Toronto
University of Toronto, York University, Ryerson University

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BIOS for SPEAKERS for IAW 2008

Saron Ghebressellassie: Saron Ghebressellassie has been active with SPHR for the past three years. She is also a member of SAIA and has organized with United Black Students at Ryerson around Israeli and South African apartheid for four years. She hosts Amandla on CKLN 88.1 FM and is currently organizing an upcoming conference on student resistance to empire and apartheid featuring Dr. Angela Davis. She organized the Ryerson University forum on Academic Boycott and Academic Freedom, studied Arabic at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies and Languages and is a proud member of the Ryerson Students' Union. Saron was the YWCA 2007 Young Woman of Distinction.

Clayton Thomas-Muller: of the Mathais Colomb Cree Nation (Pukatawagan) in Northern Manitoba, is an activist for Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice. Currently, Clayton is the Tar Sands Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. Clayton has been on the front lines of stopping industrial society's assault on Indigenous Peoples lands to extract resources and to dump toxic wastes. He has worked across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states with grassroots indigenous communities to defend their Inherit, Treaty and environmental rights against unsustainable energy policies and transnational energy corporations.

Azmi Bishara: A former Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset representing the National Democratic Assembly party. He resigned from his leadership position after being persecuted by the Israeli security services for supposed 'treason and espionage'. He is now living in exile. Bishara will be speaking about the apartheid structures of the Israeli state from his unique perspective as a Palestinian living within Israel and as a member of a Palestinian political party within the Israeli state.

Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American writer and activist. He is the co-author and editor of Between the Lines: Readings in Israel, the Palestinians and the U.S ‘War on Terror’ (Haymarket Books, 2007, co-written with Tikva Honig-Parnass); and Towards a New Internationalism: Readings in Globalization, the Global Justice Movement and Palestinian Liberation (co-written with Ala El Azzeh, for Muwatin: The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, Ramallah (Arabic)). His articles have been featured in a number of publications including Monthly Review, Journal of Palestine Studies, Znet, Counterpunch, and the International Socialist Review, and have been translated into French, German, Norwegian, Dutch, and Hebrew. Haddad was born in Kuwait, and lived in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 1997 and 2005. There he co-founded the monthly journal “Between the Lines” with Dr. Tikva Honig-Parnass in 2000, as well as the Beit Jibrin Cultural Center - Handala, a progressive educational youth and community center located in the Beit Jibrin Refugee Camp (est. 1999). He currently lives in New York City where he is completing a MA in Near East Studies and Journalism at New York University.

Khaled Mouammar Khaled Loutfi Mouammar has over 30 years of volunteer experience with organizations including the Arab Palestine Association, Arab Community Centre of Toronto, Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Canadian Ethnocultural Council, Ontario Committee for Fairness in Policing and Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA). Khaled has received several awards and recognitions including Volunteer Service Award from Ontario Ministry of Citizenship & Culture, the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Award from the Governor General of Canada and a Certificate of Recognition from Citizen’s Forum on Canada’s Future. Khaled has served as a Board Member for the Immigration and Refugee Board from 1994 to 2005 adjudicating on refugee claims. He currently serves as the National President of the Canadian Arab Federation and works as a consultant with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Education: Khaled holds a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics and a Diploma in Education from American University of Beirut. He is also fluent in Arabic and Portuguese

Audrey Huntley: Audrey Huntley is of mixed settler and Indigenous ancestry. She has been involved in activism around racist and sexist violence against women for over 20 years – in Germany until 1998 and then in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (including work for the Aboriginal Women’s Action Network conducting 2 major participatory action research projects) till 2002 when she moved to Toronto. Audrey is a founding member of No More Silence – dedicated to raising awareness around the missing and murdered women and helped launch the Sisters In Spirit Campaign in Ontario. She has also been an active member of the Coalition In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty since 2004 which has provided concrete political support to the land reclamations in Tyendinaga and Six Nations. Audrey has also worked as a broadcast journalist for the cbc and is a documentary filmmaker who has produced documentaries on all of the above issues including Go Home, Baby Girl and Mohawk Smokes.

Rafeef Ziadah: Third generation Palestinian refugee, founding member of Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid(CAIA) and member of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)

Farrah Miranda Founding member of No One Is Illegal (Toronto), fighting for refugee rights and status for all campaign.

Salim Vally is at present a visiting scholar at  York. He returns to South Africa in August where he holds the post of Senior Researcher/Lecturer at the  University of Witwatersrand. Vally was an executive member of the black consciousness South African Students Movement until its banning in 1977 after the murder of Steve Biko. He spent eight years as the education coordinator of an independent trade union before the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). He was a founding member of COSATU. Vally is a member various social movements including the Anti Privatisation Forum, the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Anti-War Coalition. He is also the co-ordinator of the Education Rights Project which works with communities in two hundred townships and informal settlements around the country. Salim Vally has published extensively, is on the editorial board of five academic journals, lectured in ten countries  and is also the recipient of various awards including the Visiting Scholar Award from the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Columbia University.

Katherine Nastovski Former Co-Chair of the Canadian Union of Public Employees International Solidarity Committee (Ontario). Member of Labour for Palestine, she played a key role in the passing of Resolution 50

Heather Kere VP Education at the Ryerson Students Union. She will be speaking about academic boycott

Ward Churchill Keetoowah Band Cherokee, is one of the most outspoken Indigenous activists and scholars in North America and a leading analyst of indigenous issues. He is former tenured Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado, fired in retaliation for the exercise of
his First Amendment-protected speech and in violation of the doctrine of Academic Freedom. He is also co-director of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement and vice chair of the American Indian Anti-DefamationCouncil. Churchill's many books include Fantasies of the Master Race, Struggle
for the Land, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, From A Native Son, Critical Issues in Native North America, The COINTELPRO Papers, Indians R Us?, Agents of Repression, Since Predator Came, and A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas. In his lectures and numerous published works, Churchill explores the themes of genocide in the Americas, racism, historical and legal (re)interpretation of conquest and colonization, environmental destruction of Indian lands, government repression of political movements, literary and cinematic criticism, and indigenist alternatives to the status quo.

Mohammad Ali Khalidi A Palestinian Professor of Philosophy at York University. He has wrote and lectured on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and the right of return. He will be speaking about Zionism and the Palestinian refugees.

Nagi Farrah Palestinian activist and Nakba survivor