Rebecca Schönenbach is an economist who works as an independent consultant in the field of counter-terrorism. As a specialist in Sharia, Islamic extremism, and counter-terrorism financing, she gave lectures at universities in Istanbul, Sarajevo, and Budapest, among others, and advises authorities, NGOs, and companies. Schönenbach also writes papers on the topics of Islamism, Islamic finance, and the connection between radicalization and misogyny. Schönenbach is the chairwoman of two non-profit a...
Nov 01, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 3Ep. 54
The Global Liberty Alliance has been advocating to secure the release of Mr. Jamshid "Jimmy" Sharmahd, a human rights activist and journalist from California held hostage in Iran for nearly two years. In this podcast, GLA President Jason Poblete talks with his daughter Gazelle Sharmahd, a registered nurse in California, about the latest developments in Mr. Sharmahd's case. Last week Gazelle told The Jerusalem Post and other international news outlets that the Iranian regime's lawyer said a "deat...
Jul 25, 2022•53 min•Season 3Ep. 53
In March, we spoke with Ms. Katherine Swidan, mother of Mr. Mark Swidan, an American unlawfully imprisoned in Communist China for nearly ten years. A lot has happened in Mark's matter since Global Liberty Alliance President Jason Poblete spoke with Ms. Swidan. Katherine lives in Luling, Texas, a town of about 6,000 people along the San Marcos River. Katherine talks about the latest in her son's case and how recent policy updates may or may not impact efforts to bring Mark home. Jason also talks ...
Jul 21, 2022•51 min•Season 3Ep. 52
During this podcast, GLA President Jason Poblete speaks with Jeff King, President of International Christian Concern (ICC). Jeff grew up in an atheist and agnostic home in Washington, D.C. At age 23, after reading the Bible on his own for 10 years, he came to Christ through the faithful witness of believers he met as he walked from one bar to the next. Jeff refers to himself as a radical pagan who became a radical for Christ. Many years and experiences later, Jeff has turned his many talents and...
Jul 13, 2022•48 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Guatemala’s President Alejandro Eduardo Giammattei skipped the Summit of the Americas this week, and we wanted to know why. The conversation did not disappoint. Jason and President Giammattei talked about transnational crime, human trafficking, and fending off foreign meddlers such as Communist China. Despite these regional challenges, President Giammattei's bigger problem these days, or nuisance, seems to be our own country and an army of NGOs, many funded by US taxpayers and Europeans, hell-be...
Jun 10, 2022•55 min•Season 2Ep. 52
American citizen Mark Swidan has been unlawfully imprisoned in Communist China for close to ten years. What started out as a business trip in late 2012, turned into a nightmare for the Swidan family when he was unlawfully detained by police on November 12, 2012. On this podcast, GLA President Jason Poblete speaks with Mr. Swidan's mom, Mr. Katherine Swidan. Without probable cause, the Chinese police stormed Mark's hotel room in Dongguan Municipality, Guangdong Province. The police claimed that t...
Mar 29, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 51
Last week in an exclusive interview with Guatemala Attorney General María Consuelo Porras, Jason Poblete and the Attorney General discussed why she thought the United States had imposed sanctions earlier this on her and other Guatemalans. You can listen to that podcast by following this link . The first podcast was recorded in Spanish with Attorney General Porras, so we decided to record another podcast with colleagues in Guatemala who are on the frontlines of freedom battles. On this podcast, w...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 51
On January 27, 2020, US Attorney General William P. Barr met with Guatemala Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras Argueta. That meeting was a follow-up dialogue to the May 2019 Third Ministerial of the Northern Triangle Attorneys General in El Salvador. Dr. Porras has been a long-time rule of law defender who has worked closely with various US agencies including the DEA, the Justice Department, and the State Department. How is it that one year and seven months later, Secretary of State Tony Bli...
Mar 03, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 50
In this episode, Jason speaks with the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) president and gun rights advocate Phillip Van Cleave. A former law enforcement officer from Texas, Phillip has been defending gun owner rights in Virginia since the 1990s. The Virginia Citizens Defense League is a non-profit, non-partisan, grassroots organization dedicated to advancing the fundamental human right of all Virginians to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constit...
Feb 15, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 49
A new generation of center-right conservatism is taking root worldwide, including Spain. On this podcast, Jason talks with an American lawyer with strong Spanish roots, Ms. Marlene Vallés. A practicing attorney Marlene is also active in the international conservative movement and has helped colleagues in Spain raise awareness in the United States about liberty battles underway in her ancestral homeland. This is the first in a series of podcasts that will help highlight the importance of the defe...
