The Keeper: A Human Rights Podcast
Hosted by Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation, this podcast features in-depth conversations about pressing human rights and justice issues worldwide. It welcomes prominent human rights figures as guests, drawing inspiration from Congressman Tom Lantos's conviction that we must be our brother and sister's keeper. The show explores topics from the Congressional Human Rights Caucus to global advocacy for those whose rights are violated.
Episodes
Episode 34: The Re-arrest of Rwandan Opposition Leader Victoire Ingabire
Episode Notes Episode 34: The Re-arrest of Rwandan Opposition Leader Victoire Ingabire On June 17, 2025, Victoire Ingabire was at her home in Kigali, Rwanda, when she received an unusual phone call. She was being summoned by the High Court of Rwanda, and she was required to appear before the court two days later. Victoire was, of course, familiar with the case. It involved supporters of her politi
Episode 33: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Rachel Miner”
Episode Notes Episode 33: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Rachel Miner” The final episode of this season features a conversation with Rachel Miner, founder and executive director of Bellwether International. Bellwether is a global non-profit taking action to disrupt the cycle of genocide and to create genocide resistant, human rights rights-respecting societies that ca
Episode 32: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Michal Cotler Wunsh”
Episode Notes Episode 32: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Michal Cotler Wunsh” The fourth episode of this podcast season features a conversation with Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism. She has had an impressive career as a member of the Israeli Knesset, a researcher, policy advisor, advocate and more. Her appointment as Special Envo
Episode 31: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Rushan Abbas
Episode Notes Episode 31: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Rushan Abbas This third episode of our “Women Leading the Way on Freedom of Religion or Belief” season brings you a conversation with Rushan Abbas, one of the most prominent and respected activists for the rights of the Uyghur people. She is founder and executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs. For decades
Episode 30: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Anila Ali
Episode Notes Episode 30: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Anila Ali In this episode, Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett speaks with Anila Ali, founder and president of the American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council (AMMWEC). She is a fearless voice countering and condemning extremism, encouraging religious plurality, taking on taboo subjects, and working to bui
Episode 29: “Women Leading the Way on FoRB” Season – A Conversation with Ewelina Ochab
It’s appropriate that we’re releasing the first episode of this season this week, during the fifth annual International Religious Freedom Summit. It’s an incredible gathering of civil society advocates, activists, experts, academics, government leaders, parliamentarians, and more from across the globe – all focused on advancing the fundamental right to freedom of religion, conscience, or belief. R
“Women Leading the Way on Freedom of Religion or Belief” Season Trailer
Coming Soon: “Women Leading the Way on Freedom of Religion or Belief”Freedom of religion, conscience and belief is a fundamental human right – it’s foundational to so many other rights that form the basis of peaceful, prosperous and free societies. But it is too often overlooked and increasingly under threat around the world. A growing global movement is now shining a spotlight on this human right
Episode 28: Sports & Rights Season – A Conversation with Enes Kanter Freedom
This will be the fifth and final episode of our Sports & Rights season. Over the course of this series, we've taken an in-depth look at what happens when the worlds of sports and human rights collide. We've brought you conversations with Olympians, activists, journalists, academics, and fans. We've tried to unpack some of the stickiest questions around the intersection of sports
Episode 27: Sports & Rights Season – Who Can Hold the Sports World Accountable?
