Antonio Stango is an Italian political scientist, an expert of human rights at international level, a writer and editor. After leading several non-governmental organizations, he is currently the President of the Italian Federation for Human Rights. Biography After having completed the first two years of high school (humanities) at the "Giandomenico Cassini" lyceum, based in Sanremo, he completed the courses at the Nunziatella military academy of Naples. He successively served as second lieutenant in the Italian Army. After having interrupted his military career, he graduated in Political Sciences at the University of Genoa, and obtained a Master in Modern history. Since the 1980s, he was an activist in the area of human rights at international level, and collaborated with several non-governmental organizations and the Transnational Radical Party. In 1986, he was involved in the case of Severina and Michaela Filipov, young daughters of two Bulgarian refugees in Italy, that were retained in their home country by the local authorities. The following year, as Federal Secretary of the Italian Radical Party, he presided the meeting "Human rights and dissense in the Gorbaciov era", at the end of which the soviet dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky, Leonid Plyushch, Vladimir Maximov and Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov launched the Rome Manifesto of the soviet dissidents, claiming for the acknowledgement of human rights in the Soviet Union. In 1987, he founded with Paolo Ungari the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and took position against the repressions in Romania acted by the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. In the following years, he continued his activity in favour of human rights, especially in the countries of the former Soviet area, by founding relationships with oppositors of the communist regime as Vaclav Havel; being arrested by the East Germany police during a manifestation against the Berlin Wall; and by the soviet police during a manifestation in Moscow. During the years, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, in FoReF (Forum for Religious Freedom), in the international committee of "In Search of Justice", in "Non c'è pace senza giustizia" and other non-governmental organizations. He also followed for many years the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva also as representative of the Partito Radicale Nonviolento, Transnazionale e Transpartito, which has the status of consulting entity at the United Nations Economic and Social Council. He performed missions as a human rights expert for the European Commission