Our interview with Jenny Yang uncovers the many evident and unseen challenges of the refugee experience. How can a country and local community address both the humanitarian needs of refugees, and holistically and structurally provide a welcoming and inclusive environment? You'll want to hear the insights from someone as knowledgeable in this field as Jenny Yang. This episode is especially timely as Hardwired wraps up a series of student refugee training workshops throughout Virg...
Human rights advocate and professional athlete Enes Freedom was the special guest for Hardwired Global’s fundraiser on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 in Richmond, Virginia. Enes headlined this special event to continue his support of Hardwired and our groundbreaking efforts in human rights and education. Following his success as a professional basketball player, Enes has selflessly turned his attention to a greater cause — to be a voice for those who don’t have one. In recognitio...
In this conversation, our special guest Xi Van Fleet shares her experience surviving the Cultural Revolution in China. Xi describes the Communist tactics for seizing power by way of the “3D’s”: division, deconstruction, and destruction. First Chinese dictator Mao Zedong divided the people by class, then he deconstructed past cultural ideas and traditions, and then he destroyed Chinese historical landmarks, traditional ideals, and cultural symbols from any period prior to his regime. Xi descri...
During our interview with Ambassador at Large for Western Sahara Mouloud Said, he illustrates the 45-year struggle of fighting for the Sahrawi people, whose land was invaded shortly after the Spanish left the Western Sahara and families divided by Morocco and Mauritania. With an unceasing hopeful spirit, Mouloud stands on the frontlines to reclaim the freedom that has been denied his people for too long in a free and fair election for sovereignty. Watch the interview on Hardwire...
In this conversation, Hardwired Founder and President, Tina Ramirez, and high school educator, Zeina Dbouk, discuss the ways Zeina’s father stood up to corruption in Lebanon, which inspired her to continue his legacy through teaching students. They discuss the ways Zeina facilitates dialogue in her classroom by making space to respectfully engage across differences. They also explore the Hardwired Global teaching strategies Zeina uses in her classroom to engage students in a process of diffus...
Mr. Conde is a prolific author and lecturer in the U.S. and Europe who has defended countless refugees and individuals persecuted for their faith in his private law practice. In our interview, he shares how he first came face to face with the cost of freedom when he traveled behind the Iron Curtain to meet with Christians who didn’t even have a right to own their own Bible, something we can easily take for granted in a free country. Every summer, Mr. Conde joins the International Ins...
Mohaned’s story symbolizes the struggle many Sudanese Muslims experienced while living under the brutal rule of Sudan’s former dictator, Omar al Bashir. Mohaned describes the rampant discrimination and injustice he witnessed firsthand under the Bashir government, which imposed their strict interpretation of Islam on the people through radical laws that restricted every freedom – especially religious freedom. The religious laws even included punishment for wearing “indecent clothes...
“Every single country that’s a threat to peace, is a threat to their own people. Without exception.” Our next guest, Suzanne Scholte, gave North Korean defectors a voice in the U.S. Congress. Suzanne has been standing on the frontlines of freedom for nearly three decades, taking on the North Korea regime, which is perhaps the world’s most oppressive government and worst violator of human rights. Early in her career, Suzanne was inspired by her faith to help protect the people of North...
In this latest On the Frontlines of Freedom episode, we share an interview with Dr. de Jong, a former Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Government who went on to successfully found and build the first working group on Freedom of Religion or Belief in the Parliament. For over 20 years, de Jong’s personal beliefs and faith has been a driving force for his dedication, research and work in protecting freedom of religion or belief at the government level. What makes his work so...
As a secular country with the largest Muslim population in the world, Dr. Alissa Wahid works to honor the nation’s 1928 pledge that the country is united on grounds of religious diversity and freedom for all – a unique model among predominately Muslim countries that has inspired robust conversations worldwide. Mrs. Alissa Wahid is a trained family psychologist, but is most recognized for her work in the social sector on multiculturalism, democracy and human rights and moderate Muslim moveme...
In this next conversation with Tatiana Moon, daughter of the founder of the Unification Church, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, she opens up about the public misunderstandings of the Church, and shares her father’s vision of reuniting North Korea with South Korea, including details of his meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung in 1991, in which he boldly criticized the regime before its leaders. We close the conversation with discussing the perceptions of President Trump’s meeting with Kim J...
In this conversation with Dr. Felisa Tibbitts, co-founder of Human Rights Education Associates, we discuss the importance of teaching children and communities about their human rights. As a fellow global expert on human rights education, Dr. Tibbitts, was deeply influenced at a young age by major historical moments that brought the need for human rights to the forefront of global crisis – from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Civil Rights Movement in her own backyard. Over the c...
In this conversation, Tina Ramirez, Hardwired Global founder, and president, and Angela Wu Howard, a distinguished international human rights lawyer, discuss the dangers of government overreach and its impact on the freedom of religion for people of all faiths and none. They remember their teamwork at the United Nations rallying nations to vote down defamation of religion resolutions, which covertly protected harmful blasphemy laws, especially in Muslim-majority countries. They remember their...
In this conversation, Director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C, Naomi Kikoler, discusses the role of the Museum as the conscience of our country, designed to not only help Americans remember the Holocaust, but to be a resource for Congress in the prevention of future atrocities. Naomi outlines the strategies the Museum uses to communicate early warning signs of potential genocide, and then discusses what the Mu...
The last two years have exposed the lack of understanding many officials have about America’s first amendment protection of the freedom of religion. Under the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, many states passed laws that prevented public – and at times even private – worship. For one of the most fundamental aspects of American liberty to be so challenged during a time of national crisis raises serious questions about the strength of religious liberty in America today. In on h...
“And that was a moment that I’ll never forget. So many people had been living in the political prison for years in very inhuman conditions. The smell, the filthiness, there was no sun.” This interview is with Zainab Al-Suwaij, the co-founder and Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress, whose courageous advocacy for human rights began at a very early age. As the granddaughter of a leading Shi’a religious leader, Zainab had a frontline view of the brutality of Saddam Hussein’...
“Eleanor Roosevelt one day, got up and said ‘Dr. Charles Malik has been talking about the importance of the individual, and I have to say that the United States and other Western powers agree with that position’.” Dr. Habib Malik is proud of his family’s legacy in the field of human rights. Who could blame him? After all, his father was one of the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which continues to be the north star for all people worldwide. In honor of H...
"I’m not working for Muslims, Hindus, or Christians, I’m working for the rule of law. I’m working for justice, for liberty, for freedom. If one is not free, then none are free." – Ajit Sahi, Indian American Muslim Council Ajit Sahi exemplifies the courage and diversity of the people we are honored to work with around the world. As a person of the Hindu faith from India, he now works for a Muslim organization that works to advance greater protection and justice for persecuted communities in I...
"We are experiencing globally this massive spike in anti-Semitic incidence, rhetoric and attitudes that is unprecedented at least in the last generation. People are making a lot of comparisons to 1930's Europe because it feels that existential." - Julie Fishman Rayman Join us, as Julie shares the source of this most recent wave of anti-Semitism. You may recognize Julie as a previous guest on our interview series. This time, Rayman speaks as the Senior Director, Policy and Political Affairs ...
A first-generation American Muslim, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser's parents fled the oppressive Baath regime of Syria in the mid-1960's for American freedom. He shares about how his family’s experience influenced his life and his own fight for freedom. Dr. Jasser shares about the many opportunities he’s had to promote the freedoms his family were denied in Syria – from serving in the U.S. Navy to founding an organization to promote democratic values within the American Muslim community after Sept...