Program

Masud Gharahkhani is a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party from the city of Drammen. He is currently an MP for Buskerud since 2017, and the President of the Storting since 2021. He is the head of the Presidium, which is the Storting’s highest administrative body.  

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko, born 23 February 1954, is a Ukrainian politician who was the third President of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010. From 1999 to 2001 he was Prime Minister of Ukraine, and member of the National Assembly 2002-2005. Yushchenko has also held the Post as First Deputy Chairman of the Board at Bank Ukraina 1990-1993 and Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, 1993-1996.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is the National Leader of Belarus who independent observers agree won the presidential election on August 9, 2020, against the autocratic President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. As the leader of the Belarusian democratic movement, she has visited numerous countries, gathering support and advocating for the release of 1000+ political prisoners and a peaceful transition of power through free and fair elections.  In meetings with  world leaders, Tsikhanouskaya emphasized the need for a braver response to the actions of the Belarusian dictatorship.

In 2020–2022, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya became a symbol of the peaceful struggle for democracy and strong female leadership. Among dozens of distinctions, she is a recipient of the Sakharov Prize awarded by the European Parliament, 2022 International Four Freedoms Award, and Charlemagne Prize. In 2021 and 2022, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda and Members of the Norwegian Parliament respectively.

Bjørn Berge is a former Norwegian diplomat who has recently been elected as the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe. He has served as Secretary of the Committee of Ministers and Head of the Cabinet of SG Thorbjørn Jagland. He will give an opening statement at the conference.

Nina Burleigh is an American author, political journalist and documentary producer, who has covered politics, culture and current events out of Washington, New York and Paris, Italy, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. She has published seven books, covering a wide range of historical and current topics, many linked by the common thread of the enduring conflict between "Enlightenment" rationality and science versus faith and religious belief. She has appeared on many documentaries, podcasts and broadcasts including Real Time with Bill Maher, Nightline, The Today Show, 48 Hours, Good Morning America, BBC and CNN. Her journalism has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, People, New York Magazine, The Guardian and The Nation. She was a universitetlektor in the Department of Religion, Philosophy and History at the University of Agder in 2019 and is currently an adjunct professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University

Christos Giakoumopoulos was appointed Director General of Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe on 1 August 2017.
He is one of Europe’s leading experts on human rights issues and his DG is responsible for overseeing the monitoring mechanisms for the commitments of member countries in the field of human rights and the rule of law.
He will address reflections and suggestions on the challenging balance of rights and responsibilities and describe the way forward in Europe on the issue of freedom of speech. He will also participate in a panel.

Thorbjørn Jagland is a Norwegian politician, who was Norway's Prime Minister from 1996 to 1997, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2001 and President of the Norwegian Parliament from 2005 to 2009. From 2009-2019 he was Secretary General of the Council of Europe.

William Horsley is the Media Freedom Representative of the Association of European Journalists and AEJ UK Chairman. He was a long-standing BBC Foreign News Correspondent and is now writing for BBC News Online, The World Today (Chatham House), Standpoint magazine and other publications. He is also International Director of the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) at the University of Sheffield and works with the UK National Commission for UNESCO and has chaired and co-organised the annual World Press Freedom Day debates in the UK each year since 2007 on behalf of UNESCO and the UK Press Freedom Network of 20 media and human rights organisations.

Wera Helstrøm is a senior adviser in the Section for Human Rights, Democracy and Gender Equality at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is the MFA’s focal point for freedom of expression, capital punishment and equal rights for sexual and gender minorities. She coordinates Norway’s human rights recommendations to other UN member states in the Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council. She is the author of Norway MFA’s recently launched strategy for promoting freedom of expression. Helstrøm has served as a Norwegian diplomat to Kenya and to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. [She has a cand.mag. in international cultural and social studies from the University of Oslo, the University of Newcastle (Australia) and the UiT Arctic University of Norway.]

