Announcements
- On May 30, 2018, MIGS, in partnership with Parliamentarians for Global Action, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and other Crimes against Humanity, and the Raoul Wallenberg Parliamentary Caucus on Human Rights, gathered in a roundtable discussion with experts and parliamentarians to discuss the role of elected officials as advocates for human rights, equality, justice and atrocity prevention. Present at the meeting were MIGS Executive Director Kyle Mathews and MIGS Digital Fellow Phil Gurski. MIGS presented the Parliamentary Handbook on Preventing Violent Extremism and Mass Atrocities, authored by Mr. Gurski, which provides the tools for adopting effective government policies to protect civilians from violent extremism and mass atrocities. The following day Kyle Mathews, Phil Gurski, and Parliamentarians for Global Action Secretary General Dr. David Donat Cattin held a Press Conference on Parliament Hill where the Handbook was made public
- MIGS partnered with Amnistie internationale Canada francophone, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and the Comité unifié des organisations arméniennes du Québec to convene the #RightsCity initiative on June 3rd and 4th. The initiative consisted of two events: the Annual March for Humanity and Against Genocide and a public conference held at Concordia University featuring speakers such as Thomas Mulcair, Irwin Cotler, and Marty Castro.
- MIGS Fellow and current Harvard Michael Petrou will be joining Carleton University’s Global and International Studies program as fellow-in-residence for the 2018-2019 academic year.
- MIGS Fellow Diego Osorio was elected to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Alumni Board of Directors.
- Marc-André Argentino, Digital Fellow at MIGS, was chosen as one of four professionals to participate in the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP)centered on strategies to reduce barriers to countering violent extremism.
Upcoming Events
June 11-13, 2018
MIGS will participate once again in the upcoming Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, organized by Deutsche Welle. MIGS is hosting a panel discussion on “The extremism-inequalities nexus: The causal relationship between inequalities and extremisms.” This marks the fourth year that MIGS will be an institutional partner to the forum.
Recent Events
May 5, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Andrei Serbin Pont spoke at the Third Annual Hemispheric Security Conference organized by the US Army War College and Florida International University on the Impact of Extra-Hemispheric Actors on Regional Dynamics.
May 9, 2018
MIGS hosted Mr. Mario Bard for a talk on “Christians in the Middle East: Condemned to Die Out?”
May 14, 2018
MIGS welcomed Jeffrey Allan, former Political Affairs Officer for the United Nations Mission Assistance for Iraq, in a discussion titled "Prosecuting ISIS Members in the ‘Post-Caliphate’ Era"
May 16-18, 2018
MIGS was selected by Access Now to host a session titled “Mapping the Artificial Intelligence, Networked Hate, and Human Rights Landscape” during the RightsCon Toronto 2018, the world’s leading conference on human rights in the digital age. MIGS’ Project Manager Nicolas Pogadl and Junior Fellow and Concordia Student Rutvi Ajmera joined the Young Leaders Summit of the conference.
May 23-25, 2018
MIGS was an institutional partner to the Third Global Meeting of Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes conference in Kampala, Uganda, with MIGS Executive Director Kyle Mathews leading a discussion on the role of social media in the prevention of mass atrocities.
May 24, 2018
MIGS partnered with Amnistie internationale Canada francophone to host Anna Neistat, Senior Director of Research at Amnesty International, in a conference titled “Défendre les droits humains sur la ligne de front”.
Advocacy
May 14, 2018
MIGS backed Amnesty International’s call to release Maldivian Member of Parliament Ahmed Maloof, participant in the 2017 Milan Forum and member of the Parliamentarians for Global Action, and to advocate against his arbitrary detention
In the media
April 23, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow, Andrei Serbin Pont, was interviewed by Mark Leon Goldberg from UN Dispatch for their podcast on the Venezuelan refugee crisis.
May 7, 2018
MIGS Project Coordinator Marie Lamensch wrote an essay for Opencanada.org titled “Is there such thing as a singular Canadian foreign policy?”
May 9, 2018
Kyle Mathews, Executive Director at MIGS, was interviewed on Breakfast Television Montreal in an interview titled “U.S. withdraws from Iran nuclear deal”
May 10, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Anne Speckhard along with Ardian Shajkovci wrote an article on Defence & Intelligence Norway titled “ISIS – When Serving Terrorism is an ‘All in the Family’ Affair”
May 13, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Anne Speckhard published an article on the Daily Beast with Ardian Shajkovci titled “Mother’s Deadly Day: She Blew Up Herself and Her Two Girls to Murder Christians”
May 16, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Phil Gurski was interviewed on CTV News Winnipeg discussing his book “The Threat from Within” and terrorism in Canada.
Anne Speckhard, a MIGS Digital Fellow, published a paper with Ardian Shajkovci titled “The Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative Project”
May 18, 2018
Michael Petrou, a non-resident fellow at MIGS, wrote an article on Opencanada.org titled“Western strategy on Iran should focus on human rights, not nuclear weapons”
May 19, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Vivek Venkatesh wrote an opinion piece in Le Devoir titled “Le terrorisme et
l’extrémisme violent au Canada”
May 20, 2018
Phil Gurski, MIGS Digital Fellow was interviewed on Russian International Affairs Council Tatyana Kanunnikova’s Blog in a post titled “Phil Gurski: G8 Was a Good Forum for Sharing Information”
June 5, 2018
MIGS Executive Director Kyle Mathews wrote an op-ed for the National Post titled “Iran's allies are preparing a genocide in Yemen. But there's still time to stop it”