Ukraine
On 16 November 2025, at Rappler’s Social Good Summit in Manila, the Ukrainian human-rights lawyer and civil society leader Oleksandra Matviichuk delivered a speech conveying the strength of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russian aggression. Her remarks are excerpted below.
I’m a human rights lawyer and I’m applying the law to defend people and human dignity for many years. But now I’m in a situation when the law doesn’t work. Russia broke the UN charter and launched the war of aggression against Ukraine. Russian troops are deliberately hitting residential buildings, schools, churches, museums, and hospitals. They’re attacking evacuation corridors. They’re torturing people in filtration camps. They’re forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia. They ban Ukrainian language and culture. They’re abducting, robbing, raping, and killing civilians in the occupied territories. And the entire UN system of peace and security can’t stop this.
While this war turns people into . . . numbers, what we are literally doing, we are returning people their names because people are not numbers, and the life of each person matters. Let me share with you one story . . .
This is a story of ten-year-old boy Ilya, from Mariupol. When Russians tried to siege the city, they didn’t allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to open the green corridors and to evacuate civilians. Hence Ilya, like thousands and thousands of other people in the city, had to hide in the basement of their residential building from Russian shelling. They melted snow to have water, and they made fires to cook at least some food. But when supplies ran out, they were forced to go out and suddenly they appeared in the center of Russian shelling. Ilya’s mother was hit in her head, and the boy’s legs were torn. With her last strength, his mother took her son to a friend’s apartment. There was no medical assistance because, prior to this, Russians deliberately destroyed maternity hospitals and the entire medical infrastructure in Mariupol. So in this friend’s apartment, they just lay down on a couch and they hugged each other. They were lying like this for several hours. And this ten-year old boy told . . . my colleague how his mother died and got frozen right in his arms.
As a human-rights lawyer, I have a question. How will people who live in the twenty-first century defend human beings—their lives, their freedom, and their human dignity? Can we rely on the law, or does just brute force matter?
The answer to this question is important not just for people in Ukraine, in Syria, in Sudan, in Myanmar, in Nicaragua, or Venezuela. The answer to this question will define our common future. I don’t know what historians in the future will call this historical period. But the world order which is based on the UN charter and international law is collapsing before our eyes. . . . And when we speak about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, this is not just a war between two states. This is a war between two systems, authoritarianism and democracy. Because with this war, Putin attempts to convince us that a country with a strong military potential and nuclear weapon can break the UN charter, can dictate its rules to the entire international community, and even forcibly changed internationally recognized borders. So if Putin succeeds, it will encourage other authoritarian leaders in different parts of the globe to do the same.
I work with people affected by this war directly. So let me assure you that people in Ukraine dream about peace. But peace doesn’t come when a country which was invaded stops resisting. That’s not peace. That’s occupation. And occupation is the same war but just in another form. Occupation is not just changing one state flag for another. Occupation means enforced disappearances, torture, rape, denial of your identity, forcible adoption of your own children, filtration camps, and mass graves. This is Russian occupation. . . .
Authoritarian regimes attack truth. They try to poison people with cynicism and empathy. They ruin trust between people. They destroyed our connection with reality. They use digital filters which are overloaded with fake disinformation and propaganda. And it’s led to a situation that people start to lose their ability to make a distinction between lies and truth. And that is why we must fight for truth. It’s not a job just for journalists. It’s a job for every honest citizen. . . .
I know from my own experience when you can’t rely on the legal instruments, when you can’t rely on the UN system of peace and security, you can still rely on people. . . . Ordinary people have a much greater impact than they can even imagine. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things. . . .
It was ordinary people who helped to survive under artillery fire. It was ordinary people who took people out from the ruined cities. It was ordinary people who broke through the encirclement to provide humanitarian aid. . . .
