Tue, 25 Sep 2018 16:59:00 IST - Tue, 25 Sep 2018 17:59:00 IST, 17.00

At Irish Centre for Human Rights Seminar Room

Organised by Irish Centre for Human Rights

Date: Tuesday 25th September 2018,

                                                                                                         Time: 5 - 6.30pm

                                                   Venue: Irish Center for Human Rights, School of Law, NUI Galway

 About the seminar: The Russian law regulating “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors” instituted in 2013 followed legislation that targeted independent NGOs (so called “foreign agents”) passed one year earlier. These laws legitimized anti-Western discourses common in the Cold War period, with a particular focus on homophobia, causing a wave of violence resulting in hate crimes (bashing, abuse, homicide) against people identified as lesbians, gay men or transgender, or in a broader sense as ‘liberals”. 

SPEAKERS

Jennifer Gaspar is the director of special projects for the CEELI Institute in Prague. She has more than 18 years of experience in NGO management, including 15 years working in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. As a consultant to the Oak Foundation’s International Human Rights Program, she has long been managing the foundation’s portfolio of human rights grants in Russia. She worked with NGOs and foundations providing donor advising, technical assistance, evaluation, training curriculum development, and development strategy. Jen holds a B.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University and an M.A. in Organizational Development from the University of San Francisco. Jen was a Fulbright  Scholar in Hungary, and previously the executive director of the Fund for International Nonprofit Development.

 Aengus Carroll is a socio-legal researcher on sexual orientation and gender identity issues across the globe. Over the past four years Aengus authored and co-authored State Sponsored Homophobia, which is the flagship publication of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), a coalition of 1400 organisations. He was also the lead researcher on ILGA's public attitudes research surveying regarding sexual and gender diversity across the world. Aengus holds a LL.M in international human rights law and public policy.

 Misha Tumasov - a LGBTIQ activist and human rights defender, a founder of the only LGBT human rights organization in the Volga region, Chairperson of Russian LGBT Network (this organisation is the most significant actor in Russian SOGI human rights and is endlessly targeted by the State).

 Evgeny Shtorn has an MA in sociology and is an LGBT activist. He worked for years in a leading St Petersburg think tank, the Center for Independent Social Research, while also collaborating with such human-rights NGOs as the Russian LGBT Network and Memorial. In 2018, he was forced to leave Russia and claim asylum. His field of work includes hate crimes against LGBT people, state crimes again human beings, racism and postcolonial theory.