Experts on countries of origin by country

Fahim Abrar Abid is a legal researcher specialising in international law, human rights, and international protection. He has provided expert opinions in UK First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal proceedings, advised the University of London Refugee Law Clinic, and prepared materials for U.S. immigration matters (USCIS). His work focuses on country conditions, risk on return, political opinion (actual and imputed), minority protection, non-state actor threats, and the treatment of activists, journalists, detainees, and other at-risk groups. He is an Erasmus Mundus Scholar in International Law and Security, Founder of the Bangladesh Society of International Law, and has authored over 20 expert reports across multiple jurisdictions.

Reports delivery: Within 2 weeks (For emergency cases: 1 week)

Dr. Ahmad is a Reader in Global Health Humanities with expertise in country-of-origin information, migration, and asylum-related issues. Her Country Expert work focuses on producing clear, evidence-based analysis to support legal and policy decision-making. She has published widely in high impact academic journals, media articles, and international conferences. She is committed to accuracy, impartiality, and maintaining high professional standards in all consulting engagements.

Mr Muhammad Sabbir Ahmad is a Regulated Foreign Lawyer registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and a Law Lecturer at several colleges in the United Kingdom.

He has comprehensive legal experience spanning immigration and asylum law, human rights law, and complex corporate and commercial practice, with a primary geographic focus on Bangladesh, Pacific Countries and the UK.

Mr Ahmad has worked extensively with immigration and asylum law firms in both the United Kingdom and overseas. His experience includes conducting refugee status interviews, assessing international protection claims, analysing country-of-origin information, and assisting with third-country resettlement applications. He has also represented clients in numerous Immigration and Asylum appeals.

He possesses in-depth knowledge and practical experience relating to the legal and human rights landscape in Bangladesh, Fiji, UK including:

Arbitrary detention, custodial torture, and deaths in custody

Extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances

Politically motivated prosecutions and abuse by law enforcement agencies

Political conflict and persecution

Targeted persecution of minorities… Read more

Waheed Ahmad is a human rights lawyer from Pakistan who currently serves as an Advisory Committee Member at The National Commission of Human Rights Pakistan. As an Advocate at the High Court of Pakistan and a registered foreign lawyer (SRA) in England & Wales, he has worked as an Appellate Court Attorney for the past 24 years, defending more than a thousand clients, including juveniles, women, and minorities, including members of the LGBT community. He is the author of “Young Lives, Justice Delayed: Tracing Juveniles Facing or Convicted of Offenses Punishable by Death Penalty (DP)” and “Life Imprisonment (LI) in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.” He specializes in the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regions and has prepared expert reports for lawyers and organizations concerning Pakistani cases. His expertise spans a wide range of critical issues, including:

Syed Mohammad Ali is a lecturer for the MA in Global Security Studies program ay Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Ali has a PhD in development anthropology, and he has extensive experience working with multilateral, bilateral, government, and non-government organizations on varied international development challenges.

Besides teaching, Dr. Ali is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C., and he is a Non-Resident Faculty member affiliated with the Beaconhouse National University in Lahore. He is also the author of several peer-reviewed articles, half a dozen book chapters, as well as the book Development, Poverty and Power in Pakistan: The Impact of State and Donor Interventions on Farmers, published by Routledge in 2015. His other publications include numerous policy papers for leading think-tanks including the United States Institute of Peace and the Middle East Institute. 

Dr. Ali writes a weekly op-ed in the Express Tribune, an affiliate of the New York Times in Pakistan, since 2011. He regularly participates in panel discussions on several Pakistani news channels, as well as on international media outlets including Al Jazeera, China Global Television Network, Channel NewsAsia, Voice of America’s televised Urdu Service programs… Read more

Doctor of International Relations (PhD, Jilin University, China) and human rights researcher specialising in political opinion, religion, ethnicity, gender-based and LGBT cases, and nationality across South Asia and China. Specialises in country expert reports, document verification, nationality assessments and expert testimony in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Specializing in US and Canadian cases, Owen Bennett-Jones has world-respected knowledge of Pakistan's militants, military, intelligence services, ethnic groups, political parties, Shias and honor killings  He has worked for the BBC and was a visiting Professor at Princeton University and USC.