Episode Notes In the last episode of our Sports & Rights season, we dove into the subject of sportswashing and the nefarious use of sports as soft power. At the end of that episode, we posed a few questions: Who plays a role in ensuring that sports aren’t just about profits over power? Who can guarantee that human rights get their due in these huge, lucrative businesses? In this episode, we tr
Episode 26: Sports & Rights Season – Sportswashing
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 t
Episode 25: Sports & Rights Season – Why the First Female Afghan Olympian Wants the Olympics to Ban Her Country
When we first kicked off our Sports & Rights podcast season, we were in the midst of what is arguably the biggest and most beloved sporting event on the planet – the 2022 FIFA World Cup, held in Qatar. Now, we find ourselves just weeks away from the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics – the perfect time to restart our examination of the intersection of human rights and sports!In the co
Episode 24: Special re-release of “Vladimir Kara-Murza: The Democracy Activist Putin Wants Dead”
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
Episode 23: Sports & Rights Season: Joint episode with World Affairs Council of New Hampshire
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 spo
Episode 22: Pavel Khodorkovsky
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
Episode 21: Rule of Law Season Finale – 2020 Lantos Prize Laureate Bryan Stevenson on Justice
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 w
Episode 20: Rule of Law Season – Seeking Justice on an International Stage
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 i
Episode 19: Rule of Law Season – The Real Story of Kagame’s Rwanda
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 differe
Episode 18: Rule of Law Season – The Democracy Activist Putin Wants Dead
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 duri
Episode 17: Rule of Law Season – Hong Kong Activist in Exile
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 soc
Episode 16: Rule of Law Season – Freedom's Counsel
On the first episode of this Rule of Law season, we talked about the rule of law as a “a government of laws and not men”. Our guest on this episode, Professor Irwin Cotler, has his own shorthand for the rule of law: “the pursuit of justice”. If anyone in this world is intimately familiar with the tireless, unrelenting, undaunted pursuit of justice, it is Irwin Cotler – an accomplished academic, re
Episode 15: Rule of Law Season – A Government of Laws Not Men
This episode kicks off our new season, where we will be exploring the significance of three simple words: Rule of Law. But what does that phrase actually mean? Is it an abstraction? An impossible ideal? Or something real and practical that holds democratic societies together? To help answer these questions and more, we spoke to one of America’s preeminent legal scholars on the rule of law, Profess
Rule of Law Season Trailer
The new season of The Keeper will focus on three simple, but powerful, words: Rule of Law. When we decided to make this the focus of our season, we never imagined that the start of 2021 would bring this concept to the very forefront of public discourse. From the arrest of Alexey Navalny and mass protests in Russia, to China's brutal crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, to the violen
Episode 14: Solidarity Sabbath Season – A Humanitarian with a Bucket and Scraper
The final episode of this special Solidarity Sabbath season on anti-Semitism is being released on World Humanitarian Day. The United Nations calls this day a global celebration of people helping people. There are numerous examples of humanitarians throughout history who have given so much of themselves to fight anti-Semitism or to protect the Jewish people. But not every humanitarian’s contributio
Episode 13: Solidarity Sabbath Season – Highways of Hate
This episode, the fourth in the special Solidarity Sabbath season, takes a deeper look at an area where anti-Semitism, and hate of all forms, is spreading in alarming ways – the internet. Katrina Lantos Swett speaks with Yigal Carmon, President and co-founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). For more than two decades, MEMRI has done ground-breaking work, researching the most di
Episode 12: Solidarity Sabbath Season - Survivors
The Holocaust, or Shoah in Hebrew, refers to the World War II genocide of 6 million European Jews. This was unequivocally the most extreme and horrific example of anti-Semitism the world has ever seen. Yet, somehow Jewish survivors of this atrocity, including the Lantos Foundation’s namesake Tom Lantos, were able to emerge from this dark time with their spirits unbroken and with a deep sense of th
Episode 11: Solidarity Sabbath Season - Special Envoy Elan Carr
Episode 11 of The Keeper, and the second episode of our Solidarity Sabbath season, will bring you into the 21st century of anti-Semitism with a conversation with the United States’ top diplomat tasked with combating anti-Semitism. Elan Carr, the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, joins Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett to speak about his work in the fight against anti-Semitism – what k
Episode 10: Solidarity Sabbath Season - An Ancient Hatred
