The Keeper: A Human Rights Podcast

In this episode of our Sports & Rights season, we take an in-depth look at a topic we touched on in the first episode – sportswashing. We speak to journalists, human rights advocates, and academics to help unpack what this term means and why it matters. We also delve into some of the most successful examples of sportswashing, ranging from ancient Egypt right up to the present day. We examine the impact of sportswashing and raise some important questions about who bears responsibility for standing up to the authoritarian regimes that seek to use sports as a form of soft power.  

Read more: 

Human Rights Foundation: Celebrities & Dictators 

A History of Sports and Dictators (by Karim Zidan, via Human Rights Foundation)

How the NBA got into business with an African dictator (by Mark Fainaru-Wada, via ESPN)

It is time to change how we talk about Saudi sports (by Karim Zidan, via Sports Politika) 

Sport & Rights Alliance

Watch:

Sports & Politics | The Struggle for Freedom, Explained (via Human Rights Foundation)
 

Producers: Chelsea Hedquist, Brittany Smith 

Audio editor: Brittany Smith 

Music: Riorr by Audiorezout 

The Taliban and the Global Backlash Against Women’s Rights, Human Rights Watch, February 6, 2024

Opinion | The Olympics Should Stand With Afghanistan’s Women Athletes - The New York Times (nytimes.com), July 17, 2024

Watch:

Sports & Politics | The Struggle for Freedom, Explained (via Human Rights Foundation)

On April 11, 2024, we are re-releasing our 2021 episode “The Democracy Activist Putin Wants Dead.” There is a very somber reason for this re-release. This date marks the two-year anniversary of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s arrest and imprisonment on charges of “public dissemination of deliberately false information.” Vladimir, one of the boldest and most eloquent Russian opposition figures, committed the great “crime” of speaking out against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression on Ukraine. For speaking the truth, he is now serving a 25-year sentence in a remote and notoriously harsh penal colony. Vladimir’s health, already compromised by two nearly fatal poisonings ordered by the Kremlin, is declining. Time is running out. It is imperative for people everywhere to keep advocating for Vladimir’s release, to keep demanding that western governments intervene, to keep reminding the Putin regime that there is a cost to making dissidents into political prisoners. If we hope to hear Vladimir’s voice again one day, speaking out boldly for democracy and human rights in Russia, then we must speak boldly now in calling for his release.

This re-release features a condensed version of the episode created from two conversations that Lantos Foundation President Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett had with Vladimir in late 2020 and early 2021.

Read Vladimir Kara-Murza’s opinion pieces in The Washington Post

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s last statement to Moscow City Court

Write Vladimir a letter

The Price of Conviction podcast (produced by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights)

Russian dissident Kara-Murza moved to isolation cell in new Siberian prison (Reuters, Jan. 30, 2024)

The Keeper’s new Sports & Rights season kicks off with something a little different – a joint episode hosted by Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett and Tim Horgan, Executive Director of the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire and host of the Global in the Granite State podcast. Katrina and Tim join forces for a dynamic conversation about the complex and often problematic ways in which the world of sports intersects and interacts with human rights issues. They cover everything from sportswashing (ancient and modern!) – including the two biggest sporting events of 2022, the Beijing Winter Olympics and the World Cup in Qatar – to the responsibility of sports federations to promote and uphold human rights, to the powerful role that athletes can play as advocates for human rights and other social issues. The episode introduces many of the topics that the Sports & Rights season will dive into more fully, with a special focus on how they play out close to home in the Granite State.

Global in the Granite State Podcast

“Could 2022 be sportswashing’s biggest year yet?”, The Guardian, January 5, 2022, by Karim Zidan 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Congressman Tom Lantos on China’s 2008 Olympic bid, C-Span, July 11, 2001

Sport & Rights Alliance

UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Center for Sport Leadership, Virginia Commonwealth University

Producers: Chelsea Hedquist, Brittany Smith

Audio technician: Chelsea Hedquist

Audio editors: Brittany Smith, Trent Gunst

Music: Riorr by Audiorezout 

Over the past several weeks, we have watched Russia’s unprovoked attacks on the people of Ukraine with horror, outrage, and a deep sense of fear for what this will mean for freedom and democracy in Europe – and the world. We have sought out trusted experts on the situation to help us better understand what the future may hold, for both Ukraine and Russia. In this special episode of The Keeper, we share a conversation between Lantos Foundation President Katrina Lantos Swett and Pavel Khodorkovsky. Pavel is the son of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, formerly Putin’s most prominent political prisoner and now one of his most vocal critics. Pavel is the U.S. Executive Director of Project Sunrise, an initiative to deliver humanitarian aid directly to Ukraine. In this interview, he shares his unique and hard-earned insights into the conflict in Ukraine and what is happening inside Russia.

