Francis Chartrand for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles

Labels: France, Human mistake, Judaism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 2:58 AM 0 Comments

(New York) - While the government and rebel groups take steps toward ending the civil war in the Central African Republic (CAR), civilians in the northwestern part of the country are being abused at the hands of a variety of armed groups, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.

The 23-page briefing paper, "Improving Civilian Protection in the Central African Republic," released following a round of peace talks that began on December 5 in the capital, Bangui, urged the government to make civilian protection the highest priority and to adopt measures to protect civilians better in insecure areas in the country's lawless northwest. It also urged the United Nations and regional groups to support this effort.

"The people in this area are at the mercy of uncontrolled armed groups and gangs of armed bandits," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The government should be making every effort to protect them, beginning with expanding military patrols and making clear that attackers will not get away with their crimes."

In 2008, Human Rights Watch documented attacks against civilians in the region by rebels from the Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and of Democracy (Armée populaire pour la restauration de la République et la démocratie, APRD) and by elements of the Chadian National Army (Armée Nationale du Tchad, ANT).

Human Rights Watch also documented violent abuses by loosely organized bandits, known as zaraguinas, who are a huge threat to civilians in the northern part of the country.

The government's regular Central African Armed Forces (Forces Armées Centrafricaines, FACA) has been ineffective in protecting civilians from these armed groups, largely because it lacks the capacity, but also because of the way it operates. Many units are confined to Bangui, and when they go to the danger zones, they do not conduct regular patrols and generally venture no further than a few kilometers from the towns in which they are based. In some instances documented by Human Rights Watch, government forces did not give civilians effective warning of impending military operations and used indiscriminate lethal force, killing civilians during military operations.

"The mere deployment of security forces that are poorly armed, badly trained, or are not strategically mobilized to safeguard civilians is clearly failing to achieve the necessary protection," Gagnon said. "If the government sends out well-trained, well-equipped soldiers beyond the capital and the immediate vicinity of army bases, it will be able to protect civilians more effectively."

Last year, the FACA assumed primary responsibility for security in the northwest from the government's elite Presidential Guard, which had summarily executed and seriously abused civilians while conducting counterinsurgency operations in the region from 2005 to 2007. Human Rights Watch reported on these abuses in a September 2007 report, "State of Anarchy: Rebellion and Abuses Against Civilians".

The withdrawal of most Presidential Guard units from the northwest reduced government attacks against civilians in the region. But the individuals known to be responsible for the worst human rights abuses during 2005-2007 have yet to answer for their crimes.

"The lack of accountability is one of the major impediments to protecting human rights and establishing the rule of law in the Central African Republic," said Gagnon. "The government is required to investigate and prosecute those responsible for rights violations, and failure to do so can lead to even more serious abuses."

While the government bears primary responsibility for improving civilian protection, regional and multinational organizations may be in a position to enhance those efforts. Both the United Nations and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) have sent missions to the Central African Republic, including peacekeeping troops, which can augment government efforts to improve civilian protection in the northwest by conducting patrols in insecure areas.

The United Nations Peace-Building Support Office in the Central African Republic (Bureau d'appui des Nations Unies pour la consolidation de la paix en République centrafricaine, BONUCA) can help counter impunity by monitoring judicial proceedings and facilitating practical aspects of investigations such as transportation and forensics.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) can also support efforts to ensure accountability for international crimes by encouraging domestic judicial processes. If the government is unable or unwilling to hold those responsible for war crimes to account, the ICC may have jurisdiction.

Background

The country's current president, François Bozizé, came to power in 2003 after deposing Ange-Félix Patassé in a coup d'etat. Bozizé was elected president in 2005 elections that were considered free and fair but that excluded Patassé. Shortly thereafter, rebellion broke out in Patassé's home region in the northwest.

The main rebel group there, the Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (Armée Populaire pour la restauration de la République et la Démocratie, APRD), largely consisted of elements of Patassé's Presidential Guard. A separate rebellion in the northeastern part of the country, led by the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (Union des forces démocratiques pour le rassemblement, UFDR), consisted mainly of soldiers who helped bring Bozizé to power but later turned against him for failing to compensate them adequately for their support. A third group, the Democratic Front of the Central African People (Front démocratique du peuple centrafricain, FDPC), was led by Abdoulaye Miskine, a Chadian with close ties to the Libyan government.

On June 21, 2008, the Popular Army and the Union of Democratic Forces signed a peace accord that extended a general amnesty to all parties to the conflict (except individuals accused of war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, or any offense within the jurisdiction of the ICC) and prepared the groundwork for an internationally mediated Inclusive Political Dialogue (Dialogue Politique Inclusif) between the government, former rebel factions and civil society groups. An opening round of peace talks was held in Bangui from December 5 to 20.

Link

Labels: Central African Republic, Human rights, Human Rights Watch, Iba Bouramine

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 10:56 PM 0 Comments

(Rabat, December 19, 2008) - Morocco violates the rights to expression, association, and assembly in Western Sahara, Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued today, revealing stark limits to the progress that Morocco has made in protecting human rights overall. Human rights conditions have also improved in the Sahrawi refugee camps managed by the Polisario Front in Algeria, although the Polisario marginalizes those who directly oppose its leadership.

Human Rights Watch called on both Morocco and Polisario to take specific steps to improve the human rights situation in the territories under their de facto control, and on the United Nations Security Council to ensure regular human rights monitoring in both Western Sahara and Tindouf.

"The repression has eased somewhat, and today dissidents are testing the red lines," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "But Moroccan authorities - to their credit - ask us to judge them not against their own past record, but against their international human rights engagements. By that standard, they have a long way to go."

The 216-page report, "Human Rights in Western Sahara and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps," focuses on the present-day situation rather than on past abuses. Human Rights Watch documents how Morocco uses a combination of repressive laws, police violence, and unfair trials to punish Sahrawis who advocate peacefully in favor of independence or full self-determination for the disputed Western Sahara.

"The Western Sahara is an international problem that has been on the back burner for decades," said Whitson. "But through this conflict, the world can also understand and address the broader human rights challenges that remain for Morocco."

In Western Sahara, Moroccan authorities consider all opposition to their rule of the disputed territory as illegal attacks on Morocco's "territorial integrity," and use this as a basis to ban or disperse peaceful demonstrations and to deny legal recognition to human rights organizations. The problem goes well beyond repressive laws, however: police beat peaceful pro-independence demonstrators and sometimes torture persons in their custody, Human Rights Watch said. Citizens file formal complaints about police abuse that the justice system routinely dismisses without conducting serious investigations, reinforcing a climate of impunity for the police.

While Sahrawi demonstrations sometimes involve acts of protester violence that Moroccan authorities have a responsibility to prevent and punish, this cannot justify blanket bans on peaceful assemblies. Moroccan courts have convicted Sahrawi human rights activists of inciting or participating in violence based on dubious evidence, in trials that were patently unfair.

In preparing this report, Human Rights Watch interviewed scores of people living in Western Sahara as well as present and former residents of the Tindouf refugee camps. Both Moroccan and Polisario authorities received the Human Rights Watch delegation, imposed no significant obstacles on its work, and provided extensive answers to questions from Human Rights Watch that are reflected in the report.

In the Tindouf refugee camps, the Polisario Front allows refugees to criticize its management of daily affairs, but effectively marginalizes those who directly oppose its leadership. Residents are able to leave the camps if they wish to, including to resettle in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. The fact that most take the main road to Mauritania rather than a clandestine route shows their confidence in being allowed to travel. Yet, those headed to Western Sahara tend to hide their plans, fearing both official obstacles and the disapproval of other camp residents if their final destination becomes known.

The population of the camps remains vulnerable to abuses due to the camps' isolated location, the lack of any regular independent human rights monitoring and reporting, and Algeria's claim that the Polisario, rather than Algeria itself, is responsible for protecting the human rights of the camps' residents.

"The refugees in Tindouf have, for more than 30 years, lived in exile from their homeland, governed by a liberation movement in an environment that is physically harsh and isolated," said Whitson. "Regardless of the current state of affairs, both the Polisario and the host country, Algeria, have responsibilities to ensure that the rights of these vulnerable refugees are protected."

Human Rights Watch said that the UN Security Council should ensure that the UN presence in the region includes regular human rights monitoring. Virtually all UN peacekeeping missions around the world include a human rights component and, with MINURSO forces operating in a peacekeeper capacity in Western Sahara, this region should be no exception. In this, France and the United States, as the permanent Security Council members with the strongest interests in this region, have a critical role to play.

Among its many recommendations, Human Rights Watch urges Morocco to:

• Revise or abolish laws that criminalize speech and political or associative activities deemed affronts to Morocco's "territorial integrity" and that are used to suppress nonviolent advocacy in favor of Sahrawi political rights;
  
• End impunity for police abuses by ensuring serious investigations into civilian complaints and, where warranted, charges or disciplinary measures against abusive agents;
  
• Allow independent human rights associations to follow the procedure for obtaining legal recognition; and
  
• Ensure that courts reach verdicts based on the impartial weighing of all relevant evidence. Judges and prosecutors should give effect to suspects' right under Moroccan law to demand medical examinations, and reject as evidence any statement that is established to have been made as a result of police torture.

Human Rights Watch urges the Polisario Front to:

• Take pro-active measures so that all camp residents know that they are free to leave the camps, including to settle in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara;
  
• Ensure that camp residents are free to challenge peacefully the leadership of the Polisario Front and to advocate options for Western Sahara other than independence; and
  
• Eliminate or restrict broadly worded articles of the Polisario penal code that, for example, criminalize the printing of publications or participating in demonstrations deemed "likely to disturb the public order."

Morocco has ruled Western Sahara de facto since its troops moved in following Spain's withdrawal from its former colony in 1976. Morocco officially refers to the region as its "southern provinces," but the United Nations does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty.

Morocco opposed as unworkable a UN-brokered plan for a referendum on the territory's future and has proposed autonomy for the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty. Morocco has made clear, however, that the plan envisages no rollback of laws criminalizing "attacks on territorial integrity." Thus, Moroccan-granted autonomy will not give Sahrawis their right to demand independence or a referendum to decide the region's future.

"Sahrawis differ on how to resolve the conflict," said Whitson. "But wherever they live, authorities must allow them peacefully to express and act on behalf of those views. Any proposed solution for the Western Sahara that does not guarantee these rights is no solution at all."

Human Rights Watch takes no position on the issue of independence for Western Sahara or on Morocco's proposal for regional autonomy.

Link

Labels: Human rights, Human Rights Watch, Marie-Êve Marineau, Morocco

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 10:40 PM 0 Comments

Hello to all the team of Point de Bascule,

I would like to congratulate you to be standing (to congratulate someone for having held a moment imagine), you are an example for the nation and a model for youth and I am not even exaggerating.

First let me introduce myself, Francis Chartrand, former NDP candidate in the district of Rivière-des-Mille-Iles in the 2006 federal election, at the age of 23 years. I say "ex" because it was one year this week, December 16, I had the news in the media (Toronto Star) that I would be more candidate for a second consecutive election. I was removed from my position as candidate along with Micheline Montreuil, in the riding of Quebec.

Following an internal party battle, statements and piracy on my blog, resignations of several of my brothers and sisters as solidarity, based on a petition campaign salissage, I later learned, 6 days later than that was because of my positions on reasonable accommodations, and I asked that the NDP chose to make Canada a secular state and secular at the same time adopting a constitution and secular separating the powers of the state and religions, now not only the state and church, and preventing the integration movement and fundamentalist religious fanatics as lobbyists with the Supreme Court of Canada and as lobbyists religious fundamentalists. While members of several organizations give me their support as Quebecers Lay Movement, the Association of Maghreb Laurentians, and many citizens of Arab origin, Algerian and Moroccan living in the Lower Laurentians themselves, the NDP, they I dealt with racism, Islamophobia and "asshole of 450 to exterminate" and even said to me: "Get Converted to Islam, therefore, try it, this religion, it will not kill you anyway."

It is worth mentioning that all members of the local association of the NDP had been suspended indefinitely from January to August this year because almost all members (98% of the 289 members of Riviere-des-Mille-Iles) had chosen to support me in my struggle when I'm finally show the door by my party last February, which had the effect of "punish" the dissenting members for failing to honor the party, instead of investigating the association and a vote of confidence.

We got wind of this suspension, my team and me, because members had joined the NDP headquarters in Montreal in December of last year and were answering the phone that no statement should be called to newspapers , and argues that they were having made under penalty of suspension of membership cards. Members also were suspended in Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel, Marc-Aurele-Fortin, Terrebonne-Blainville, Montcalm, Alfred Pellan, Laval and Laval-Les Iles, probably totaling more than 500 suspensions card members and without notice, until we learn in August.

Then later, in an attempt to introduce myself as an independent candidate in federal elections, which is what me and my team were currently working in my county Rivière-des-Mille-Iles, on the North Shore of Montreal, planes knew that a campaign was salissage good wind in the region. Some "volunteers", obviously from the NDP, because they had a badge of the NDP in the neck, were door to door in Deux-Montagnes, St. Eustatius and Boisbriand.

