Free Speech Challenges in Democracies
Panelists:
Rana Ayyub, Columnist, The Washington Post
Jacob Mchangama, Executive Director, The Future of Free Speech
Guilherme Döring Cunha Pereira, President, Gazeta do Povo
Szabolcs Panyi, Investigative Editor, Central European Investigations, VSquare
Moderator:
Jonas Parello-Plesner, Executive Director, Alliance of Democracies Foundation
Rana Ayyub is a columnist for the Washington Post. She is an Indian journalist and author of Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up. She was previously an editor with Tehelka, an investigative magazine in India. She has reported on religious violence, extrajudicial killings by the state and insurgency.
Jacob Mchangama is the Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech. He is a research professor at Vanderbilt University and a Senior Fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). In 2018, he was a visiting scholar at Columbia’s Global Freedom of Expression Center. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media, published by Basic Books in 2022.
Guilherme Döring Cunha Pereira is the Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Paranaense de Comunicação (GRPCOM), the largest communication group of the State of Paraná and one of the foremost media companies in Brazil. It administers newspapers such as Gazeta do Povo and Tribuna, three radio stations, eight regional TV stations affiliated to Rede Globo, and the Instituto GRPCOM, which has a strong participation in education and the third sector.
Szabolcs Panyi is investigative editor of central European investigations at VSquare. He is a Budapest-based Hungarian investigative journalist focused on uncovering corruption, Russian and Chinese influence, and cybersurveillance in Central Europe. He was also a member of the 'Pegasus Project' team, uncovering spyware abuses in 2021. The Hungarian government hacked his phone and surveilled him for his reporting. He is an advocate for press freedom and the safety of journalists.
Jonas Parello-Plesner is the Executive Director of the Copenhagen-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation, founded by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2018. The Foundation seeks to advance democracy and strengthen the alliance between the world’s democracies. Parello-Plesner has been instrumental in making the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, the foundation’s annual event, bringing together world-class speakers and important annual publications such as the Democracy Perception Index.