Andrea Chiovenda is an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He received his PhD in anthropology from Boston University in 2015. His ethnographic fieldwork research was carried out in Afghanistan from 2009 until 2013, and again in 2016, and focused on the psychological impact of cultural norms of masculinity among Pashtun men. In 2020, Dr. Chiovenda published a book based on this research, entitled Crafting Masculine Selves: Culture, War and Psychodynamics in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2020), which won the 2021 Boyer Prize for contributions to psychoanalytic anthropology, from the Society for Psychological Anthropology. Additionally, he published several articles and book chapters in peer-reviewed academic journals and edited volumes on conflict, violence, and gender relations in Afghanistan. Since 2016, Dr. Chiovenda has been carrying out original ethnographic research in Greece, investigating the psychological impact of the migratory experience among Afghan refugees in the country. 

I am a Consultant Psychologist with over 25 years of clinical experience specializing in complex trauma/C-PTSD. I have completed a doctorate degree in Psychology from Wolverhampton University and a clinical supervision training from Oxford University. My background includes senior NHS leadership roles, clinical team management, and policy development, alongside extensive experience in teaching, research and clinical supervision. 

As an Expert Court Witness, I have extensive experience assessing individuals and families for the Immigration & Asylum Chamber and Family Court, with a particular focus on high-stakes asylum cases involving risk of persecution, apostasy, and victims of trafficking, torture, sexual exploitation, and abuse. Utilizing a trauma-informed forensic framework, I address critical issues of credibility, memory inconsistencies, and sur place activities, providing the Tribunal with robust clinical evidence that bridges the gap between psychological vulnerability and legal disclosure hurdles. 

My expertise extends to comprehensive family and child assessments, focusing on attachment, transgenerational trauma, and the "best interests of the child" in deportation or care proceedings. I offer deep clinical insight into Muslim and… Read more

Specialist in political oppression, human rights, Expanding Communal Riot, Rule of Law, Freedom of Speech and Government Rulings, and Security and Justice with a particular expertise on social/ethnic/political groups at risk of persecution in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Myanmar. Experience in writing legal grounds and producing expert reports for asylum cases, persecution, gender inequality, Religious Extremists and vulnerable condition of women and children, etc

Expertise in the Laws of Immigration, Right of Immigrant, Human Rights under the purview of various Social and Political aspects of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Myanmar.

A social anthropologist (Ph.D. Cambridge 2002), Dr Daryn brings over three decades of hands-on and academic experience in anthropology, human rights, politics, and refugee policy across South Asia. This includes 18 years of living in Nepal and India, doing prolonged spells of fieldwork and research, as well as work in various international organisations. During  his British Academy postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London, 2003-6) Dr Daryn also taught the MA course: “The Anthropology of South Asia”. He became closely acquainted with asylum seekers, including Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Burmese, and Tibetans, while working in UNHCR’s Kathmandu office (Nepal) during 2008-9 as an Associate Durable Solutions Officer. In this capacity, Dr Daryn became familiar with the RSD process and UNHCR’s Country of Origin information on South Asian countries, read in detail many private refugee files, and conducted focus group discussions and interviews with many refugees. Since then, he has focused on the study of human rights in South Asian countries. From 2005 onwards, Dr Daryn has served as an Expert Witness in asylum appeal cases and has written over 230 Expert Reports for court cases mainly in the UK,… Read more

C. Christine Fair is a Professor in the Security Studies Program within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She previously served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, a political officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a senior research associate at the United States Institute of Peace.  Her most recent book is In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2018/2019).  She has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books, including Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (Oxford University Press); Pakistan’s Enduring Challenges (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Policing Insurgencies: Cops as Counterinsurgents (Oxford University Press, 2014); Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh (Routledge, 2010); Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces (Oxford University Press, 2008); The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (USIP, 2008), and The Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States (Globe Pequot, 2008), among others.  

She is a member of Women in International Security, International Studies… Read more

Dr. Daanish Faruqi is a Visiting Researcher at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.  A scholar of migration and mobility in the Middle East and North Africa, he has leveraged his expertise both in academia and in international development. At Georgetown he researches democracy promotion and conflict resolution through transnational religious humanitarianism. His latest writing deals with the viability of religious humanitarianism in effectively managing refugee crises.  He has a recent interview with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on this project and its potential for peace building. A specialist on contemporary Syria, he also writes regularly commentary on post-Assad Syria, for popular venues like TRT World, al-Jumhuriyya, and others.