The point of this campaign salissage was to make me pass me and my colleagues, Christian Barrette, a former candidate for the swearing-in Alfred Pellan, Alexandre Laberge, former secretary in the Association for the NDP riding Riviere-des-Mille-Iles and Anne Humphreys, a former candidate for the swearing-in Marc-Aurele Fortin for racists, xenophobes, the Islamophobic and even anti-Semites. As these volunteers were first tour of some 289 members of the association council, even at home, distributing a pamphlet without photo or image showing that I was racist because I was standing and held firmly against the reasonable accommodation on a religious point of view.

Thereafter, I do not believe my eyes or my ears. For a weekend of August, more than 60 former members had joined my campaign regional committee by telephone that they were intimidated during the door-to-door by 2 "volunteers" from the NDP. They were male, showed a membership of the county of Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine, and do not hindered to treat guests in their own house, "fucking racist" and "fucking suburban people" , "residents of 450 to exterminate" and even of "cursed Quebecois against Sharia", because yes, these volunteers was apparently the promotion of cultural diversity including Sharia.

If they try to save face in their party, they have the right to keep the members they can, but they are in compliance. In election campaign, it is always up to be respectful to a citizen who opens his door, as citizens, voters and even members of the party attached to his home is not affected by our politics, in quite possibly has nothing to sperm washing machine sal cultural groups in Montreal and is entitled to its peacefulness. Those who do not know what this message means, have an interest in releasing the door to door. Did we get involved in the election campaign in Saint-Lambert and Westmount-Saint-Louis? No.

Another point made me jump. What kind of hypocrisy can we have against members or former members of the NDP while volunteers seeking a "support against" against me, or even a renewal of a membership card, or even seek a member to its door to promote cultural diversity including the Sharia, while its membership card is suspended for 7 months out of disciplinary action to seek censorship on the part of members? And they dare call this party, democratic?

The days passed, and came the federal election, where you have hit the electoral team of the NDP candidate in Bourassa, Samira Laoun. Tell yourself that this day, you did my revenge, and I Jubilee joy and relief when you had shown evidence of hate propaganda on the part of Mohamed Elmasry. And what about the statements wise Tarek Fatah, which does not mince words against Jack Layton, Thomas Mulcair, and of course, Yvonne Ridley. As for me, I preferred to put my political career aside, temporarily, the time to take a breath again, after I was operated by the throat and lungs, where does my 4 tumors.

Thank you for you to take my old party, even when I am forbidden to be racist, I was threatened with prosecution. Why, for bitch? NDP: New Democratic Party? No, New disciplinary procedure. (Make sure you crush, say you like it with a forced smile, and shut up!) When a 25-year old, which is a known activist in his community with an impeccable reputation and transparent and that be demolished as the proponents of religious pluralism NDP did, believe me, it eats a slap. But when we realize that our ideas are repeated and repeated by others, such as you at Point de Bascule, it is good for the conscience to know that we are not in the field.

My life takes its breath and lay my struggle continues, and in addition to the fight against poverty which I am at every moment, as well as that for press freedom. I am "politician" and I believe in you. Good work.

Francis Chartrand

Labels: Francis Chartrand, Hostile races, Islam, New Democratic Party, Religion and fanaticism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 9:50 PM 0 Comments

Labels: Québec, Secularism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 1:36 AM 0 Comments

Labels: Action Démocratique du Québec, Québec, Religion and fanaticism, Secularism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 12:31 AM 0 Comments

(New York, December 16, 2008) - The UN Security Council should respond to escalating violations against children in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, including the recruitment of child soldiers and sexual violence, said Human Rights Watch in a letter sent on December 10, 2008, to Security Council members. The Security Council's working group on children and armed conflict is expected to meet this week to consider action on this issue.

At least 175 children have been forcibly recruited into armed service since heavy fighting resumed in August between the Congolese army (FARDC) and the rebel group led by Laurent Nkunda, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP). There are reports that the number may be much higher. Scores of girls have been raped by parties to the conflict. Human Rights Watch observed some of these abuses in a visit last week.

"We wish Security Council members could have been with our researchers," said Jo Becker, children's rights advocate at Human Rights Watch. "The sight of drugged children carrying AK-47s might convince them that they should take stronger action to end the recruitment and rape of children and hold the guilty parties accountable."

Human Rights Watch researchers visited Nyamilima and Ishasha in North Kivu province, where they saw at least 30 children guarding barricades and patrolling the streets with weapons they could barely carry. Some were as young as 12, and four were girls. They were operating in areas now controlled by Mai Mai militias and the Rwandan armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

In some areas of Rutshuru and Masisi territories in North Kivu, Nkunda's rebels and other armed groups have gone door-to-door to force young boys and adults, some as young as 14, into their service. In other areas the group has recruited boys as young as 12 near displaced persons' camps. Some have been sent into combat without military training.

Pro-government Mai Mai groups recruited dozens of children for military service in late October, and the Congolese army has also recruited children to transport and distribute weapons.

Worldwide, 14 parties to armed conflict have been identified since 2002 by the UN secretary-general for consistent and repeated violations of international laws that prohibit the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Four of these "persistent violators" are currently recruiting children in the DRC - the Congolese army (FARDC), the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), pro-government Mai Mai groups, and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"Tragically, many of the children recently taken are ‘re-recruits,' who have already gone through demobilization programs," said Becker. "These programs are too brief, and the children urgently need more support and protection from being recruited again once they return to their families."

Human Rights Watch has also documented rapes of girls and women by Congolese army soldiers and by combatants of the CNDP, FDLR and Mai Mai militias. Dozens of women and girls from Nyamilima and Ishasha have been raped in recent weeks by Mai Mai combatants, including girls as young as 9 years old, attacked while working in the fields or sleeping in their houses at night. Some witnesses credit FDLR combatants with trying to restrain Mai Mai abuses, but in many areas both groups have collaborated in attacks.

Nkunda's soldiers raped at least 16 women and girls in late October and November following their takeover of Rutshuru and Kiwanja. Congolese army soldiers fleeing an advance by the group raped more than a dozen women and girls as they fled Goma on October 29.

Tens of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the war began in 1998, and a recent report from the secretary-general found that between June 2007 and June 2008, the UN recorded 5,517 cases of sexual violence against children in Ituri and North and South Kivu - 31 percent of all sexual violence victims.

Human Rights Watch called on the European Union to urgently send a "bridging" force to eastern Congo to help UN peacekeepers stop further attacks on civilians, including children. Human Rights Watch wrote (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/09/european-union-deploy-bringing-force-north-kivu-eastern-drc ) to EU heads of state on December 9, asking them to deploy such a force quickly in eastern Congo following an earlier request from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the EU.

Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to:

• Take measures, including additional sanctions, against parties responsible for the recruitment and use of child soldiers, and rape and sexual violence;
  
• Urge members of the Security Council and governments in the region to apprehend individuals wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), including the CNDP chief of staff, Bosco Ntaganda, who is accused by the ICC of crimes relating to child soldiers in Ituri in 2002 and 2003; and
  
• Ensure that UNICEF, the UN peacekeeping mission MONUC, and other relevant UN agencies receive adequate resources and personnel to promote the demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers, including girls associated with armed groups.

Statements by children

(All names below have been changed to protect the children's privacy.)

Anthony

Anthony was one of an estimated 50 children and dozens of adults forcibly recruited in mid-September by rival forces, CNDP and PARECO, just outside the displaced persons' camp in Ngungu (Masisi territory). His family had fled to Ngungu days earlier, after the two groups fought in their home village, Numbi:

"Five CNDP soldiers stopped me on the road in the middle of the day. They sent me with a large group of other men and boys - some as young as 12, others as old as 40 - to Murambi, where they said we would transport boxes of ammunition for the rebel soldiers. They beat us badly so we couldn't resist. When we got to Murambi, they didn't order us to transport boxes, but instead gave us military uniforms and taught us how to use weapons. Then, after three days, they put us all in an underground prison. We stayed there for four days, and new recruits joined us every day. On the fourth day, they called us out of the prison and took us to Karuba. That night, I managed to escape with two other recruits, and we ran all the way back to Ngungu. The others who remained behind were sent to Kitchanga for military training."

When Anthony and the others arrived in Ngungu, they sought refuge at the MONUC base. Like many fighters who choose to disarm or who escape forced recruitment, they were handed over to Congolese authorities, who sent them to the military intelligence prison in Goma (known as the T2) as a transit point on their way to demobilization camps. Detainees are often held at T2 for weeks or months without charge and are subjected to cruel and degrading treatment; some are tortured. After five days without eating, Anthony managed to escape and sought refuge at a MONUC base in Goma.

"I want to go back to our home in Numbi," Anthony said. "But I'm scared. If the CNDP soldiers find me there, they will kill me."

Marie

Marie is a 16-year-old girl who was raped by a CNDP soldier in a farm outside Rutshuru on October 29, just after the group took control of the town:

"The day the CNDP arrived in Rutshuru, they pillaged my neighborhood and shot and killed two boys, so I decided to flee to Goma. I ran through the farms on the edge of Rutshuru and met two Tutsi soldiers with guns and spears. They stopped me in the farm. I was alone. One of the soldiers spoke Kinyarwanda, and the other spoke Swahili. They said, ‘We're going to kill you.' Then they put a knife on my arm. I said, ‘No, please pardon me.' Then they said, ‘The only way we can pardon you is if we rape you.' They cut my clothes off with the knife. One of the soldiers raped me from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. There was blood everywhere. Then when the second soldier wanted to start, there were lots of gunshots nearby and they left, saying that if I fled they would kill me. After that, I managed to escape and made it to Kibati [a large displacement camp outside Goma]. I'm still in a lot of pain, but I don't have any medicine and there's no one here to treat me."

Liliane

Liliane lives in a displaced persons camp in Rutshuru. She was raped when she went back to her village to look for something to eat:

"One time, when I tried to go back to my village, the FDLR stopped me and raped me. They took me on the side of the road, near the village Buhuga. There were eight FDLR combatants. I was with seven other girls. All of us were raped. The other girls were from my village, but they don't live in this camp. They took us at 2 p.m. and let us go the next day at 4 p.m. We spent the night with them and then they let us go. One soldier raped me; there was one soldier for each girl. They abused us badly. They used their weapons to threaten us, but they didn't use them against us. I was 17 years old when this happened. The other girls were 16, 17, and 18 years old. I studied until the sixth primary level, but I can't study now that I'm displaced. I just want the FDLR and the CNDP to leave so I can return home and continue my life."

Link

Labels: Children, Congo, Human rights, Human Rights Watch, Renata Daninsky

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 6:23 PM 0 Comments

The book by Imam Al-Hayiti is here (in French).

BACKGROUND

On 11 April 2008, I filed a complaint for "hate propaganda" on the Internet before the Canadian Human Rights Commission against a Salafi Imam of Montreal, Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus Al-Hayiti. The purpose of my complaint was to test the objectivity of the Commission. My complaint relates to the imam’s book L’Islam ou l’Intégrisme ? À la lumière du Qor’an et de la Sounnah (Islam or Fundamentalism ? In light of the Qor’an and the Sunna), (2006/2007), 3rd edition corrected. Imam Abou H., who is fluent in Arabic, attended universities in Saudi Arabia where he studied Islam and the science of Hadiths. His teachings can therefore be perceived as authoritative with respect to Islam.

My complaint under section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (the "Act") claims that the writings of the imam are supremacist and expose persons belonging to the following groups to hatred or contempt : homosexuals, Infidels (non-Muslims), women, Jews, Quebecois (as an ethnic group and national minority).

On December 5, I received a letter fom Stéphane Brisson of the Commission informing me that they will not proceed to investigate my complaint. In the opinion of the Commission, the writings of the imam are not likely to expose persons from identifiable groups to hatred or contempt. Below is a translated excerpt of the letter of the Commission, followed by translated excerpts of the book of the Imam that I brought to the attention of the Commission in support of my complaint :

EXCERPT FROM THE LETTER OF THE COMMISSION

“ ...the majority of the references in “Islam or Fundamentalism” are to “infidels”, “miscreants” or “western women”. These are general, broad and diversified categories that do not constitute an “identifiable group” under Section 13 of the Act. As we have also mentioned, the extracts that identify groups on the basis of prohibited grounds of discrimination (homosexuals, lesbians, Christians, Jews) do not seem to promote “hatred” or “contempt” according to the criteria set forth in the Taylor case. Therefore, the document on which the complaint is based does not seem to meet the requirements of Section 13 of the Act for a complaint.”

BOOK EXCERPTS

Homosexuals

• Homosexuality is a "perversion"
  
• Homosexuals "spread disorder on earth"
  
• Homosexuals and lesbians should be "exterminated in this life"
  
• "Homosexuals caught performing sodomy are beheaded"

Infidels

• Most Infidels “live like animals”
  
• "they are evil people, they love perversity", and "they are our enemies"
  
• "sending our sons and daughters to the schools of the Infidels has devastating effects on their beliefs, their behavior and their character. For the children of Infidels are the most pervert children. At a very early age, they adopt the behavior of their parents "
  
• "Moreover, attending schools with Infidels may lead to friendship in their heart for Infidel children, which contradicts the foundations of Islam. Because Islam prohibits befriending even the closest relatives if they are Infidels"
  
• "there is no doubt that it is not permissible for a Muslim to love or to take as friend whoever follows a religion other than Islam"
  
• "Infidels say they are open-minded, but in reality they have opened their mind to garbage and filth, and closed it to all that is pure and right !"

