The United Nations has invited a Black Lives Matter activist to participate in a high-level debate in New York on human rights, with a particular focus on “combatting discrimination and inequalities.”

The two-day U.N. event Tuesday and Wednesday comes amid tensions over last week’s police shootings of two black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, and the killing by a gunman of five police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest march in Dallas.

Hosted by U.N. General Assembly president Mogens Lykketoft, the event entitled “Human Rights at the center of the global agenda” involves keynote speeches, a plenary debate among ministers from U.N. member-states, and three “interactive segments.”

The panel for the first of the three includes Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi and three other participants – the U.N. “special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism,” the executive director of U.N. Women, and a disabilities advocate.

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