For ten years between 2003 and 2013, Chinese organizer Lu Jun worked to build a movement of advocacy and litigation to secure human rights.  He first joined the fight against stigma attached to people with Hepatitis B that limited their access to education and work, and later founded what was to become the main human rights organization in China, the Yirenping Center.  But that was under then President Hu Jintao. When Xi Jinping came to power, political space shrunk sharply. In this episode,  Lu Jun reflects on how a nationwide network of lawyers and NGOs coped with the crackdown and shows how human rights work continues.

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⁠Transcript availble here.⁠

While Strength&Solidarity is on a break we’re taking the chance to re-up some favourite episodes.

Back in December we featured an episode about North Korea – but with a twist. Beyond the ritual condemnations of egregious practices under Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, it’s rare to get a close-up view of what the people who escape from North Korea think and feel about their lives and the future they want. Hanna Song, Executive Director of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, reflects on what she has learned – a more nuanced and complex picture than is usually painted.

And in the Coda, a Zimbabwean human rights lawyer relies on soccer to keep things cordial. Music by Oliver Mtukudzi.

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Quick Links

• Click here to read the Episode 48 Transcript.

• Hanna Song bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanna-song-25055a114/

• Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB): https://en.nkdb.org/

• NKDB: 2024 White Paper on North Korean Human Rights: https://en.nkdb.org/activitynews/?idx=125777386&bmode=view

• UN: Report of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-idprk/reportofthe-commissionof-inquiry-dprk

While Strength&Solidarity is on a break we’re taking the chance to re-up some favourite episodes.

Coda #24 featured criminal justice and human rights expert Chris Stone reading and reflecting on a poem by Seamus Heaney, called Casualty. This famous poem of the Northern Ireland Troubles tells the story of an event that followed Bloody Sunday, the day in 1972 when British soldiers shot dead 13 unarmed civilians in Derry as they were protesting internment without trial.

Quick Links

• Seamus Heaney’s Casualty: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51607/casualty-56d22f7512b97

• Bloody Sunday, or the Bogside Massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)

• Chris Stone: https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/people/christopher-stone

• Symposium on Strength and Solidarity for Human Rights: https://strengthandsolidarity.org/about/

While Strength&Solidarity is on a break we’re taking the chance to re-up some favourite episodes.

Last April, in Episode 51, I talked with Negin Shiraghaei, founder of Azadi Network, about her work to build a network for Iranians in the diaspora – as a common space for advancing human rights and democracy at home. She talked about the complexity of the task, and the value of embracing lessons from failure.

Here's the orginal show notes:

In the quarter century since Iran’s Islamic revolution, thousands of Iranians have left their home to live in exile. Although they all have a country in common, that diaspora is hugely diverse – coming from different generations and with a wide range of origin stories, political allegiances and views about the change they would like to see in Iran. When in 2022 a young woman in Iran was beaten and killed by the morality police for wearing her hijab incorrectly, anger across the exile community suggested favorable  conditions for a diaspora movement for rights in Iran to emerge. But what form should such a movement take? The founder and co-director of Azadi Network, Negin Shiraghaei, reflects on the choices she and other organizers faced as they took up that challenge.

And in the Coda, Turkish eco-activist Burcu Meltem Arik shares a poem by Nazim Hikmet reminding us of what nature can teach us about resilience. Music Credit: Ben Sığmazam by Özge Arslan, 2023

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We are now publishing our newsletter on Substack, if you would like to subscribe: https://substack.com/@strengthsolidarity⁠

Strength&Solidarity is taking a break and that gives us a chance to re-up some favourite episodes.

Here’s Coda #3 in which US civil rights veteran  Charles Cobb Jr looks back to 1963 and a chance meeting between some young black activists in the segregated south and a future Kenyan Vice President.  That event went on to be celebrated in a song that became a favourite in the civil rights movement.