Men are superior to women

• "men are superior to women and better than them". In general, "men have a more complete intellect and memory than women"
  
• "Infidels acknowledge this reality, but they do not want to accept the truth because they are blinded by their passions"

Muslim women are superior to Infidel women

• "The veiled Muslim woman is a light in the darkness of the 20th century, she carries the torch of modesty, of chastity and of Islamic values"
  
• "She brings the liberating message of "LA ILAHA ILLALLAH" to the poor western woman who has lost her femininity, her dignity and her honor and who is now crying for her savior"
  
• The consequences of immodesty are "rape, venereal diseases, AIDS, herpes, single-parent families, crime, poverty, ignorance and many others"
  
• "Infidels will never admit that these social problems are the result of their refusal to submit to Allah, because they are consumed with pride"
  
• "... male Infidels wanted to liberate women only for economic reasons (cheap labor) and to sexually exploit them"
  
• “male Infidels will not be happy with us until our women are in their beds, in their magazines and in their dancing clubs !”
  
• "If a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim man ... their marriage is invalid, in fact it is adultery"

Ethnic groups are not equal

• "Can we doubt the superiority of Islamic principles over the corrupt principles of Eastern and Western cultures ? Culture is based on the beliefs of a nation. The superior culture is the one closest to the revelation of Allah !"
  
• "This is the reason why ethnic groups are not equal"

Muslims are superior to Infidels

• "... a Muslim must never put his brother in Islam at the same level as an Infidel. In fact, to place Infidels at equality with Muslims is one of the greatest form of ignorance and injustice"
  
• "The rule is that the most disobedient among Muslims is better than the most virtuous, the most polite, the most honest and the most loyal among the Infidels"
  
• "The Muslim nation is actually the most balanced and the most righteous"

Christianity

• "It is because of this religion of lies, which goes against human nature, that the West is now full of perversity, corruption and adultery"

Jews

• Jews "spread corruption and chaos on earth"
  
• Most Jews "seek only material goods and money, apart from that, they have nothing"
  
• Jews "unjustly occupy" Palestine for the sole purpose of "filling this land with corruption and transgress the laws of Allah in the name of secularism"

Slavery

• "owning slaves is not prohibited"
  
• "Allah has allowed men to marry two, three or four women, but one who fears he will not be fair can marry only one or have slaves."

Democracy is contrary to Islam. Jihad is a duty of sedition

• "Democracy is a system in total contradiction with Islam"
  
• "... freedom is unknown in Islam, it contradicts Islam, therefore it is a false concept"
  
• "[freedom] serves to justify corruption" and "stooping to the lowest levels of bestiality"
  
• "Freedom of conscience is actually freedom to leave Islam !"
  
• “Anyone who leaves Islam, cut his neck”
  
• "no matter how it is understood and applied ... secularism is a pure negation of Islam"
  
• "If Muslims are strong and they have the ability to fight the Infidel ruler, to overthrow him from power and replace him with a Muslim ruler, it is mandatory for them to do so. This is part of Jihad in the path of Allah"
  
• "injustice will never disappear from the face of the earth before Islam and Sharia are properly applied throughout the world"
  
• "Islam commands us to destroy all idols", i.e. "democracy, human rights, secularism, freedom, equality, and modernity"
  
• in an Islamic state, Christians and Jews can keep their religion but they must pay a sum of money, the Jizyah. "The purpose of the Jizyah is to humiliate and punish Infidels to encourage them to accept Islam." The other Infidels (Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc.) have no options but to accept Islam or “be killed"

CONCLUSION

• If you belong to a minority, you can with impunity propagate hatred and contempt against the majority. You are not held to the same standards of tolerance, respect and civility as the majority. Equality under the law, according to the Commission, does not exist anymore.
  
• If you belong to a religious minority, you can with impunity propagate a supremacist ideology that also condones the extermination of other minorities, and of the majority, if this is the doctrine of your religion.
  
• If you belong to the majority and you expose the supremacist, totalitarian and anti-democratic ideology propagated by a minority, you risk being sued.

Link

Labels: Canada, Human rights

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 7:59 AM 0 Comments

A mosque asking that Canadian workplaces respect a strict Muslim dress code is at the same time disseminating slurs against Jews and Western societies, and warning members against social integration.

The Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque near Kipling Ave. and Rexdale Blvd. serves as the religious authority for eight Somali women complaining to the Canadian Human Rights Commission that UPS Canada Ltd. violated their religious rights at a sorting plant. The mosque, founded in 1990 and serving upwards of 10,000 people, preaches strict adherence to sharia, or Islamic law, and no compromise with the West.

Teachings on the mosque's website, khalidmosque.com, refer to non-Muslim Westerners as "wicked," "corrupt" and "our clear enemies."

Sometimes Jews are singled out.

"Is it permissible for women to wear high-heeled shoes?" begins one posting in question-and-answer format. "That is not permissible," comes the reply. "It involves resembling the Disbelieving Women or the wicked women. It has its origin among the Jewish women."

Modern pastimes are condemned.

"What is the ruling on subscribing to sports channels?" another question begins. "Watching some of the female spectators, when the camera focuses on them time after time" stirs "evil inclinations," the lesson reads. "Some (players) may not even believe in Allaah."

Mosque leaders refused repeated requests for an interview.

A disclaimer on the website says questions and answers do not necessarily reflect the mosque's views. But the About Us page says: "All questions and answers on this site (are) prepared, approved and supervised by (the mosque's imam) Bashir Yusuf Shiil."

The mosque's stand on the UPS case also appears contradictory.

In September, a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal heard two weeks of testimony from eight mosque members alleging "Islamophobia" at the company's west Toronto plant. Three final days of testimony are scheduled for next week.

The eight women, who lost their jobs at UPS, say Islam dictates that they wear a full-length skirt for modesty. The courier company insists that any skirt be knee-length for safety, as workers climb ladders up to 6 metres high.

Under their skirt, the women wear full-length trousers but say they do not want the lower part showing in case the shape of the calf can be discerned.

The complaint originally centred on the company's use of temporary workers and uneven enforcement of its safety rules.

But the key question remains: Is UPS insisting on shorter hems for safety or is it violating religious rights by denying the women permanent jobs unless they conform?

So far, no Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque representative has attended the sessions, but the women cited the mosque as their place of worship and religious authority, and tabled a letter from its administration. "This is to certify that the religion of Islam requires all Muslim women to cover her entire body inclusive of the legs, arms, head, ears and neck," the letter reads. "As such, (the women) would not be able to wear pants as an outfit."

On the other hand, the mosque's website teachings forbid women to work outside the home in the first place. "It is known that when women go to work in the workplaces of men, this leads to mixing with men," one such posting says.

"This is a very dangerous matter," it reads. "It is in clear opposition to the texts of the Shariah that order the women to remain in their houses and to fulfill the type of work that is particular for her ...

"We ask Allah to protect our land and the lands of all Muslims from the plots and machinations of their enemies."

Two of the women making the complaint – Dales Yusuf, 46, and Nadifo Yusuf (no relation), 36 – said in an interview that they live in Canada now, and are free to pick and choose from Islamic law.

"We must work," said Dales Yusuf. "I'm a single parent raising my kids." Jacquie Chic, a lawyer with the Workers' Action Centre representing the women at the hearings, said neither she nor her clients were aware of the mosque's posted teachings. "I, the Workers' Centre and these women are concerned enormously about any expression of anti-Semitism or any other form of racism," she said.

Questions to the mosque about its teachings were met with evasiveness over three weeks.

Mosque chairman Osman Mohamed three times agreed to an interview and three times cancelled at last minute. Imam Shiil was said to be in Saudi Arabia and unreachable. Mosque administrator Abukar Mohamed confused matters further by appearing to agree with UPS, saying: "The Quran says women must be covered – it doesn't give you the specific clothes. But I am not a religious authority."

Link

Labels: Canada, Islam, Marie-Êve Marineau, Religion and fanaticism, Secularism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 10:57 PM 0 Comments

For the Government, parents are irresponsible idiots ...

Here is the testimony of a parent who fled Algeria to escape Islam and who does not know of an ECR for his children:

"I had 8 000 km, without a penny to put my two children from Islam. I made a vacuum around me and I eliminated any of my relations who can tell them the good of the religion. Now we will serve them in school. They say that Christianity and Islam is the same message, but said differently. "

"They say that Jesus and Mohammed are equal and are all 2 of chic types and that Christians and Muslims should not quibble. It does not say that seeks chicane. They say that Jews and Muslims are brothers who are wrong to quibble and should live in harmony in Palestine as Andalusia and potatoes and potatoes. "

"Sooner or later, my children know my opinion or ask me questions. I then go to them for a liar and a villain. I had full opportunity to live this situation in Algeria, without needing to cross an ocean. I'm back to square one after 8000 km and years of toil. My God, no! it will not again. I'm exhausted. "

****

The absent are suspended

(Granby) The management of the school-Joseph-Hermas Leclerc Granby tough with students who are boycotting the course of ethics and religious culture. A fourth secondary student was suspended yesterday and five others received notice of suspension for next week. This is the beginning of a battle between the parents of these young people and the school board of Val-des-Cerfs.

Jonathan Gagné has been suspended for failing 20 hours of an ethics and religious culture (ECR). Since the beginning of the year, the teenager avoids the course, with the blessing of his parents.

So that he can return to class, they must sign a contract for reinstatement with the school. In the document, parents commit to compel their children to attend during RWCE.

"We will not sign the contract, says his mother, Diane Gagné, which is convened to school Monday morning. It continues to withdraw our son's progress. "

Expulsion

Without the label of his parents, Jonathan risk expulsion. The school board of Val-des-Cerfs confirms that it will apply the penalties prescribed in the Code of school life-H. J. Leclerc-against absenteeism.

"We have an obligation to put forward the basic school, said the general manager of the school board, Alain Lecours. A student absent, even partially, violates this rule. We must crack down. "

Sanctions code of life depend on the number of missed periods. They range from verbal warning to withdrawal from school, from suspensions of various durations.

According to the Education Act, a parent shall take the necessary means for their child attends school. "If the parent does not sign the contract for reinstatement, we're in a gray area, said Lecours. We can not readmit the young. It requires that parents find a solution with the school. "

Diane Gagné condemns this position. "We expect that Jonathan is deported Monday, regrets she says. It is very difficult, because it does not reverse its decision and neither have we. Especially since we have no real alternative than to change school or move to another province. "

As Jonathan 16, it could also attend adult school.

Non-motivated absences

The son of Linda Foisy, Xavier and Pierre-Elijah Lasnier, respectively will be suspended Monday and Tuesday. Like Diane Gagné, it will not sign for his children return to their being RWCE.

"I appeal to school almost every morning to justify their absence from the course, she says. The problem is that schools are considered as non-motivated absences. It calls into question my authority of a parent. They do not understand that this course was, it does not want to! "

The Coalition for Freedom in Education (CLE), a group of parents who oppose during RWCE, denounced this policy of school-J.-H. Leclerc.

"It's completely arbitrary. A student who is two weeks in Switzerland to ski with his parents will no reasoned, "is outraged spokesman Richard Decarie. According to him, the only honorable for the school board to resolve the impasse is to accept to exempt students. He argues that even if the price of RCT is mandatory, it is not necessary for graduation from high school.

Values

The Director General of the school board of Val-des-Cerfs contends that the school is within its rights to refuse to motivate young people absences.

"Their parents have already made requests for exemption to the school board for being RWCE and they were all rejected, said Alain Lecours. We know that this is not the code of life problem. The substantive debate is the values and beliefs. "

Labels: Children, Québec, Religion and fanaticism, Renata Daninsky

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 9:43 PM 0 Comments

The Ombudsman Julie Miville-Dechêne (pictured right against) concluded that because of flaws in editorial control, the presentation of the film Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land Issue Major reports violated journalistic standards and practices Radio-Canada. Ce film avance, sans en faire la preuve, que le gouvernement israélien contrôle les médias américains. The film advance without making the evidence that the Israeli government controls the American media. It contains anachronisms and inaccuracies groups and pro-Palestinian activists were involved in the research.

The decision of December 8 2008 Julie Miville-Dechêne bearing on the film Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land released on October 23 2008 on the airwaves Network Information Radio-Canada (RDI), follows a request Reviewed by the Quebec-Israel Committee.

The Committee asked the Ombudsman to determine if the film and the guidance offered by RDI meet the journalistic standards and practices of Radio-Canada. The request for review concluded:

'By failing to identify the film as a documentary type of opinion committed and almost literally repeating the description of the perpetrator, RDI has violated journalistic standards and practices of Radio-Canada, which says that production should be clearly identified at the beginning and the end as a documentary author. " Ironically, while the facilitator asked Simon Durivage introduction if the American media does not distorted the trial of his public, RDI has contributed to the deformation of his own trial on the Arab-Israeli conflict. "

The decision of Mrs. Miville-Dechêne, reproduced below, meets each of the objections raised by the Quebec-Israel Committee.

But first, beyond the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the decision of the Ombudsman, the whole media coverage of political Islam that we put in question at tipping point, on which we will return in depth.

