The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. HRF unites people in the common cause of defending human rights and promoting liberal democracy. Our mission is to ensure that freedom is preserved and promoted worldwide. We seek, in particular, to sustain the struggle for liberty in those areas where it is most under threat.
Our singular focus on authoritarian regimes differentiates HRF from other human rights organizations. Our mission is essential, given that more than four billion people live under tyranny today. That is 54% of the world’s population in 95 countries, from Cuba to Russia, Saudi Arabia to North Korea. These individuals are more likely to: lack food and clean drinking water; lack access to basic education; live in extreme poverty; face war and civil strife; become a refugee; lack freedom of speech and voting rights; and face constant threats of imprisonment, torture, violence, and death.
Grounding our work in a deep commitment to individual liberty, HRF aims to raise awareness about the nature and vulnerability of freedom around the world. HRF accomplishes its mission by supporting activists and providing them the resources, skills, contacts, and attention they need to make a difference in their countries; by popularizing the struggle for freedom and democracy and against dictatorship, and by bringing human rights into the mainstream of global public discussion; by producing international legal reports, public letters, and op-eds that influence institutions, policymakers, and the public at large.
Each year, HRF brings together activists, philanthropists, journalists, artists, entrepreneurs, and students from around the globe for the Oslo Freedom Forum, a transformative annual human rights conference in Oslo, Norway. HRF recently produced The Dissident, a BAFTA-nominated documentary about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
