• Author
• Journalist
• Political Commentator

​Mr. Akyol is a columnist for two Turkish newspapers, Hürriyet Daily News and Star.

His articles also have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and many other publications. He studied political science and history at the Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, where he still lives.

His book, "Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty," an argument for "Muslim liberalism," was published by W.W. Norton in July, 2011. The book was praised by the Financial Times as "a forthright and elegant Muslim defense of freedom."

Archbishop Aram Ateshian (baptismal name Artin (Haroutiun)) was born on 1 January, 1954 in Tigranakert, where he received his primary education. He received his secondary education at the Holy Cross School of Constantinople

He continued his studies at the Jarangavoratz Theological Seminary at the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem. He was ordained to the Dioaconate in 1973, by Archbishop Hayrik Apanian of Jerusalem. In 1976 he was ordained as a celibate priest by then Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Shnork Galoustian, and given the priestly name of Aram.

Following his ordination he served as the administrator of all the Armenian Churches of Constantinople.

In 1987, upon the successful defense of his theses he received the rank of Archimandrite (Vardapet), then Patriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Shnork Galoustian. In 1999, he received the rank of Senior Archimandrite (Dzarakouyn Vardapet) by the Partriarch of Constantinople, Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan.

Father Aram was consecrated as a Bishop in 1999, by the Catholicos of All Armenians, His Holiness Karekin II, in the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin.

During his service to the Armenian Church he has served as spiritual pastor to the Armenian faithful. Presently, Bishop Aram serves as the Grand Sacristan of the Holy Mother of God Armenian Cathedral at the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in Kumkapi, Istanbul.

Egemen Bağiş was first elected to Parliament in 2002 as a deputy of Istanbul. He was appointed as Minister for EU Affairs on January 2009 and has been working for full membership negotiations of Turkey since then.

He directed and coordinated the party's national and international network and local branches on foreign policy matters. He also coordinated the flow of key global developments to the party leadership.

Egemen Bağiş's current titles include Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator and Member of the Parliament, representing Istanbul.

Between the years 2002 and 2009, Mr. Bağiş served as party's contact person for international relations and diplomacy, serving as:

AK Party: Vice Chairman in charge of Foreign Affairs and Representative Offices, Member of the Central Executive Committee, Member of the Central Decision Making and Administrative Committee
Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Chairman, Turkey-USA Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Caucus
Chairman, NATO-PA Subcommittee on Transatlantic Relations
Deputy Chairman, Turkish Delegation to NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

He was the founding Chairman of the Advisory Board for "Istanbul 2010 Project," under which, Istanbul was chosen as a European Capital of Culture for the year 2010. A patron of the arts, he is a founding board member the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art and the Santral Museum of Art & Industry. In June 2006 he was awarded the Italian Cavaliere State Recognition.

In the 1990s, he was the President of the Federation of Turkish American Associations in New York, as well as the Advisory Board member of Turkish Citizens Abroad.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Resources Management and a a Master of Public Administration degree, both from the Baruch College of The City University of New York.

Born in Bingol, Turkey, in 1970, his family originates from the neighboring Siirt province, where his late father, Abdullah Bağiş, was mayor from 1974 through 1979. He is married to Beyhan Bağiş; they have two children.

Mr. Bermek's education includes degrees in architecture, business administration as well as being a graduate of the Harvard School of Business. He began his career as an architect in 1971, but also has been active in community affairs in his native Turkey.

He is the founder of the Turkish Foundation for Education of Gifted Children (1992) as well as the CEM Foundation (1995), the biggest Alevi Organization in Turkey, whose name stands for prayer of Alevi Muslims.  He is currently president of the Federation of Alevi Foundations. He is coordinator of EU-supported projects dealing with cultural and religious projects.  His specific experiences include involvement with projects involving the countries of Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and Azarbaijan.

Mr. Bermek has participated in various international and regional symposiums, meetings and conferences. He is also noted for his research on Turkish folklore.

• Human Rights Defender
• Newspaper Columnist

Mr. Cengiz is a human rights lawyer, columnist and former president of the Human Rights Association, a Turkish NGO that works on human rights issues ranging from the prevention of torture, combating against discrimination to the rights of the mentally disabled.  He is known for representing the families of the victims in the Malatya murder case, in which three Christians were killed by a group of young men with links to ultranationalist organizations.

Throughout his professional life, Mr.  Cengiz has tried to improve the human rights situation in Turkey and to uphold the rule of law.  He received his law degree from Ankara University in 1993.  He was director of Human Rights of Izmir Bar Association in 1966.  He served as the lawyer for the Alliance of Turkish Protestant Churches between 2002 and 2011.

He is also an active columnist writing for the daily Radikal,  English-language daily Today's Zaman and Al-Monitor. In 2013, he was the recipient of the Freedom Honor Award presented by the Association of Liberal Thinking.

• Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

Archbishop Demetrios (Trakatellis) of America was born in Thessaloniki, Greece.  In 1950 he graduated with distinction from the University of Athens School of Theology. He was ordained a deacon in 1960, and a priest in 1964. 

He was elected Bishop of Vresthena in 1967, auxiliary to the Archbishop of Athens, responsible for the theological education of the clergy. From 1965 to 1971, he studied New Testament and Christian Origins at Harvard University, and was awarded a Ph.D. "with distinction" in 1972. He earned a second doctorate in Theology from the University of Athens "with distinction" in 1977.  From 1983 to 1993, he was the Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies and Christian Origins at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts. He also taught at Harvard Divinity School as Visiting Professor of New Testament.  He was inducted in 2003 into the Academy of Athens as a member who resides abroad. In August 1991 he was elevated to be the Titular Metropolitan of Vresthena.