When a report on ideology imperialist supremacy and hatred that has taken epidemic proportions among Muslims, as pointed out clearly the eminent Indian religious Wahiduddin Khan, who calls Muslims to work for introspection and deconditioning ideological ? This ideology to theological foundations that Khan calls to deconstruct, has led to countless massacres of innocent civilians around the world. It leads the Salafist Sunni Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia (11 / 9), the Deoband Pakistan (Mumbai), the Shiites of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. It explains jihadist violence in Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Chechnya, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Gaza, London, Madrid, and elsewhere. What is the common pattern here? It is obvious, but the media is split into four so as not to appoint, under cover of a misplaced political correctness is part of the problem rather than the solution, or a sense of objectivity Godard 's is mocked by the phrase "five minutes for Jews, five minutes for the Nazis."

Returning to our subject, let's first see what the Ombudsman Radio-Canada.

OMBUDSMAN OF RADIO-CANADA

The ombudsman's office is presented as follows on the website of Radio-Canada:

Accuracy, integrity, fairness

"The ombudsman Julie Miville-Dechêne is listening to you. It represents you, you viewers, listeners and Internet Radio-Canada. It assesses the merits of your complaints, to the best of his trial, and quite independently. You believe that information to our office or on our website is biased or inaccurate? Contact us. "

Radio-Canada has established journalistic standards and practices that describe how this institution funded by taxpayers meets public expectations and fulfills its obligations. These standards are quite detailed, and serve as a guide to the decisions of the Ombudsman.

****

Office of the Ombudsman Services French
On December 8, 2008

REVIEW documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land Released on 23 October 2008 to broadcast Major reports Network Information

Contents

More than 150 people have complained to my office dissemination of the documentary foreign pro-Palestinian Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, the issuance Major reports, the Network of Public Information (RDI) on 23 October 2008. They accuse the CBC for having aired a work of propaganda with errors of fact.

Radio-Canada has admitted a mistake: its journalistic standards and practices have not been respected in the presentation of the documentary. There was no mention of the date of production (2003) and the fact that the situation on the ground had changed since then, particularly because of the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Produced five years ago, the documentary contains inaccuracies and anachronisms, groups and pro-Palestinian activists were involved in the research.

Given the circumstances and vulnerabilities identified in editorial control, this documentary would not have been released.

COMPLAINTS

On 23 October 2008, issuing reports Major Network Information (RDI) presented a documentary entitled American Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, which focused on the image of Arab-Israeli conflict that carry the American media.

I received 156 complaints about this issue. Most complainants from various countries have responded to the call of pro-Israeli group monitoring media HonestReporting Canada. The pressure group urged its supporters online to send complaints to my office. Other Canadian viewers who have seen the show have also complained spontaneously to my office. For them, this is not a balanced documentary but a work of propaganda for the Palestinians, which contains errors of fact. Here is an excerpt from the complaint of Quebec-Israel Committee:

"(...) By failing to identify the film as a documentary

opinion type committed and showing almost literally

description of the author, RDI has violated the standards and

journalistic practices of Radio-Canada, which stipulate that

production should be clearly identified at the beginning and the

end as a documentary author (...)

The exclusive participation of activists and groups of employees

pressure and organized interests, as well as thanks

of production to those groups not only do they undermine

seriously the responsibility of the RDI to ensure that groups

interest policies [...] or pressure do not seek to

assert their views through this kind of productions, but

should raise with the RDI questions about

the independence of the film of any group that could

have a direct interest in the issue.

In presenting an indictment against unilateral either party

a conflict, RDI has failed in its duty to ensure fairness and balance

by failing to present in this other issue

views on the item, as stipulated Standards

and journalistic practices of Radio-Canada, the audience can

note that can draw different conclusions from the same facts.

Tolerating the many snags to the realities of film history,

RDI a political and diplomatic settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian RDI has

failed in its responsibility for the accuracy of the facts - applicable

even in the case of a document of opinion - and has failed to enforce

film the criterion of exceptional quality and relevance before

to disseminate, as stipulated in its own standards and journalism. (...) ".

Director, Complaint Handling and General Affairs, sent this reply to all complainants:

"We've received your comments on

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, presented

at the major reports, RDI broadcast on October 23.

Let me first give you some explanations on

the context in which we broadcast documentaries. The

documentary focuses on personal point of view.

In the almost all cases, these documents are signed works

by directors from outside the CBC. We choose

to disseminate because we believe they contain

information of interest.

By airing documentaries opinion, Radio-Canada does

not promote the views contained therein. On

the contrary, it is part of our commitment to offering a

variety of perspectives on topics of public interest.

The documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

contained interesting information to the Canadian public on the

treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the American media.

It was a U.S. production of a Media Education Foundation, distributed

by Mundovision.

However, this documentary is an updated version of a partial

document turned ago now four years before Israel

withdraw from Gaza. Therefore our presentation CW

should have put in context of four years ago rather

as a contemporary challenges posed the Middle East

on the eve of U.S. presidential elections of 2008.

It was indeed a very personalized the conflict.

We recognize that this view was clearly pro-Palestinian.

We wish to assure you that we have recently acquired

other documentaries offering glances different on the

situation in Israel and Gaza and we expect to circulate

in the coming months. (...) "

After receiving this response, several plaintiffs have asked me to review the issue because they believe this documentary simply would not have been broadcast, whatever may have been the presentation.

REVISION

The rules to follow

The information broadcast on Radio-Canada must respect the three principles at the heart of its journalistic standards and practices: the accuracy, integrity and fairness. However, there are exceptions for documentaries produced outside the house, including "documentaries of opinion within the meaning of documentaries engaged":

"The term documentary opinion is also used to describe a

work commenced or a thesis, an advocacy, based on facts,

calls for a solution or a point of view on a controversial subject.

Although the work is based on facts, it does not fairly the

variety of opinions that may exist on the subject or record.

The programmer must sometimes decide whether to disseminate

production significantly transgresses standards journalistic

Radio-Canada because this production openly takes sides on a

controversial issue, the point to exclude other relevant facts

and other items of view. (...) "

(NPJ A, 2.4)

The documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land satisfies these criteria. The film advance without making the evidence that the Israeli government controls the American media, written and electronic. To illustrate this thesis, the documentary uses excerpts from television news reports that pass over in silence the fact that the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. According to the film, this omission, the choice of words and the systematic lack of context reinforces false perceptions in the American public. There is no fairness, balance or nuance here: the pro-Palestinian documentary presents a single point of view, only one side of the coin. All those interviewed - academics, Israeli and Palestinian activists, media critics and journalists - are in agreement with this view. If Radio-Canada chooses to present a documentary such rules apply:

Radio-Canada (...) should ensure that interest groups political or

economic or pressure groups, not seek to enforce their views

through this kind of production. "

(NPJ A, 2.4)

"The production should be clearly identified at the beginning and

the end as a documentary author. "

(NPJ A, 2.4, b)

"The facts should be accurate even if it is a work of opinion, and

arguments should conform to facts. (...) "

(NPJ A, 2.4, d)

The production is clearly identified?

The direction of Radio-Canada has quickly admitted its mistake: the presentation of this report does not respect the political journalism of Radio-Canada. Here is the transcript from this Great reports:

"Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land.

The American media does

they see Israeli settlement in the occupied territories

a gesture of defense?

Welcome to Great reports. The signing of a peace agreement

in the Middle East before the end of 2008, as provided in the

Annapolis conference last year, is it still possible?

With the approach of the American election and the first two

Israeli and Palestinian ministers, both at their departure,

much in doubt. According to experts from the Middle East since

40 years, the settlement policy of the Jewish state has increased

inside the occupied Palestinian territories. Therefore:

Daily violence is both the Palestinian and Israeli sides.

So what message convey the American media on this

interminable conflict? They distort the trial of our neighbors

of South? "

At no time, nor in this presentation, or at the end of the show, it is said that it was a documentary view of a film commitment. No mention is made of its author or its production house American Media Education Foundation. In fact, the name of Montreal distributor who is at the beginning of the documentary and the generic. More troubling still, at any time or in the presentation or in the generic, it is said that the documentary was released in 2003, when I was confirmed by the producer.

Such omissions deprive viewers of vital information. However, the website of the production makes clear that this film in 2003. Five years in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a long time. At that time we were in the second wave of the intifada. Since then, the situation has changed: the Israelis have withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, Ariel Sharon created a new party in favor of dismantling settlements before being terraced by two strokes and falling into a coma, Yasser Arafat is dead; Palestinians from Gaza have elected the radical Hamas and the Israelis have built a fence around the West Bank, suicide bombings have ended in Israel's offensive the Israeli army against Hezbollah in Lebanon has killed 1 200 .

The presentation gives the impression that the documentary is recent. The first director responsible for the content of documentaries on Radio-Canada recognizes that the context is lacking. In his opinion, should have been saying that the settlers and the Israeli army left Gaza, and perhaps ask the question to launch the documentary: "One wonders whether the situation has changed since then."

When Radio-Canada buys a documentary, it adapts, translates to the need and shortens, in this case from 52 to 43 minutes. It is a director who is responsible for this work. The director in question tells me he has not managed to find the date of production of the documentary. It chose instead to identify video clips in the documentary, excerpts dating from 2000 to 2003.

The journalist in search charged with writing the show, admits his error. He was captured, he said, by another series of documentaries. Two hundred documentaries must be adapted to the major stories in every IRD year.

The director of Radio-Canada responsible for acquisitions said that, on paper and during the viewing, Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land seemed worthwhile because the documentary presented a new angle on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The director believed that the work was contemporary, since 2008 in the catalog of "international documentary programs," Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land was described as "production".

He said that the distributor has not warned that the movie was not recent. For its part, distributor remembers that Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land was released in room in early 2005. However, Radio-Canada has recognized the true date of production (2003) when complaints began to accumulate. The craftsmen who I spoke to me all said they will be more vigilant in the future.

The big difference between documentary and the 2003 version distributed in October 2008 to RDI is its duration. The original work is 80 minutes, the distributor asked the producer to reduce his film to 52 minutes to sell it to TV. The distributor has registered a narration to accompany the abbreviated version. It has removed some glaring anachronisms in the international version in English. In my opinion, this is not enough to talk about "updating". You can see the documentary and read the full transcript on the site of the production: http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi

A author Documentary pro-Palestinian or a work of propaganda?

Radio-Canada must ensure that it buys documentaries are not propaganda tools of lobbyists. If Radio-Canada had viewed the full 80 minutes of Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, it would have realized that by the end of the film can be read thanks to several militant groups pro-Palestinian (Electronic Antifada, Al -Awda Right of Return Coalition, Islam Online). The producer and director assures me that these lobbyists have not funded his film, but only provided assistance for research.

This proximity between militant groups and documentary is disturbing. For example, a data-shocks of the documentary is that only 4 percent of the new state television that the West Bank and Gaza are "occupied". A small note at the bottom of the screen attributes this statistic in 2001 the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting FAIR. This is a pro-Palestinian group monitoring the media for the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) and HonestReporting, the source of many complaints to my office against this documentary. This is not independent research.

It would have taken at least that these facts are known to Radio-Canada so that it may be part of the evaluation of the editorial product.

The facts are they true?

Even if it is a documentary of opinion, the arguments must be based on facts, under the rules Radio-Canada. But the obvious anachronisms. Of anachronisms that are not believing the viewer warned that Gaza is still occupied by the army and Israeli settlers. The reality is quite different: the settlers left the Gaza Strip since 2005, the Israeli army evacuated the territory, although it still encircles and control the entry and exit of Palestinians and goods.

At 3 minutes and a half early, it can be read at the bottom of the screen: "The West Bank and Gaza Strip under military occupation."

At 9 minutes into "So we could say that in addition to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel (...)."

At 12 minutes into the narrator says: "... Four percent of the media network 2 on the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip indicate that they are occupied territories."

At 20 minutes 17 at the beginning, the narrator says: "The Palestinian territories are dotted with settlements that are established in strategic (...) settlements with the neighboring land they have appropriate control over 40% the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "On screen, we see a map of small white dots, illustrating the settlements dot the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The first was erroneous overprint added by the director of Radio-Canada that adaptation. Neither him, nor anyone has noticed anachronisms before the CW. Even if the director who adapted the work tells me that he thought the documentary was "limited", it has not expressed its concerns to staff framework. Result: no connection charge has viewed the documentary before it is released.

The convener Simon Durivage is not responsible for these errors. He records the presentations that he prepares between two direct interventions RDI, where he is on the air four hours or more per day.

The failure to mention the withdrawal from Gaza is not trivial, because part of the argument of the film is based on the following statement: "The purpose of Israel is permanently annexing the occupied territories" . That may be true for part of the West Bank, but it has already proved false in the Gaza Strip.

Other inaccuracies:

The fighting in Jenin in 2002. "This event, although widely condemned as a war crime by organizations of human rights, was minimized by the American media who gave écartèrent involved and the possibility of a massacre." (Excerpt of the documentary). On the Palestinian side, there was talk at the time of 500 victims. An investigation by Human Rights Watch concluded that there was no evidence of the massacre. Fifty-seven Palestinians and twenty-four Israelis have died in these clashes.

"Israel's position is anything but defensive.": This is a dubious generalization.

The occupied territories, "a foreign country: the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not part of Israel. These territories are under no jurisdiction. The Palestinians want to make a country, but it is not yet a reality.