And don’t forget there are nearly 50 codas for you to explore – young activist poets in Sudan’s brilliant but sadly defeated revolution; a young US lawyer recalling the profound connection he found in 1980s El Salvador; a human rights ED who took up his guitar and sang us a lovely Mercedes Sosa song – not to mention favourite poems, music and activities – from wild swimming to reading to the kids at bedtime. It’s a treasure trove for you to explore - take ten minutes out to decompress and experience someone-else’s world.

It can sometimes seem as though fighting for queer rights in a hostile society is an unwinnable project.  All too often, punitive laws, state violence, economic exclusion and social hostility are stacked against a community that is isolated and excluded. That’s certainly true in Tunisia and other North African countries. But in this episode, queer Tunisian activist Assala Mdawkhy tells host Akwe Amosu that creating safe spaces and building a movement for LGBTQI rights should be taken as indicators of staying power and eventual success. 

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If you are one of the people feeling that things are not going to be all right, this one’s for you. 

Coda #46 comes from Bill McKibben, veteran climate change activist and founder of multiple campaigns and organisations – check out Strength&Solidarity Ep. 57.  He told us how hard it can be to stay optimistic, when the odds against success seem high.  The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun is one of his go-to tracks for regaining his footing, so perhaps it’s no surprise that he is currently organising people to “rise up” for Sun Day, a day of action “for a sun-powered planet” next month, 21 September, 

We’ve started releasing the Coda as a separate show, not just part of the main Strength&Solidarity podcast. You will find both of them in our feed here, or on our Substack page, with transcripts, and related links. If you subscribe at https://substack.com/@strengthsolidarity, you will receive the “host’s note” accompanying each show.  

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Quick Links

Bio: Bill McKibben: https://billmckibben.com/

Sun Day:  Day of action, 21 September 2025   :https://www.sunday.earth/

Wikipedia:  The Beatle’s Abbey Road: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Road

WikipediaL  Nina Simone’s O-o-h Child: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-o-h_Child

What’s your image of an activist? Someone in a bandanna facing down a line of cops? Or chaining themselves to a tree? You may well have imagined someone young because that’s the stereotype: the student ready to take on the world - until they get bogged down in work obligations and childcare. But veteran climate justice organizer Bill McKibben thinks that cliché is due for retirement. Four years ago he co-founded Third Act, a campaigning organization in the United States for the over-60s, working on climate, democracy and racial justice. He tells host Akwe Amosu how well that bet has turned out, and about a game-changing development in renewable energy that’s giving him hope.

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Quick Links:

• Bio: https://billmckibben.com/

A young boy growing up in South Bend, Indiana, goes to the library every week with his mother and comes back with a brown grocery bag full of books. He doesn’t know it then, but it’s the start of a lifelong journey of involvement in the human rights movement. Listen to Chris Grove, executive director of ESCR-Net explain how books showed him a lineage of struggle he could join, and how they are still guiding him – and his young son. 

From now on we are releasing the Coda as a separate show, not just part of the main Strength&Solidarity podcast. You will find both of them in our feed here, or on our Substack page, with transcripts, and related links. If you subscribe at https://substack.com/@strengthsolidarity, you will receive the “host’s note” accompanying each show.  

Contact us at [email protected]

MUSIC

• Abdullah Ibrahim - Mannenberg (live)

• Abdullah Ibrahim - Ancient Africa (live)

The levels of stress and – at worst – burn-out in the human rights field are, anecdotally at least, at remarkably high levels.   That may not be surprising in an era of rising authoritarianism, shrinking funds and expanding abuse of rights.  But is the impact on those who organize and work in human rights sufficiently understood and recognized? If the rights movements and organizations are to meet this moment, is there a need for a new strategy?   Host Akwe Amosu seeks the view of Trine Christensen, coach and formerly the secretary general of Amnesty Denmark, until she herself burned out.

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We are now publishing our newsletter on Substack, if you would like to subscribe: ⁠https://substack.com/@strengthsolidarity⁠