On August 19, 1999, he was elected Archbishop of America by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He was enthroned on September 18, 1999 in New York City. In over a decade of leading the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, with more than one and a half million members in the United States, he has touched and inspired the lives of  thousands of people with his incessant, methodical and loving archpastoral ministry.

As Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, he is the Chairman of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America. He has been the recipient of many governmental, ecclesiastical, interfaith, and academic honors, both in the USA, Greece and Europe. 

• Director, International Center for Law and Religious Studies
• J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a note editor of the Harvard Law Review and managing editor of the Harvard International Law Journal, Durham has been heavily involved in comparative law scholarship, with a special emphasis on comparative constitutional law. He is the Susa Young Gates University Professor of Law and director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at  Bringham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School. He has been heavily involved in comparative law scholarship, with a special emphasis on comparative constitutional law. He is the president of the International Consortium for Law and Religious Studies based in Milan, Italy, and a co-editor-in-chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.

From 1989 to 1994, he served as the secretary of the American Society of Comparative Law, and he is also an associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law in Paris. He served as a general repporteur for the topic "Religion and the Secular State" at an International Congress of Comparative Law held in 2010. He also served as chair both of the Comparative Law Section and the Law and Religion Section of the American Association of Law Schools in earlier years. He has taught at BYU since 1976, and was awarded the honorary designation of University Professor in 1999. In 2000, he was appointed to be director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at BYU.  Since 1994, he also has been a recurring visiting professor of law at Central European University in Budapest, where he teaches comparative constitutional law to students from throughout Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. He also has been a guest professor at Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, and at the University of Vienna. In 2009, he was awarded the International First Freedom Award by the First Freedom Center, Richmond, Virginia. Earlier this year, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Ovidius University, Constanta, Romania.

Durham has been involved in constitutional drafting projects in Nepal (2009 and 2011), Thailand (2007), and Iraq (2205-06). He has worked on constitutional and statutory drafting projects  throughout Eastern Europe and in most former Soviet bloc countries.  He has been particularly active in matters involving relations between religion and the state, though he also has extensive experience with  comparative criminal law and nonprofit law. He served from 1997 until this past February as a member of the  International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies based in Milan. He serves as a board member of the International Religious Liberty Association and of the International Advisory Board of the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief. He has been active in work on laws on governing the civil society sector, having served as chairman of the Board of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in Washington, D.C.

Over the past few years, his involvement in these organizations has enabled him to play an active role in advising governments throughout much of the former socialist bloc on constitutional provisions and legislation dealing with criminal law and procedure, court structure, general constitutional issues, and the law of associations, including particularly religious associations. He has helped organize technical assistance to law reform projects and comparative Law conferences around the world, including Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan,  Kyrgyzstsan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Nepal, Peru, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Ukraine, and Vietnam.  Prof. Durham has organized a series of conferences on comparative law issues at BYU and at other institutions, which have brought about 800 scholars and experts dealing with comparative constitutional law themes from more than 100 countries to the United States.

He is co-author with Brett Scharffs of Religion and the Law: National, International and Comparative Perspectives (Aspen 2010), and with William Bassett and Robert Smith of Religious Organizations of the Law, an annually updated treatise published by Thompson Reuters/West. He is the editor (with Noel Reynolds) of Religious Liberty in Western Thought, and (with Silvio Ferrari) of Law and Religion in Post-Communist Europe. He is also co-editor of Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Deskbook, which was published in 2004 by Brill under the Martinus Nijhoff imprint, and also Religious Organization in the United States, published in 2006 by Carolina Academic Press. He has authored numerous law review articles dealing with religious liberty and other comparative law themes. Over the past several years, he has testified before the U.S. Congress in hearings on religious intolerance in Europe and on the Religious Liberty Protection Act.

Dr. Ealy, who received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Georgia in 1979, taught at various colleges in the southeastern United States for fourteen years before joining the staff of Liberty Fund in 1993. He is currently a senior fellow at Liberty Fund, an educational foundation based in Indianapolis, Indiana.

At the foundation, Dr. Ealy organizes small group conferences of a wide range of topics. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy, and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of SOCIETY and the Editorial Board of Conversations on Philanthropy.

He has written on the fiction, criticism, and poetry of Robert Penn Warren, as well as on the history of American philanthropy and on Constitutional interpretation.  Among his recent articles are "Original Sin, Crises of Faith, and the Possibility of Redemption in All the King's Men" and "The Qur'an's Guidance to Readers."

Dr. Ekonomou currently serves as senior counsel to both the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington, D.C., and the European Centre for Law and Justice in Strasbourg, France, where he participates in human rights and religious liberties cases in which these institutions are involved worldwide.

He was educated at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he received his B.A. magna cum laude in philosophy in 1970, a master's in Medieval History in 1971, and a Doctor of Law degree from Emory University School of Law in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Medieval and Byzantine History in 2000. His doctoral dissertation was published as "Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes" in 2007.

He also had many other writings published including "St. John Chrysostom: Preacher and Politician: A Bibliographic Essay," "St. Anselm and His English Contemporaries," "A Women's Monasticism in the Sixth Century West: Caesarius of Arles and the Rule for Nuns," "Pope Boniface VIII: Clericis Laicos and the Conflict with Philip the Fair: A Historiographic Essay," and "Monastics and Ecclesiastics in Late Antique Egypt."