On several occasions, the documentary refers to the occupation "illegal" Palestinian territories by Israel. The legal reality is more complex: the Jewish settlements and the erection of a security fence in the West Bank are clearly illegal. But experts disagree about the "illegal" any Israeli military presence in the West Bank because of the ambiguity in the English version of resolution 242 United Nations (1967). The withdrawal must be "territories" (from territories). The Israeli withdrawal from all territories it is mandatory or not under resolution 242? The interpretation of this clause has never been clarified by the courts.

On this issue, the director of the grid RDI think that the CBC has no staff necessary to verify the facts contained in the 200 documentaries purchased each year. Hence the importance of a strong write to the warnings required for the viewers. The first director responsible for the content of documentary adds that the CBC trusted foreign producers known (eg., BBC), but the Company can not abandon its responsibility to seriously evaluate the content of broadcast works.

The two executives, who have several responsibilities, say it is unthinkable for them to watch all the documentaries before putting on the air, especially that to buy 200, one must view the double. When artisans have doubts about a documentary, they should seek advice from one of their superiors. This time, no alarm was triggered throughout the process. The director of the grid RDI believes this is an isolated event, which should not obscure the work done for 14 years. In light of this error, the first director of the documentary says it needs tighter control editorial Service acquisitions.

The documentary would it have been broadcast or not?

The fact that this documentary is favorable for the Palestinian cause is not in question here. Radio-Canada has the right to broadcast films opinion, provided they are clearly presented as such. Radio-Canada must also encourage a diversity of views in its programming. There is no strict accounting on the "views" disseminated about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the first director ensures that the interests of diversity exists. Before this controversy erupted, he had bought the rights of Israeli interesting documentary to be broadcast in early 2009.

The first director think this documentary deserved to be released because of the fame of some of the participants. It is of the opinion that to preserve the integrity of the work, do not get to touch here and there so that the film has more air after five years. It is therefore not agree with the approach of the dealer who says he is an update of Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land in 2008.

Le producteur et réalisateur du documentaire est convaincu que son film est toujours pertinent. The producer and director of the documentary is convinced that his film is still relevant. He said: "This will not change that Gaza is no longer colonized by Israel, since that territory has become an open-air prison." The situation on the ground has not changed, and it is always also true in his opinion that the American media, written or electronic, routinely fail to mention the occupation of the West Bank and the reasons behind the Palestinian resistance. He is preparing a new movie on the cover made by the American media about the Gaza Strip and the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.

Conclusion

The error has already been recognized by the management of Radio-Canada. The Standards and journalistic practices have not been respected in the presentation of foreign documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land, distributed to broadcast Major reports, on 23 October 2008. Radio-Canada should have specified that it was a documentary engaged, that the situation on the ground had changed since five years, date of production of the film, particularly since Israel withdrew from Gaza . Finally, it should be clear that a work was produced abroad.

Given the circumstances and vulnerabilities identified in editorial control, this documentary would not have been released.

Julie Miville-Dechêne Julie Miville-Dechêne
Ombudsman Services French
Société Radio-Canada Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
2008-12-08 2008-12-08

E-mail: ombudsman@radio-Canada.ca

Web: http://www.radio-canada.ca/ombudsman/index.shtml

Labels: Anne Humphreys, Canada, Islam, Palestine, Radio-Canada

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:09 AM 0 Comments

1. Genetics by Jacob

This passage from Genesis implies that a visual stimulus can impair fetal development, in a manner consistent with the nature of stimulus.

Background

WORK hard for his father-in-law Laban, Jacob offered to withdraw its flocks each beast is not a white. These animals had a lesser value, and Jacob proposes to retain as salary. His dishonest stepfather, however, withdraw spotted cattle herd, Jacob depriving a salary.

But clever, Jacob finds a way to take revenge. It ensures that most animals are born with spots, so you can keep him.

The passage: Genesis 30, verses 30 to 43

(We use here the Sower. Emphasis added.)

30 For you had very little to my arrival, but your property have increased significantly. The Lord blessed you since I'm home. But now it is time that I worked also for my own family.

31 Laban asked, "What should I pay you?"

"You shall have to pay me anything," said Jacob. But if you accept my proposal, I will continue to graze your herds and occupy myself. 32 If you want, I will today examine your flock, I will share all the animals striped or spotted and all lambs dark, and all striped and spotted goats. They will be my salary. 33 Thus it will be easy to control my honesty. Tomorrow you come inspect my salary: If you find me in a goat that is not striped or spotted, or a lamb that is not dark, you can consider them as stolen."

34 Laban said, "Okay! Do as you said."

35 But the same day, Laban retired herd the goats spotted and striped, all mottled or striped goats, all that was involved in white and all lambs dark, and he delivered into the hands of his son. 36 Then he put a distance of three days of walking between him and Jacob, who continued to deal with the rest of his herd.

37 Jacob obtains green shoots of poplar, almond and pela tree and the bark in places, revealing the white sap of the branches. 38 He placed these branches under the eyes of sheep in troughs and troughs where they were drinking and they came hot from drinking. 39 The animals mating at these branches. When they put down their grandchildren were spotted, striped and marquetry.

40 Jacob sheep and goats that it reserved the face of animals from the herd of Laban that were mottled and dark. It is thus flocks to him, he does not mixed with those of Laban [e]. 41 Whenever beasts vigorous mating, Jacob placed the branches under their eyes in the troughs to mate before the branches.

42 When sheep were stunted, it does not provide. Thus the stunted animals Laban returned to the robust and Jacob. 43 In this way, the latter considerably enriched, it has many flocks of maids and servants, camels and donkeys.

The scientific error

To increase his flock, Jacob employs a strange technique. He put a surface line and spotted (branches) in front of the ewes in heat. When small born, they are also lined or spotted.

Jacob also employs a form of natural selection. When the sheep are too frail, he does not have branches. His stepfather is therefore with sheep immaculate, but weak.

2. Bible, flat earth and geocentric

Several passages of the Bible contend that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around. Fantasies made by the translators have tried to erase the errors scientists who attended the original text but still not in conformity with science.

Flat earth

In Job 38:12-13:

Did you one day of your life, ordered the morning and assigned its place in the morning to take up the ends of the earth and it shook the wicked * [a]? So the earth is turned as clay under the impression [b], and all things are trimmed as a garment.

How can we take a sphere from the ends? And how a spheres can be formed by the borrows? " This is not a sphere that would be manufactured as well, but a flat disc.

In Daniel 4:10-11 refers to a tree so great that since its peak you can see the entire surface of the earth:

Here are the visions of my mind while I was on my coat. I looked, and behold, there was in the middle of the earth a tree of great height. This tree had become big and strong, his top amounted to heaven, and we saw all ends of the earth.

This description is not consistent with a spherical earth. If the earth is a sphere, then we can not see any surface from a single high point.

A further passage is speaking in Isaiah 40:22:

It was him who sits above the circle of the earth, And those who live there are like locusts; It extends the heavens as a fabric lightly, he deploys as a tent, into his home.

This verse gives us a good idea to the cosmology of the ancient Hebrew. The earth is a flat disc. The sky forms a sort of extended dome above the disk as a tent. "

Biblical geocentric

To demonstrate that the Bible is geocentric, it must achieve:

Show that according to the bible earth does not move (... and yet it runs, like said Galilee!)

Show that according to the bible the sun revolves around the earth.

Many verses to support one or other of these blunders scientists, or both.

For the motionless earth, found in 1 Chronicles 16:30: "You, people around the world, fear in front of his face! The world is strong, it is not shaken." (Trad. Sower)

Similarly, in Job 38:4-6:

Where were you when I put foundations of the world? Declare it, because your science is so deep! Who hath laid the measures, do you? Who tight on him the line of surveyor? In what the core columns they sink? Who put the main stone, the cornerstone?

We speak in this passage foundations of the world, columns that hold the earth!

Regarding the sun around the earth, is the glut of skeptics that famous passage in Joshua 10:12-13 (we use here translation Louis Segond):

Then Joshua spoke to the Lord, the day the Lord gave the Amorites the children of Israel, and he said in the presence of Israel: Sun, lays out what Gabaon And you, moon, on the valley of Ajalon! And so the sun and the moon suspended its course, until the nation had fired revenge of his enemies. This is not written in the Book Fair? The sun stopped in the middle of heaven, And do hastened to lie down, almost an entire day.

The sun revolves around the earth, and is it compared to the moon.

Link

Labels: Creationism, Human mistake, Noémie Cournoyer, Religion and fanaticism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:59 AM 0 Comments

Reporters Without Borders wrote to information and communications technology minister Joel Kaapanda on 5 December to call for the withdrawal of all charges against South African TV journalist Bonita Nuttall, who was arrested on 28 November for doing a report in Namibia after entering the country on a tourist visa.

Nuttall was freed on bail the next day after being held overnight and is due to be tried in February. The Reporters Without Borders letter also urged the government to ease Namibia’s relevant legislation, which imposes too many restrictions on foreign journalists wanting to work there.

“We deplore the fact that Ms. Nuttall had to spend the night in a holding cell and pay bail twice in order to be released,” the letter said. “Namibia is one of the African countries that most respect press freedom, but we think it was an abuse of authority to have placed Ms. Nuttall in detention. It was out of all proportion to her offence, counter-productive and damaging for Namibia’s image. This incident would not have occurred if Namibia’s legislation allowed the press more freedom to work.”

A presenter on the South African TV station M-Net’s investigative programme “Carte Blanche,” Nuttall was arrested at Windhoek international airport as she was about to depart on 28 November. After spending the night in a holding cell at the airport, she was released the next day on bail of 2,000 Namibian dollars (153 euros) pending an initial court appearance. On 3 December, a Windhoek court ordered her to pay additional bail of 8,000 Namibian dollars (615 euros) pending trial in February.

She was arrested for doing a report about the nomadic Himba ethnic group without first obtaining the temporary residence and work permits which Namibia requires for foreign journalists.

Namibian newspaper editors meanwhile called at the end of last month for the withdrawal of a clause from a communication bill that would allow the intelligence services to tap phones and monitor email without referring to a court. The Media Institute of Southern Africa is strongly opposed to the bill, which it says would represent a setback for free expression.

Namibia was ranked 23rd out of 173 countries in the world press freedom index which Reporters Without Borders released on 22 October

Link

Labels: Francis Chartrand, Namibia, Reporters without borders

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:18 AM 0 Comments

Editorial - Reporters Without Borders

It really was an extraordinary and ambitious idea, to ask all the countries in unison, the assembled nations of the world, to sign a founding text, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of its main architects, the French jurist René Cassin, had to fight in 1948 for the declaration to be “universal “and not just “international.” He was one of those who, like us, think that the suffering of victims is the same everywhere, and that an African or an Asian has as much right as a European not to be tortured.

But, 60 years later, this principle of universality is denied by many states. In Asia, for example, senior officials can often be heard extolling the merits of their “national” concept of human rights. They prefer, they say, to put the community’s well-being first whereas as we, in Europe, just think of the individual. And if a journalist, government opponent or trade unionist is imprisoned or beaten ? No, that is not a human rights violation. It is just a measure to safeguard public order and reassure decent citizens.

This way of thinking is hypocritical and unacceptable. Especially when you know that those who drafted the Universal Declaration included not only European jurists but also a Lebanese diplomat, a Chilean, and even a Chinese academic, Peng-chun Chang, the ambassador of a young nation embroiled in civil war.

It is in Geneva that the UN’s failure is most obvious. The UN system, which requires nations to be judges and judged at the same time, is schizophrenic. The UN Human Rights Commission became totally discredited in 2003 when it chose Libya’s representative to be its chairperson. It disbanded itself soon afterwards, amid the ensuing outcry, and was replaced by the UN Human Rights Council.

But the hopes placed in the UN’s new guard dog were quickly dashed. When the first council was elected in May 2006, its members included countries in which the death penalty, torture, impunity, arbitrary detention and denial of basic rights seem to be essential components of their societies. The UN put Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Nigeria and Russia in charge of defending the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The machinery was still brand new but it was already beginning to squeak.

What has happened since then is just as heartening. In less than two years, the council has terminated the mandates of its independent experts - the only UN officials who escape the dictates of a government - in charge of monitoring the situation in Cuba, Belarus and even Democratic Republic of Congo, where the recent killings and flood of refugees in the east of the country indicate an impressive degree of respect for human dignity. The council also refused to appoint an expert for Turkmenistan, which - as everyone knows - is one of the world’s most open and welcoming countries.

China, Uzbekistan, Russia and others have meanwhile manoeuvred behind the scenes and struck deals to ensure that a majority of countries opposes any resolution criticising them. And the deals are effective. Votes are not cast according to the seriousness of the situation in a country but according to the possible advantages that the country or its allies can offer in return. China wins all the battles in this game. Using its enormous economic power, it ensures that it is systematically supported by countries on whom it lavishes loans, subsidies and other aid accords. Most of the countries in Africa and many of the Asian ones find out how they are going to vote in the Geneva office of the Middle Kingdom’s permanent representative.

Meant to defend the universality of values, the UN Human Rights Council has lost its way. It is used to serve the interests of governments that do not want to see themselves branded as the world’s worst human rights violators. The UN secretary-general needs to pull himself together and demand that measures be taken. The first of these measures could be to establish eligibility criteria for countries to be members of the council, criteria based on respect for human rights and support for the main international treaties and their implementation. This would not solve all the problems, but it would at least have the merit of keeping verbose autocrats away from the rostrum.

