Experts on countries of origin by country

Vast experience of civil and criminal expert reports in addition to reports for immigration proceedings: frequently involved in cases where the internal dynamics of unfamiliar family structures are the central source of contention and/or confusion

Writer on Pakistan with world-respected knowledge of the country's militants, military, intelligence services, ethnic groups and political parties, including the MQM. He has worked for the BBC and was a visiting Professor at Princeton University and USC

Professor of International Studies at the University of Leeds with extensive knowledge of the human rights situation and asylum matters relating to political persecution and trafficking. Particular experience and expertise in relation to Vietnamese refugees (political activists, victims of trafficking and persons persecuted for religious activities, Chinese asylum seekers (adherents of persecuted religious groups, political activists and victims of trafficking), and applicants from Pakistan (applicants facing threats in relation to family honour,  issues relating to the blasphemy laws, sexual orientation, applicants facing threats from terrorists and due to their political activities such as members of the UKPNP). I am acknowledged as a leading expert on the Korean peninsula (North Korea and South Korea).  I also have considerable expertise in matters relating to asylum seekers from Iraq and Iran in relation to family honour, political activism and religious persecution. Among numerous publications, reference can be made to the book Security, Culture and Human Rights in South Asia and the Middle East, Global Research Publications 2019, a guide for country experts on the regions.

The Expert 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,

The Expert 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, The Expert has been carrying out original ethnographic research in Greece, investigating the psychological impact of the migratory experience among Afghan refugees in the country.

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.

The Expert (Ph.D. Cambridge 2002, British Academy postdoctoral fellow 2003-6 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, The University of London) is a social anthropologist specializing in Nepal in particular and South Asia more generally. His acquaintance with South Asia spans over 31 years, including over ten years of researching and working in Nepal and over five years of living in India. While at SOAS, he taught an MA course on “The Anthropology of South Asia”. The Expert specializes in various aspects of Nepalese and other South Asian cultures and societies, including politics, kinship, gender, and religion. 

In recent years he has been asked to comment and advise to ACCORD (Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation), providing expert knowledge and answering specific questions on various aspects relating to Nepalese society. The Expert worked with many refugees and asylum seekers from various Asian countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar while he served as Associate Durable Solutions Office in UNHCR’s Kathmandu office, Nepal (2008-9). There, he became familiar with the RSD process and UNHCR country files, and held many focus group discussions and individual interviews with… Read more

The Expert 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 Association, American Political Science… 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. Relying on fieldwork with transnational humanitarian NGOS immediately following the 2023 Syrian/Turkish earthquake, his latest writing deals with the viability of religious humanitarianism in effectively managing refugee crises. He has a forthcoming interview with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on this project and its potential for peace building.

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 from North Africa to Damascus in informing contemporary… 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.

The Expert is a former Afghan diplomat and PhD Candidate in law at SOAS University of London and have extensive knowledge from her PhD research and Country of Origin reports and documents assessment. She specialises on human rights, Islamic and customary laws, and gender related issues with a specific focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. She is also an Associate member in the Practicing Category as a Country of Origin Expert with the Academy of Experts.

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. 

The Expert has a diverse background in roles such as project management, program development, and research in international affairs. The expert’s current position as a Project Manager and Researcher reflects her commitment to making a meaningful impact on regional and global development efforts with the specialism in Balkan affairs.

The Expert is a Country Expert and academic with extensive fieldwork expeirience and providing expert reports (100+) for more than 40 firms in the UK, US, Netherlands, and Canada with areas of expertise such as but not limited to:
- Authentication documents originating from countries of expertise
- Country reports on the indicated countries of expertise
- Minority groups, religious groups
- Political, social and cultural groups: LGBT
- Organized crime and mafia, state crime
- Extremist and violent groups, including religious groups
- Human rights violations
- Women issues: honor killing
- Human trafficking
- Psychiatry and prison conditions
- Disadvantaged groups e.g. children, minorities, mentally ill, disabled, terminally ill
- Availability of medical services
- State structure, military and security services
- Drug dealing and trafficking

Current Position

Director of Research – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) – Panthéon Sorbonne Paris 1, Institut des Science Juridique et Philosophique de la Sorbonne

2017 – current – Senior Research Fellow – Centre for Socio-Legal Studies – School of Law - University of Oxford

2016 – current – full professor with tenure (on Leave) – University of Padua

2016 – 2021 – PI of European Research Council project – Cultural Expertise in Europe (EURO-EXPERT)

Past Position

2018 – 2020, Senior Research Fellow – Centre for Socio-Legal Studies – University of Oxford

2013 – 2016, Professor of Behavioural Sciences (Anthropology) – Department of Behavioural Sciences and Karakoram Centre for Culture and Heritage 

2013 – 2016, Dean of Faculty – Humanities and Social Sciences – Karakoram International University 

Professor of Anthropology - LUMS

Dr Imam brings more than two decades of experience in mixed methods international social science practice, research, and teaching around the world, focusing on East and West Africa, South Asia, USA, and Central Asia. Her interests involve research, development, and instruction on advanced issues of human rights, international conventions on human, civil, and political rights, and against torture; police service, judicial and quasi-judicial institutions, and persecution; grievance redressal arrangements; gender analysis, gender equality, gender-based violence, forced marriages, and sexual abuse; child abuse, child marriages, and violence against children; climate-related issues; and more. She has written books and scholarly articles about public administration, employing quantitative data and qualitative streams of historical changes in socioeconomic, judicial, political, and administrative institutions.

Her work employs innovative research methodologies, focusing on getting to the crux of socio-cultural and institutional situations to deliver efficient solutions that take into account complex dynamics involving human rights, child rights, gender equality, sustainability, and other such standards, in diverse socio-political contexts.

Expert Witness skilled in advising the courts on cases involving Sri Lankan, Pakistan and the Maldive Islands asylum seekers.

The Expert is a practising Advocate and Barrister-at-Law in Pakistan. He is the Senior Partner of Khan & Co Barristers-at-Law and has repeatedly been appointed as an expert on Pakistani law in the UK court system. The Expert is counsel to foreign governments on Pakistani law and is a Registered Foreign Lawyer with the Solicitors Regulation Authority and practices law in the UK and in Pakistan. The Expert has provided more than 100 reports in immigration and family law cases funded by the Legal Aid Agency and the Scottish Legal Aid Board The reports provided by the Expert have addressed issues related to adultery, adoption, blasphemy, custody and abduction of children, divorce (talaq), divorce (khula), forced conversions, forced marriages, gender based violence, gender identity claims, honour killings, human trafficking, internal relocation, jirgas (tribal councils), law reform, legitimacy of children, Pakistani prisons, protection of witnesses, religious minorities and ethnic groups, statelessness, sexual orientation claims, terrorism offences and women’s protection legislation. The Expert is particularly well-versed in the Constitution of Pakistan 1973, judicial review in Pakistani courts, public law issues and national accountability cases. 

In GA v SSHD… Read more

Dr. Maria Khwaja's work spans many years conducting research in urban Pakistan across ethnic and political lines with a focus on the violence faced by children who inherit conflict political spaces. She is currently an assistant professor at Salem State University and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Khwaja's areas of expertise include children's rights and children's agency, political violence by state and non-state actors, terrorism, stateless peoples and internally displaced refugees, schooling and education of children, gender, ethnic and religious discrimination, and military and political governance and violence. Dr. Khwaja is a published academic author with a chapter on her ethnographic work with adolescents published in 2013, a forthcoming article on research methodology in the Global South pending revisions, and several articles forthcoming.