He entered the legal profession in 2002 and is a member of the Association of East Azerbaijan Lawyers. Since he was a student and later during his time as a lawyer regarding women’s rights, he have been working as the secretary of the Mizan Institute. He started teaching at Azad University as a professor in 2013. And for almost four years, He was the director of the Department of Law and Master of private law at Esko Azad University. He was the vice president of the Association of Marriage and Divorce Registrars of East Azerbaijan, the head of the Association of Marriage and Divorce Registrars, and the main member of the legal commission of the Association of Notaries of the country. He is also a founding member of the Board of Directors and the Central Council of the Association of Lawyers of Azerbaijan.
ADVISORY MEMBERS
Sina Mirzaei
Sina Mirzaei was born in 1996 in the city of Sulduz.
In 2019 he graduated with a Business Administration major from Middle East Technical University. In 2021, he got his master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations major from the same university.
Sina is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at Northern Arizona University. He conducts research on comparative politics, human rights, minority rights, and identity politics.
He has been working with AHRAZ since 2019.
Behzad Jeddi
Behzad Jeddi was born in Germi (Mughan), Azerbaijan region of Iran, in 1984. He received his BSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Tabriz and MSc in Economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.
He moved to the United States in 2016 and received a second master’s degree in quantitative economics and econometrics from the University of East Carolina. Currently, Behzad is an economics Ph.D. candidate at Iowa State University. Behzad’s research interest includes agricultural and environmental economics.
Besides economics, human rights issues in Iran have been Behzad’s interest, and he has contributed to AHRAZ since 2018.
AMIR MAKUIE
Amir Makouei was born in 1973 and is from Maku City, located in the Western Azerbaijani region of Iran. He obtained B.A. in Teaching (English Language) from Iran and M.A. in Experienced-Based Democracy Building from the University of Bergen in Norway.
Starting from 2001, he worked in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), UNESCO, and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC with the last mission in Afghanistan in 2011-2012). He moved to Norway in 2012 and has been living there since. He has also been an employee in Norwegian public offices.
Turkan Bozkurt
Greetings! I was born in Urmu and raised in Toronto. I obtained my Bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto by double majoring in criminology and middle eastern studies and minoring in philosophy. I completed my master’s degree with the middle eastern department at the same university. My research and thesis was based on Azerbaijan from an intersectional feminism perspective. I’ve also obtained a paralegal degree in Ontario, allowing me to work in the legal world. Legal philosophy is my food for thought.
URAL HATeMI
He was born in 1983 in Khajeh in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. He completed his undergraduate education at the Department of Sociology at Tabriz Payam Noor University. He received his master’s degree from Ankara Hacettepe University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology. He is preparing his doctoral thesis on migration at Hacettepe University, Institute of Turkic Studies.
Since 2000, he has been active in democracy, freedom of expression, and ethnic minorities within the scope of non-governmental organizations in Iran. He also worked as a reporter and journalist in the local press.
He has worked as a freelance researcher in Turkey since 2011 and as an academician since 2015. He has also been active as an analyst in print and visual media. He is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Qobustan publishing house and the Qobustan magazine, along with the research projects he is currently carrying out.
TAHA KERMANİ
Taha Kermani was born in 1990 in Marand, East Azerbaijan. In 2013, he graduated with an associate degree in communication. He started working in journalism, focusing on the rights of ethnic minorities during his student days. He worked in the “Susma” magazine and “Susuz Göl” blog, collecting and publishing news and materials about human rights and environmental issues.
He graduated in journalism in 2019. Since 2015, he has worked professionally as a journalist in the Turkish press. For many years, he worked as a reporter and expert on Iran issues in several private media companies. Also, in the same year, he cooperated with AHRAZ in human rights activities. Taha Kermani, married and the father of one child, continues his journalistic activities as a freelance journalist.
ADVISORY LAWYERS
GHASEM BOEDI
Ghasem Boedi (1980), born in Marand, East Azerbaijan, graduated in law from Tabriz Azad University in 2001 and received a master’s degree in private law from Tehran University of Research Sciences and a doctorate in private law from Tabriz Azad University.
SINA YOUSEFI
Sina Yousefi (1984), was born in Tabriz. He completed his elementary, middle, and high school education in this city, and in 2005, he entered the field of law at Tabriz Azad University. He started his human rights activities while studying at the university …
and was arrested by the security forces in the last year of the university (May 19, 2007). In January 2009, he completed his bachelor’s degree and entered Tehran University in the same year, majoring in international law. During his studies in international law, he continued his human rights and press activities and worked for Sharq and Etemad newspapers. He also did many research works as a researcher in the field of citizenship rights, human rights, and international organizations in the international affairs of the presidential institution. In 2015, he was admitted to the East Azerbaijan Bar Association by participating in the bar exam. He joined the Bar Association’s Human Rights Commission in his first year of practicing law. He was elected as the vice-chairman of the Human Rights Commission for three consecutive terms and handled more than 200 cases related to political, press, environmental, and women’s and children’s rights activists. After the protests related to the killing of Mrs. Mehsa Amini by the Iranian police, Sina Yousefi was sentenced by the first branch of the Revolutionary Court to six months in prison, two years of ban on leaving the country, and confiscation of all electronic devices for the crime of propaganda against the regime. But he was forced to leave the country before the verdict issued by the Revolutionary Court was final, and he is currently living in Berlin, Germany.