Jean-François Julliard Secretary general Reporters Without Borders International

&

François Bugingo President Reporters Without Borders Canada

Link

Labels: Francis Chartrand, Reporters without borders, UN

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 10:54 AM 0 Comments

As the world marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December, in a report released today Reporters Without Borders looks at the record of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the main UN body concerned with such matters.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3 ?id_article=29587

The UN Human Rights Council is doing little better than its predecessor, the now-abolished Commission on Human Rights, which was completely discredited over the years, especially when it named a Libyan as its president. The Council has the failings of all UN bodies, where member-states are both judges and judged. States with repressive governments are elected to the Council and thus tasked with ensuring respect in other countries for rights they themselves are abusing on a daily basis. Until this absurd situation is ended, the United Nations cannot be said to be fulfilling its goal of protecting human rights.

The use of human rights by countries for their own purposes will not end until the UN Security Council and the whole system of world governance is reformed and enlarged. This issue has been highlighted by the present economic and environmental crisis.

If the UN does not manage to end it, the Council will fail in its mission. The Universal Periodic Review, though a good step forward, will not make up for these weaknesses.

Reporters Without Borders looks at the battle between the interests of governments and recognition of victims of human rights violations.

Link

Labels: Francis Chartrand, Reporters without borders, UN

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 10:45 AM 0 Comments

The European Union should urgently send a "bridging" force to eastern Congo to help UN peacekeepers stop further attacks on civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 30-page report, "Killings in Kiwanja: The UN's Inability to Protect Civilians," details the killing of an estimated 150 people in the town of Kiwanja on November 4 and 5, 2008 - the worst killing spree in North Kivu province in two years. Although UN peacekeepers considered Kiwanja a priority protection zone, they did not have enough peacekeepers or the capacity to stop the killings. Survivors could only run to the UN base half a mile away and cluster outside the fence for protection.

"The European Union should not wait for further killings to act," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The current UN forces simply do not have the capacity or numbers to protect those Congolese at dire risk of further attacks."

The UN Security Council authorized more peacekeeping troops in November but estimates that it could take up to four months before reinforcements arrive. The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has asked the European Union to provide a short-term force to protect civilians until more UN troops are in place.

Human Rights Watch wrote to EU heads of state on December 9, asking them to deploy such a force quickly in eastern Congo.

Most of those killed in Kiwanja were summarily executed by the forces of the rebel commander Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) on November 5 after the rebel group, which had controlled the town since October 29, repulsed an attack by pro-government Mai Mai militia. The Mai Mai also deliberately killed several civilians.

The Human Rights Watch report is based on more than 130 interviews in Kiwanja and Goma, with victims, witnesses, humanitarian workers, UN peacekeepers, and officials of Nkunda's rebel group.

After re-establishing control of Kiwanja on November 5, the rebels carried out a brutal operation against any remaining Mai Mai combatants or suspected sympathizers. According to witnesses, the combatants broke into homes, demanded money and cell phones and then killed the men and teenage boys they found - slaughtering them in front of their families or on nearby streets. Most were shot, but others were hacked to death with machetes or speared. Some women and children were killed, including those who tried to protect family members.

Since the killing spree, both forces have continued to target civilians. Human Rights Watch investigations found that Nkunda's rebels and Mai Mai combatants killed at least another 18 civilians in late November and early December. The warring parties have also raped more than 16 women and girls and forcibly recruited dozens of children into armed service since late October.

Human Rights Watch researchers also documented the systematic destruction of six camps for displaced people in and around Kiwanja and neighboring Rutshuru. The displaced people fled to various locations and most still had not been located five weeks after the attack.

The rebels declared a unilateral ceasefire on October 29, but this has meant little in rural areas, where the fighting continues and much of the population remains at great risk.

"Nkunda's rebels and other armed groups must immediately cease all the attacks on civilians, the rape of women and girls, and the destruction of camps for displaced people," said Van Woudenberg. "Those responsible for these brutal atrocities must be arrested and held to account."

The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUC, had 120 peacekeepers in Kiwanja, one of its largest field bases in North Kivu. Because of the importance of Kiwanja and Rutshuru as centers for humanitarian assistance, UN peacekeepers considered them a priority protection zone. However, the peacekeepers were not able to prevent Nkunda's rebels from taking the towns or destroying the camps for displaced people, nor were they able to stop the killing and rape of civilians.

The UN peacekeepers relied on cooperation from Congolese army forces to provide security for the towns, but received little. Whatever possibility the peacekeepers might have had to protect civilians on their own was thwarted by logistical deficiencies and competing priorities faced by the peacekeeping force. "EU troops would free up UN peacekeepers to strengthen bases in more remote areas, such as Kiwanja, and help prevent further atrocities," said Van Woudenberg. "The people of eastern Congo have suffered for far too long. The EU should give the UN the help it needs to protect civilians."

Link

Labels: Congo, Francis Chartrand, Human Rights Watch

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 10:21 AM 0 Comments

Update November 25th, 2008 A recent New York Times editorial referenced Human Rights Watch’s agenda for how to close Guantanamo Bay.

President-elect Barack Obama will take office at a time when the credibility and effectiveness of the United States in combating human rights abuses abroad has been badly eroded by the US government's own actions. There is an urgent need to remedy abuses on many fronts, but Human Rights Watch here highlights four crucial initiatives that President-elect Obama should take shortly after assuming office:

1. Ensure that US Counterterrorism Efforts Comply with International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

The Bush administration's methodical disregard for the human rights of those detained in the campaign against terrorism has been disastrous for the global human rights cause, diminishing the moral standing of a government that traditionally was an ally in promoting human rights, and setting a powerful negative example for abusive governments around the world. Undoing the damage done will require a public commitment to a new course and firm measures to implement that policy. As first steps, President-elect Obama should:

Close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, prosecuting those detainees implicated in terrorism and sending the others to their home countries or appropriate countries of resettlement, including the United States.

Prosecute terrorism suspects in regular federal courts rather than before military commissions, which have failed to provide basic due process.

Reject preventive detention (detention without trial) as an alternative to prosecuting terrorism suspects.

Reject the "global war on terrorism" as a legal basis for detaining individuals outside a recognizable battlefield to deprive them of basic criminal justice rights.

Issue an executive order to implement the bans on torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment by requiring the CIA to abide by the interrogation rules that the US military has now adopted.

Put a definitive end to the CIA's secret detention program in which apprehended individuals are "disappeared" without acknowledgment into unknown detention facilities and without access to anyone but their jailors and interrogators.

Sign and press the Senate to ratify the Convention against Enforced Disappearance to signal an intention to never again engage in such practices.

Stop renditions (returns) of terrorism suspects and others to countries where they are at risk of torture or ill-treatment.

Ensure the establishment of a nonpartisan investigatory commission ("truth commission"), equipped with subpoena powers and adequate funding to investigate and publicly report on post-9/11 counterterrorism-related abuses, recommend how those responsible should be held accountable, and specify steps to ensure that such abuses are never repeated.

2. Make Human Rights a Central Pillar of US Foreign Policy

For eight years, the Bush administration claimed to promote democracy and freedom, usually in the form of democratic elections, rather than a more broad-based human rights agenda. Its criticisms of human rights abuses were strongest with respect to longtime adversaries like Iran and Cuba, and countries of little strategic importance, such as Sudan, Zimbabwe and Burma, but far less consistent when it came to close US allies like Egypt and Pakistan. This selectivity has undermined US credibility, encouraged abusive regimes, and left human rights activists in many parts of the world with weak support from the country that should be their most powerful defender. Some examples of countries where essential change in US policy is needed are:

Pakistan, where the Bush administration uncritically supported President Pervez Musharraf as he staged fraudulent elections, attacked the judiciary, and conducted an abusive and ineffectual counterterrorism campaign. The next US president should insist on full restoration of an independent judiciary and the rule of law, and put the Pakistani military and intelligence services on notice that good relations will require ending and resolving "disappearances," and respecting human rights in tribal areas.

Ethiopia, where the US government has ignored war crimes and crimes against humanity by Ethiopian forces during counterinsurgency operations in Ethiopia's Ogaden region and in Somalia. President-elect Obama should make clear that the United States' substantial military and foreign assistance programs will be curtailed if Ethiopia does not improve its human rights record at home and abroad. The president should also support the establishment by the UN Security Council of a commission of inquiry to examine serious crimes committed by all sides in Somalia since January 2007.

Russia, where other strategic interests made the US government reluctant to criticize the country's deteriorating human rights situation. While the Bush administration has now adopted a different tone, President-elect Obama should develop a strategy with other states to challenge Russia's repression of free expression, association, and assembly, to promote civil society and a free media, and to push for accountability for abuses in Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Georgia.

China, where the Bush administration has lacked a coherent human rights strategy including with regard to continuing arrests of government critics, a crackdown in Tibet, and massive forced evictions and other abuses connected to the Beijing Olympics. President-elect Obama should work with other governments to press China to end torture, restrictions on free expression, arbitrary arrests of civil society activists, violations of labor rights, and repression in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Afghanistan, where the US government has failed to make a sufficient commitment to protect civilians from abuses by warlords and from armed conflict. The next US president should take immediate steps to reduce civilian casualties in military operations, press President Karzai and the Afghan government to crack down on corruption and marginalize warlords, and ensure that US aid promotes progress for women's rights, including equal access to schooling for girls at all levels.

Uzbekistan, where the US government has preferred dialogue to action in confronting systematic torture, arbitrary arrests of human rights activists, and large-scale repression, including the 2005 Andijan massacre. President-elect Obama should work with other governments to formulate concrete benchmarks for human rights progress, and make improvements in their relationship with Uzbekistan contingent on the implementation of these benchmarks.

Colombia, where the Bush administration forged close ties with a government unwilling to rein in brutal paramilitaries. President-elect Obama should support Colombia's judicial institutions in the face of violence from both sides of Colombia's conflict, while conditioning final action on a free trade agreement on measurable progress in ending anti-union violence and dismantling paramilitary mafias.

Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, where the United States supplies considerable military and economic assistance yet is reluctant to criticize human rights violations. President-elect Obama should address, in public as well as through diplomatic channels, serious human rights abuses by all governments and non-state actors in the region.

3. Rejoin the International Human Rights Community

The Bush administration pursued a policy of exceptionalism that extended to the international human rights and humanitarian law framework. The US government has remained an international outcast by failing to ratify important and long-standing human rights treaties, and has repudiated, rather than worked with allies to improve, the UN Human Rights Council. Instead of being a leader in promoting international justice, the US government has adopted a tentative and haphazard approach to prosecuting rights abusers that has been at the expense of global accountability and victims of injustice.

President-elect Obama should reverse course regarding the international human rights framework and international justice. As immediate steps, the next administration should:

Seek a seat on the UN Human Rights Council in May 2009 and work to make it more effective.

Bring US policy in line with the 2008 treaty to ban cluster munitions; urge the Senate to ratify both the Cluster Munitions Treaty and the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty as soon as possible.

Urge the Senate to ratify key human rights treaties that are broadly accepted by the international community, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

Support investigations and prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC); seek repeal of the American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002; and begin steps to join the Rome Statute of the ICC.

Press for the establishment by the UN Security Council of a permanent mechanism to effectively address and seek to eliminate sexual violence as a weapon of war.

4. Demonstrate Leadership on Human Rights Issues at Home

In addition to restoring its credibility as a human rights leader abroad, the United States should expand human rights protection at home. President-elect Obama should:

Abolish the federal death penalty and pending abolition, declare an immediate moratorium on federal executions, and direct the attorney general not to seek the death penalty in federal prosecutions.

Mitigate some of the most inhumane aspects of current US immigration policy by encouraging Congress to amend US law requiring the immediate deportation of any immigrant with a criminal conviction by restoring individualized deportation hearings in which an immigration judge can weigh the offense's seriousness against the harm caused by deportation.

Address the stark and persistent racial disparities plaguing the US criminal justice system, such as by reforming federal sentencing laws to eliminate the powder/crack cocaine sentencing differential, and convening a presidential commission to recommend steps to end such disparities.

Work to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by urging Congress to enact comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

End benighted and ineffective approaches to the fight against HIV/AIDS by: eliminating the anti-prostitution pledge and the emphasis on abstinence-only programs; having the Department of Health and Human Services remove HIV from the list of communicable diseases of public health significance in order to end the ban on entry to the United States of persons living with HIV; and eliminating statutory and regulatory barriers to federal funding for needle and syringe exchange in domestic and international settings.

Promote respect for reproductive freedom, including by: rescinding the "global gag rule," which prohibits family planning organizations abroad from receiving US funds if using their own funds for legal abortion-related activities; submitting a budget with funding for comprehensive sex education in place of abstinence-until-marriage programs; and removing funding for crisis pregnancy centers that do not provide full and accurate information about pregnancy options.

Eliminate statutory and regulatory barriers to federal funding for needle and syringe exchange in domestic and international settings.

Link

Labels: Bush, Human Rights Watch, Marie-Êve Marineau, Obama, United States

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 9:52 AM 0 Comments

Muslim children are being beaten and abused regularly by teachers at some British madrassas - Islamic evening classes - an investigation by The Times has found.

Students have been slapped, punched and had their ears twisted, according to an unpublished report by an imam based on interviews with victims in the north of England. One was “picked up by one leg and spun around” while another said a madrassa teacher was “kicking in my head - like a football”, says the report which was compiled by Irfan Chishti, a former government adviser on Islamic affairs.

