Alumni Week: What if we chose humanity first?
Thursday 8 October | 17:00-18:30 | University Theatre
- Date
- 8 October 2026
- Time
- 17:00 -18:30
- Location
- University Theatre
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Join us for an evening of reflection and discussion with author Joris Luyendijk, genocide scholar Uğur Ümit Üngör, and human rights advocate Hope Rikkelman (The Nuhanovic Foundation & Yazidi Legal Network). Together, they will explore questions on human rights, political accountability, media narratives, and moral responsibility in times of global crisis.
The conversation will be moderated by Simone Peek and followed by a Q&A with the audience.
Programme
17:00 – Welcome and introduction
Simone Peek opens the event, welcomes the audience, and introduces the topic and speakers.
17:05 – Human rights in times of humanitarian crisis
Hope Rikkelman reflects on the broader theme of human rights and discusses the work of The Nuhanovic Foundation and the Yazidi Legal Network. She outlines the common thread running through her work and addresses the systemic failures in regions affected by humanitarian disasters.
17:15 – Diagnosis and remedy
Uğur Ümit Üngör and Joris Luyendijk each deliver a short pitch, offering their diagnosis of the current global situation and proposing possible remedies.
17:25 – Panel discussion
Moderated by Simone Peek, with Uğur Ümit Üngör and Joris Luyendijk. Topics include genocide, Western responsibility, human rights, media narratives, political accountability, and the question of moral action in times of crisis.
18:00 - 18:15 – Audience Q&A
Questions from the audience with Hope Rikkelman and the panelists.
18:05 - 18:20 – Closing
Speakers
Joris Luyendijk is a writer. He has worked as a journalist for NRC and The Guardian, and has lived in the United States, Egypt, Lebanon, occupied East Jerusalem, and the United Kingdom for study or work. He studied at the University of Amsterdam from 1991 to 1998.
Uğur Ümit Üngör is Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. His research focuses on the history of mass violence in the modern and contemporary Middle East. His publications include The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913–1950 (2011), Syrian Gulag: Inside Assad’s Prisons (2023), and the forthcoming Assad’s Militias and Mass Violence in Syria (2027).
Hope Rikkelman is Director of The Nuhanovic Foundation. She is committed to improving access to justice for survivors of international crimes. Rikkelman has developed human rights programmes for activists and conducted criminal investigations and fact-finding inquiries into international crimes within national jurisdictions. Through this work, she supports survivors in their pursuit of justice. At The Nuhanovic Foundation, Rikkelman leads the organisation’s strategic growth and development, with a focus on access to justice.
Simone Peek studied History at the University of Amsterdam and is a journalist and writer. Since the beginning of the full-scale war in 2022, she has reported from Ukraine - initially independently and, since 2023, as a correspondent for the Dutch daily newspaper NRC.
