Azadeh N. Shahshahani is an American human rights attorney based in Atlanta. She is Legal & Advocacy Director for . She previously served as president of the National Lawyers Guild and director of the National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
Shahshahani has worked for a number of years in the US South to protect the human rights of immigrants and Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities. She is the author or editor of several human rights reports, including a 2017 report, Imprisoned Justice: Inside Two Immigrant Detention Centers in Georgia, co-produced by Project South and the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants' Rights Clinic. Shahshahani has appeared on Democracy Now! and BBC, and has been quoted by the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the Guardian, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and other outlets. Shahshahani has served as a trial monitor in Turkey, an election monitor in Venezuela and Honduras, and as a member of the jury in people’s tribunals on Mexico, the Philippines, and Brazil. She has also participated in international fact-finding delegations to post-revolutionary Tunisia and Egypt as well as a delegation focused on the situation of Palestinian political prisoners. Shahshahani serves as Co-chair of the US Human Rights Network Working Group on National Security, on the Advisory Council of the American Association of Jurists, and as a Board Member of Defending Rights & Dissent. She previously served as Chair of Refugee Women's Network and as Co-chair of the American Bar Association Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section Committee on the Rights of Immigrants.
Writings
Shahshahani writes frequently for various national and international publications such as the Nation, the Guardian, Al-Jazeera, HuffPost, Salon, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution on a range of issues pertaining to immigrants' rights, discrimination and state surveillance targeting Muslim communities, and foreign policy.
Awards and honors
Shahshahani is the recipient of the Shanara M. Gilbert Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers, the National Lawyers Guild Ernie Goodman Award, the Emory Law School Outstanding Leadership in the Public Interest Award, the Emory University MLK Jr. Community Service Award, the US Human Rights Network Human Rights Movement Builder Award, the American Immigration Lawyers Association Advocacy Award, the Fulton County Daily Report Distinguished Leader Award, and the University of Georgia Law School Equal Justice Foundation Public Interest Practitioner Award, among several others. She has also been recognized as an Abolitionist by the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University & the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives, and as one of Atlanta’s 500 Most Powerful Leaders by Atlanta Magazine. In 2016, she was chosen by the Mundo Hispanico Newspaper as a "Personaje Destacado del Año" for defending the rights of immigrants in Georgia. In 2017, she was chosen by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 40 under 40 notable Georgians.