And I want to tell you one important personal story about Ukrainian professor Ihor Kozlovskyi. He spent seven-hundred days in Russian captivity. Before that, I interviewed hundreds of people. They told me how they were beaten, raped, smashed into wooden boxes, their fingers were cut, their nails were turned away, their nails were drilled. They were electrically shocked through the genitalia. One woman told me how her eye was drained. So [there] was little that could surprise me after all the stories.
But Professor Ihor Kozlovskyi . . . described how he was kept in solitary confinement in a tiny cell in a basement with no window, no light, no fresh air. It was poorly ventilated. It was difficult for him to breath. Sewage flowed on the dirty floor and through the opening of the sewage, rats were crawling down.
[But] the detail that impressed me: He told me that he gave lectures on philosophy to the rats just in order to hear a sound of a human voice. Legally, Ihor Kozlovskyi is a victim because he was abducted, illegally detained, kept in unhuman conditions. He was tortured so severely that he had to learn how to walk again. But he told to me that [despite] his experience, it’s not a reason for him to treat himself as a victim. Because the basis of our existence is dignity, not victimhood. And dignity is action. Dignity makes us feel responsible for everything that is going on. Dignity provides us the courage to fight even in unbearable conditions because we are not hostages of circumstances.
Cuba
On 2 March 2026, at Ermita de la Caridad Catholic Church in Miami, Cuban exile organizations, including the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance and Steps for Change, gathered to sign the “Liberation Agreement.” This agreement outlines a plan to end the Communist regime and establish democracy in Cuba. It is translated below.
I. With faith in God, inspired by the founding ideals and values of the Cuban Nation and the Agreement for Democracy, the coalitions Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC) and Steps of Change (Pasos de Cambio) proclaim this Liberation Agreement and promote a comprehensive plan for the restoration of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Cuba.
II. We—civic organizations, opposition groups, and members of the Cuban resistance on the island and in exile—unite with a common purpose: to return sovereignty to the Cuban people, who are the rightful holders, without exclusion, of their freedoms and rights.
III. We will coordinate efforts, resources, and strategy to achieve the greatest possible popular action for liberation; to strengthen international and economic pressure on the dictatorship; and we call on all Cubans who have not committed serious human rights violations—wherever they may be—to join the effort to liberate the Cuban people; and to bring an end to impunity for those responsible for crimes against humanity.
IV. We are united in the objective of ending the dictatorship in Cuba and dismantling the communist system, restoring civilian leadership over all matters of the State.
V. The transition plan contemplates the Liberation, Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Democratization of the country and the dismantling of the criminal enterprise that is the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), as well as the disarticulation of all of its mechanisms and repressive organizations.
It is based on the following cross-cutting pillars:
1. National reunification after decades of exile and forced separation.
2. Prosperity and human flourishing, guaranteeing the rights, dignity, and freedoms of every citizen.
3. Demilitarization and eradication of political power based on any anti-democratic, communist, or totalitarian doctrine.
VI. We are united by the urgency of ending the humanitarian catastrophe and immediately addressing basic needs, beginning a limited transition period that will lead to free elections, during which the country will be administered by a provisional government.
VII. We are united in prioritizing the immediate release of all those imprisoned for political reasons and the restoration of the freedoms of expression, press, association, and religion; the right of Cubans to establish themselves in any part of the country; to freely enter and leave Cuba; to own businesses and private enterprises in our country; the right of Cubans to elect and be elected to public office; and the end of all discrimination against Cubans in their own country.
VIII. As a first step, we announce the creation of working commissions for stabilization, including: Humanitarian Emergency; Security, Defense and Public Order; Economic Recovery; Social Development and Infrastructure; Health; Education; Legislative; Judicial; and Exile and Reunification, as well as a Constitutional Commission.
IX. Once the provisional government’s term has been fulfilled, general elections will be called—the first free, fair, and multiparty elections of the new republican era of Cuba.
X. By uniting our forces, we declare that every Cuban, wherever they may be, is called to play a leading role in the liberation of the nation.
