and himself on fire, Gilbert used the charred bone of one of his classmates to break through a window. He jumped free of the burning building and ran into the night, on charred feet, surviving one of the most horrible massacres in the long Tutsi-Hutu war.
Now, 16 years later and more than 8,000 miles from Burundi, Gilbert Tuhabonye is a celebrity in the world of running. He went on to graduate college at Abilene Christian University where, despite being covered with scar tissue from his extensive burns, he was a national champion runner. He is now, by all accounts, the most popular running coach in Austin, Texas where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
I caught a glimpse of his wedding ring on the first day of our first press conference. And I don't know why I took a picture of it, but it just really stood out to me.
It wasn't until a few days later that I learned his story; and knowing it now makes the above image that much more powerful to me as it represents the happiness and peace he's found in spite of everything he's had to overcome.
Truly incredible.
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And finally. Leopoldo Lopez.
Oh. My. God.
Leopoldo Lopez was hands-down the most charismatic speaker of the entire conference. When he spoke, every eye and every ear was on him.
It doesn't hurt that he is breathtakingly beautiful.
The former mayor of Caracas and the leader of the new opposition party in Venezuela, he is the frontrunner to take down Hugo Chavez's tyrannical grip on power in the 2012 election.
In short, he is like the Obama of Venezuela.
He also happens to be Thor's cousin.
I heart Leopoldo Lopez.
But all these people, several of them who are now my pals and facebook buddies, really opened my eyes to a world I had been completely oblivious to until now.
I wish them all the best and I look forward to the change that they are bound to affect on the world.
And hopefully I will be right there to take pretty pictures of them along the way.
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