WATCH: [Voices from a Sanctioned World]

The U.S. government imposes broad sanctions on dozens of nations, punishing populations in violation of the Geneva Conventions, supposedly in order to influence or overthrow their governments although that is never the result. The result is horrible suffering and death.

Featured in this video:

Luis Delgado Arria (Venezuela)

Luis Delgado Arria is a university professor, researcher, poet and essayist. He has a degree in Literature from the Central University of Venezuela and a Magister Scientiarum in Arts from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of various books and articles on decolonial philosophy, communication, political advocacy, cognitive warfare and analysis of media and political discourse. Founder and host of several opinion programs on ANTV. He currently serves as vice director of research and intellectual creation at the International Communications University. He directs a collective investigation for the construction of political counterhegemony in Venezuela.

Foad Izadi (Iran)

Foad Izadi is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. He is based in Iran. Izadi’s research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary and focus on United States-Iran relations and U.S. public diplomacy. His book, United States Public Diplomacy Towards Iran, discusses the United States communication efforts in Iran during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Izadi has published numerous studies in national and international academic journals and major handbooks, including: Journal of Communication Inquiry, Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy and Edward Elgar Handbook of Cultural Security. Dr. Foad Izadi is an associate professor at the Department of American Studies, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, where he teaches M.A. and Ph.D. courses in American studies.

Cathi Choi (from the U.S., speaking on North Korea)

Cathi Choi (she/her) is the Director of Policy and Organizing for Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of activists mobilizing to end the Korean War, reunite families, and ensure feminist leadership in peacebuilding. She co-coordinates the Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network, launched in 2019 to organize communities in calling for demilitarization and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Her writing has been published in the Journal of Policy History and the Asian Pacific American Law Journal. She is based in Los Angeles and is the Program Committee Co-Chair for GYOPO, a collective of diasporic Korean cultural producers and arts professionals generating progressive, critical, intersectional, and intergenerational discourses, community alliances, and free educational programs.

Fouad Baker (Palestine)

Fouad Baker is a member of the International Criminal Court Bar Association and the head of the legal department at the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He is a Palestinian refugee based in Lebanon. He has studied electromechanical engineering and international law.

Ramón Labañino (Cuba)

Ramón Labañino is Vice President of the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba (ANEC). His one of the Cuban Five, who spent 16 years in prison in the United States.

MODERATOR: Liz Remmerswaal (New Zealand)

Liz Remmerswaal is Vice President of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War, and national coordinator for WBW Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is a former Vice President of the NZ Womens’ International League for Peace and Freedom and win 2017 won the Sonja Davies Peace Award, enabling her to study peace literacy with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in California. She is a member of the NZ Peace Foundation’s International Affairs and Disarmament committee and co-convenor of the Pacific Peace Network. Liz runs a radio show called Peace Witness.