Welcome back! We’re excited to confirm several world-renowned speakers who will be presenting at the National Conference on February 20, 2010.
Helen Potts, PhD, Chief Program Officer of Health Programs, Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Potts will speak about the Right to Health on a panel entitled “Human Rights and Health Education: Dueling Frameworks or Essential Integration?”
Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH, Professor of Epidemiology, International Health and Health, Behavior and Society; Director of Johns Hopkins Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program. Dr. Beyrer will co-facilitate a Strategy Session entitled “Human Rights in Graduate Education.”
Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School; Senior Medical Advisor to Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Iacopino will co-lead the panel entitled “Human Rights and Health Education: Dueling Frameworks or Essential Integration?” and will speak about the urgency of incorporating a human rights approach in professional medical training.
Remember the calamitous end to Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long civil war back in May? Some 16,700 non-combatants were wounded and several thousand more were killed during the final onslaught. Fighting between the 150,000-strong Sri Lankan Army (SLA) and the 7,000-strong Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) armed forces resulted in 300,000 displaced minority Tamils.
Although both sides committed mass atrocities, recent video footage of apparent executions (warning: this video contains graphic images) of 9 Tamil POWs supports widespread allegations of war crimes by the SLA.
But the international community, most notably the UN Security Council, remains idle while it should be launching a commission of inquiry.