Project Sunrise

Russian Anti-War Committee

Washington Post Live: The Future of Russia – The Oligarchs with Pavel Khodorkovsky

CNN: He was Russia’s Richest Man. Hear what he has to say about Putin.

The Guardian: History demands the west deploy every legal and financial weapon against Putin

The Economist: Mikhail Khodorkovsky on how to deal with the “bandit” in the Kremlin

Vanity Fair: “The Oligarchs Are Financial Outposts in His War”: Why the West Must Ramp Up Its Campaign Against Putin’s Billionaires

The Atlantic Council: Peace in Europe ‘will not exist’ as long as Putin is in power, says Mikhail Khodorkovsky

On the final episode of our 7-part Rule of Law season, we return to the subject of the state of the rule of law right here in America. We hear from our 2020 Lantos Human Rights Prize Laureate Bryan Stevenson, who has been a tireless advocate for applying the rule of law equally and fairly in the United States, regardless of race or economic status, as well as for dealing more honestly and openly with this country’s history of inequality. Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of the best-selling book Just Mercy, has spent more than three decades advocating on behalf of incarcerated people who have been wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. In this episode, we hear his perspective on the difference between law and justice, how America compromises its standing as a human rights leader when it fails to confront its own human rights challenges, why mercy is as fundamental a principle as justice, and more. Listen to this powerful and inspiring conclusion to the Rule of Law season.

Equal Justice Initiative

Just Mercy (best-selling book adapted into a film)

2020 Lantos Human Rights Prize Recipient

Bryan Stevenson: From the courtroom to Hollywood (BookTube)

The Moment to Close America’s Hypocrisy Gap, by Katrina Lantos Swett (Medium)

This season of The Keeper is made possible with the generous support of Ambassador April H.  Foley, the United States Ambassador to Hungary from 2006-2009. 

This episode of The Keeper is proudly brought to you by Shaheen & Gordon – providing full-service legal advocacy across New Hampshire & Maine since 1981. Shaheen & Gordon is dedicated to protecting people’s rights and upholding the Rule of Law.

This final episode of our Rule of Law season is also supported by John & Patricia Broderick. 

On this season of The Keeper, we’ve heard harrowing first-hand accounts of what happens in a country when its government or leaders choose to disregard the rule of law; freedom, justice and human rights all tend to be casualties. Oftentimes, the oppressors and abusers face few consequences for their actions…but not always. When it comes to the worst of the worst crimes, there is an international instrument for accountability – the International Criminal Court, or the ICC. It is the first and only permanent international court with the legal jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. In this episode, we speak with Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, who recently finished his term as ICC President after serving on the Court for nearly a decade. We cover the origins of the ICC, its complicated and often fraught relationship with the U.S., criticisms of the Court and points of deep controversy over which countries it chooses to investigate – or not investigate – but also Judge Eboe-Osuji’s fundamental belief in the Court’s power to “loosen the grip of tyranny in our time”. 

International Criminal Court

Farewell Message of ICC President Chile Eboe-Osuji

Third Annual Lantos Rule of Law Lecture with Judge President Eboe-Osuji

I.C.C. Won’t Investigate China’s Detention of Muslims (New York Times) 

The United States Opposes the ICC Investigation into the Palestinian Situation

This season of The Keeper was made possible with the generous support of Ambassador April H. Foley, who served as the United States Ambassador to Hungary from 2006 -2009.
 
This episode is supported by former Congressman Herb Klein of New Jersey and by Jim Gottstein, author of The Zyprexa Papers. 

