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Human Rights Expert to Visit Trent University |
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Trent University is pleased to announce that Dr. Payam Akhavan, a renowned human rights expert, will be delivering a lecture to all Trent students and members of the community on Wednesday, February 8th at 7pm. The lecture, entitled titled "Human Rights in Iran: Political Islam, Abuses of Power and the Myth of Cultural Authenticity", will take place at Gzowski College in Room 117 and will be followed by a reception with light refreshments. In his lecture, Dr. Akhavan will discuss the role of international human rights standards in Iran, a country where authorities justify human rights abuses on the grounds of religious or cultural authenticity. His lecture will examine the use of interpretations of Islamic law by elites in order to pursue an agenda of political homogenization. The objective of the talk will be to explore the opportunities for meaningful dialogue among civilizations that transcends both ethnocentric and politically correct views of the Islamic world. Dr. Akhavan (LL.M., J.D. Harvard) has served as the Legal Advisor to the Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague (1994-2000), the first person to hold that position. He has also served as Special Advisor to the United Nations in Cambodia, Guatemala, East Timor, and Rwanda, and has represented sovereigns before international courts and tribunal. Currently, Dr. Akhavan holds the Maxwell Boulton Q.C. Senior Fellowship at McGill University Faculty of Law in Montréal, Canada. He is the President and Co-Founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre in New Haven, Connecticut, and he has been called upon as an expert by the media in Canada, the United States, and Britain to comment on issues related to genocide and human rights. The lecture is sponsored by the Association for Baha'i Studies and the Departments of Politics, Philosophy, and International Development Studies. The lecture is free and all members of the community are welcome to attend. For more information, please contact: Posted January 27, 2006
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