Dr. Ekonomou has served as legal counsel to the majority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, assistant United States attorney general and chief of the Criminal Division in the Northern District of Georgia, acting United States attorney, special assistant attorney general, special deputy insurance commissioner of Georgia, and assistant commissioner of securities. He also has been an adjunct professor of law at the Atlanta Law School, lecturer in modern Greek at Georgia State University, and is now a lecturer in Byzantine history and literature at Emory University.

His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel of France (Adamakis) was born December 19, 1958 in Crete. His advanced studies in Philosophy and Theology were at the Faculty of Humanities of the Catholic Institute of Paris and St. Sergius Orthodox Institute. He continued his studies in Religious History at the Sorbonne (Paris IV) and the Higher Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Institute Catholique de Paris. He was ordained a deacon and priest in 1985. He later matriculated into Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1987 he was appointed as the Chancellor of the Metropolis of Belgium, while serving as Dean of the parish of the Taxiarchae in Brussels and teaching Orthodox Religion at the European Schools.

His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew appointed him to head the Liaison Office of the Orthodox Church to the European Union at its inception in 1995. In 1996 he was elected Bishop of Reggio, and was appointed auxiliary Bishop of the Metropolitan of Belgium. In early 2003 he was unanimously elected by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be Metropolitan of France. Since 2001 the Ecumenical Patriarchate has entrusted him with responsibilities for the International Interreligious Dialogue with the Monotheistic Religions. He also represents the Ecumenical Patriarchate in theological dialogues with the Vatican, the ancient Oriental Churches, and among the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches. He continues to direct the representation of the Orthodox Church to the EU. He is President of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and of the Assembly of Orthodox Bishops of France, co-president of the Council of Christian Churches of France, as well as co-president of the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP). He speaks fluent Greek, French and English. Metropolitan Emmanuel has been named "Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur" in France, among other Church and State distinctions.

Mrs. Hatemi graduated from Istanbul University School of Law in 1972. After finishing her internship, she, as a registered lawyer to the Istanbul Bar Association, started working as an independent lawyer. She was written numerous articles in the field of law. Human rights, women rights, child rights and animal welfare are her areas of interest.

She participates in a variety of national and international conferences and symposiums as a speaker and works on issues regarding Islamic law, civil law and the law of foundations. She has participated in numerous conferences and symposiums on homeless children and the fight against drugs.

In compliance with the General Secretariat of the European Union and the European Commission's Turkey Unit, Mrs. Hatemi worked on legal regulations on religious freedom, and the Foundation of Laws of Communities and minorities. She is on the board of trustees of both the Technical University and Darulacaze Foundation.

In 1995, she joined Humanity Initiative for Bosnia, and after her return from Bosnia, she participated in various conferences and meetings in order to speed up the aid process. In Turkey's National Commission for UNESCO's XXIII term, she worked in the Specialized Dialogue Committee on Dialogue of Civilizations studies. Her husband, Dr. Hüseyin Hatemi, is also an attorney and a participant in this conference.

Dr. Hüseyin Hatemi was born in 1939 in Istanbul and graduated from the Faculty of Law, Istanbul University in 1960. In the same year he started to work in the university as an assistant. He received his Ph.D. degree in law. Professor Hatemi became a member of the faculty in the Department of Civil Law and wrote his associated professorship thesis, "The Concept of Contradiction to Law and Ethics and Related Consequences," in 1973.

He worked at the Max Planck Institute in 1979-1980 in Hamburg, Germany. He then received a scholarship from the Alexander V. Humboldt Foundation to study in Germany. He stayed in Gotingen and Munich. Before leaving Germany, he participated in a conference about the development of foundation institutions in the Ottoman Turkish Law and the current situation at the Eastern Studies Department of Munich University.

Upon invitation of the president of the Assembly of Neuchatel Canton, he gave a conference at the assembly about Islam and Pluralism in 1998. For a while, he was actively involved in the European Law Department activities.

Dr. Hatemi has been invited to courts an as expert for the solution of legal disputes of communities for more than 30 years. He is actively involved and takes part in the solution of disputes between various institutions and establishments together with Non-Government Organizations for the sake of inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue. He has written numerous scientific articles that have been published in national and international publications in Turkish, German and French.

• Becket Fund For Religious Liberty

Angela Wu Howard served as International Law Director at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty from 2005-2010. The Becket Fund is a public interest law firm whose clients have included Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians. She has worked on cases before United Nations tribunals, the U.S. Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights, and domestic courts in countries around the world. She has been published and quoted by NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, Islam Online, Maclean's Magazine, Agence France Presse, The New York Times, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She serves on the governing Bureau of the United Nations NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Angela clerked in the federal circuit courts of appeal for the Honorable William W Schwarzer in San Francisco, worked for Oxfam America in Boston, and served as a negotiations consultant on civil society issues to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. She was litigating hostile corporate takeovers and political asylum cases with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York when the Becket Fund called.

Angela obtained a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School; a B.A. with Honors in Modern Intellectual History from Northwestern University for a thesis on memory, violence, and language in Mao's Cultural Revolution; and a D.E.S. in European Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where she was a Fulbright Fellow.

She is currently based at the University of Oxford, where she is researching hybrid legal systems and how state regulation of religious expression externalizes the conscience.

