Category: Article

GENOCIDE TODAY available on Amazon

GENOCIDE TODAY available on Amazon https://www.amazon.ca/GENOCIDE-TODAY-EZAT-MOSSALLANEJAD Genocide Today contains inter-connected chapters contributed by lifelong human rights activists. The book is unique as it has combined historical, global, and empirical analysis. It has merged community research and academic scholarship with tacit guidance about the best practice in serving survivors of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against […]

Convention on the Rights of the Child: 30 Years After

Convention on the Rights of the Child: 30 Years After By Ezat Mossallanejad On November 20, 1989, after ten years of negotiations, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC), creating a comprehensive treaty for protection of children. This marvelous international instrument was referred by human rights workers […]

Saddam’s Hanging: Metamorphosis of Justice and a Mockery of Human Rights

Saddam’s Hanging: Metamorphosis of Justice and a Mockery of Human Rights By Ezat Mossallanejad On Sunday November 5, 2006, the former Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court in a politicized trial. Fifty six days later, he was executed by hanging in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah (Friday, December 29, […]

Collective Trauma and Its Impacts

Collective Trauma and Its Impacts By Ezat Mossallanejad Introduction In this article, a modest attempt will be made to study the nature of collective trauma by tracing its roots. Special attention will be given to the impact of collective trauma on individuals, communities and the entire society. Finally, suggestions will be made for alleviation of […]

Violence and Poverty

Violence and Poverty By Ezat Mossallanejad, Ph.D. Based on our experience at the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture (CCVT), there is a potential link between poverty and violence. Where abject poverty causes human life to lose its value, death may emerge as an unquestionable demonstration of honor, courage, loyalty, and moral character. This can […]

My Changing Idea of justice

My Changing Idea of justice* By Ezat Mossallanejad I came to know about the concept of justice at the age of eight, when my teacher, a religious gentleman, reiterated the following maxim: “God is just.” I doubted this message when I witnessed a bereaved father in our neighbourhood stretching both his hands towards the sky, […]

Surviving Torture through

Surviving Torture through Self Rehabilitation and Love My entire life is a story of trauma and exile on one hand, and love and happiness on the other. I have escaped tyranny and persecution three times in my life, and I am a victim and survivor of torture, having spent four years in jail in Iran […]

The Philosophy of Philistines

The Philosophy of Philistines Tanya Schryer & Ezat Mossallanejad In his masterpiece “The Bridge over the Drina”, the Yugoslav novelist Ivo Andric, speaks of a Turkish foreman who orders death sentence by means of horrible techniques of torture against a Bosnian worker due to his alleged rebellious attempts: “Everything must be made ready so that […]

Destruction of Libraries

Destruction of Libraries and Retrogression of Human Progress By Ezat Mossallanejad During the last few days, I have visited dozens of friendly circles in different communities and intellectual agencies. Wherever I went, I observed an unprecedented panic about the possible decision of Mayor Rob Ford and his City council to close down library branches in […]

The Evolution of Religion

The Evolution of Religion by R. Elisabeth Cornwell, PhD, J. Anderson Thomson, MD The Human Niche Humans, like all other living beings, are a product of four billion years of evolutionary processes. We have been shaped and pounded by the rhythms of our planet’s geology and climate as well by the continual interplay among biological […]

Death Penalty as a form of Torture

Death Penalty as a form of Torture Ezat Mossallanejad The whole process of the implementation of the death penalty has always been torturous – from the pronouncement of the penalty to the waiting period for the execution of punishment to the very act of killing. The psychological torture starts on the very first day of […]