Guissou Jahangiri is a human rights defender and a cultural activist currently serving as a Secretary-General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

She is co-founder and Executive Director of OPEN ASIA/Armanshahr, through which she launched the international Simorgh Peace Prize in 2009 and co-founded the International Women’s Film Festival – Herat, of which she is co-president.

Jahangiri spent several years in Tajikistan during the civil war as a researcher with Human Rights Watch and the Acting Head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. She previously worked as a journalist for 15 years for the French Courrier International, covering Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

Jahangiri studied international relations and political sociology, specializing in war, women’s rights, and post-Soviet Muslim republics at the American University and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, completing her Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies (DEA) in Strategic Studies.