Human Rights Watch expert to speak at Wake Forest Feb. 5 as part of Year of Unity and Hope

By Vanessa Willis
(336) 758-5237
January 25, 2002

Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch will speak at Wake Forest University Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m in Benson University Center’s Pugh Auditorium. The event is part of Wake Forest’s Year of Unity and Hope: Pro Humanitate at Work. It is free and open to the public.

Stork is the Washington director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. He works with the U.S. government and other nations’ governments to monitor human rights issues. One of his special projects was heading Human Rights Watch’s work on the U.S. sanctions against Iraq.

Stork’s talk at Wake Forest will be titled, “Terrorism, War, and the Middle East: The Human Rights Dimension.”

Stork said he believes that human rights abuses have contributed to the present political crisis. He will speak about how human rights have been affected by the U.S. military action in the Middle East. He also will share principles of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Stork’s most recent book is “Routine Abuse, Routine Denial: Civil Rights and the Political Crisis in Bahrain.” He chairs the Middle East Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom. He also is on the board of directors of Grassroots International, which supports community-based social change organizations in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

Before joining Human Rights Watch, Stork co-founded the Middle East

Research & Information Project. From 1971 to 1995, he was the chief editor of Middle East Report, that organization’s bimonthly magazine.

Stork served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey and earned a master’s degree in International Affairs/Middle East Studies from Columbia University.

For more information, call 336-758-5229.