• German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Former Director of the Democratization Program, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation

Dilek Kurban received her bachelor's degree in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, and Master in International Affairs (MIA) from the  School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She received her J.D. degree from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar.

Between 1999 and 2001, she worked as an associate political affairs officer at the Security Council Division of the United Nations Department of Political Affairs in New York. Having received the 2004 Columbia Rights Fellowship, she was a visiting researcher at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) in Istanbul and the European Center for Minority Issues in Germany.  Kurban joined TESEV as a program officer in 2005 and became the Director of the Democratization Program in 2011.  Having relocated to Berlin in 2013, she continues her affiliation with TESEV as an adviser.

Previously, Kurban was a columnist for Turkish dailies Milliyet and Radikal, an editor for the Armenian-Turkish weekly Agos, and regularly comments on Turkey's democratization process in domestic and international media. In 2007 and 2008, she taught at the Political Science and International Affairs Department of Boğaziçi University. 

She is a founding member of Diyarbakir Institute of Political and Social Studies and the Turkey expert of the European Commission's Network of Independent Experts in the non-discrimination field.  Kurban has published widely on the Kurdish question, internal displacement field, human rights, minority rights, media freedom and anti-discrimination in Turkey, as well as European human rights law. Currently, she is the Mercator-IPC Fellow at Stiftung Wissenschaft and Politik (SWP) in Berlin.

Dr. Limberakis, an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate since 1987 and a member of the Archon National Council since 1988, is a practicing radiologist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  A former page in the United States Senate while in high school, he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975. AS 1978 graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine, he is president and owner of Bustleton Radiology Associates, Ltd. He is married to Dr. Maria A. (Borden) Limberakis, a family practitioner, and together they have three adult children, John, Anthony and Elizabeth, and two grandchildren, Dakota and Anthony.

He is a member of the Archdiocesan Council of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Board of Trustees of Hellenic College/Holy Cross School of Theology.  In May 2002, he received an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Humanities from Hellenic College, Brookline, Massachusetts. In May 2000, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

In June 2009, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem named him the Commander Cross-bearer (Stavrophoros) of the Order of the All-Holy Sepulcher Cross-bearers. In November 2009, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Demetrios of America presented him with the Athenagoras Human Rights Award, the highest distinction of the Greek Orthodox Church of America.

He has served on the Duke University Medical Center Board of Visitors and was past president of the Duke Medical Alumni Association. He was awarded the Charles A. Dukes Award, Duke's highest recognition for volunteer service to the university.  In November 1999, Dr. Limberakis was the recipient of the Duke Medical Center Distinguished Service Award.

Mr. Messo was born and raised in the Netherlands, but lives currently in Sweden. His roots lie in the ancient Syriac Orthodox region in Southeast Turkey called Tur-Abdin, which is Aramaic for "the Mountain of Servants (of God)" and known as the  Mount Athos of the East.

He received his propaedeutics in theology at the Evangelical Higher Education in Veenendaal (1999) and his bachelor's in Hebrew and Aramaic Languages and Culture at Leiden University (2007). In the last two decades, he has been actively engaged with the Aramean (Syriac) people, working for different Aramaic organizations, such as director (2003-2008) and researcher of the Dutch-based Study Center Aramea. He currently presides over the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs). This NGO was founded in 1983 and enjoys since 1999 a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Mr. Messo has published widely about and given many speeches and lectures in a number of European countries, the United States, India and the Middle East  about past, present and future questions dealing with the Aramean (Syriac) people, in particular about their  history and identity. His recent two books and titled - The Aramean (Syriac) People: Native to Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and The Aramean Community in Overijssel, 1965-2013: History, Identity, Integration (in Dutch).

Father Dr. Monge, born in Saluzzo, Italy, is superior of Istanbul's Black Friars since 2007. He is also president of the Union of Religious in Turkey, the founder and animator of an Ecumenical Prayer in Istanbul. He received his Ph.D. in specialized comparative theology and sociology of religions at Strasbourg University in France.

He is a member of the Ecumenical Committee of Consilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum Europae (Council of European Bishops' Conference). He also served on the Conference of European Churches for Islam in Europe, which ended its operation earlier this year. He also is a member of the Dominican General Secretary for Interfaith Dialogue, and professor of Theology of Religious in Fribourg University (Switzerland).

Father Monge has lived in Istanbul seven years where he completed a master class in Turkish and Ottoman Language and Civilization. He is director of the Dominican Study Institute of Istanbul for Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue.

He published a large survey on hospitality in 2008, has directed other publications, and has written many articles for specialized journals in France, Italy, Germany, and Ireland.

• Director of Cornell's Institute for African Development
• Human Rights Advocate
• Humanitarian

Muna Ndulo graduated L.L.B.  (Zambia), L.L.M. (Harvard) and Ph.D. (Oxford). He is a professor law at the Cornell Law School and director of Cornell University's Institute for African Development. He is also honorary professor of law, Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town, and extra ordinary professor of law, Free State University. He was formerly professor of law and dean of the School of Law, University of Zambia.

He has lectured in several universities, including: Bayreauth and Graz. He served as legal officer in the international Trade Law Branch of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law from 1986 to 1995, and as political and legal adviser with the United Nations Mission Observer Mission in South Africa, and to the special representative of the United Nations Secretary General to South Africa, 1992-1994. He also served as legal adviser to the United Nations Assistance Mission to East Timor in 1999, legal expert to the United Nations Mission to Kosovo in 2000, and legal expert to the United Nations Mission to Afghanistan in 2003.

