Omar Shakir will discuss his work with Human Rights Watch in Egypt over the last year, where he was a fellow and the lead researcher and author of "All According to Plan," a 188-page report on the Rab'a massacre and the mass killings of protesters in Egypt in July and August 2013. The report concludes that the methodical killing of at least 817 demonstrators on August 14, 2013 in Rab'a Square ranks as one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day on par with the Tiananmen Massacre. Over one year later, not a single person has been held accountable.
Omar will also discuss working as a human rights lawyer on serious abuses amidst a serious crackdown and in a climate of rampant impunity.
Omar is currently a Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he works on abuses in the name of national security in the US. He previously was a Fulbright scholar in Syria and is a graduate of Stanford Law School, Georgetown University's School of Foreign Affairs, and Stanford University.
Co-sponsored by Columbia Human Rights Law Review, Rightslink, Middle Eastern Law Students Association, Columbia Society for International Law, the Human Rights Institute, Social Justice Initiatives and the Columbia Middle East Institute.