Iran
On 28 December 2025, antiregime protesters flooded the streets of Iran and were met with a brutal crackdown. By late January 2026, the official death toll was in the thousands, with the real count possibly exceeding thirty thousand. Amid the slaughter, Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad testified before a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Iran. The following month, the United States and Israel began their military action against Iran. Alinejad’s remarks are excerpted below.
The protest started on December 28th, sparked by the collapse of Iranian currency, but immediately turned into what Iranian people call it—a revolution, a total rejection against 47 years of tyranny and oppression. Protest spread to more than one-hundred cities and involved every layer of the societies. Shopkeepers, workers, teachers, nurses, and those who wave the historic lion and sun flag, and those ethnic minorities including Kurds, Baluch, all other minorities, men and women, shoulder to shoulder in the streets when it comes to freeing Iran. . . .
One activist who cannot be named for his safety told me, “The streets are full of dead bodies. They are finishing off the injured in the street.” They told me the security forces have stormed into hospitals, taking away the injured. I have also received multiple messages from families of victims who say the security forces forced them to pay money to take the dead body of their beloved one to bury them. . . . The Islamic Republic shut down the internet and imposed a technical communication blackout . . . to hide their crimes, their brutality. This was not a technical mistake or failure. It was deliberate. When a regime turns off the internet during mass killings, and at the same time the leaders of the same regime use the privilege of freedom of speech on social media to mislead the rest of the world. It is not about restoring order. It is about destroying the evidence. . . .
The Islamic Republic does not limit its crimes within its own borders. They kill their opponents at home and target those who expose their brutality abroad here, even here on U.S. soil and every corner of the world, in Europe, in Canada, in Australia, everywhere. And they are not alone. This is called transnational repression. And the Chinese government helps them. Venezuelan dictators are helping them. Russian mobsters [are] hired by the Islamic Republic to target their dissidents and opponents beyond their own borders. I now address the representative of the Islamic Republic directly. You have tried to kill me three times. I have seen my would-be assassin with my own eyes in front of my garden in my home in Brooklyn. In the United State of America, in the courthouse, I have seen my would-be assassin confessing that they have been hired by the Revolutionary Guards to end my life. My crime is simply echoing the voice of innocent people that you killed.
The Islamic Republic rules through fear. It makes people disappear from public life, from memory, from history. So today I want to record the names of those who refused to be afraid and erased. Satesh Shafi, twenty years old before the internet was cut. She wrote on her social media, “They are cutting off my internet, but I love you all.” She was killed by the Islamic Republic IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. Rebin Moradi, seventeen years old, shot in the back, a young football player. He was killed by the same IRGC. Mehdi Zatparvar, a popular athlete. He wrote on his Instagram before going to the street, “I know I may be killed, but I have no fear. I want my rights.” He was killed by the same IRGC . . . I feel guilty that I don’t name the rest. The list of names goes on and on. They knew they [would] face guns and bullets, but they wanted justice.
Afghanistan
The 18th Geneva summit for Human Rights and Democracy awarded Afghan-Iranian Taekwondo athlete Marzieh Hamidi with the International Women’s Rights Award on 18 February 2026. In her acceptance speech, Hamidi called for the international community to recognize gender apartheid as a crime. Her speech is excerpted below.
I’m not here to tell you a sad story. I’m here to tell you the truth as I lived it. A truth about what what happens when a system decides that women must disappear and boys must be reshaped into weapons. I know exactly who I was. But the regimes around me could not tolerate a woman with an identity. This is how I learned something early. Power does not fear weapons. It fears women who refuse obedience. I was born Afghan. I was born in Iran. But the country where I was born never accepted me at as its own. I spoke the language. I lived there. And still I was treated as a temporary, repressible, invisible. This is how identity is erased. Not by denying your existence, but by denying your rights.