He has acted as consultant to the African Development Bank (ADB) and helped establish ADB's African Legal Support Facility, the World Bank, Economic Commission for Africa, United Nations Development Program, National Democratic Institute, United States Institute for Peace and International Law Organization.  He has acted as consultant to the Kenya 2010 Constitutional Process, Zimbabwe Constitutional Process (1999), and Somalia (2012). He is founder of the Southern African Institute for Public Policy and Research and a member of its Board of Directors. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the African Association of International Law, American Society of International Law, the Advisory Committee, Human Rights Watch (Africa), and chairman of Gender Links, a South African NGO.

He has published 17 books and more than 90 articles in academic journals. He is a frequent commentator in newspaper articles and has regularly been interviewed on African affairs by the BBC and Voice of America. He was awarded the Distinguished Africanist Scholar Award (2012) by the New York African Studies Association. He received the Cornell University Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring of Graduate and Professional Students Award in 2012.

Dr. Otmar Oehring was born in 1955 in Saulgau, Germany, and lived from 1955 to 1971 in Ankara, Turkey. From 1975 to 1981 he studied Middle Eastern Culture and History in Munich, where he also read Law. He spent 1981 and 1982 in Istanbul on a scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. In 1983 he obtained his Ph.D. from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, with a thesis on "Turkey in the Crossfire of Extreme Ideologies (1973-1980)."

Since late 1983, Dr. Oehring has been in the Foreign Department of Missio, the Pontifical Mission Society in Aachen, Germany, where he was initially desk officer for the Islamic countries. He was in charge of the Africa/Middle East Desk from 1991 to 2000 and has been head of the Human Rights Office since January 1, 2001.

He has also been an expert witness in asylum hearings since 1981. Since 2008, he is a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE-ODIHR) Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

He has published a number of articles on religious freedom in Turkey and believes attempts to improve the Law on Foundations are not the way to introduce true religious freedom in Turkey. He says Turkey needs to tackle the fundamental problem of the lack of religious freedom by both changing the Constitution and bringing in an accompanying law to concretely introduce the full individual and collective religious freedom rights spelled out in the European Convention on Human Rights and ratified by Turkey in 1954.

Head of the International Law Department at the Faculty of Law, Galatasary University

Emre Öktem is an associate professor of international law and the head of the International Law Department at the Faculty of Law of Galatasaray University, Istanbul.

He is the author of several books including "Freedom of Religion in International Law," "Terrorism, Humanitarian Law and Human Rights," and "Customary International Law."  He also has written articles on human rights, humanitarian law, minority rights, terrorism, international recognition, continuity and succession, and other fields of international law, as well as essays on history and interfaith dialogue. He has published widely regarding the application of international law in Turkey.

He has served as an expert at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. He has advised Turkish courts, in the capacity of an expert witness, with respect to international law matters. He has also served as an expert witness in international investment arbitrations.

• Council Of Europe

Dr. Omtzigt has been a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe since 2004. As vice president of the committee on Social Affairs and Health, he initiated research into child abuse in institutions and churches throughout Europe. As rapporteur on the Joint Council of Europe and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development convention on the exchange of tax information, he organized an extra conference in The Hague when negotiations looked as if they were failing. As a result, the convention has entered into force and has been signed by most G8 States. His proposals for freedom of religion in Turkey for Christians have been approved by the assembly. They demand Turkey to stop expropriating Christian monasteries and other possessions, as well as equal rights.

In addition, from June 2003 until June 2010, he served as a member of the lower house of the States-General for the Christian Democratic Party. In that capacity, he served as a spokesman on taxations, public pensions, private pensions, and the new health care system. During that period more than 45 amendments passed on the statute books.

He received his bachelor's degree in 1966 from the University of Exeter and his Ph.D. in 2005 at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, with a thesis on "Essay on Cointegration."

He has had numbers academic works published as well as being a regular contributor of opinion articles to leading Dutch daily newspapers. He serves as a member of several boards including the Advisory Board of the Dutch Actuarial Institute, the Board of the Twentse World Trade Centre, ambassador of the Popular Music podium Metropool, and as a member of the advisory committee of the Twentse Wensambulance (voluntary ambulance service). In 2008, he received the Prinsjesdagaward Emancipation Award.

Mr. Oreja has been active in Basque political activities for many years. After graduating in agronomic engineering, he joined the Union de Centro Democrático in 1977 and from 1979 to 1982 represented Guipúzcoa in the Spanish Parliament.

He was elected a member of the Basque Parliament in 1980 and two years later he was appointed as the Government's Delegate in the Basque Country. In 1989 he joined the newly formed People's Party and was elected as a deputy in the Congress of Deputies for Vizcaya. The following year he was elected to the National Executive of the People's Party as the president of the Basque section.

In 1996, he was sworn in as Minister of Interior, a position he held until 2001. He resigned at that time to run, unsuccessfully, for Basque president. Since then he has been the People's Party parliamentary leader in the Basque Parliament. In 2004, he was chosen to lead the People's Party list for the European Parliament election and was elected.

Earlier in his career, he escaped injury when a grenade was thrown against his office window.

He was born in 1951 in San Sabastián in the Basque Country of Spain.