Almost 1,600 madrassas operate in Britain, teaching Arabic and the Koran on weekday evenings to about 200,000 children aged from four to their mid-teens.

While there is no hard evidence to indicate how many are involved in the physical abuse of children, The Times has uncovered a disturbing pattern in one town - Rochdale - through interviews with mainstream school teachers, Muslim parents and the children themselves.

One woman told The Times that her niece Hiba, 7, was slapped across the face so hard by her madrassa teacher that her ear was cut. It later became inflamed and she had to have emergency medical treatment.

When the teacher refused to apologise, Hiba's aunt, Jamila, insisted that her niece should be moved to another madrassa. “I have absolutely no respect for religious teachers who behave like this,” she said.

Another girl described how, at the age of 12, she was hit by her madrassa teacher whenever she mispronounced a word or forgot a verse of the Koran.

When Imam Chishti, a religious education teacher who also runs the Light of Islam Academy in Rochdale, decided to carry out his own investigation into the problem he was shocked by how even the victims had grown to accept the abuse. “They all joked about it,” he said. “There's a culture that accepts it.”

Imam Chishti said that part of the problem was that some madrassa teachers were ignorant of British law. Corporal punishment was banned in state schools in 1986 and in all schools in 1998. Under current law teachers acting in loco parentis may use only “reasonable punishment” such as a smack, providing it does not cause any marks or bruising.

But the abuse discovered by The Times investigation goes far beyond what could be termed “reasonable force”. One particularly brutal form of punishment practised in some madrassas is known as the Hen, in which the victim is forced to hold his ears while squatting with his arms fed through his legs.

The magnitude of the problem in Rochdale has led primary school head teachers to break the silence surrounding the problem. Several disclosed that they had asked social services to investigate complaints of physical abuse in madrassas made by pupils but that the victims' parents refused to press charges against the perpetrators either because they felt that physical abuse was normal practice or they feared being ostracised by their community.

Tina Wheatley, deputy head of Heybrook Primary School, said: “If a child comes in with an injury of any sort and it's non-accidental, then schools will refer it to parents, then also to child protection.”

But she said that social workers were often faced by parents who refused to take action against the abusers. “When child protection turns up at the parents' [home], parents don't want to take it any further. There are a lot of head teachers in this area who have spoken to the authorities. It's so sensitive,” she said.

Sandra Hartley, head teacher at Brimrod County Primary School in Rochdale, where 93 per cent of pupils are Muslim, said that she feared that some Muslim parents regarded physical beatings as normal because they had been subjected to the same treatment when they were children.

“You know, it's very much accepted that children are experiencing that type of coercion, unfair treatment and sometimes physical abuse,” she said. “Parents knowing that this is happening and not wanting to move their child from that type of extra-curricular activity is very much the pattern that we have here.”

The Times has also learnt that Rochdale police and social services have met local Muslim leaders six times this year to discuss child protection issues after investigations prompted by claims of physical abuse at madrassas.

Terry Piggott, the executive director of Rochdale Borough Council, admitted that it was difficult for the authorities to take action.

“Because of the rapid turnover of volunteer teachers at madrassas - and the fact that many are part-time - it makes it difficult to regulate and monitor the people who are working with local young people,” he said in a statement.

The problem is not confined to Rochdale. Ann Cryer, Labour MP for the Yorkshire constituency of Keighley which has a large Muslim population, said that mainstream teachers had complained to her about the punishment their students faced at madrassas. She added her voice to those from Muslim community calling for madrassas to be brought within the regulatory framework.“I think we should have some sort of review at a very high level as to how madrassas are being [run] ... they seem to be a law unto themselves,” she said.

Madrassas and similar religious classes are not subject to any regulation nor are their teachers required to be vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau. Many madrassas are not even known to the authorities because they are run on an ad hoc basis by people in their own living rooms. Even those attached to a mosque which is registered with the Charities Commission are not monitored.

Ms Cryer called for the authorities to be given powers to perform “spot checks” on madrassas and shut down any in which children are being abused.“As the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities grow so do the number of madrassas and therefore the risk to children increases every year,” she said.

The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (Minab) - a government approved organisation established in 2006 - has set up a minimum standard for mosques which includes guidelines to safeguard child welfare. However, membership is purely voluntary and Minab has yet to recruit a single mosque.

A spokesman for the board, Yousif Al-Khoei, admitted that some mosques were run by teachers who may be abusing children.

“There is of course a minority of madrassas which have a village mindset who may be practising it but you have to look at it from both angles,” he said. “No community is perfect.”

The Minister for Community Cohesion, Sadiq Khan, urged his fellow Muslims to turn in those responsible for violence against children.

“We need to have religious leaders saying in clear and religious messages that it's unacceptable and that there's no place in Islam for child abuse. It's pure village culture mentality,” he said. “Everybody should expose this. The neighbours who know about it should expose it, the teachers [at mainstream schools] should expose it. We need a culture which says that whistleblowing on these things is a badge of pride not a badge of shame.”

He added: “We are hiding behind the defence of cultural sensitivities and our children are not being protected.”

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “We're crystal clear that all organisations, including faith-based, must abide by children protection and safeguarding laws.

“Any actions that go beyond reasonable punishment are absolutely unacceptable and must be dealt with the courts. We urge anyone who is aware of such incidents to report them to the police and relevant authorities.”

Link

Labels: Children, Iba Bouramine, United Kingdom

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 12:07 AM 0 Comments

Islam fights diversity ...

With a rather absurd, unpopular and so far, officials from Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, Santa Claus does not come down chimneys in public schools this year.

Even if it is a tradition half a century, a decision supported by the Islamic community and the nationalist Bosnian (Bosnian Muslim) prohibits that Santa Claus makes his usual round in schools and kindergartens kindergartens to Bosnia to distribute gifts to children.

Arzija MAHMUTOVIC, director of the Children of Sarajevo, a public body which operates 24 public kindergartens in Sarajevo, refused to convene the traditional visit from Santa Claus, arguing that it was not in the spirit of Islam. However, she added generously, parents are free to organize a visit from Santa Claus on their own outside public schools.

Labels: Bosnia, Human mistake, Noémie Cournoyer

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:58 PM 0 Comments

The 2008 Canadian parliamentary dispute is an ongoing political dispute in the 40th Canadian Parliament. It was triggered by the intention of opposition parties in the House of Commons to defeat, by a motion of no confidence, the minority government formed by the Conservative Party only six weeks after the 40th general election.

This was a result of the government's fiscal update presented to the commons on November 27, 2008, which included several provisions that none of the opposition parties would accept. Though the government later withdrew several of its contentious proposals, the Liberal Party and New Democratic Party signed an agreement to form a minority coalition, with the agreed, signed support of the Bloc Québécois on confidence issues. The parliamentary session was delayed one week by the Conservative government, so a motion of non-confidence could not be registered.

On December 4, 2008, Governor General Michaëlle Jean (the vice-regal representative of Queen Elizabeth II, the country's head of state) granted the request of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (the head of government) to prorogue parliament until January 26, 2009, ending the first session of the 40th parliament and thereby delaying a possible change in government.

The 39th Canadian Parliament was led by a Conservative minority government headed by Stephen Harper, and lasted for two years with the support or abstention of opposition parties, until, on September 7, 2008, the Prime Minister requested, and was granted, a dissolution of parliament and a snap election, claiming that parliament had become dysfunctional and needed a renewed mandate. During the election campaign, publicity for strategic voting came from the Liberals, the Green Party, and the Anything But Conservative (ABC) campaign, foreshadowing the political divide that would become official weeks after the federal election, held on October 14.

The final tally saw an increase in the Conservative seat count from 127 to 143, a plurality but not a majority, while the Liberals, led by Stéphane Dion, returned as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, with 77 seats. Two other parties, the New Democratic Party (NDP), with 37 seats, and the Bloc Québécois, with 49 seats, together with two independent members of parliament, rounded out the House of Commons.

Catalyst: November 2008 fiscal update

On November 27, 2008, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty provided the House of Commons with his fiscal update, within which were plans to cut government spending, suspend the ability of civil servants to strike until 2011, sell off some Crown assets to raise capital, and eliminate the existing political party subsidies of 1.95 CAD for each vote the party wins. The document – which, as all money bills are traditionally confidence motions, forced the opposition to consider whether to accept the motion or bring down the government over it – was strongly rejected by the opposition on the grounds that it lacked any fiscal stimulus during the ongoing economic crisis, for its suspension of federal civil servants' ability to strike, and for suspending the right for women to seek recourse from the courts for pay equity issues.

Though polling by Ipsos-Reid found that 61% of Canadians wanted the political subsidies eliminated, it was frequently suggested in the media that the main reason for the opposition parties' anger was the elimination of these federal subsidies. This would have disproportionately worsened the financial situations of the opposition parties, which have relied mainly on public rather than private financing; while the Conservative Party received 37% of their funds from Crown funding in 2007, the NDP received 57%, the Liberals 63%, the Green Party 65% and the Bloc Québécois 86%.

Formation of a minority coalition

Just after the Conservative government announced its plans, NDP leader Jack Layton asked his predecessor, Ed Broadbent, to contact former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien to discuss the idea of a coalition to oust the Conservatives from power. Negotiations began about "what would be a good situation here for the people of Canada, for parliament," and, almost immediately, the plan became public. Labelling the absence of any economic stimulus plan as irresponsible and the removal of public funding to parties as an attack against democracy, the opposition threatened to topple the weeks-old government: they would vote against the fiscal update, the defeat of which would be considered a vote of non-confidence in the newly formed Conservative minority government, leading to the ministry being brought down. The opposition parties counted on the possibility that Governor General Michaëlle Jean would then invite a Liberal-NDP coalition to form the government, instead of dissolving parliament less than two months after the previous election.

The proposed minority coalition would have a cabinet with 24 ministers, with a Liberal prime minister, 17 other Liberal ministers (including the minister of finance), and six New Democratic ministers. As the outgoing leader of the Liberal Party and its caucus, Dion would become the interim prime minister until relinquishing the position of party leader at the scheduled leadership convention in May 2009, while the agreement between the Liberals and NDP would continue until June 30, 2011. Further, Liberal party elders Frank McKenna, Paul Martin, John Manley, and former NDP premier Roy Romanow, were reported to have been asked to form an economic advisory body to the coalition if needed, though both McKenna and Manley declined to take part.

Any Liberal-NDP coalition, being in a minority, would have been unable to govern without the support of members of other parties, due to the makeup of the house. The Bloc Québécois, which holds the balance of power in the 40th parliament, thus signed a policy accord with the other opposition parties and agreed to support the proposed coalition on confidence matters until at least June 30, 2010, in return for a consultation mechanism for the duration of the agreement, but would not be a direct participant in the coalition, as it would receive no cabinet positions and would be free to vote as it wished on other matters. It is debatable whether this three-party arrangement meets the definition of a coalition government.

Government response

Opponents have characterized the coalition as "undemocratic".

While, on November 28, 2008, Stephen Harper referred to the coalition agreement between the Liberals and NDP as "undemocratic," and that "Stéphane Dion does not have the right to take power without an election," Transport Minister John Baird announced the following day that the plan to eliminate the political party direct subsidy would be dropped. The government then cancelled its initial opposition day, which was originally to be held on December 1, to avert the threatened vote of non-confidence, meaning the earliest the coalition could then possibly take office would be following a vote on a Liberal motion of non-confidence or on a supply motion put forth by the 28th ministry, both scheduled for December 8, 2008.

In response to the opposition's demands for an economic stimulus package, the Conservatives changed their plan to one in which a federal budget would be presented on January 27, 2009, instead of late February or early March, though the Liberals still indicated that they intended to present their motion of non-confidence on December 8. On November 30, the Conservatives then released a secretly-recorded private NDP conference call, in which Jack Layton indicated that the groundwork for assuring the Bloc's participation "was done a long time ago." Following the release of the recording, the NDP said that they would consider pressing criminal charges, and alleged that Conservative MP John Duncan received the invitation to participate by mistake, in place of NDP MP Linda Duncan, who had "a similar email address."

The possible change of government was debated during Question Period, and the Conservatives aired radio and TV ads contending that "a leader whose party captured just 25% of the vote in the October 14 election doesn't have a legitimate mandate to govern." In anticipation of the Prime Minister's visit to the Governor General, Harper's office also organised protests outside of the viceroy's residence, while John Baird said that "Conservatives would go over the head of Parliament and of the Governor-General."

The role of the Governor General

Governor General Michaëlle Jean stated that "what is happening right now is part of the possibilities in our democratic system and I think that people can be reassured that, as I turn to what is happening, I am myself looking at my constitutional duties." Jean had three possible actions to pursue during her meeting with the Prime Minister on December 4, 2008: dissolve parliament, prorogue parliament, or ask him to resign his commission.

Dissolution of parliament

The Centre Block on Parliament Hill, containing the houses of the Canadian parliament.

