Berkley Center

Mohammad Al Abdallah is the executive director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Center and a Syrian human rights and pro-democracy researcher and activist. He was imprisoned in Syria on two different occasions for his work defending human rights and lobbying for political reform, facing military trial in both cases. Al Abdallah moved to the United States in February 2009 after he was granted political asylum. Previously, he worked as a research assistant for Human Rights Watch in Beirut from July 2007 to January 2009, where he covered Syria. He received a LLB from Lebanese University in 2007 and a MPP from George Mason University in 2014.

Fr. Behnam Benoka is the founder of Mart-Shmoni charitable clinic and the Humanitarian Nineveh Relief Organization, which serves internal displaced people in the Ankawa suburb of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Fr. Behnam is a professor at Babel College in Ankawa. He joined the Seminary of St. Peter in Baghdad in 1997 and was ordained into the priesthood in 2004. In 2012, he was assigned as administrator for St. Ephrem Seminary and dean of St. Ephrem College for the Syriac Catholic dioceses of Mosul, where he served until 2013. He has also served as vice rector at St. Peter Seminary for the Chaldean Patricate in Ankawa. Fr. Behnam earned a Ph.D in philosophy in 2012 from the Gregorian Pontifical University, a Ph.M. in 2009 from Santa Croce Pontifical University, and a B.A. in theology in 2004 from Urbaniana Pontifical University, all located in Rome.

Stephen Colecchi served as the director of the Office of International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2004 to 2018. He worked on various international issues and coordinated the office's work with Catholic Relief Services, the Church, and other international bodies. Colecchi previously served as special assistant to the bishop and diocesan director of Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, and the Campaign for Human Development in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond.  Colecchi holds a doctor of ministry degree from St. Mary's Seminary and University, a master's degree in religion from Yale University, and a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross.

Robert A. Destro is professor of law and is director and founder of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law & Religion at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. He joined the faculty in 1982 and served as Interim Dean from 1999 to 2001. From 1983 to 1989, he served as a commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights and led the commission's discussions in the areas of discrimination on the basis of disability, national origin and religion. He served as general counsel to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights from 1977 to 1982, and as an adjunct associate professor of law at Marquette University from 1978 to 1982. From 1975 to 1977, he practiced law with the private firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Cleveland, Ohio.

Thomas F. Farr is president emeritus of the Religious Freedom Institute, an NGO committed to achieving worldwide acceptance of religious liberty. Farr is also a senior fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. From 2006 to 2018 he was an associate professor of the practice of religion and world affairs at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior fellow at the Berkley Center; during 2017 and 2018 he was director of the Religious Freedom Research Project and from 2011 to 2016 director of the Religious Freedom Project, both at the Berkley Center. After a distinguished career in the U.S. Army and the Foreign Service—which included teaching at West Point and the Air Force Academy, serving as an advisor during U.S.-Soviet arms control talks in Geneva, and leading an interagency task force on verification provisions for the START II Treaty—Farr served as the first director of the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2003.

Kent Hill is the senior vice president of international programs for World Vision United States and the executive director of the Religious Freedom Institute. Previously, Hill served as the vice president for character development for the John Templeton Foundation. An expert on democracy, international development policy, and religious freedom issues, he has extensive experience with multiple US government departments and agencies, assistance agencies from other countries, and hundreds of US and international NGOs, including faith-based organizations. Working with the US Agency for International Development, Hill served as the assistant administrator of Europe and Eurasia from 2001 to 2005 and the assistant administrator of the Bureau for Global Health from 2005 to 2009. He holds a M.A. in Russian Studies and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Washington.

Bassam Ishak is a Syrian political activist, the president of the Syriac National Council of Syria, which advocates for the protection and rights of Syriacs and other Syrian minorities. He is also co-president of the United States Representation of the Syria Democratic Council. He is the former executive director of the Syrian Human Rights Organization, a founder of the Syrian National Council, and a former member of the council's general secretariat. Bassam is a native Hassakeh in northeast Syria. He earned his M.A. in ethno-political conflict management from Royal Roads University in Canada. 

Murad Ismael is the executive director and a board member of YAZDA, a nonprofit organization established to support the Yazidi ethno-religious minority group in the United States and the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq and northeastern Syria. Murad’s motivation is to help genocide victims and raise awareness to protect minorities who have been a subject of persecution based on identity. Murad received his M.S. and MCE degrees from Norwich University and the University of Houston in Texas.