Announcements
MIGS will once again be partnering 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. The initiative will consist of two events: the Annual March for Humanity and Against Genocide to take place on 3 June, and a public conference held at Concordia University on 4 June. Details as well as registration for the event can be found here.
Upcoming Events
May 9, 2018
MIGS will host Mr. Mario Bard for a talk on “Christians in the Middle East: Condemned to Die Out?”
May 14, 2018
MIGS will host Jeffrey Allan, former Political Affairs Officer for the United Nations Mission Assistance for Iraq, to dicuss "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 upcoming RightsCon Toronto 2018, the world’s leading conference on human rights in the digital age. In addition, MIGS’ Project Manager Nicolas Pogadl and Junior Fellow Rutvi Ajmera were selected to join the Young Leaders Summit.
May 23-25, 2018
MIGS will be attending the Third Global Meeting of Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes conference in Kampala, Uganda.
June 11-13, 2018
MIGS will participate at the upcoming Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, hosted by Deutsche Welle in the session titled “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
April 16, 2018
MIGS, in partnership with the Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC) at the University of Ottawa, co-convened an Experts Roundtable discussion on the Myanmar crisis. The Co-Chairs’ summary of the discussions and recommendations can be found here.
April 17, 2018
MIGS organized a press conference that featured the Honourable Bob Rae and former Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, amongst others, to share the findings of the previous day’s Expert Roundtable. The video of the press conference can be found here.
April 17-20, 2018
MIGS supported the two-day conference “Religion and Violence: Sources, History and the Contemporary World”, hosted by McGill’s Center for Research on Religion and the Concordia’s Department of Theology.
April 18, 2018
MIGS attended the Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights Student Symposium at Global Affairs Canada. This Symposium aimed to develop policy response to increasing inequalities and discrimination within digital systems, where students showcased their research initiatives to the AI stakeholder community and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
April 22-24, 2018
MIGS was chosen by Global Affairs Canada to be the civil society partner for the International Atrocity Prevention Working Group (IAPWG) meeting in Ottawa. Representatives from Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany gathered to formulate strategies for atrocity prevention. MIGS staff delivered a policy briefing on the link between social media and atrocity prevention. MIGS’ Senior Distinguished Fellow Romeo Dallaire also delivered a speech to the IAPWG.
April 30, 2018
MIGS Project Coordinator Marie Lamensch chaired a session “Conflits civils et vents d’insécurité au Moyen-Orient” during the conference titled “Moyen-Orient : entre révoltes et insécurité” organized by the Chaire Raoul Dandurand at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
May 2, 2018
MIGS partnered with the Harvard Club Quebec to host Dr. Irvin Studin in a discussion titled “Canada in the World: 10 Theses for the 21st Century.”
May 3, 2018
MIGS, in partnership with the Canadian International Council, hosted a discussion with Jocelyn Coulon titled, “Trudeau, Les Casques Bleus Et L’ONU”. Coulon discussed his new book Un selfie avec Justin Trudeau: regard critique sur la diplomatie du premier ministre(Québec Amérique, 2018).
Advocacy
April 13, 2018
MIGS signed a joint statement with Human Rights Watch urging the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
April 25, 2018
MIGS and 17 other civil society organizations signed a letter to UN Secretary-General Guterres tahnking him for hosting discussions with civil society organizations on the mandate of the Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP).
In the media
April 4, 2018
MIGS Project Coordinator Marie Lamensch was quoted in an article by Agnès Gruda on LaPresse+ titled “Le Canada doit jouer un role de premier plan.”
MIGS Executive Director Kyle Mathews was interviewed on CTV News discussing the use of chemical weapons in Syria
April 5, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Nicholas A. Glavin was quoted in a VOA News article by Jeff Seldin titled “US pushing Allies, Partners to Pick Up Slack in Syria.”
April 11, 2018
MIGS Project Coordinator Marie Lamensch was quoted in an article by Marc Thibodeau on LaPresse+ concerning the chemical attacks in Syria titled “La ligne rouge a-t-elle été franchie?”
April 17, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Anne Speckhard wrote an opinion piece on the Daily Beast titled “Who Will Rescue American Babies From ISIS?”
April 18, 2018
MIGS Executive Director Kyle Mathews wrote an article for opencananda.org titled “US air strikes: A blip or start of a new phase of Syrian war?”
April 24, 2018
MIGS Digital Fellow Phil Gurski wrote a piece for the Ottawa Citizen titled “Gurski: Why the Toronto attack can’t be called terrorism – yet.”
Mr. Gurski was also quoted in an article by CBC News titled “Officer praised after taking down Toronto van attack suspect without gunfire.”