Tara Vassefi Joins WITNESS As Video As Evidence Legal Fellow

WITNESS is pleased to announce lawyer, Tara Vassefi, as a Video as Evidence Legal Fellow. Tara will be working on the Middle East and North Africa Jurisprudence Study, examining various jurisdictions in the region and how they consider video as evidence.

Tara Vassefi, WITNESS Video as Evidence Legal Fellow

Tara Vassefi, WITNESS Video as Evidence Legal Fellow

Tara recently graduated from the American University Washington College of Law, where she was a recipient of the JD Distinguished Fellowship award. She specialized in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and worked as a Dean’s Fellow with the War Crimes Research Office advising institutional clients on specialized legal issues in the areas of international criminal and humanitarian law.

She also spent a year as a student attorney with the AU International Human Rights Law Clinic where her clients ranged from asylum-seekers to a Mexican collective of victims of the drug war filing a petition with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.

Prior to joining WITNESS and throughout law school, she worked as a research analyst and education specialist for a U.S. Department of Defense program that provides graduate level education for military and civilian leaders to establish a regional, geopolitical, and cultural framework for analyzing and understanding the challenges of conducting full spectrum operations in unique and rapidly changing environments.

She studied Arabic in Damascus and Cairo and received an M.A. in International Relations with Middle Eastern Studies from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

The Video as Evidence Program collaborates with activists, human rights lawyers and international justice organizations to enhance the evidentiary value of video captured in the field. It includes the Video as Evidence Field Guide, a source for citizens, advocates and lawyers using video in human rights investigations and court cases at local, regional and international levels. 



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