Mehrangiz Kar is a prominent Iranian lawyer, human right activist and author. She is one of the most celebrated activists in the history of women movement in Iran.

She has served as a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the American University in Washington DC, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and Columbia University. Most recently, she was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard,a fellow at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and is currently based at Harvard University Law School. She has also been recognized as a Scholar at Risk through an international network of universities and colleges working to promote academic freedom and to defend the human rights of scholars worldwide.

Mehrangiz Kar has been the recipient of numerous awards, most notably the Woman With a Different Voice award of the City of Genoa, Italy in 2006, Human Right First human rights award in 2004, and the Ludovic Trarieux Prize in recognition of her life’s work in 2002. In addition, Mrs. Kar has written many books and article about the Iranian legal system and Human Rights issues. Her latest publication “Crossing the Red Line: The Struggle for Human Rights in Iran” chronicles the life of a leading human rights lawyer and feminist activist in Iran.