He completed his Ph.D. from Duke University, where he wrote his dissertation on the role of Syrian Sufi religious scholars in joining the 2011 uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Through several years of ethnographic and historical fieldwork in Morocco, Turkey, and Jordan, conducting hundreds of Arabic-language interviews, his work revealed the role of 19th century migration… Read more

Dr. Shaul Gabbay completed a BA at Bar Ilan University and an MA at Tel-Aviv University. In 1991 he received a Presidential Fellowship from the U.S. to continue his studies. In 1995 he completed the PhD program at Columbia University in New York and received an invitation from the University of Chicago for a Post Doctoral program. In 1998 Dr. Gabbay returned to Israel to join the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Professor Gabbay joined the University of Denver as the Director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies in 2001- 2010.  He continued his research at DU as a Senior Scholar until 2015 when he was appointed Director of the Global Research Institute.

His areas of expertise include Middle East cultures and societal norms,   Middle East conflicts, and human rights issues existing in Muslim societies.  He is regularly cited and acts as a commentator in national and international media such as the Associated Press, CBS, NBC, FOX and MSNBC.

I am an independent expert in country and asylum matters, focusing on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and broader regions of the Middle East and South Asia. I have served as an expert witness since 2018 and bring a solid background in law and advocacy before Pakistan’s High Courts. Using a thorough and impartial approach, along with deep regional and language expertise, I analyse social, cultural, legal, and political issues related to asylum, immigration, and refugee cases throughout these areas.

I hold LLB (Hons) Degree from University of London, MSc Business Operations & Management from Glasgow Caledonian University, and Legal Practice Course Northumbria University Newcastle upon Tyne.

I work as litigation lawyer in Pakistan as Advocate High Courts since 2018. I have worked for numerous clients and represented them in Criminal, Civil, Labour, Commercial, Constitutional, Administrative Law, Public Law, cases in Provincial and Federal Courts.

Dr. Antonio Giustozzi is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). He took his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is the author of several articles and papers on Afghanistan, as well as of seven books, War, politics and society in Afghanistan, 1978-1992 (Georgetown University Press), Koran, Kalashnikov and laptop: the Neo-Taliban insurgency, 2002-7 (Columbia University Press), Empires of mud: war and warlords in Afghanistan (Columbia University Press), Policing Afghanistan (with M. Ishaqzada, Columbia University Press, 2013), The army of Afghanistan (Hurst, 2016), the Islamic State in Khorasan (Hurst, 2018 and II ed 2022) and Taliban at war (OUP USA, 2019 and II ed. 2022). He also authored a volume on the role of coercion and violence in state-building, The Art of Coercion (Columbia University Press, 2011), one on advisory missions (Missionaries of modernity, Hurst, 2016), one on Jihadism in Pakistan (IB Tauris, 2023) and edited a volume on the Taliban, Decoding the New Taliban (Columbia University Press, 2009), featuring contributions by specialists from different backgrounds. He contributes regularly to the media and to periodical publications. In the past he worked among else as a consultant for the EUSR… Read more

Expert Witness, former diplomat, Ph.D. Candidate in law specializing and providing expert report on  human rights, asylum and immigration cases of nationality assessment, gender-based violence with a focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Dr Jawad Hassan Zadeh is an Expert Witness with experience of working in Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s affairs. As of February 2022, he has prepared 1,128 expert reports for over 200 law firms and non-legal organisations based in France, Greece, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States of America. The Expert provides three services concerning cases from Afghanistan (1) country of origin expert opinions on human rights, culture, ethnic groups, religions, laws, government and non-state actors (2) conducts forensic examination of all types of documents originating from Afghanistan (3) interviews the ‘disputed nationality’ claimants from Afghanistan with a view of producing linguistic and nationality of the disputed clients.

The expert provides country expert reports for Pakistan, conducts nationality assessment interviews for Pakistani nationals whose nationality and origin are disputed and verifies the authenticity of Pakistani documents.