Taekwondo saved me. As an athlete, I learned something powerful. When you train your body, you train your mind. And when a woman controls her body, she becomes very difficult to rule. When I joined the Afghanistan national team, I saw the system clearly. They told me I was a gift for Afghanistan. They praised my talent, but I watched how other girls were treated, ignored, controlled, reduced to decoration. They invested in boys, they managed girls. They asked me to cover my body during training, not for performance, not for safety, but because they feared judgment. After I won a competition, they begged me to wear a hijab for the medal ceremony. Not because I fought that way, but because powerful men were watching. Like you, you are watching me, but I’m not running. That was the moment I understood they were not afraid of my results. They’re afraid of my visibility.
Then the Taliban came. I remember standing by the window in Kabul. When people start[ed] running home, the announcement came. The Taliban were in the city and suddenly women disappeared. The street emptied of us. When I went outside fully covered, I felt something terrifying. Men looked at me like I did not belong there, like my presence was a mistake. That was the moment I understood Afghanistan’s women were not just oppressed. We were being erased. At the same time, my mother began receiving calls from our family north of Afghanistan. They were crying. They are taking our boys by force from Badakhshan. They take them to Madras, to Kabul, to Pakistan. Girls erased, boys taken, families powerless. And now I want to say something with courage.
The world keeps saying open the schools. I say it too. But today I say this without fear. It is better for schools to remain closed than for girls and boys to be sent to Taliban madrassas because those are not schools. They are terrorist factories. Girls do not learn science or freedom. They learn silence. Boys do not learn critical thinking. They learn obedience and violence. This is not education. This is how a generation is destroyed.
Let me be absolutely clear. We don’t want to live with the Taliban. We want a free Afghanistan. An Afghanistan with democracy. With a state where religion does not control women’s body or people’s mind. Yes, Afghanistan is a Muslim country, and it is also a country of many ethnicities, beliefs, and identities. All of them deserve protection. All of them deserve dignity. All of them deserve a democracy that that respects belief, not one that weaponizes it.
Stop calling the Taliban an Islamic emirate. They are not an emirate. They are not a government. They are terrorists. Do not normalize them with language. Nothing can normalize them. They were terrorists yesterday. They are terrorists today. And they will remain terrorist tomorrow. I know this not as terror but as lived reality. They crossed the borders to silence me. They sent rape threats, death threats, messages describing exactly how they would kill me. Not because I carried a weapon, but because I spoke. This is what terrorists looks like. And yet the war remains soft with terrorists because calling them terrorists has consequences. Because recognition requires action. Because normalization is easier than responsibility.
That is why I am here today to say this clearly. The international community must recognize gender apartheid as a crime. Not as a concept, not as a slogan, but as a crime under international law. Because gender apartheid is not a culture, is not religion, is not tradition. It is a system of domination. Recognizing gender apartheid as a crime will change everything. It will block the political normalization of the Taliban. It will delegitimize their rule, and it will finally deliver justice to Afghanistan’s women. This is not symbolic. This is strategic. This is legal. This is necessary. . . .
People ask me today why were they so angry that they were ready to kill me, to rape me. The answer is simple because first, I am a woman. Second, I am a free woman, and third, I am against their ideology. Fourth, I know exactly what they are doing. This is what terrifies them. My lawyer asked me, “Are you sure you want to continue this fight? It will be long because the justice is always long and is dangerous.” I did not hesitate. I said yes because I have been fighting injustice since I was a teenager, and I will not stop now. Today I live under protection, not because I choose violence, but I refuse silence. I left Afghanistan to be safe, and yet the same ideology followed me to Europe. Still, I am here today.
You give me this award. I accept it not as an honor alone, but as responsibility. And I dedicate it to the women of Afghanistan who are being erased in real life and the women of Iran who are beaten and killed for refusing compulsory control over their bodies. Different regimes, same ideology; control women, erase identity, call it order. So do not ask us to coexist with terrorists. Do not ask us to compromise with gender apartheid and do not ask us to wait while generations are destroyed. We are not asking for inclusion. We are demanding liberation, and liberation has never been polite.
Copyright © 2026 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press