Jan 18, 2022•58 min•Season 2Ep. 49
As we wind down 2021, Jason talks with Venezuelan Human Rights Activist Alessa Polga. Alessa is Venezuelan by birth but currently camped out in Ontario, Canada, making Venezuela's liberty her mission. Venezuela is one of the world's leading oil producers; however, Alessa told the Toronto Star in 2017, "our natural disaster is our government." In addition to discussing the plight of the Venezuelan people, Jason and Alessa take a stab at unpacking the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, human rights, and...
Dec 28, 2021•54 min•Season 2Ep. 48
In this podcast, GLA President Jason Poblete talks with a fellow liberty warrior, Stephen Hecht, in Guatemala. An American, Stephen and his organization Impunity Observer have been long-time freedom champions in Central America who help empower Guatemalans to build a more robust and freer nation where individuals, not governments, are change agents in civil society. This is especially true when building a robust civil society where property rights and rule of law are essential. Jason and Stephen...
Oct 31, 2021•47 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Mr. Dimis Christophy is a Loudon County, Virginia parent who, along with hundreds of other families in the region, are locked in what appears to have become a battle of wills with the Loudon County school board. On this podcast, Jason speaks with Dimis to learn why Loudon County has ignited a national movement from parents across the political spectrum to rein in out-of-control school boards and local governments. Dimis reminds us that elected officials work for the people, not the other way aro...
Oct 23, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 20
On November 9, 2005, President George W. Bush awarded Paul Rusesabagina the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom for saving the lives of thousands during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. A real-life hero of the acclaimed film Hotel Rwanda and the President and Founder of the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, Paul served as the Hotel des Mille Collines manager in Kigali. He bravely risked his life to shelter Hutus and Tutsis, seeking refuge from the genocide that killed more than 800,000 people. But,...
Oct 05, 2021•56 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Upon arrival at the Beirut airport, Lebanese officials kept Mr. Amer Fakhoury U.S. passport as part of a routine procedure he was told for former Lebanese nationals who had not been in the country for more than 20 years. Accompanied by his wife and two of his four daughters, Amer, a New Hampshire businessman who was returning to his ancestral homeland for a family vacation, perhaps thought nothing of it at the time. Little did he and his family know at the time what would transpire a few days la...
Sep 28, 2021•47 min•Season 2Ep. 18
On this podcast lawyer and GLA President Jason Poblete speaks with Dr. Gregory H. Stanton is the founding president and chairman of Genocide Watch .From 2010 to 2019, he was a research professor in genocide studies and prevention at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, USA. From 2003 to 2009, he was the James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Dr. Stanton founded Genocide W...
Sep 21, 2021•55 min•Season 2Ep. 18
The first publicly verifiable Bitcoin transaction involving someone from civil society in Cuba was registered more than five years ago. The person who helped make this possible is a Cuban-American Bitcoiner and liberty maximalist, Fernando Villar. Fernando is the founder of BitcoinCuba . BitcoinCuba's mission is to educate Cuban civil society on using Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. This is the first of what we hope will be several podcasts on Bitcoin and its potential to help unleash the forces of ...
Sep 14, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 17
In February, we spoke with Ms. Gazelle Sharmahd , the daughter of Mr. Jamshid Sharmahd. As his friends and family call him, Jimmy is a U.S. Legal Permanent resident based with his family in California. A year ago this month, Jimmy was on his way back home to the United States from a business trip when he was kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates and taken hostage by the Iranian regime. A registered nurse working on the COVID pandemic's frontlines, Gazelle is one of her father's strongest advocat...
Aug 31, 2021•32 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Last week the center-right President of Guatemala had to contend with what was supposed to have been massive streets protests from opponents on the left. Well, it fizzled, and nothing of any political consequence materialized on the streets of Guatemala. In this podcast, we talk again with businesswoman and fellow liberty warrior Betty Marroquin about this and other issues in the headlines in Guatemala and the Norther Triangle. These topics are important. Matters such as border security, illegal...
Aug 10, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 15
The road to justice is usually a very long one. Accountability for gross violations of human rights, such as crimes against humanity, can elude victims or family members, sometimes for a lifetime. This podcast is the first of several planned podcasts that will discuss how former Iranian regime officials have been offered lucrative posts at several American universities. In this episode, Jason talks with Ms. Lawdan Bazargan, whose brother was unlawfully imprisoned, tortured, and assassinated by t...
