Tribunal Jurors
Ajamu Baraka
Ajamu Baraka is an American political activist and the Green Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in 2016. From 2004 to 2011, Baraka served as the founding executive director of the US Human Rights Network, a national network that grew to over 300 U.S.-based organizations and 1500 individual members. In 2008, Baraka worked with the US Human Rights Network and over 400 organizations to develop a CERD Shadow Report, which concerned US compliance with the terms of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. He has served on the boards of several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Africa Action. As the Southern Regional Director of Amnesty International USA Baraka was instrumental in developing the organization's 1998 campaign to expose human rights violations in the United States. Additionally, Baraka directed Amnesty's National Program to Abolish the Death Penalty and was involved in most of their major death penalty cases. Baraka has taught political science at the university level and is currently an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and a writer for Counterpunch. Today, Baraka serves as the national organizer and spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace.
Basir Bita
Basir Bita, who is deeply committed to nonviolence, has longtime experience in civil society capacity-building and engagement; peace and anti-corruption; environmental sustainability, alternative economics; social equity; and electoral reform and observation. He is a dedicated advocate for marginalized communities in Afghanistan, including Women, the deeply impoverished, the LGBTQ community, and trauma survivors, including victims of war and environmental degradation. Basir has a passion for social change through education, and is currently a Coordinator at the University of Central Asia seeking grants for Afghans in diaspora. Basir’s own experiences of war crimes in Afghanistan inspired him to pursue an MS in Mental Health Counseling at Marquette University, with a particular focus on the deep trauma experienced by immigrants. He has volunteered at VAST (Vancouver Asso. For Survivors of Torture), and is a volunteer counselor for Afghan refugees at the Walker’s Point Clinic in Milwaukee, WI. Additionally, Basir facilitates workshops on Expressive Writing for Trauma Healing, especially for victims of war crimes, and has developed YouTube videos teaching EFT, meditation and other healing practices. He is currently writing a biography chronicling his own experiences of the atrocities that surrounded the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the subsequent takeover by the Taliban, August, 2021. Basir and his family reside in Vancouver, BC.
Marjorie Cohn
Marjorie Cohn is a retired criminal defense attorney, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the advisory board of Veterans For Peace. She is a legal and political analyst who writes a regular column for Truthout, does frequent media commentary, and has published several books, including "Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues." Professor Cohn is Founding Dean of the People's Academy of International Law. She testified before Congress about the Bush administration torture policy and debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the Oxford Union.
Matthew Hoh
Matthew Hoh is the Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network and an Emeritus Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy. He is a 100% disabled Marine combat veteran and, in 2009, he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of the war.
Dinorah La Luz Feliciano
Her academic background consists of a Ph. D. in Philosophy (History), a Master of Laws in Comparative Law (LL. M.), and a Master in Library and Information Sciences (MLIS). Dr. La Luz currently works as a (Spanish) editor for the University of Puerto Rico. She is also part of the Executive Committee of the American Association of Jurists (AAJ).
Rania Masri
Rania Masri, PhD is a long-time activist and organizer, committed to issues of justice. Her research and activism have centered on anti-sanctions (Iraq), anti-war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon), anti-occupation & anti-apartheid (Palestine), environmental justice (water and food sovereignty; pollution; land rights), and civil and voting rights. She served as an expert in the Court of Conscience during which she presented testimony on the environmental impact of the 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon. Rania Masri is currently a Co-Director at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network.
Arwa Mokdad
Arwa Mokdad is a Peace Advocate with Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. Through this work, she supports aid programs in Yemen while participating in policy efforts in the U.S. to end support for the war. While in Yemen, she visited health facilities across the country and interviewed members of civil society on the conflict. She has worked and lived extensively in the MENA region, including a non-profit in Oman and refugee camps in Lebanon. She has also worked at the International Center for Dialogue Initiatives as a Yemen researcher and analyst. She is currently an MPhil candidate researching conflict mediation within Yemen at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on local, regional, and international peace-building efforts within Yemen. Growing up between the U.S. and Middle East, Arwa is interested in the role of foreign actors within the region as well as local activism and perceptions of intervention.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh previously served at US universities including Tennessee, Duke and Yale. He is founder and volunteer director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University (http://palestinenature.org). Qumsiyeh published over 170 scientific papers, over 30 book chapters, hundreds of articles, and several books (including "Sharing the Land of Canaan" and "Popular Resistance in Palestine") on topics ranging from cultural heritage to human rights to biodiversity conservation to cancer. He oversaw a number of projects ranging from formulating the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan to empowerment projects with farmers, women, and children that benefitted tens of thousands. He is laureate of the Paul K. Feyerabend Foundation award and the Takreem award among others. See also http://qumsiyeh.org
Ibrahim Salih
Dr. Ibrahim Salih, M.D., is a retired pathologist who left Basra, Iraq's second largest city, to come to Britain in 1981. After graduating from Basra Medical School in 1977, he trained for four years in Basra, one of Iraq's main hospitals, as a junior doctor and a pathologist. In England he worked as a Consultant Histopathologist in NHS hospitals from 1986 till he retired in 2013. He visited Iraq regularly from 1982 – 2011. His views were often published or covered in UK media regarding his opposition to the U.S. war and U.S./UN economic sanctions against Iraq from 2000 onward. Dr. Salih was an active member of Voices in the Wilderness UK.
Abdi Ismail Samatar
Abdi Ismail Samatar is a Professor of Geography, Environment, and Society at the University of Minnesota. Abdi is also an Extra-ordinary Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Pretoria. He was elected to the Somali Parliament as a senator in 2022. The author of five books and over 80 articles, chapters, and essays. Among his books are: 1) An African Miracle: State and Class Leadership, and Colonial Legacy in Botswana (1999); 2) Africa’s First Democrats: Somalia’s Aden A. Osman and Abdirazak H. Hussen (2016); 3) Framing Somalia: Beyond Africa’s Merchants of Misery (2022).
Ann Wright
Ann Wright is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War. She is based in Hawaii. Ann is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and a 29-year veteran of the Army and Army Reserves. She was also a diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her actions during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She resigned from the Department of State on March 19, 2003, in opposition to the Iraq war. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience and appeared in the documentary “Uncovered”.