Róbert Alföldi is a Hungarian actor, director and television host. He was the director of the Hungarian National Theaterfor five years from 1 July 2008 until 2013. He is best known for his numerous controversial theatrical adaptations as a director and for his television appearance in X-Faktor. His art was rewarded with several national prizes and professional recognitions. In 2014 the Hungarian edition of Forbes named him at number 1 in its List of the 100 Most Valuable Hungarian Celebrities. 

Thomas Byrne was first elected to Dáil Éireann to represent Meath East in 2007. From 2007 to 2011 he was a member of the Oireachtas Committees on Justice, Equality and Defence, Social Protection and on Finance and the Public Service. In 2011 Thomas was elected to the Seanad for the Cultural and Educational panel. He served as a Senator from 2011 to 2016, during which he was the Party Spokesperson on Public Expenditure and Reform. In 2016 Thomas was again elected to Dáil Éireann. From 2016 to 2020 he served as the Party Spokesperson on Education. In 2020 he was appointed as Minister of State for European Affairs by An Taoiseach Micheál Martin. 

Patrick Penninckx has spent the last 30 years at the Council of Europe, focusing on transformation processes in the organisation, developing partnerships with other international organisations and national partners. Currently heading the Information Society Department under the Directorate General Human Rights and the Rule of Law, Patrick coordinates standard-setting and co-operation activities in the fields of media, internet governance, data protection, cybercrime and artificial intelligence. He is also responsible for projects related to public-private partnerships and cooperation with business partners. 

William Nygaard, Vice president PEN International is a former publisher and managing director of the publishing house Aschehoug. In 1993, Nygaard was shot and life-threateningly injured outside his home. It is believed that the background to the assassination was Aschehoug's publication of Salman Rushdie's controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which triggered an Islamist fatwa against the author and the book's translators and publishers. Nygaard was chairman of the Norwegian PEN from 2013 to 2019. 

Member of the Norwegian Parliament, Energy and Environment Standing Committee. He has served as Norwegian of International Development, Minister of Digitalization, and Minister of Local Government and Modernisation. He has been a Member of Parliament since 2009, representing the Conservative Party, and he also served on the UN Secretary General´s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation.  

Dr. Tobias Mahler is a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law (NRCCL) at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. His research interest is the development of methods for legal risk management, contract law, data protection law and intellectual property law. He is currently doing post-doctoral research on Internet governance, and is particularly focused on ICANN. He is involved in a number of ICANN Working Groups, including the Consumer Trust Working Group. That group aims to define how consumer trust and reaction to ICANN's New gTLD Program can be measured. He has coordinated the NRCCL's participation in EU-funded projects. 

Dr. Morten Goodwin is a Professor at University of Agder. His field of expertise is artificial intelligence, particularly swarm intelligence and neural networks. His main research interests include machine learning, swarm intelligence, deep learning, and adaptive learning in the fields of accounting, medicine, games and chatbots. He has more than 60 peer reviews scientific publications in the area, and has supervised more than 110 student projects including Master's and Ph.D. theses within these topics, and more than 0 popular science public speaking events mostly in the Area of Artificial Intelligence.  

Paul Dujardin is a leading figure in Europe’s civil society. He has been CEO of the Centre for Fine Arts Brussels (BOZAR) from 2002 to 2021. Under his leadership, the house for culture has turned into a respected and internationally recognized multidisciplinary European hub driven by the New European Bauhaus ideals. Since 2016 Paul was co-author and advisor for the EU for the development of public (cultural) diplomacy strategy. Attracting over 1,3 million visitors each year, BOZAR plays a crucial role as a meeting place in the heart of the European Union, while acting as a pivotal defender of the European project both in the EU and in its external policies. Over the last years, Paul has widened BOZAR’s scope of expertise, activities and outreach through the establishment of a thorough intersectoral approach incorporating the arts, science and technology. Under his leadership, BOZAR has developed numerous exhibitions, festivals, concerts, cinema events and debates with various hybrid formats and became a contemporary think tank. 