Jul 06, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 15
In this episode, Jason Poblete talks with Dr. Danielle Gilbert, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Military & Strategic Studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy . Dr. Gilbert received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the George Washington University in Washington, DC, where she also served as a Ph.D. candidate-in-residence with the Institute of Security and Conflict Studies . Her research on the causes and consequences of violence has been supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Resear...
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Dr. J Michael Waller is Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy . His areas of concentration include propaganda, political warfare, psychological warfare, and subversion. He is the former Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school in Washington, DC. A former instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School, he is an instructor/lecturer at the John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at For...
Jun 15, 2021•53 min•Season 2Ep. 13
In February U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), joined by 25 of their Senate colleagues from both political parties, strongly urged President Joe Biden to reverse the Trump administration's decision to officially recognize the Kingdom of Morocco’s illegitimate claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara. In the letter that was released to the public , the Senators asked the Biden administration to recommit America to its longstanding policy of a referendum on self-determination...
Jun 01, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Diane Foley is the Founder and President of the James W. Foley Foundation (JWFLF). She founded the JWFLF in September 2014, less than a month after the public execution by ISIS terrorists of her son, James Foley. Since 2014, she has led JWFLF efforts to fund the start of Hostage US and the international A Culture Of Safety Alliance, ACOS. In 2015, she actively participated in the National Counterterrorism Center hostage review, culminating in the Presidential Policy Directive-30. This directive ...
May 25, 2021•55 min•Season 2Ep. 11
The persecution of Christians worldwide is at an all-time high. In this podcast episode, Jason Poblete addresses the crisis with Faith McDonnell, who has been on the frontlines of religious freedom advocacy since the 1970s. Faith is currently the Director of Advocacy at Katartismos Global , a 501(c)(3) organization that equips the Church for mission and ministry. From 1993 until 2021, Faith served as the Director of Religious Liberty Programs and of the Church Alliance for a New Sudan at the Ins...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Retired Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has dedicated his life to public service, particularly in defense of fundamental human rights and religious freedom. In this podcast, GLA President Jason Poblete talks with Mr. Wolf on a variety of religious freedom issues such as the persecuted churches in Nigeria, China, and the Middle East. Working across party lines Congressman Wolf helped lead the effort to enact the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. In 2016, the Frank R. Wolf International ...
May 04, 2021•56 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In this podcast, Jason speaks with Ms. Hollie McKay, journalist, foreign policy expert, and war crimes investigator. Formerly with Fox News , Hollie is currently a national bureau correspondent covering national and international news from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, and Myanmar. Her most recent book, Only Cry for the Living: Memos From Inside the ISIS Battlefield is a chilling yet sobering and inspiring collection of stories that exposes the evil of ISIS and...
Mar 30, 2021•50 min•Season 2Ep. 8
In this episode, former Guatemalan Vice Presidential candidate, diplomat, and conservative liberty warrior Betty Marroquin joins Jason Poblete again to discuss the recent appointments to Guatemala’s constitutional court - the five permanent and five alternative judges that will take office on April 14, 2021 - as well as why the U.S. and Guatemala should be concerned about working with corrupt officials when fighting corruption. In prior podcasts, Jason and Betty have discussed how rule of law an...
Mar 23, 2021•58 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Almost 30 years since the end of the Cold War, former Eastern Bloc nations such as Bulgaria are still struggling with Soviet ghosts, including the corruption of the legal system. That is exactly what is going on in Bulgaria, a NATO partner and strong U.S. ally. Rocked by street protests during much of last year, Bulgarians are tired of the corruption and are demanding reform of the legal system. In this episode, GLA President Jason Poblete speaks with Dr. Radosveta Vassileva , an international l...
Mar 09, 2021•45 min•Season 2Ep. 6
In this podcast, Jason Poblete speaks with international lawyer Ms. Emma Reilly, a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Human Rights Officer and whistleblower. Since 2013, Emma has been calling attention to a troubling practice at the UNHRC that has endangered the lives of dissidents and other human rights abuse victims who visit or testify at the UN. Despite well-documented evidence of wrongdoing by U.N. personnel, it took seven years for Ms. Reilly to secure whistleblower status. When s...
Mar 02, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 5
