The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is welcoming journalist and author Michael Petrou to Winnipeg for a lecture about ISIS propaganda and its relation to the Yazidi genocide. 

Petrou will join Yazidi Winnipegger Nafiya Naso and CMHR President and CEO John Young to discuss the topic and answer questions from the public. It's part of the CMHR's new President's Lecture Series. 

Petrou's lecture will detail how ISIS spent enormous amounts of effort, resources and money into a propaganda campaign with the goal of seeding hatred and facilitating genocide. Petrou argues this campaign is comparable to Nazi propaganda that sparked the Holocaust during World War II, according to a CMHR release. 

Petrou says this campaign led to the genocide and enslavement of the Yazidi people, whose land was overrun by the ISIS in 2014. The United Nations declared Yazidis victims of genocide in 2016 when thousands were captured, murdered and sold into slavery. 

Yazidis are considered heretical by ISIS. 

Golden West reached out to Petrou for an interview through the CMHR, but media relations manager Maureen Fitzhenry said in an email he was in transit, as his flight to Winnipeg was delayed so he wasn't available. 

CMHR Interpretive Program Developer, Angeliki Bogiatji says for people who attend tonight's lecture, it will be a unique opportunity to talk to people with close connections to a tragic human rights event. 

"Hopefully this dialogue can lead to deeper reflection and inspire action from people in defending human rights," Bogiatji said. "In this case they will be able to get some insight into the experiences of someone who was there and someone who has done a lot of field work covering countries affected by the Islamic State." 

"It is also very important the format of this event tonight will give the opportunity for the public to reflect on human rights around the world and in Canada." 

Bogiatji says the next lecture in the President's Series will take place sometime in March, and the majority of the remaining lectures will focus on Indigeous struggles in Canada. 

For more information on tonight's event, ticket prices and the President's Lecture Series, visit humanrights.ca.