Diana is the former Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights. She led the organisation for almost 5 years successfully navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and grew the organisation’s casework and programs team, as well as the research, policy and advocacy, community engagement, outreach and visibility of the impactful work.

During the Afghanistan crisis she was a vocal member of the team driving the #ActionforAfghanistan campaign in advocating for an increased humanitarian intake, pathways for permanent protection for those in Australia on temporary status, additional support to those evacuated and resettled here and safety to be afforded to those from religious and ethnic minorities, as well as women, children and LGBTQI+ people — particularly highlighting the role the Australian Defence Force played and ongoing accountability needed to bring perpetrators of allegations of war crimes to justice.

She has an avid interest in issues pertaining to increasing and heightened Islamophobia in Australia –particularly in the aftermath of the Gaza genocide — anti-racism campaigns and gender equality programs across both not-for-profit and mainstream corporate organisations that build capabilities and support newly arrived communities of refugees and people seeking asylum, especially those who are victim survivors of domestic and family violence.

As an international human rights lawyer having worked in both Australia and the U.S for over 15 years, she is the former Campaigns Manager at the feminist organisations Fair Agenda and Senior Crisis Response campaigner at Amnesty International Australia.

Whilst at Fair Agenda, she focused on taking an intersectional approach to gender equality and campaigned on issues pertaining to women’s access to reproductive healthcare and religious discrimination. She was also the women’s rights campaigner at Amnesty International Australia where she led the global #ToxicTwitter campaign to hold the social media giant accountable for online abuse which was silencing women of colour.

During her time at Amnesty International Australia she also led the crisis response campaigns to free imprisoned journalists in Egypt, ensuring greater accountability for Australians facing the death penalty abroad, with a specific focus on countries in crisis. These included the Syrian and Iraq conflicts, advocating for justice and accountability for ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, and calling for transparency around Australia’s military exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates enabling war crimes in Yemen.

Diana also worked at Human Rights First in Washington D.C, where Diana actively challenged the U.S. government on their response to human rights particularly during the Arab Spring uprising in countries like Egypt, Bahrain and Tunisia — actively lobbying for human rights benchmarks to be mandatorily applied to arms trade deals and for the implementation of Leahy’s law.

She is no stranger to the media and has appeared as a regular panellist on The Drum, ABC The World, SBS, as well as Al Jazeera, MSNBC and on #QandA.

Diana has worked as a lawyer, advocate and campaigner with an impressive ability to command space and advocate across intersectional issues both in Australia and abroad. As an Afghan-Australian woman from refugee migrant parents, Diana has the lived experience of being a visible Muslim woman of colour in Australia.