Mohamed Fahmy is a multi-award winning Egyptian-Canadian author and journalist, speaking on topics such as freedom of expression, militant Islam, terrorism, human rights, corporate media responsibility, journalism in conflict zones, extremism, and Middle East politics. He will speak on 1 March about the challenges of freedom of speech in an age of terrorism and Trump.

Speaker’s Biography
Mohamed Fahmy escaped from Kuwait with his family during the first Gulf War in 1990. He entered Iraq on the first day of the war in 2003 with the Los Angeles Times. He spent 15 years reporting from the Middle East and North Africa for CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera English, and completed a one-year stint in 2007 with the International Committee for the Red Cross protecting the rights of political prisoners, the missing, and refugees in Beirut.

He received a Peabody Award in 2011 alongside his CNN colleagues for his coverage of the Arab Spring, and co-authored Egyptian Freedom Story: a photo documentary of the January 25th revolution. In 2012, he received the Tom Renner Investigative Reporting Award for producing the CNN Freedom Project documentary series Death in the Desert, which exposes the trafficking of Sub-Saharan Africans to Israel.
In his role with CNN, he reported extensively on the fall of Hosni Mubarak during the January 25th revolution and on the Syrian uprising. He travelled to Libya during the early days of the revolution in 2011 and reported on the hunt for dictator Gaddafi, the formation of a transitional government and the rise of extremism.
In 2012, he covered the elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt and was the first western journalist to interview Mohamed Al Zawahiri, the brother of the Al Qaeda leader upon his release from prison.

In September 2013, he accepted the title of Al Jazeera English Bureau Chief in Cairo. In December of the same year the Egyptian authorities arrested him and his two colleagues and accused them of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood, designated as a terrorist group, and of fabricating news broadcast on Al Jazeera. He was unjustly convicted and imprisoned in the Tora maximum security prison where he spent a month in solitary confinement with a broken shoulder and over 438 days living with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. After unprecedented outcry from international press freedom organizations, the United Nations, and President Barack Obama, and the diplomatic community—and with the support of his attorney, Amal Clooney—he was finally pardoned of all charges and released in September of 2015.

While still in prison, Fahmy founded the Fahmy Foundation: an NGO and non-profit based in Vancouver dedicated to supporting journalists and prisoners of conscience imprisoned worldwide. Upon his arrival to Canada he accepted a position as adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia in the Centre for Applied Ethics

Mr. Fahmy published an opinion piece on 17 Feb on the Trump travel ban. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/trump-travel-ban-1.3986343).

Date and Time
Wednesday March 1, 2017
5:30pm to 8:30pm

Venue
Union Club of BC
805 Gordon Street
Victoria, BC  V8W 1Z6

Registration
CIC Member Price $50.00
Non-Member Price $60.00

Event Contact
Paula Skippon | cic.victoria.sec@gmail.com