For the fifth episode of our Rule of Law Season, we speak with journalist and author Anjan Sundaram to help us understand what is happening with the rule of law in Rwanda. The country is often held up as a democratic success story in Africa, as it has achieved stability and prosperity over the last 25 years since the horrific genocide of 1994. But Anjan explains that the real story is very different, and he speaks from very personal experience. He moved to Kigali, Rwanda in 2009 and began teaching journalism to Rwandan reporters – and then, one by one, his students began to run into a series of misfortunes that couldn’t have been mere coincidence. Anjan came to realize that he was witnessing the fall of free speech and the rise of President Paul Kagame’s dictatorship in Rwanda. Anjan speaks about the impact of Kagame’s authoritarian regime on the everyday lives of Rwandans, the brazen ways in which he stifles any dissent, and how western countries have actually emboldened Kagame to consolidate his power. He also discusses the Rwandan government’s kidnapping of human rights hero Paul Rusesabagina and the show trial he faces in Kigali, and he explains what it will mean for any critics of President Kagame going forward.   

Anjan Sundaram Official Website

“Rwanda’s Rendition of a Hollywood Hero Confirms the Country’s Descent into Dictatorship”, by Anjan Sundaram in Foreign Policy

“I Think I May Die Tonight”, excerpt from Bad News by Anjan Sundaram in Foreign Policy

Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship by Anjan Sundaram

YouTube: Rwanda paid for the flight that led to Paul Rusesabagina arrest – UpFront

The Daily: A Battle for the Soul of Rwanda 

A Tribute to Paul Rusesabagina by Congressman Tom Lantos (July 25, 2005) 

Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation - #FreeRusesabagina


This season of The Keeper was made possible with the generous support of  Ambassador April H. Foley, who served as the United States Ambassador to Hungary from 2006 -2009. 

This episode is also supported by four distinguished professors from the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law:

Professor John Greabe, Director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership & Public Service.

Professor Albert “Buzz” Scherr, Chair of the International Criminal Law and Justice Program and former Director of the State Department Rule of Law Project in Northern Russia.

Professor Robert E. McDaniel, a former U.S. Federal Prosecutor in Washington, DC, former Head of Legal Affairs for the OSCE in the Republic of Kosovo and now a faculty member in the International Criminal Law and Justice Program.

Judge Arthur Gajarsa, who joined the faculty as Distinguished Jurist-in-Residence after retiring from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Vladimir Kara-Murza has spent the better part of the last two decades fighting for the rule of law in Russia as a journalist, filmmaker and opposition politician. But in Putin’s Russia, this is a very dangerous line of work. Not once, but twice, he has been the victim of a poison attack and barely escaped with his life. Just last weekend, he was arrested and detained by the Russian government during a meeting of independent and opposition politicians. These are all clear signs of the total lack of rule of law in Russia, but Vladimir continues to press bravely forward in his work advocating for democracy. In this episode, we talk about the change that Vladimir sees coming to Russia, what it will take to eventually end Putin’s reign, and the outlook for a post-Putin Russia.

This episode is supported by former Congressman Don Bonker.

Read Vladimir Kara-Murza’s opinion pieces in The Washington Post

Bellingcat Investigation into Vladimir Kara-Murza’s Suspected Poisonings

Putin’s Palace YouTube documentary

In this episode, we focus on a part of the world that has become one of the front lines of the fight to uphold the Rule of Law – Hong Kong. In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has been imposing increasingly strict measures on the once autonomous and democratic Hong Kong, designed to erode that autonomy. The response has not come from the powerful or well-connected members of Hong Kong society, but from the vibrant, beating heart of Hong Kong: its youth. Nathan Law, who became the youngest lawmaker ever elected to the Hong Kong Legislative Council in 2016, has emerged as one of the most recognizable and respected voices on the Hong Kong democracy movement. He spoke to us from the UK, where he is now living in exile, about China’s spreading authoritarianism, the global importance of Hong Kong’s struggle for freedom and autonomy, and his optimism that democracy will prevail in the end.

This episode is sponsored by John and Judith Ransmeier and brought to you by Sheehan Phinney Law Firm, the business law firm.

Nathan Law – The Magnitsky Human Rights Award

Give Hong Kong the Autonomy It Was Promised, Nathan Law in The New York Times

Mr. Biden, Keep the Pressure on Hong Kong, Nathan Law in The New York Times

No More Waiting: The Time Has Come to Fight for Hong Kong, Katrina Lantos Swett in The Hill

Lantos Foundation advocacy for Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow

Interview with Joshua Wong on The Keeper