David Keyes is the Executive Director of Advancing Human Rights

Advancing Human Rights

Advancing Human Rights is an non-governmental organization “dedicated to individual liberty and good governance.” Founded in 2011, AHR is based in New York City and advocates for fundamental freedoms with a focus on “closed societies.”- Profile :...

 and co-founder of CyberDissidents.org. He served as coordinator for democracy programs under Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky

Natan Sharansky

Natan Sharansky was born in Stalino, Soviet Union on 20 January 1948 to a Jewish family. He graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As a child, he was a chess prodigy. He performed in simultaneous and blindfold displays, usually against...

 and assisted a former UN ambassador. Keyes has written for leading publications including The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

, Reuters

Reuters

Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

, The New Republic

The New Republic

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

, and The Daily Beast

The Daily Beast

The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...

 and has appeared on MSNBC

MSNBC

MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...

, Al Hurra, PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

, Bloomberg TV and Voice of America

Voice of America

Voice of America is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government. It is one of five civilian U.S. international broadcasters working under the umbrella of the Broadcasting Board of Governors . VOA provides a wide range of programming for broadcast on radio...

. He has spoken in the US Congress, United Nations, Italian Parliament, and Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

. Keyes has met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad

Salam Fayyad

Salam Fayyad is a Palestinian politician and Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority of the Palestinian National Authority. His first appointment, on 15 June 2007, which was justified by President Mahmoud Abbas on the basis of "national emergency", has not been confirmed by the...

, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. He serves also as the Chairman of the Likud Party, as a Knesset member, as the Health Minister of Israel, as the Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel and as the Economic Strategy Minister of Israel.Netanyahu is the first and, to...

 and US President George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

.
Keyes’ work in support of democracy has received high praise from Natan Sharansky, Bob Boorstin, the head of policy at Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

, and the Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...

 founder, Robert L. Bernstein

Robert L. Bernstein

-Career in Publishing:Bernstein started as an office boy at Simon & Schuster in 1946, moved to Random House in 1956 and succeeded Bennett Cerf as President and CEO in 1966. He served as the President of Random House for 25 years. He published many great American authors, including William...

. In 2010, Keyes and Bernstein partnered to found Advancing Human Rights

Advancing Human Rights

Advancing Human Rights is an non-governmental organization “dedicated to individual liberty and good governance.” Founded in 2011, AHR is based in New York City and advocates for fundamental freedoms with a focus on “closed societies.”- Profile :...

 and now share an office in New York. Bernstein has called AHR “the most important thing I’ve done in my life.”

In the run up to the 2011 Arab Spring

Arab Spring

The Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...

, Keyes wrote extensively about increasing repression of bloggers and the instability of Arab dictatorships. On 25 January 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable," One day later, Keyes was asked by a journalist what Obama should do about Egypt. "Tell Secretary of State Clinton to stop talking about how stable the Egyptian regime is," he replied. Two weeks later, the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak

Hosni Mubarak

Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak is a former Egyptian politician and military commander. He served as the fourth President of Egypt from 1981 to 2011....

fell.

According to PBS, Keyes sparked a protest movement in Turkey following his call in The Wall Street Journal for the removal of the country’s YouTube ban. Shortly after his article, the ban was lifted. Keyes also created the First Annual Saudi Women’s Grand Prix which was signed by a former US National Security Adviser, former head of CIA, former ambassador to the EU, European parliamentarians and the first woman to drove in the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500 among others. It received wide coverage in the press and gathered signatures from dozens of countries.