Sara Whyatt is a campaigner and researcher on freedom of artistic expression and human rights, notably as director of PEN International ‘s freedom of expression program for over 20 years and previously at Amnesty International’s Asia Research Department.  In 2013 she took up freelance consultancy, working on projects among them for UNESCO, Freemuse, Culture Action Europe, PEN International, and the International Freedom of Expression Exchange.  In 2019 she was selected onto UNESCO’s Expert Facility advising on its 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. She is also the author of the chapter on freedom of artistic expression in the Convention’s 2015 and 2018 Global Reports and has developed training programs for governments and CSOs on monitoring and reporting strategies on artistic freedom. 

Dr Katalin Krasznahorkai, currently a Gerda Henkel Senior Researcher at the University of Zurich, is a Berlin-based art historian, author, and curator. In her research she focuses on the diverse aspects of artistic freedom focusing on the interaction between state security operations and the cultural scene. In 2014-2019 she was a researcher in the ERC project "Performance Art in Eastern Europe. History and Theory 1950-1990" at the University of Zurich, where she established a new field of research: she investigated the interaction between performance artist and the secret services. Her new field of research is focused on “Black Power in Eastern Europe. Angela Davis, the State Security and the Arts.” Most recently, she curated the exhibition "Artists&Agents. Performance Art and Secret Services” with Inke Arns and Sylvia Sasse at the HMKV Dortmund, which was awarded "Exhibition of the Year 2020" by the German section of AICA. Together with Sylvia Sasse, she is the editor of the book of the same name, published by Spector Books in 2019 (forthcoming in English 2022). Krasznahorkai is currently working on a monograph titled "Operative Art History or Who is Afraid of Artists?" which will be published by Spector Books in 2022. Krasznahorkai is the Lead Expert Advisor and Curator for the Council of Europe’s digital exhibition  "Free to Create—Create to be Free.“ and co-author of the "Manifesto on the Freedom of Expression of Arts and Culture in the Digital Era.“ Since May 2022 she is the Artistic Director of the Museum for Prussian and Brandenburg History in Potsdam, Germany.

Mehda Zolfaqari is an Iranian-Norwegian performance storytelling growing up in Oslo, Norway. At the moment, she is working as an actress at Kilden teater in Kristiansand, Norway. Mehda is member of the Norwegian House of Storytelling, the oldest existing oral storytelling group in Norway. Recently, she received this year’s “Brigde Builder Price” (Brobyggerprisen),  by Norwegian Church Academies, becoming the first Muslim woman to winning this price. 

Thibaut Bruttin is Assistant Director General for press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders, also known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF). In this position, he supervised the opening of the Press freedom centre in Lviv, RSF’s response to the invasion of Ukraine. A graduate from Sciences Po in public affairs, he began his career within the international development team of the Louvre Museum and he also worked for Echo Studio, a production and distribution company specializing in social commitment cinema. Additionally, he is a film historian and published, with Alain Kruger, Louis de Funès, à la folie (2020, La Martinière).

Cornel Feruţă has been appointed State Secretary for Global Affairs and Diplomatic Strategies on January 21st 2020. He is a career diplomat since 1998 and holds the diplomatic rank of Ambassador in the Romanian Diplomatic Service. Starting 2013, he held various positions within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Assistant Director General, Chief Coordinator and Acting Director General (2019).

Erik Wennerstrøm is a Doctor of Laws in International law, EU law and legal jurisprudence. He has been Director for International Relations and EU affairs at the Ministry of Justice, and Head of International Law Enforcement Affairs at the Ministry of Justice and Interior and Principal Legal Adviser on International Law at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (2007-2012). From 2012 he has served as Director General at the National Council for Crime Prevention. Erik Wennerström has also served as board member in numerous international organisations. He was elected judge at the European Court of Human Rights in April 2019. 

