Executive Director:

Dr. Ali Alyami

Phone: 202–413–0084
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Curriculum Vitae

Board of Directors:

Charmain

Edward Rawson
Mr. Rawson has been a staunch supporter of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR), its mission, projects and staff, from the very outset. CDHR is only one of the many worthy organizations Mr. Rawson supports and leads. He is an avid supporter of human rights and individual liberty at home and abroad. Mr. Rawson joined the Department of State as Director for the Yugoslavia Relief Program in 1949. He was a program operations officer for Korea and the Philippines with the International Cooperation Administration (ICA), the predecessor to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In 1958, Mr. Rawson returned to Washington D.C. as Special Assistant to the deputy of Administration of the ICA, and served as the liaison officer between the U.S. government and Project Hope. He became administrative coordinator for USAID’s program until his retirement in 1976. Mr. Rawson was the recipient of several awards for his outstanding commitment to public service, including the Superior Honor Award from USAID, and the Community Human Rights Award from the United Nations Association of the National Capital area. In addition to CDHR, Mr. Rawson is currently on the boards of several organizations.

Board Members

Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, WMD, and counterterrorism issues. Specific areas of expertise include Islam and Iran. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, and acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She has served in or visited over two dozen nations worldwide, and speaks several languages, including Spanish, Bulgarian, French, German, and Russian, and currently is studying Farsi.

Now a private consultant, Lopez also serves as Vice President of the non-profit forum, The Intelligence Summit, and is a Professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (CI Centre), where she teaches courses on the Iranian Intelligence Services, and the expanding influence of Jihad and Sharia in Europe and the U.S. She is affiliated on a consultant basis with DoD contractors that provide clandestine operations training to military intelligence personnel. Lopez was Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee, a Washington, DC think tank, from 2005–2006. She has served as a Senior Scientific Researcher at the Battelle Memorial Institute; a Senior Intelligence Analyst, Subject Matter Expert, and Program Manager at HawkEye Systems, LLC.; and previously produced Technical Threat Assessments for U.S. Embassies at the Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where she worked as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for Chugach Systems Integration.

Lopez received a B.A. in Communications and French from Notre Dame College of Ohio (NDC) and an M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. She completed Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia before declining a commission in order to join the CIA. Lopez is a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute of World Affairs and also serves on the Advisory Board for the Intelligence Analysis and Research program and as an occasional guest lecturer at her undergraduate alma mater, NDC. She has been a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University and a guest lecturer on terrorism, national defense, international relations, and Iran there, at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, and the National Defense Intelligence College in Washington, D.C. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran, Islam, counterterrorism, and the Middle East and is the co-author of two published books on Iran.

Jack Pearce, Director
Mr. Pearce worked at USAID and served as Assistant Chief of the United States Justice Department Antitrust Division. He also held the position of Deputy General Counsel of the White House Office of Consumer Affairs. In private law practice, he helped found and coordinate coalitions of commercial transportation buyers, consumer groups, economists, and environmental groups supporting the successful reform of transportation regulation in the United States. He and his partners also served clients in the computer, agriculture, and electricity segments of the economy, in activities consistent with U.S. antitrust policies. Mr. Pearce founded and is President of O.S.I. Management, Inc., servicing attorneys and others in Washington, DC, and has served on the boards of several civic organizations.

Mark Palmer, Director
Ambassador Palmer is a world known advocate of freedom of speech, individual liberties and the rights of people to determine their destiny. He is the only American diplomat who participated in demonstrations against the Soviet tanks when they were crashing freedom fighters in Eastern Europe. During the Cold War years, Ambassador Palmer was a respected foreign policy innovator both inside and outside the U.S. government. He served in policy positions in the State Department under the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and first Bush Administrations. He helped abolish the US policy that exempted Arab regimes from promoting democracy in the Arab world. Ambassador Palmer is a successful businessman and the author of: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025. He has lived in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and served as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary.

Abdul Aziz Alkhamis, Director
Mr. Alkhamis was born, raised and educated in the Nejd (central) region of Saudi Arabia. He worked as a journalist for many years and was later promoted to become the editor of the largest Saudi Magazine, Majlet Almajalah. He has written and published many articles about social and human rights issues in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Alkhamis is the founder and director of the Saudi Center for Human Rights in London.

Lindsay Mattison, Director
Mr. Mattison is the Executive Director of International Action, a Washington, DC based independent foreign policy group, located on Capitol Hill. He started his political career in 1964, working for the non-governmental organization Nuclear Information. He later became the Executive Director of Business Executives for Vietnam Peace, the assistant to Admiral LaRocque at the Center for Defense Information, and the Director of the International Center. He has worked with leaders and opposition figures in the former Soviet Union, South Korea, the Philippines, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

Mohammed Siddiq, Director
Mr. Siddiq is a native of Saudi Arabia and a resident of Nebraska, where he completed his Ph.D. studies in Political Science at the University of Nebraska. Mr. Siddiq spent sixteen years working for the Saudi government, serving as Private Aide to the Chief Academic Executive Officer, Acting Secretary to the Board of Trustees at the College of Petroleum and Minerals, and Administrative Assistant to the Director of Research and Development Center at the College of Economics & Administration, King Abdulaziz University. He was a Public Affairs lecturer at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. Presently, he is a translator and interpreter for Nebraska’s court system.

Wayne Quist, Director
Colonel Quist has advanced degrees from the University of Southern California and The National War College in Washington, DC, specializing in the Middle East. While serving in Washington, DC, he worked in The Pentagon, later directed the Air Force AWACS program, and led the first deployment of AWACS into Saudi Arabia in 1980 following the Iranian revolution. After retiring from the Air Force as a full colonel (O-6), he headed a Fortune 500 company’s Europe and Middle East operations from Brussels, Belgium. Colonel Quist is the author of several publications and articles in the field of radical, militant Islamism, national security policy, and American history, and coauthored Winning the War on Terror: A Triumph of American Values with Dr. David Drake in 2005 and The Triumph of Democracy Over Militant Islamism in 2006. Colonel Quist has been featured as a popular speaker on the ideology of al Qaeda and has also lectured at a Nobel Peace Prize Forum.