• Former Vice Chair, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Dr. Prodromou is a retired, senior U.S. diplomat, having served (2004-2012) as vice chair of the U.S. Commission on  International Religious Freedom.  Since 2011, she is a member of the U.S. Secretary of State's Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group: Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society.  She is an Affiliate Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, where she co-chairs the Southeastern Europe Study Group and the Study Group on Muslims and Democratic Politics. Beginning in 2014, she will be Visiting Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Prodromou is a recognized authority on issues of religion and geopolitics, and religious freedom, human rights, and democracy, with particular expertise on Orthodox Christianity and Islam in Europe and the Middle East.

Prodromou has been an invited consultant to the U.S. diplomacy and defense communities, as well as international organizations, such as  NATO, United Nations, and the European Union.  In addition to publishing widely in journals such as Orbis, Survival, Journal of Democracy, Social Compass, Journal of Faith and International Affairs, she is a contributor to numerous collected volumes and is co-editor and contributor to Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars. She is a frequent contributor and commentator in media outlets such as The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and The Hill's Congress Blog, as well as on television and radio outlets such as VOA and NPR. She has been quoted as an expert in leading international print media.

She holds a doctorate and master's in political science from MIT, and M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a bachelor's in international relations from Tufts University.  She is married to Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou, and they live with their daughter in Massachusetts.

Dr. Puppinck was appointed director of the European Centre for Law and Justice after serving on the board for seven years. From 2003 to 2008, he taught Human Rights, International Law and Constitutional Law at the University of Haute-Alsace School of Law.

For the past ten years, Puppinck has extensively worked on religious freedom cases and political discussions within the international institutions primarily before the European Court of Human Rights. Those cases cover all areas of religious freedom, including tax issues, the autonomy of the church, church legal recognition, religious symbols, conscientious objection, family educational rights and employment. He also participated in litigation before the International Criminal Court. In the recent years he has developed advocacy and support for religious-based asylum seekers.

He also regularly serves as an expert to several committees of the Council of Europe. Recently, he was appointed to the Committee of Experts on Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and the Committee of Experts on the Reform of the European Court of Human Rights.

After earning his master's degree in law from the University of Paris, he graduated from the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales where he specialized in international and European law. He holds his Ph.D., summa cum laude, from Poitiers Law School.

• Attorney

Mr. Rockas is a member of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He was the conference planning chairman for the religious freedom conference the Order sponsored in Brussels in 2010. He also is a member of the Order's Legal Committee and the chairman of the Litigation Sub-Committee of the Legal Committee.  In those capacities, he has helped monitor legal issues facing the Greek Orthodox Church minority as well as other religious minorities in Turkey.

He received his B.A. degree from Hamilton College and his J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Cornell University.  He has been a lawyer for 30 years specializing in civil litigation, with an emphasis on defending non-medical professionals such as lawyers and accountants in malpractice cases and defending insurers in insurance coverage disputes.  He has tried a number of cases and argued a number of appeals in state and federal courts.

Since December 2000, he has been the managing partner of the Boston office of Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP, a law firm with 25 offices in the United States and an office in London.  Throughout his career, Mr. Rockas has been active in the American Bar Association (ABA), including serving as the chairman of the ABA's Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee.

• Vice President, Association Of Liberal Thinking

Dr. Sahin is an associate professor of political science in the department of Political Science and Public Administration at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. He is the president of the Association of Liberal Thinking.

He received his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2003. Among his research topics are classical liberal and libertarian philosophy, the relation between liberal democracy and Islam, and the relationships between state and civil society in Turkey.

He conducted a post-doctoral research at the University of Maryland, through an Earheart Foundation fellowship in 2007-2008. The title of his post-doctoral project is "An Expansive Theory of Liberal Tolerance: The Historical Case of Pierre Bayle."

Some of his most recent publications are: "Toleration: The Liberal Virtue," Lanham, Maryland, Lexington Books, 2010; "Between Enlightened Exclusion and Conscientious Inclusion: Tolerating the Muslims in Germany," coauthored with Dr. Nezahat Altuntas, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 1, pages 27-41; and "Toleration, Political Liberalism, and Peaceful Coexistence in the Muslim World," The American Journal of Islamic Social Studies, Vol. 24, No.1, Winter 2007, pages 1-24.

• Archons Of The Ecumenical Patriarchate In Europe

Mr. Sassyiannis is president of the Brotherhood of Pammakaristos, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who reside outside the United States.

He received a degree in economic sciences from the University of Thessaloniki, a master's degree in Banking Economics from the University of Room, and a Master of Arts in Monetary Economics from Victoria University of Manchester.

Fluent in Greek, English, French, and Italian, his professional career includes vice director of American Express (Athens), vice director of American Express Bank (Paris), regional vice director of American Express Bank of South France, general manager of American Express Bank (Monaco), and senior vice president and general manager of E.F.G. Bank (Monaco). Presently, he is a board member of the E.F.G. Bank (Monaco).

Among the honors he has received is the Chevalier de l'Ordre de Saint Charles presented by Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

Rabbi Schneier is president and founder of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation and is the senior rabbi at Park East Synagogue in New York City. He is internationally known for his ecumenical work on behalf of religious freedom, human rights, peace and inter-religious dialogue.

A recipient of the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Bill Clinton in 2001, he was cited as "a Holocaust survivor who has devoted a lifetime to overcoming forces of hatred and intolerance and set an inspiring example of spiritual leadership by encouraging interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding and promoting the cause of religious freedom around the world."