Erik Møse is a Norwegian judge. He was the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 2003 to 2007, was the Presiding Judge in Trial Chamber I of the ICTR.  He graduated from the University of Oslo and had post-graduate studies at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. Prior to joining ICTR, he was head of department in the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police until 1986; deputy judge, Supreme Court advocate at the Solicitor General's Office from 1986 to 1993; presiding judge at Borgarting Court of Appeal in Oslo from 1993 to 1999. Møse became Vice President of the ICTR in 1999, then President in 2003. In 2008 he was named as a Supreme Court Justice of Norway. In 2011 he was elected judge at the European Court of Human Rights. He resumed his Supreme Court chair in 2018. By a recent decision of the UN Human Rights Council, Mr. Møse has been appointed Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. 

Bohmann comes from the position as local politician of the Labour Party in Skien, as well as county party secretary of the Labour Party in Vestfold and Telemark. He was deputy to the Storting between 2009 and 2013. Bohmann is also former leader of AUF in Telemark, and deputy leader of the Labour Party in Skien and Telemark. Bohmann has an educational background in public administration and management, as well as journalism. He has a background from the voluntary cultural life within choir, band and theater. 

Can Yeginsu is a leading barrister practising in commercial litigation, international commercial and investment arbitration, civil fraud, public law and human rights, and public international law.

Described in one directory as “an outstanding advocate with impeccable judgement and formidable brainpower”, Can is ranked by Chambers Global, Chambers UK Bar, and Legal 500 as an outstanding junior in five practice areas: (i) commercial litigation; (ii) international arbitration; (iii) civil liberties and human rights; (iv) international human rights; and (v) public international law.

Frequently appearing in the Commercial Court, Administrative Court, and the Chancery Division, Can has also acted in over 40 cases in the Court of Appeal, the UK Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and before the UN treaty bodies. In addition, he has experience acting as co-counsel in proceedings before the ECOWAS Court of Justice, the Federal Court of Malaysia, the Turkish Constitutional Court, and the Supreme Court of The Gambia. Can is admitted to the Bar of the DIFC Courts.

In his arbitral practice, Can is regularly instructed to act as lead counsel in commercial disputes under the LCIA, ICC, LMAA, and CIArb Rules, as well as in ad-hoc arbitrations under the UNCITRAL Rules. He also has extensive expertise in investor-state arbitration, a subject he teaches. Can has been shortlisted for ‘International Arbitration Junior of the Year‘ by Legal 500. He also accepts appointments as an arbitrator and has acted as a sole arbitrator and co-arbitrator in several LCIA, ICC, and ad-hoc arbitrations governed by English and foreign law.

In 2019, Can was appointed by Lord Neuberger to The High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, the independent body comprised of 15 international lawyers convened to advise the 50 State Members of The Media Freedom Coalition, co-chaired by Canada and the Netherlands. In 2021, Can was appointed to succeed Amal Clooney as the Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel, alongside Catherine Amirfar.

Can is Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown Law (Washington D.C.) and Koç University Law School (Istanbul) where he teaches investor-state arbitration. Can is also Lecturer-in-Law at
Columbia Law School (New York) where he teaches international human rights law. He is the coauthor of The Protections for Religious Rights: Law and Practice a leading practitioners’ text,
published by Oxford University Press, and Partner Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge.

Prabhat Agarwal, Head of unit DG CONNECT F.2 Digital Services and Platforms.

Prabhat Agarwal is the Head of the ‘Digital Services and Platforms’ Unit et the European Commission's DG CONNECT, responsible amongst other for regulatory initiatives such as the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act (the latter jointly with DG Competition). Prior to joining the Commission, Prabhat Agarwal worked on micro and nano-technologies in the private sector. Prabhat Agarwal holds a PhD on Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Cambridge, and lives in Brussels.

Gunn Marit Helgesen is president of the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities. She is vice President of the Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – an organisation that works to promote human rights, democracy and good governance. Helgesen is also Co-President of CEMR, the umbrella organisation for European municipalities and regions.