Rudolf Vrba

The year 1959 is not just the date of the beginning of the Cuban revolution, but also the year of the birth of the Cuban writer Zoé Valdés. She comes from Havana, which according to her own words, is more than just simple piece of biographical information—it has predetermined her entire life. From 1995, she has lived with her husband and daughter in exile in Paris and has dedicated herself to literary activities. Her first collection of poems was published in Cuba, Spain and France. Her first novel “Sangre Azul” came out in Cuba in 1993, although since that time her works have been published mainly in France and Spain. She is the recipient of many literary awards from around the entire world, including the LiberaturPreis 1997 from Frankfurt for her novel “The Daily Nothingness” (“La nada cotidiana,” 1995). In Barcelona she received awards for her epic novel “I Gave You All I Had” (“Te di la vida entera,” 1996), which has been translated into ten languages. She also had great success with her prose work “Café Nostalgia.” For her French publisher, she has written the novel “El pie de mi padre” and a collection of Havana legends and stories, “Une habanera à Paris.” In addition to this, she has also written several screenplays. Today Zoé Valdés, along with Daína Chaviano, is one of the most well known Cuban authors living in exile and one of the most read authors in all of Latin America.

Senay Ozdemir was born in 1969 in Turkey, in 1976 she cames to the Neterlands with her family. After her studies she worked as a tv-presenter and producer TROS Television, a columnist for several woman’s magazines and a founding Medusa Media Productions. In March 2004 the former tv-presenter and producer Senay Ozdemir launched SEN Magazine. Seven months later it was elected as the “best new magazine of 2004” by de Volkskrant, the biggest newspaper of Holland. Two months later, Het Parool (another large newspaper) mentioned Senay Ozdemir as one of the most inspiring and of the 10 top women in the Netherlands. SEN, the monthly magazine, Senay Ozdemir financed with her own money. It is a stylish, positive-minded, a popular woman’s magazine. The magazine is directed for the women from the mediterranean in Holland. Senay Ozdemir is mother of a seven-year old son.

Deborah Stothard was born in 1964 in Malaysia. She began work as a crime reporter in 1981 and her career has included work as a policy analyst, community education consultant and government adviser. She also taught at the University of New South Wales in Australia. She has also been a community artist, desktop publisher, trainer, events organiser and even has a little-known credit as a cinematographer in an independent Australian documentary Australia Daze. She is best known for advocacy, media and campaign work to support human rights causes. She is currently the Coordinator of Altsean-Burma, a Bangkok-based network working to support non-violent strategies to promote human rights and democracy in Burma. Stothard worked with several individuals and groups to form Altsean-Burma in 1996 in order to generate an alternative ASEAN voice on Burma - a rather loud and persistent voice. She has been actively supporting the movement for human rights and democracy in Burma since 1988.

Emilie Horáčková graduated from a secondary school and has spent her career focusing on social issues from the Department of Social Work, concentrating primarily on ethnic minorities. She later worked as a translator of the Roma language, participating in such projects as a Roma cookbook. She has written poetry and has been published in the Roma press. From 1996, she has been involved in the problems of socially disadvantaged individuals and those who are excluded from the majority population, and has worked to help solve their problems. She has cooperated with a number of non-governmental organizations and has campaigned for the protection of human rights for all. She has worked for five years for the People in Need Foundation as a field social worker.

Ondřej Cakl was born in Prague in 1975, and completed his studies at a Technical School in Construction. After completing his studies at the beginning of the nineties, he actively became involved in the campaign against the war in the former Yugoslavia and in Chechnya, and further became engaged in the struggle against the violation of human rights in China, Nigeria and for the right to an independent Tibet. Since 1996 he has recorded on camera the activities of neo-Nazi and racist organization and individuals. He regularly makes presentations at schools and conferences and is the author of dozens of articles and studies, and regularly is published in newspapers and magazines. He works together with Czech Television on a program dealing exclusively with Neo-Nazism and the militant Ultra-Right. He is the co-author of several journalistic articles about Czech Neo-Nazis. Currently, he is the Chairman of the non-government human rights organization Tolerance and a civic organization, where he is the head of the project Monitoring. Throughout the period of his activities and thanks to the footage and information that his colleagues on the project have provided, around fifty of the most active neo-Nazis in the Czech Republic have been taken into custody.