Guest Speakers

EHAB LOTAYEF

Keynote Speaker
Poet ~ Montreal, Quebec, Canada
www.ece.mcgill.ca/~ehab

A writer, photographer, activist and engineer,  Ehab Lotayef was born in Egypt and grew up moving between countries and cultures to finally settle in Montreal in 1989.   Ehab writes poetry in both Arabic and English.  He is also a songwriter collaborating frequently with Toronto's composer/performer Maryem Toller.  Ehab is also a playwright.  His play, "Crossing Gibraltar", was produced by the CBC in 2005.

Ehab travelled to Iraq in 2003 after the war and spent three weeks in the "liberated" country, talking to people, taking photos and writing about what he saw to convey the reality to the Canadian people without distortion or manipulation. 

In January 2005 Ehab travelled to occupied Palestine where he lived the occupation, sieges, road blocks and the check points with the indigenous population and monitored (in no official way) the presidential elections. In December 2005 he travelled to Iraq again to speak out in the name of Canadian Muslims and Arabs for the CPT hostages.