He was one of three American religious leaders appointed by President Clinton to start the first dialogue on religious freedom with President Jiang Zemin and other top Chinese leaders in 1998. In 2008, he hosted Pope Benedict XVI at Park East Synagogue, the first visit of a Pope to a synagogue in the United States. Also in 2008, he was the keynote speaker at the Interfaith Conference convened by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in Madrid. In 1994 and 1995, he co-sponsored with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew the Peace and Tolerance Conferences I and II in Istanbul, Turkey, and the World Summit of Religious Leaders convened by Patriarch Aleksey II of Russia in 2006.

Born in 1930 in Vienna, Austria, he immigrated to the United States in 1947. At his alma mater, Yeshiva University, he established the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs. He is the recipient of 11 honorary doctorates. In 2009, he was knighted by King Juan Carlos I with the Knight Commander of the Order of Civil Merit from the Kingdom of Spain. He has received many more awards and honors. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, the Asia Society, and the U.S. Holocaust Museum Committee on Conscience.

• Executive Director, Orville H. Schell Jr. Center For International Human Rights

Professor Silk is clinical professor of law at the Yale Law School, where he directs the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. He is also executive director of the Law School's Orville H. Schell Jr. Center for Human Rights. The Lowenstein Clinic helps students build the knowledge and skills necessary to be effective human rights advocates.

Before starting at Yale Law School in 1999, Silk was director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights in Washington, D.C. In addition to guiding the Center's work and leading the Center's advocacy with the U.S. government and international organizations, he focused on human rights in China, child labor, and corporate responsibility.

He is a founding member of the board of the Fair Labor Association, an organization dedicated to protecting workers' rights by monitoring global labor practices of participating companies, particularly in the clothing and footwear industries. He also was a founding member of the board of RUGMARK-USA (now GoodWeave), which monitors the production of hand-knotted carpets in South Asia to ensure that no child labor in involved.

He has a B.A. in economics from the University of Michigan and an M.A. in humanities from the University of Chicago. He received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1989. Before attending law school, he was editor, policy analyst and senior writer for the U.S. Committee for Refugees.

Dr. Sommer, born in Bochum, Germany, has been a member of the European Parliament since 1999 and since 2009 has been a member of the Bureau of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats).

She began her political career in 1993 by becoming a member and chair of the Bureau of Herne District (Christian Democrats) and since 1994 has been chairman of the Herne Europa-Union. From 1994 to 1999 she was a city councilor in Herne and vice chair of the Christian Democratic Union group on the Herne Municipal Council.

She serves on the following committees in the European Parliament: Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety; the delegation to the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee; the delegation for relations with the Maghreb Countries and the Arab Maghreb Union; and delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.

She received her doctorate in international nutrition and consumer behavior in 1996 at Bonn University. Her experience includes serving as an academic assistant in Bonn University's Department of Agriculture and as an agricultural policy officer with the German Rural Youth Academy of the German Farmers' Union in Bonn.

Mr. Szymanski, who was born in Kalisz, Poland, in 1969, is a member of the European Parliament with the Polish Law and Justice Party. He is also a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) in the European Parliament.

He is vice chairman of the special committee on the policy challenges and budgetary resources for a sustainable European Union after 2013; a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy; a delegate to the EU-Armenia, EU-Azerbaijan, and EU-Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committees, and ECR Coordinator in the delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.

He also is vice chairman of the Bioethics Intergroup and St. James Intergroup in the European Parliament. He has been pro-life non-government organization's leader and foreign affairs commentator. In parliamentary activity, he concentrates on energy security and EU Eastern Policy portfolios, as well as pro-life and religious freedom issues.

Szymanski is editor-in-chief of MPP Review.

An attorney, Mr. Tarhan is the founder and the chairman of many associations working in the field of environment, culture, and sports.

Born in Tunceli, a province in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, he completed his primary and secondary education in Elazig and Ankara. He graduated from the Law School of Ankara University and completed his master's degree at the same university in private law. He has been working as a lawyer and legal consultant in Istanbul since 1990.

He is chairman of the Federation of Alevi Associations, which is an umbrella organization for for Karacaahmet Dergahi (Dervish Lodge), Sahkulu Dergahi, Garipdede Dergahi, Eskisehir Sucattin Veli Dergahi. He also is chairman of Erikli Baba Cultural Association located in Zeytinburnu-Istanbul, which was created to contribute to intercultural and interfaith dialogue and to learn and teach Alevi philosophy.

Mr. Tarhan has written many articles on politics, Alevi faith, education, and sociology. He also has participated in many academic meetings on related topics. Born in 1964, he is married with two children.

Ms. Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou is a member of the European Parliament and in particular the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats - New Democracy. In 2007, she was elected first vice president of the European Parliament. Her main responsibilities include serving on the Committee of Transport and Tourism, the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, the Committee on Budgetary Control, and as a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.

She was born on the island of Zakyhthos in Greece. She studied sociology at the University of Geneva. Her postgraduate studies followed at the Institute of European Studies where she completed her research. She also participated in the activities of the European Cultural Centre in Geneva, of which she is a member of the board.

She has received numerous awards including the Knight of the Legion of Honor by the president of the French Republic, the XENIA International Exhibition of the Tourism Industry Award for her contribution to European tourism, an award by the mayor of Athens in 1997 for her initiatives for European integration, and the Anna Lindh Foundation Euro-Med Award for the Dialogue Between Cultures. In 2008, she was voted as the personality of the year by the Women's International Shipping & Trading Association for her contributions to maritime affairs. In the same year, she was also proclaimed a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III.

