Events
On 28 September, MIGS, in collaboration with the Canadian International Council, organized a screening at our offices of the Munk Debate on Canadian foreign policy.
On 29 September, The Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel, accompanied by several members of his City Hall team, visited Concordia University. Frank Chalk introduced the Lord Mayor to the Jewish People’s Peretz School Third Grade students, who sang songs in English, French and German for the Mayor. A discussion of the Max Stern Restitution Project and its role at Concordia followed. Also discussed was MIGS collaboration with developing the City of Düsseldorf Museum’s Max Stern Exhibition (2018), in cooperation with the Heinrich Heine School (Düsseldorf) and the Jewish People’s School (Montreal). Presenters in the meeting with Lord Mayor Geisel included Prof. Catherine MacKenzie of Art History, Prof. Chalk, Clarence Epstein and Marnie Stein, the principal of the Jewish People’s School.
From 25 to 26 September MIGS's Youth Fellow Nicolai Pogadl participated in the #peacehackdchackathon in Washington, D.C., to come up with solutions to counter violent extremism. For a total of 36 hours, Nicolai worked collectively with almost 20 other individuals to tackle challenges ranging from the refugee crisis to ISIS extremism online.
On 5 October, MIGS, in collaboration with Amnesty International Canada and the Canadian Research Institute on Humanitarian Crises and Aid (OCCAH), hosted a panel discussion at Concordia University on the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis. The panel featured Béatrice Vaugrante, the Director General of Amnistie international Canada francophone; François Audet, Professor at the School of Management of the Université du Québec à Montréal, who is the scientific Director of OCCAH; Faisal Alazem, spokesperson for the Syrian Canadian Council; Ambassador Mokhtar Lamani, former head of the Office of the UN-League of Arab States Joint Special Representative for Syria in Damascus; and Syrian refugee Yaman Alqadri. At the conclusion of the event, Concordia University announced it would support two Syrian refugees by covering their tuition fees for at least one year and possibly longer, depending on the availability of funds.
The large turnout for the discussion included a reporter from the Montreal Gazette, which featured aninterview with Concordia student Yaman Alqadri on her experience of protest and torture in Syria in 2011. An article titled “A test of humanity” was also published on Concordia’s website and Radio-Canada interviewed Alan Shephard, President of Concordia, and Faizal Alazem about the University’s initiative. The Concordian published an article about the panel discussion, including an interview with Kyle Matthews.
Under the umbrella of MIGS’ Digital Mass Atrocity Prevention Lab, the institute hosted a panel discussion on 13 October titled “Perspectives on Radicalization.” The panelists included Stéphane Berthomet (author of "La fabrique du djihad: radicalisation et terrorisme au Canada" and expert in terrorism, radicalisation and security), Rachida Azdouz (psychologist specialized in inter-cultural relations at the Universite de Montreal) and Vivek Venkadesh (Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Concordia University and director of the federally-funded SOMEONE (Social Media Education Every Day) initiative).
The discussion focused on the role of traditional and social media in the radicalization and recruitment of young people in Canada and Europe by extremist groups, and on preventive and repressive solutions to radicalization. More pictures are available on MIGS’ Facebook page.
From 14 to 16 October, Kyle Matthews participated in the expert roundtable “Non-state Actors as Perpetrators and Enablers of Mass Atrocity Violence” at the Stanley Foundation’s 56th Strategy for Peace Conference in Warrenton, Virginia. The roundtable was chaired by Ambassador Stephen Rapp, former international prosecutor and U.S. diplomat.
On 16 October, MIGS hosted Jochebed Katan, a child Holocaust survivor who relates her story in her memoir entitled “You're not allowed to shoot me.” She and her parents were among the very few Jewish Dutch nuclear families to survive the war. See our Facebook for pictures taken at her talk.
On 20 October, the day after the Canadian elections, the Press Club of Montreal and MIGS hosted The Honourable Irwin Cotler. M. Cotler spoke about his career as a lawyer, his work in the Parliament, and his fight for the pursuit of justice. Mr. Cotler is and will continue to be one of MIGS' most important and generous ally.
On 26 October, to explore how the conflict might evolve in the near and medium term, MIGS and PAXsims convened a short analytical crisis game: ,ISIS Crisis: Simulating Mass Atrocity Prevention in Syria. The game was facilitated by Rex Brynen (McGill University), a specialist in both conflict simulation and contemporary Middle East conflict
In the Media
21 September
Kyle Matthews joined Montreal’s Breakfast Television to analyze the migrant crisis in Europe.
25 September
Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire received an honorary degree from UBC.
27 September
Kyle Matthews was quoted in an Ottawa Citizen article entitled “Civil society and human rights organizations call on Canada to lead Syrian no-fly zone.”
30 September
Kyle Matthews was quoted in an iPolitics article titles “Has Canada really taken in 15% of refugees? Not exactly”.
8 October
MIGS' Marie Lamensch and Eloge Butera took part in a Google+ Hang Out with Stand Canada on the topic "Canada's relationship to genocide." The video is available on our Stand's Youtube Channel in case you missed it.
OpenCanada and MIGS: Special Series
Opencanada.org partnered with MIGS to create a special series titled “Back to Nigeria: Stories from the Battle against Boko Haram.” Included are essays by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and International Crisis Group’s EJ Hogendoorn, MIGS's Marie Lamensch and Nicolai Pogadl, Christpoh Koettl (Amnesty International’s Research Directorate, and founder and editor of the organization’s Citizen Evidence Lab) and Shelly Whitman (Childsoldier Initiative)