This project began in 2021, as a milestone celebration of ten years of the Human Rights Defenders Fund, and a celebration of a decade supporting the human rights defenders all across this land. In this publication, we hear from those who put themselves on the frontlines, every single day, to fiercely and courageously protect the basic freedoms and fundamental rights that we so deeply believe in and want to see in our shared society. We hear from those who, in the face of great oppression and state violence, choose solidarity over sectarianism, choose people-power over armies, choose humanity over ideology. Those who understand that the only path toward collective liberation is the one paved with small and large acts of nonviolent resistance, every single day.

Three years have passed since we commenced this project. Much has happened, most of it so horrific we could have barely imagined it when we began. We find ourselves now in a moment unlike any other. A moment that has tested us to our very limits. A moment that, at times, has tempted us to lose hope, to lose faith, to become cynical and despairing.

But it is a moment, too, that has shown us just how powerfully important the work of human rights defenders always has been, always will be, and is now in this moment.

We continue to be inspired by the incredible voices featured in this publication – Sami Huraini, Samah Salaime, Aziz Abu Mdigham Al-Turi, Riham Nassra, Abdullah Abu Rahma, Sisat, Adi Winter, Bassem and Nariman Tamimi, Yoni Mizrachi, Talia, Jawad Siam, and Basel Adra – and by the thousands of others who have dedicated their lives to wage the struggle for justice and equality on this land.