In the first episode of the Lantos Foundation’s special Solidarity Sabbath podcast season, we take a deeper look at the origins and history of Anti-Semitism. It is often called “an ancient hatred” or “the oldest hatred”. We ask David Nirenberg, Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School, just how far back does it really go? Why has it been so enduring across time, geography, religion, cultu
Solidarity Sabbath Podcast Season Trailer
The Keeper podcast is back – this time with something new and a little different! Like so many other things, plans for the Lantos Foundation’s annual religious freedom initiative – the Solidarity Sabbath – fell victim to the COVID-19 outbreak this year. The Solidarity Sabbath usually offers a chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a persecuted or oppressed religious community. In a time of soci
Episode 9 : Ensaf Haidar
We were thrilled to be joined by Ensaf Haidar, the wife of imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. Raif’s unjust imprisonment and lashing has become an international human rights cause, thanks in no small measure to the tireless efforts of Ensaf. She has become the face of the movement to free Raif. Despite all of Ensaf’s apparent physical daintiness, there can be no mistaking her strength and deter
Episode 8 : Katrina Lantos Swett Remarks at Evian Conference
In July of 1938, representatives of 32 nations were summoned to Evian France at the call of President Franklin Roosevelt to try to find a solution to the Jewish refugee problem - a crisis precipitated by the increasingly draconian and violent persecution of Jews in Germany and Austria. The conference, which began with high hopes and high-minded rhetoric, was to end in abject failure. The assembled
Episode 7 : Annette Lantos on Raoul Wallenberg
We are happy to welcome back the Chair of the Lantos Foundation, Annette Lantos, for another episode of #TheKeeperPodcast! For more than two decades, by the side of Congressman Tom Lantos, she worked as the unpaid Executive Director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. Annette Lantos' evolution from wife, mother, and educator to activist began in the late 1970's when she first learn
Episode 6 : Joshua Wong
Joshua Wong was only 17 when he led the 2014 Umbrella Movement fighting for Hong Kong's democratization. His inspirational mobilization of over 100,000 Hong Kong citizens to engage in peaceful protest on behalf of democracy and the rule of law captivated the world and galvanized a generation of young people to become activists and to peacefully resist Chinese control of their government. Josh
SPECIAL RE-RELEASE. Episode 2 : Bill Browder
On July 16th the world witnessed a stunning and deeply concerning press conference in which the President of the United States seemed to argue that there was a credibility equivalence between US intelligence agencies findings on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and the laughable denials of Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who many believe to be a cold blooded killer. Another outrageo
Episode 5 : Rebiya Kadeer
What does it mean to be a mother? The word brings to mind ideas of love, sacrifice, devotion, and a determination never to give up on one’s children. It is both an immense responsibility and a privilege to be a mother. So, what does it mean to be a mother of a whole people? Our guest, Mrs. Rebiyah Kadeer, is known as the “mother of the Uyghur nation”. She is the acknowledged global leader of the U
Episode 4 : Annette Lantos
On a bitter cold Christmas eve in 1944, a little Jewish girl, 13 years old but with her diminutive size and Shirley Temple curls looked closer to 8, kissed her mother goodbye and alone began to make her way towards the Swiss border. A short while earlier, they had fled from Hungary where Jews were facing deportation and death at the hands of the Nazi occupiers. The family had sought refuge in Swit
Episode 3 : Father Patrick Desbois
Over fifty years ago the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the fierce urgency of now as he sought to make America at long last live up to the promises of our founding. Our guest on this episode of The Keeper is another man of the cloth, Father Patrick Desbois, who understands the fierce urgency of history and the need to document it and claim its secrets before all the witnesses to the p
Episode 2 : Bill Browder
Bill Browder, founder of Hermitage Capital, has become an unlikely human rights crusader who was almost single-handedly responsible for the adoption of the Magnitsky Act, a groundbreaking piece of human rights legislation. Bill and Katrina recently had the chance to talk about his life and the singular, tragic injustice that transformed him from an international financier to an international advoc
Episode 1 : Jared Genser & Yang Jianli
Recently, Katrina sat down to speak with Mr. Jared Genser and Dr. Yang Jianli. Jared is the founder of Freedom Now, an independent nongovernmental organization that works to free prisoners of conscience around the world. He is often referred to in the media as "the extractor" for his work as a leading human rights lawyer on behalf of prisoners of conscience. Dr. Yang Jianli, founder of I
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