Born in 1950 in Aleppo, Syria, Harut Sassounian is an Armenian-American writer, public activist and publisher of the California Courier since 1983. His opinion column appears weekly in the Armenian Mirror-Spectator. He served as a non-governmental delegate on human rights to the United Nations in Geneva for 10 years. Formerly president of the United Armenian Fund, which provided 720 million dollars of humanitarian assistance to Armenia and Artsakh over 26 years, he became founder and president of the Armenia Artsakh Fund, which carries out a similar function, in December 2015. Harut Sassounian holds master’s degrees from both Columbia University and Pepperdine University and speaks five languages: English, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish and French. In 2016 Sassounian was awarded by Armenia's Union of Journalists the prestigious Golden Pen award, the highest prize given to the top Armenian journalist once every three years. He is the author of The Armenian Genocide: The World Speaks Out, 1915-2015: Documents and Declarations (2015).