David Matas
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David Matas (b. 1943) is the senior legal counsel of B'nai Brith Canada. He has maintained a private practice in refugee, immigration and human rights law since 1979. He has published various books and manuscripts and currently resides in Winnipeg.
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[edit] Education
David Matas was born in Winnipeg. He obtained a B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1964, and a masters of Arts from Princeton University in 1965. In 1967, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Jurisprudence) from the University of Oxford, England, and in 1968 he obtained a Bachelor of Civil Law. In 1969, he became a Middle Temple United Kingdom Barrister, and he joined the Bar of Manitoba in 1971.
[edit] Government work
Matas served as a Law Clerk to the Chief Justice Supreme Court of Canada in 1968-69, and was a member of the Foreign Ownership Working Group, Government of Canada, and was special assistant to the Solicitor General of Canada in 1971-72.
He served as a member of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, the Task Force on Immigration Practices & Procedures, the Canadian delegation to the United Nations Conference on an International Criminal Court 1998, the Canadian Delegation to the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, and since 1997 the Director of the International Centre for Human Rights & Democratic Development,
[edit] Teaching work
Mr. Matas has also taught constitutional law at McGill University, Introductory Economics, Canadian Economic Problems, International Law, Civil Liberties, and Immigration & Refugee Law, at the University of Manitoba.
[edit] Politics
He ran for the Canadian House of Commons in the Canadian federal election, 1980 from the Winnipeg—Assiniboine district.[citation needed]
[edit] Human rights work
He has been actively involved as Director of the International Defence & Aid Fund for South Africa in Canada, Director of Canada-South Africa Cooperation, Co-chair Canadian Helsinki Watch Group, Director Manitoba Association of Rights & Liberties, Amnesty International, B'nai Brith Canada, the Canadian Bar Association, the International Commission of Jurists, Canadian Jewish Congress, and Canadian Council for Refugees.
He has represented Lai Changxing in his extradition proceedings.[citation needed]
David Matas is the co-author of Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China, which comes to the conclusion that since 2000 the Chinese government has been using Falun Gong practitioners as a live organ bank. The report presents evidence that practitioners are kept in forced labor camps and jails, blood and urine tested, and when an organ is needed for transplant they are killed, their organs taken, and their bodies incinerated. As of September 2007, Matas maintains that the evidence in this report has not been refuted by any party.
[edit] External links
Biography on Canadian Jewish Law Students Association site[1]
Biography on B'nai Brith Canada site[2]
Aftershock: Anti-Zionism & Antisemitism by David Matas (Dundurn(Toronto),2005)[3]
