The World Fellows

Project Manager, Open Society Foundations

Maria Lisitsyna manages the Legal Remedies for Torture in Central Asia project for the Open Society Foundations' Justice Initiative. She focuses on litigation and advocacy on improving protection from torture in the countries of Central Asia. Previously, she was a researcher for Human Rights Watch, working on civil and political rights in Turkmenistan and the rights of migrant workers in Russia and Kazakhstan.  She is the founder and former president of the Youth Human Rights Group, a prominent Kyrgyz NGO specializing in human rights monitoring and education.  In 2005, she served as a member of Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Council, the body convened to work on constitutional amendments. In 2009, Lisitsyna was honored as one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum.

 

Media

Kyrgyzstan’s Azimjan Askarov: A Birthday in Jail for Human Rights Defender , The Open Society Foundations Blog, June 1, 2011