Egypt/Day of the Endangered Lawyer: Canada January 24, 2018

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The Day of the Endangered Lawyer, marked on January 24th of each year, is a time to reflect on the personal and professional safety of lawyers around the world, who face mounting persecution, prosecution, arbitrary detention, threats, torture, assaults and death in reprisal for their work to protect rights and secure justice.

Each year, the Day of the Endangered Lawyer focuses on the plight of lawyers in a particular country. The focus in 2018 is on Egypt.

Many human rights organisations, among them Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, IDHAE, ELDH and the International Commission of Jurists confirm that the Egyptian authorities have moved beyond scaremongering and are now rapidly taking concrete steps to shut down the last critical voices in the country’s human rights community.

Join Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada and its partner organizations with 3 events across Canada to discuss the issues, to honour our legal colleagues in Egypt and to call on authorities to respect their rights to practice law free from “intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference”, and to ensure their personal and professional safety and remedy violations against them.

More information is available on Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada’s website: https://www.lrwc.org/

Learn more on the Day of the Endangered Lawyer website: http://dayoftheendangeredlawyer.eu/

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA – JANUARY 24, 2018:

Day of the Endangered Lawyer – International Experiences and Opportunities

In honour of the Day of the Endangered Lawyer, a panel discussion will take place about international issues and opportunities for lawyers and law students to promote human rights, support human rights defenders and defend the rule of law, in partnership with the CBA-NS Constitutional & Human Rights Law Section, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, and the Dalhousie University International Law Society.

Location: Schulich School of Law, room TBD

Time: 12pm – 1:30pm

Guest Speakers: Danny Graham (McInnes Cooper)

Shanisha Grant (worked overseas with the Supporting Access to Justice for Children and Youth in East Africa [SAJCEA] Project);

Christine Hanson (NS Human Rights Commission).

A pizza lunch will be provided, courtesy of MDW Law.

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA – JANUARY 24, 2018:

Please join us for a panel discussion on the Day of the Endangered Lawyer on the topic of human rights and the rule of law. This event is co-hosted by LEVEL Justice and Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, in partnership with the NGO Day of the Endangered Lawyer.

Location: University of Victoria, Fraser Building, Room 158

Time: Noon – 1:20pm

A pizza lunch will be provided, courtesy of LEVEL Justice.

Guest speakers:

Dr. Martin Bunton, Professor, History Department at the University of Victoria.

Ms. Ragia Omran (by video), Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist, recipient of the prestigious Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law (2017), best known for her work protecting womens’ rights.

Ms. Azza Soliman (by video), Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist, co-founder of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance.

“MT”, law graduate from Turkey and Convention refugee in Canada.

Moderated by Renée Mulligan and Megan Presnail, LRWC volunteers