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2010 Award Winners' Bios - Videos


2010 INTERNATIONAL RECIPIENT

Abdurrahman Wahid
Abdurrahman Wahid served as the first popularly-elected President of Indonesia from 1999-2000.  He attracted many followers, from pop music stars, to diplomats and religious leaders.  From 1967-1998, when Indonesia was governed by the military dictator Suharto, Wahid led the resistance to the dictator’s attempts to divide Indonesians against one another along ethnic and religious lines.  He was a member and the eventual chairman of Indonesia’s “Awakening of Muslim Religious Scholars,” the Nahdlatul Ulama.  The Awakening is the world’s largest independent Muslim organization.  It is a major sponsor of interfaith dialogue and an advocate for the separation of religion and government.

In 2004, after his presidency, he established the Wahid Institute, a research center that promotes tolerance and understanding in the world through the exchange and dissemination of progressive Muslim thought.  Until his recent death on December 30, 2009, Wahid continued to support secular government for Indonesia, defend religious minorities, and campaign against religious extremism worldwide.

For additional biographical information on Abdurrahman Wahid visit:

http://www.rmaf.org.ph/Awardees/Biography/BiographyWahidAbd.htm

2010 NATIONAL RECIPIENT

Felice D. Gaer
Felice Gaer has been the Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the American Jewish Committee since 1993, and a leading member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) since 2001.  Gaer served three terms as Chair of the Commission, three terms as its Vice Chair, and one term on the Commission’s Executive Committee.  Gaer has led USCIRF missions to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tibet, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and she has participated in USCIRF delegations all over the world, visiting numerous detention centers for asylum seekers.    

She holds an A.B. from Wellesley College, Master of Arts and Master of Philosophy degrees from Columbia University, and a Certificate from Columbia University’s Russian Institute.  She began her work in human rights at the Ford Foundation.  Since 2000, Gaer has been an Independent Expert Member of the UN Committee against Torture and, since 2006, is the Committee’s designated rapporteur charged with follow-up of country reports. 

For additional biographical information on Felice Gaer visit:

http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.817837/k.2F1F/AJC_Experts.htm

2010 VIRGINIA RECIPIENT

Melissa Rogers
Melissa Rogers has been on the faculty of the Divinity School at Wake Forest University since 2003.  She is the Director of the Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs.  She also serves as a nonresident senior fellow in the Governance Program of the Brookings Institution.  In 2009, President Obama appointed her to the newly formed Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a group of 25 nationally-recognized religious liberty experts and religious leaders.  Rogers is widely recognized as an expert in church-state relations.  She has testified before Congress, and she is the coauthor of a case law text book, Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court.

Professor Rogers received her B.A. from Baylor University, her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and went on to become General Counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs in Washington, DC.   She then became the first Executive Director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

For additional biographical information on Melissa Rogers visit:

http://divinity.wfu.edu/faculty-rogers.html