Award-Winning Author Marina Nemat to Deliver Vigod Memorial Lecture in Human Rights
Award-winning author Marina Nemat will deliver the Vigod Memorial Lecture in Human Rights on Thursday, October 3, 2019 at 7 pm in the Kinsella Auditorium at St. Thomas University.
In her talk "Who is the Enemy?," she will speak about her arrest, torture, and imprisonment in Iran when she was a teenage prisoner of conscience.
“From that personal story, I will draw general conclusions regarding how easy it is to justify violence against perceived enemies within or outside our borders. I will also speak about the dangers of resorting to violence to solve problems and will explain how we need to learn from the past to make “never again” a reality,” Nemat said.
“Racism and extreme nationalism are on the rise worldwide. In order to prevent more massacres and loss of life, we need to learn from the past by creating practical principals that will protect our humanity and would not allow wrongs to mascaraed are rights. This might sound complicated, but it is not.”
Marina Nemat was born in 1965 in Tehran, Iran. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, she was arrested at the age of sixteen and spent more than two years in Evin, a political prison in Tehran, where she was tortured and came very close to execution. She came to Canada in 1991 and has called it home ever since.
Her memoir of her life in Iran, Prisoner of Tehran, was published in Canada by Penguin Canada in 2007, has been published in 28 other countries, and has been an international bestseller.
In 2007, Marina received the inaugural Human Dignity Award from the European Parliament and, in 2008, the prestigious Grinzane Prize in Italy. She was the recipient of the Morris Abram Human Rights Award from UN Watch in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2014. In 2008/2009, she was an Aurea Fellow at University of Toronto’s Massey College, where she wrote her second book, After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed, published in 2010.
Marina sits on the Board of Directors at the CCVT (Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture) and Vigdis, a Norwegian charitable organization that provides legal and other forms of assistance to female political prisoners around the world. In addition, she is the chair of the Writers in Exile Committee at PEN Canada, a member of the International Council of the Oslo Freedom Forum, and has been a volunteer at her church’s Refugee Committee since 2010.
She has a Certificate in Creative Writing from the School of Continuing Studies at University of Toronto and currently teaches memoir writing at the SCS. In 2014, she was a recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award at the School. Occasionally, she writes book reviews and opinion pieces for the Globe and Mail and other publications.
About Dr. Bernie Vigod
Dr. Bernie Vigod was a lifelong advocate of human rights. An outstanding teacher and scholar, he was a professor of History at the University of New Brunswick as well as Associate Dean of University’s School of Graduate Studies at the time of his death in 1988. Dr. Vigod served the cause of human rights with distinction. He spoke and published extensively on human rights issues. Dr. Vigod also acted as an advisor to public officials on human rights issues and took a leading role in organizations dedicated to promoting human rights. This lecture series is dedicated to his memory and features distinguished speakers on a wide range of human rights issues.