Speaker bios

Parallel event to the UN 64th Commission on the Status of Women, Beijing +25 on the Status of Gender in Egypt/MENA after the Arab Spring.

Date/Time: March 9th, 12.00 PM
Venue: The Armenian Convention Center, Guild Hall
Address: 630 2nd Ave. New York, NY.

____________________________________________________

Hend Nafea: Egyptian Activist and current program coordinator at Vital Voices.

Nafea is an Egyptian human rights advocate who serves as executive director and co-founder of the U.S.-based NGO Human Rights Port, an organization working to provide support and protection for human rights defenders and civil society activists in Egypt and the greater MENA region.

Nafea is also the co-founder of Watan Bila Ta’azib [A Nation Without Torture], a campaign that seeks to bring an end to torture in Egypt. As a journalist, she reported on the anti-government demonstrations carried out by laborers and other social groups not covered by mainstream media.

For her participation in the 2011 uprisings against former president Hosni Mubarak, she was arrested, tortured, and later sentenced in absentia to 25 years in prison. She has been profiled in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and in the 2015 documentary feature film The Trials of Spring. During her fellowship, Ms. Nafea worked on identifying the specific needs of at-risk human rights defenders in Egypt to better equip international donor organizations to design effective forms of support.  She has earned her masters degree from Brandeis University and gave the commencement speech.

Kal Abol Naga

Kal Abol Naga: Egyptian actor, director producer, and dissident.

Kal Naga  is a Multi Award-winning Actor, Producer, and Director from Egypt, based in California. He is a well-established movie star in the middle-east and is considered one of the top talents of his generation. His work extends from Film, TV, to Theatre, and Radio and TV hosting. 

As an actor he collected numerous Best Actor Awards from his home country Egypt, European & International Film Festivals since 2001, culminating in a historic winning of ALL-important Best Actor Awards offered in his home country Egypt in 2014.  Naga’s English speaking work started gaining momentum since he moved to California in 2017, where he appeared in the main role (Al Kady) in the Fox TV show Tyrant, then his enigmatic appearance in the BBC TV mini-series The Last Post, to a much-celebrated guest-star appearance in The History Channel TV show Vikings season 5 in 2019.  

More importantly, Naga is well known for his social and human rights advocacy and has been one of the early outspoken icons from Egypt promoting social justice, freedom and democratic change to the Arab world in general and Egypt in specific, He played a pivotal role in supporting the Egyptian Revolution Jan 25th 2011. he has a very admirable record of social & human rights (especially child rights) work. He was appointed as a UNICEF UN Goodwill Ambassador in Egypt 2007 till 2015.
More about Kal on his website.

Marlyn Tadros

Marlyn Tadros: Egyptian human rights activist and founder of Virtual Activism.

Tadros is an Egyptian/American human rights activist. She has worked in human rights in Egypt since 1990 and has moved to the States in 1998. Tadros currently teaches computer technologies, at Southern New Hampshire University.

Tadros was a Visiting Scholar in the Women’s Department at NEU and occasionally taught human rights and Middle East Studies in the Political Science Department. She was also a Visiting Fellow at the Human Rights Program at Harvard University’s Law School.

Tadros founded the non-profit organization Virtual Activism, a pioneering project that deals with the intersection between technology, human rights and development. She has organized training workshops on technology and human rights in several countries around the world, with special focus on the Middle East. Tadros is also author of numerous papers and books on the Middle East with several publications in both English and Arabic, and remains committed to human rights activism in Egypt.