Oh hey

My prof has a Wikipedia entry. Go figure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Attaran

And he's written a number of articles that are online. And he's going to be appearing in Federal Court this Thursday & Friday, re. treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan.

ETA: Oh, this is a cool quote. This is from an online question-and-answer thingy he did for the Globe and Mail last March, re. Canada's conduct in deporting suspected terrorists to countries where they would be tortured.

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Jasmine Francis, Halifax: Sir, I am curious what got you interested in this issue. Religion? Human rights?

Prof. Amir Attaran: Ms. Francis, my interest is certainly human rights — emphatically so.

Another interest is to preserve the dignity and honour of Canada. I was born in California, not Canada, and I chose to study, work and live this country, and ultimately to take Canadian citizenship, because I love Canadians' decency.

It pains me to see the Canadian Forces reneging on their policy and obligation to uphold the Geneva Conventions, and it appalls me to see my government making excuses — some of them which are now proved untrue — to have truck with torturers.

Come on: We are better than that.

I am often asked if religion has something to do with my beliefs. Not at all. I usually detect in that question a certain curiosity as to whether I am a Muslim. I am not. But as the three major monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in order of their histories — all agree, showing decency toward one's fellow man is an obligation. That means we must not torture our fellow man (or woman).

In fact, the religions and human rights law require exactly the same thing.
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You know, I really should have done this more often in law school. I've looked up a few of my profs and it's always been a really neat experience, seeing what else they do outside the classroom, because for most of them the classroom is such a teeny, tiny part of their activities/accomplishments. And it's also cool because they are usually very non-judgmental in class, directing discussions but often not really taking sides. I mean, you can generally figure which side a prof leans towards, but you have to be paying attention. So it's neat when you have a prof who, for example, discusses the Kyoto Protocol dispassionately in class, responding to students who are all gung-ho about it with, "You've got some very good points there, would anybody else care to weight in?" and then read articles they've written to the Globe & Mail that use words like appalling, fatally watered down, short-sighted, useless, and shameful.

A little chuckle

Today's class is on truth and reconciliation commissions in places like the former Yugoslavia, Latin American countries, etc. There's a quote from one of the South African Commission’s critics:

There were two friends, Peter and John. One day Peter steals John’s bicycle. Then, after a period of some months, he goes up to John with outstretched hands and says, “Let’s talk about reconciliation”. John says, “No, let’s talk about my bicycle”. “Forget about the bicycle for now”, says Peter, “let’s talk about reconciliation”. “No,” says John, “we cannot talk about reconciliation until you return my bicycle”.