She is married to a former member of the Greek Parliament, Apostolos Kratsas. They have two children.

• Member of the Turkish Parliament
• Member of the Constitution Committee

Dr. Türmen, a native of Istanbul, Turkey, graduated from the English High School for Boys in 1964 and the Istanbul University Law Faculty in 1964. He completed his lawyer's training in the Istanbul Bar Association. He received a master's degree in law from the McGill University, Montreal, and a doctoral degree in international relations from the Political Science Faculty of Ankara.

In 1966, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served at the Turkish delegation to the United National and the Turkish embassy in Islamabad. In 1978, he became Turkish representative to the Internal Civil Aviation Organization. In 1985, he was appointed Turkish ambassador to Singapore. From 1989 to 1994, he served in Ankara as the director general in charge of the Council of Europe, Human Rights, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations. In 1994, he became ambassador of Turkey to Switzerland and in 1996, became ambassador of Turkey to the Council of Europe.

In 1998, Dr. Türmen was elected as the Turkish judge to the European Court of Human Rights. He was re-elected in 2001 and remained at the Court until 2008.

He is the recipient of the Lawyer of the Year Award given by the Turkish Bar Association in 2009, the Distinguished Service Award by the Middle East Technical University in 2009, and the Freedom of the Press Award by the Turkish Journalists Association, also in 2009. He also received the Distinguished Service Award from the Cagdas Yasami Destekleme Dernegi, a non-government organization active in the field of education of girls of poor families in Turkey.

At present, he currently is a member of the Turkish Parliament for the CHP Party and a member of the Constitution Commission.

• Representative of Non Muslim Foundations

Pandeli Laki Vingas is an entrepreneur managing his own export-import business since 1983. As a member of the Greek minority of Istanbul, he has been very active in the social affairs of his community, including active participation in Greek minority cultural organizations. He has been a member of administrative boards of community foundations and serving for ten years as president of the Zographeion High School Alumni Association. During his presidency of the association he was the initiator and organizer of several cultural events such as conferences, concerts, and  panel discussions dealing with issues concerning the status of minorities in Turkey and promoting the heritage of the Greek minority.

He was appointed a member of the Advisory Committee of the 2010 Istanbul Cultural Capital of Europe Agency. In 2008, he was the first member to be selected to the General Assembly of the General Directorate of Foundations (GDF) in Ankara, representing all 166 non-Muslim Minority Foundations of Turkey. During his term he achieved putting in the agenda of the GDF  many longstanding issues that concern minority foundations. In addition, he has been  working closely with all minority groups with the aim to promote their rightful demands and to mobilize its members to get involved with civil society, enhancing their communication with state actors. He also established collaborative networks among all minority groups in Turkey by promoting their common goals and demands. In December of 2011, he was re-elected to the same post.

In 2010, he was among the initiators and founders of the Association for the Support of the Greek Community's Foundations (Rumvader), which coordinates the activities of all 69 foundations of the Greek minority in Turkey. He served as president of Rumvader from January of 2011 until December of 2012. He has participated in many conferences with topics ranging from religious freedom and Turkey's bridge to the European Union, the role of minority foundations in Turkey,  and the experience of a minority person living in Turkey.

Born in 1961, he received his degree from the Technical University of Yildiz in Istanbul with a degree as a naval mechanical engineer. He lives in Istanbul with his wife and three children.

• Director, Freedom of Belief Initiative Project in Turkey
• Norwegian Helsinki Commission
• Doctoral Candidate, Aabo Akademi
• Institute of Human Rights

In addition to being head of the Freedom of Belief Initiative Monitoring Project, Ms. Yildirim is a researcher at Abo Akademi University Institute for Human Rights.

Her recent research and publications indicate her expertise in this field:  The Right to Establish Places of Worship in Turkey for Religion and Human Rights (Vol. 8, 2013); The Return of Property to Community  Foundations in Turkey – The Restitution Decree, European Yearbook of Minority Issues ( Vol. 9, 2013); a chapter entitled "Freedom of Religion or Belief in the Turkish Legal System" in the Handbook of Religious Freedom (2012); a book chapter,  "Religion in the Public and Private Workplace: The Approach of the Turkey Judiciary" in A Test of Faith? Religious Diversity and Accommodation in the European Workplace (2012);Co-author on the report, "A Threat or Under Threat: Legal and Social Problems of Protestants in Turkey (2010); "Conscientious Objection to Military Service in International Law and the Case of Turkey" for Religion and Human Rights (2010).  In addition, she has been a contributor to Forum 18, TESEV (Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation) and has contributed articles to many Turkish newspapers.

She also has served as a consultant on several projects including work on freedom of religion or belief  in Turkey for human rights organizations and religious communities.  This past June, she did a background paper evaluating the optional religion lessons in light of Turkey's human rights obligations for ERG (Educational Reform Initiative). And last year, also for ERG, she did another background paper on the changes in curricula of the Religious Culture and Ethics Books in light of human rights and human rights education.

Ms. Yildirim is currently a doctoral candidate and researcher at Abo Akademi University Institute for Human Rights.  Her research topic is "The Collective Dimension of Freedom of Religion or Belief in International Human Rights Law and Application of Findings to Turkey." She received  her master's degree in Human Rights and Civil Liberties from Leicester University in the United Kingdom. Her dissertation was on "International Protection of Internally Displaced Persons." She received her bachelor's degree in International Relations from Marmara University in Istanbul.