Ms. Heba Morayef, Regional Director of Amnesty International, gave a commencement speech to ArMA graduates during the graduation ceremony organised by the Global Campus Arab World. Here are some excerpts from her speech: 

"One of the things that I like about your programme is the emphasis that Human Rights is not something technical, but it’s intertwined with political struggles for justice".  

"Our region, as any region in the world goes through cycles of hope and despair. We are now in a ‘non moment of hope’. But we have seen in the last 10 years, moments where Human Right defenders' ambitions went well beyond the defence of particular prisoners". "When these moments of hope struck our region [...] [in 2011 and 2019 ed], we were ready as a human rights community because we knew not only the individual rights that needed to be changed but we knew the institutional reforms and the legislative reforms that needed to change". 

"Join the Human Rights Movement. Come, you’re needed". Check out the video for the rest of Ms Heba Morayef's message to the graduates of the ArMA programme. 

Graduation ceremony of the master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation, Institute of Political Science, 29th of September 2023, Medical Campus of Saint Joseph University of Beirut.