http://www.oslofreedomforum.com

Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is a conference about human rights first held in May 2009 in Oslo, Norway. It was described by „‚The Economist“ in a news report as the „Davos of Human Rights.“ It was founded by Thor Halvorssen, CEO of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation. According to Thor Halvorssen, „the Oslo Freedom Forum is an intimate gathering where leaders who are transforming the world present effective solutions and inspiring testimonies that impact human rights and freedom. Speakers share diverse perspectives and expertise, from those individuals with first-hand experiences in the fight for human rights to those offering insight based on academic research and political and non-profit leadership“. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Freedom_Forum

The fourth annual Oslo Freedom Forum, titled Out of Darkness, Into Light, will bring the most daunting humanitarian issues of our time out of the shadows of obscurity and to the forefront of global awareness. The event will feature visionaries from academia, advocacy, business, media, politics, social entrepreneurship, and technology who will shed light on some of the world’s least known and most repressive regimes and exchange ideas on how best to tackle humanitarian crises.

The conference will include luminaries from Wikipedia and Google; the best-selling authors of The Shadow War, Consent of the Networked, and You Can’t Read This Book; anti-slavery pioneers from Cambodia, Haiti, and Nepal; opposition leaders from Ethiopia, Russia, and Singapore; individuals using the arts to highlight human rights crises; and on-the-ground activists from regimes in Equatorial Guinea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe, to name only a few.

View the full 2012 program here.

The program will include a spotlight on the many forms of modern-day slavery; exposés on how Western public relations firms, IT, and arms companies support dictatorships, the drug war’s impact on human rights; a focus on the burgeoning democracy movement in Russia; perspectives on dealing with poverty through individual rights; an examination of global censorship; and a discussion on the current state of the Arab uprisings.

This year’s event will be streamed live and in its entirety online. Updates can be found on Facebook and on Twitter @OsloFreedomFrm using the hashtag #OFF12.

More information about 2012 Oslo Freedom Forum Speakers can be found on the speakers page.

To learn more about our special breakfast panel discussion, Silenced: Five Emblematic Cases of Political Detention, please click here.

Press Inquiries

Alex Gladstein
Alex@oslofreedomforum.com
Phone: +1 646 737 4371

Media contact:

http://www.youtube.com/oslofreedomforum
http://www.oslofreedomforum.com/speakers/vaclav_havel.html
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/europes-own-humanrights-crisis

 


http://www.rferl.org/vaclav_havel

http://www.article19.org/letter from vaclav havel

http://www.freedomhouse.org/mission-protect-free-expression-azerbaijan

http://dalailamacenter.org/blog-post/vaclav-havel-dalai-lama-lost-friend