Aram Aqil is a Kurdish human rights defender who has dedicated his work to exposing extremism and defending minority rights.
Aqil’s commitment to human rights is deeply personal. In 2014, while working as a video journalist documenting ISIS crimes during the Syrian Civil War, he was taken hostage by ISIS and held for 280 days. After his release in a prisoner exchange in 2015, he fled to Germany and wrote In Our Midst, a best-selling book published in German and Dutch in 2017.
Over the past nine years, Aqil has led and coordinated numerous civil society initiatives focusing on documenting human rights violations, preventing extremism, and advocating for minority rights. He has represented Kurdish civil society in many diplomatic forums. He is also a member of the WeAreMENA Network.
In September 2025, he moderated a panel on the situation of the Druze community in Syria at a UN Human Rights Council side event. He currently leads the NGO Yekmal e.V. in Germany, and serves on the Council for Participation and Diversity in the state of Bremen.
Follow Aram Aqil on X
