 Debra Liang-Fenton is the Executive Director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. She is responsible for conceptualizing and coordinating all projects undertaken by the Committee. A broad domestic and international grassroots initiative on the issue of human rights in North Korea will be executed under her guidance. Debra has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject of North Korean refugees and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on life inside North Korea. She is a regular participant in Congressional hearings and working groups on human rights in North Korea. She is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations focus group on North Korean refugees, and the China task force sponsored by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Debra also regularly advises policymakers in the State Department and the Agency for International Development. Working in partnership with U.S.-based and international NGOs, Debra has helped to bring about the European Union resolution on North Korea this year at the UN Commission on Human Rights. She was the keynote presenter at Amnesty International's Annual General Meeting in April 2003. Her work with the media has included appearances on CNN and Fox; and work with NBC News, CBS News, ABC Primetime, PBS, NPR, the BBC, ITN Britain, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Christian Science Monitor, U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, and other international print, television, and radio outlets.
Before joining the Committee, Debra directed the U.S. Institute of Peace's first Human Rights Implementation Program. She is the editor of Implementing U.S. Human Rights Policy: Agendas, Policies and Practices. Debra was a founding editor of the Journal of Democracy, where she served as Production Editor for three years, and was Project Officer for the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies for four years before joining the Peace Institute. Debra holds a B.A. in political science from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and an M.A. in politics specializing in Southeast Asia from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
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