Ten Years After: Out of the Shadow of Terror
To mark the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Cape Ann Forum is hosting Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Joe Stork, to speak on the revolutionary upheavals now sweeping the Arab world and what they mean to us.
From Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, young Arab men and women have risen up to challenge deeply entrenched, repressive regimes with varying degrees of success but few signs of a let-up. In August the protests spread to Israel as Jewish and Arab activists set up tent camps to call for reforms there. What does this mean for the region, and how does the death of Osama bin Laden fit in to these events?
Joe Stork, whose engagement with the region goes back 40 years and who frequently travels there for Human Rights Watch (HRW), will address these and other questions at a special Cape Ann Forum designed to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.
Stork supervises HRW field staff, conducts field investigations, and drafts reports and recommendations for policymakers. He consults regularly with officials in the U.S., Europe and the region, as well as with global media, on behalf of Human Rights Watch. His current work focuses on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by states and armed groups, particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and freedom of religion issues in Egypt.
A former Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey, Stork co-founded the Middle East Research & Information Project (MERIP) in 1971 and was the chief editor of Middle East Report, its bimonthly magazine, until 1995 when he joined HRW. His articles on Middle East developments have appeared in The Nation, the Middle East Journal, World Policy Journal, Index on Censorship, Le Monde Diplomatique, Colliers Encyclopedia, the Oxford Companion to World Politics, and other journals and books.
Stork’s reports for HRW include Torture Redux: Bahrain’s Revival of Physical Coercion during Interrogation (2010), Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom in Egypt (2007), and Erased in a Moment: Suicide Bombing Attacks against Israeli Civilians (2002). His essay “Three Decades of Human Rights Activism in the Middle East and North Africa: An Ambiguous Balance Sheet” appeared in Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa (2011).
From 1999 to 2006 Stork chaired the Middle East Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom. In 2006-2007, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World in the Netherlands. He has also served as an advisor to the American Friends Service Committee, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Iraq Revenue Watch project of the Open Society Institute.