Peter H. Russell, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto, suggested that if Harper were to seek a dissolution, the Governor General would have to consider carefully the reasonability of the request. The viceroy's primary concern is to protect parliamentary democracy; a dissolution of parliament would have necessitated an election only two months after the preceeding one, and repeated short term elections, in Russell's view, would not be healthy for the system. In such a case, with a reasonably viable coalition available, Jean might then refuse Harper's request for dissolution (requiring Harper to resign under constitutional precedent), and commission Dion to form a government. Former governor general Adrienne Clarkson wrote in her memoirs, Heart Matters, that she would have allowed the then prime minister, Paul Martin, a dissolution of parliament only after at least six months following the 2004 election. "To put the Canadian people through an election before six months would have been irresponsible," she wrote, especially having received a letter co-signed by then opposition leader Stephen Harper, NDP leader Jack Layton, and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, asking her to consider letting them attempt to form a government without an election if the Liberal government should fall.

Maclean's columnist Andrew Coyne noted that, while a coalition government is neither unconstitutional nor illegitimate, there are several concerns that the Governor General must address in considering installing such a government. As a coalition is inherently volatile, its permanence or lack thereof would be a factor, as well as the possibility of creating a prolonged period of instability and uncertainty. Coyne also noted that the opposition parties' plan is an extreme application of the traditional parliamentary prerogative to choose a government – that is, defeating a government so soon after an election, and replacing it with a likely unstable one.

Prorogation of parliament

The option of prorogation, or discontinuing the session of parliament without dissolving it, presented various possible scenarios: One was a long-term prorogation, lasting up to a legal maximum of one year, while another was a short prorogation period lasting a few weeks to a few months. Each would delay any parliamentary activity, including the registering of a motion of non-confidence, and the Conservative government would therefore continue. On December 3, Dion wrote to the Governor General with his opinion that she must refuse to grant a prorogation as, in his opinion, it would be an abuse of power denying the right of the legislature to give or withhold its confidence in the government. He also suggested that the government had already, in effect, lost the confidence of the house, and that she could therefore no longer accept Harper's advice as her prime minister.

Constitutional scholar C.E.S. (Ned) Franks of Queen's University suggested that the Governor General could agree to prorogue parliament, though on the condition that the government only manage day-to-day affairs until parliament was reconvened; the Governor General would not approve orders-in-council requiring cabinet decisions, meaning that the government could not undertake any major policy initiatives, much like the way governments govern during an election campaign. However, a prime minister asking for prorogation when facing an imminent confidence vote, as well a governor general refusing or implementing conditions on such a request, would all be unprecedented in Canadian history. "There is no precedent whatsoever in Canada and probably in the Commonwealth," he stated. Constitutional scholar and former advisor to governors general Ted McWhinney said that the Governor General would have no choice but to follow the Prime Minister's advice if asked for a prorogation, though the prime minister would have to explain to the electorate why he had advised this particular course.

Former governor general and NDP politician Edward Schreyer stated that if the Conservative government were to fail a vote of confidence, Michaëlle Jean would have no choice but to offer the coalition the opportunity to govern. He also said that prorogation would be a difficult judgement call, and suspected a short prorogue might be reasonable as long as it wasn't "used in the longer term as a means of evading, avoiding and thwarting the expression of the parliamentary will" by avoiding a confidence vote.

Resignation of the Prime Minister

Asking the existing prime minister to resign would have prompted Jean to request that parliament form a new government, permitting the formation of the coalition headed by Dion. If no new government were to form, parliament would be dissolved, resulting in a dropping of the writ for a general election. On December 4, 2008, however, asking Harper to resign as prime minister was not considered a likely option by the media or scholars.

Had the government lost a non-confidence vote, which was scheduled for December 8, 2008, then the Governor General may have turned down Prime Minister Harper's request to call an election. This would be effectively to dismiss Harper and, in such circumstances, she would invite the opposition to form a government. While constitutional authorities agree that such a reserve power certainly exists, they are uncertain about exactly when it should be applied.

Dismissal of the Governor General

The possibility was raised of the Prime Minister recommending to the Queen that she dismiss the incumbent Governor General and appoint someone of the prime minister's choice. The aforementioned Ted McWhinney wrote in his 2005 book The Governor-General and the Prime Ministers that, in the buildup to the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975, had the then prime minister advised the Queen to dismiss her Australian viceroy, she would "surely have had to take the prime ministers 'advice' without demur." That a prime minister could make such a request prompted W.P.M. Kennedy, former Dean of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, to state, before the present Queen's reign, that the reserve powers of the Crown has ceased to exist in the Dominions "for the simple reason that a governor-general who persisted in refusing ministerial advice would be at once recalled on the advice of his ministry given direct to the King." In the Globe and Mail, Andrew Steele wrote that "[calling] this option risky is a grave understatement. Not only would it threaten the role of the monarchy in Canada, but parliamentary supremacy back to the Magna Carta would be called into question."

Leadup to the Governor General's decision

Leaders' addresses to the nation on December 3

Both Harper and Dion addressed the nation on December 3, 2008, with televised statements broadcast on Canada's major television networks. Harper's five minute pre-recorded statement, televised nationally in English and French at 7 p.m. ET, outlined the steps the government had taken to address the economic crisis, while also attacking the Liberals for forming a coalition with the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois. Harper said: "at a time of global economic instability, Canada's government must stand unequivocally for keeping the country together. At a time like this, a coalition with the separatists cannot help Canada. And the opposition does not have the democratic right to impose a coalition with the separatists they promised voters would never happen." The press noted that while he used the word sovereigntist in the French version of his speech, Harper used separatist in English.

The networks also agreed to air a response from Dion, which aired around 7:30 ET, and attacked the Conservatives, stating they did not have a plan to weather the economic crisis, and stating that Canadians did not want another election, instead preferring that parliament work together during this time. "Within one week, a new direction will be established, a tone and focus will be set. We will gather with leaders of industry and labour to work, unlike the Conservatives, in a collaborative, but urgent manner to protect jobs." This statement, intended to air immediately following Harper's, was late in arriving to the networks, and was of low video quality, prompting the party to apologize; The Globe and Mail reported on December 5 that Dion's chief of staff had bypassed the normal in-house Liberal shop, instead retaining an outside consultant to produce the video on short notice. CBC Television stayed on the air past 7:30 p.m. to show Dion's statement, cutting into its regularly-scheduled programming, and network anchorman Peter Mansbridge, speaking later that night on the newscast The National, compared the quality of Dion's video to YouTube. CTV, which had already signed off of its special broadcast before Dion's statement arrived, was met with complaints both that the network had ignored the Liberals, and that Dion had snubbed the network. CTV commentator Robert Fife stated that the New Democrats and Bloc Québécois were "angry" with the quality of Dion's address, elaborating that it had undermined the credibility of the coalition. Public statements also came from the Bloc and NDP leaders: Layton, who unsuccessfully requested his own airtime and had to share with Dion, said "Tonight, only one party stands in the way of a government that actually works for Canadians... Instead of acting on these ideas... Mr. Harper delivered a partisan attack." Duceppe said "Stephen Harper showed a serious and worrisome lack of judgment by putting his party's ideology before the economy."

Unity crisis

The Conservative Party stated in Harpers national address: "Canada's government cannot enter into a power-sharing coalition with separatists." While the Bloc Québécois had committed itself to supporting the coalition in matters of confidence, some suggested that they could have considerable influence in policy since they would hold the balance of power in parliament.

In the nine primarily English-speaking provinces, the Conservatives enjoyed increased support in polls. The strongest opposition to the coalition was in Alberta, where fear was expressed at being politically marginalized by its eastern-based leaders. Some suggested that if the coalition took power, it would revive western alienation, with some speculation on the formation of a western-based party to counter the Bloc Québécois. Anti-coalition rally organizers, however, emphasized that their opposition was to the Bloc's associations with the coalition, not Quebecers in general.

At the same time, the Conservatives' attacks on the coalition may have cost the party support in Quebec, as Quebecers "tend to view the sovereignist parties as legitimate political formations"; Antonia Maioni, head of the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University, stated that "[Harper] is portraying not only the Bloc Québécois but Quebecers in general as being a threat to national unity in Canada." Dion defended the coalition accord, saying that "fellow Quebecers who believe in separation are more likely to be reconciled with Canada if we work with them than if we marginalize them". Kelly Parland criticized Dion, a staunch federalist and the author of the Clarity Act, for having gone against his principles by taking part in negotiations with the Bloc.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest, a federalist and former leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party, condemned the "anti-sovereigntist rhetoric" of the prime minister, emphasizing that the Bloc MPs had been legitimately elected by Quebecers, and stating: "I live in a society in which people can be sovereigntists or federalists, but they respect each other. The same thing should prevail in the federal parliament." He also accused Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois of using the ensuing discussion about the coalition to attempt to build sovereigntist momentum.

Other reactions

Statements regarding the upset in Ottawa came from provincial premiers, both past and present: Danny Williams, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, who originally started the ABC campaign, stated that he would remain neutral on this issue and that he would work with whomever was prime minister; British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell spoke out against the coalition, stating that if their gamble fails, Canada's economic worries will become significantly worse as a result; Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach urged federal party leaders to take a time out and hold off the non-confidence vote until the new year so a federal budget can be introduced; and former Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau told Le Journal de Montréal that the deal was an "impressive victory", showing how powerful the Bloc Québécois is in federal politics.

Political satirist and commentator Rick Mercer critiqued the entire affair as "embarassing", and denounced the Conservatives' claims about affronts to democracy and coups as willful lies.

The Governor General prorogues parliament

Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General of Canada, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Queen Elizabeth II's representative, Michaëlle Jean, on December 4, 2008.

On December 2, it was announced that Harper's plan was to ask the Governor General to prorogue parliament, thereby delaying the possible defeat of the government until the new year. The coalition leadership then sent a letter to Jean – who, at the time, was abroad on a state visit to various European countries – informing her of the events, upon the receipt of which, Jean announced that she would cut her trip short and head back to Ottawa "in light of the current political situation in Canada." The day following her return, Harper visited the Governor General at Rideau Hall, at approximately 9:30 am ET, on December 4, and, after consultating with the viceroy for more than two hours, it was revealed that the prime minister had requested Jean prorogue parliament until January; this request was granted, and parliament was prorogued until January 26, 2009, but without indication if the prorogation came with any limitation on Harper's prime ministerial abilities.

Most scholars indicated that the privacy of the meeting between the Governor General and her prime minister follows "the tradition of regal discretion [going] back centuries"; with C.E.S. Franks stated that the privacy of these meetings was comparable to that surrounding meetings of the Cabinet, and Ottawa University law professor Ed Ratushny opined: "it's generally normal that [constitutional] advice not be conveyed publicly unless it's not taken – so that it can be given freely." Lorne Sossin, professor at the University of Toronto and a constitutional law expert, offered a counter-opinion, stating that "it is simply not acceptable to have a closed door at Rideau Hall at moments like this," citing that transparency is a necessity in democracy, and Joe Comartin, NDP MP for Windsor-Tecumseh, suggested that such decisions should be made by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, after a hearing in an open court.

MP Bruce Stanton said that the suspension of parliament until late January "was perhaps the last tool in our basket to be able to allow parliamentarians to take a step back." There was, however, some concern that Jean's decision may have set a precedent in which a prime minister may seek prorogation or dissolution when confronting a potential vote of non-confidence. Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said that the following of Harper's advice "has been a blow to parliamentary democracy in Canada," while Margaret Wente, at the Globe and Mail, opined that the Governor General was the only person who emerged from the situation with any gained respect.

Aftermath

Liberal party reaction

Jack Layton speaks at a protest against the Stephen Harper government, held at Nathan Phillips Square, in Toronto. Stéphane Dion stands third from the left, in the front row.

After the Governor General suspended parliament, there were questions within the Liberal Party regarding the future of Dion's leadership and the coalition. Dion was criticised for his role in the amateur, out-of-focus video of his address to the nation, which undermined public support for the coalition. Former deputy prime minister John Manley asked that Dion resign immediately, saying it was incomprehensible that the public would accept Dion as prime minister after rejecting the possibility only a few weeks earlier, and said what was needed was a leader "whose first job is to rebuild the Liberal party rather than leading a coalition with the NDP." Several other insiders advocated moving up the date of the party leadership vote, rather than have Dion remain leader for either a potential election or coalition; Jim Karygiannis said that the coalition would not survive when parliament resumed, while other MPs suggested working with the Conservatives on the economy.

Effect on Liberal leadership race

Dion initially scheduled his resignation for the party's leadership convention in May 2009, and appeared with Layton at a pro-coalition rally in Toronto, on December 6, 2008, but two days later announced that he would step down as party head upon the selection of his successor. Should he resign before a new leader is chosen, suggested interim leaders included John McCallum and Ralph Goodale.

Leadership contender Bob Rae, who helped to persuade the Liberal caucus of the power-sharing deal, took over as the coalition's spokesman and planned to travel through the country to promote the coalition. By contrast, Michael Ignatieff, the frontrunner to succeed Dion, was said to be uncomfortable with the idea of sharing power with the NDP with supply support by the Bloc Québécois. Ignatieff said that there would be a "coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition," noting that the coalition served a useful purpose by keeping the Conservatives in check, but warned that the Liberals look over the budget before deciding. After the withdrawal of two other leadership contenders, Ignatieff was left as the sole declared Liberal leadership candidate, and presumed victor in the campign to succeed Dion.

Public response

Polling

This anti-coalition rally in Calgary was one of several demonstrations held across Canada both in support of and opposition to the coalition's attempts at gaining control of parliament.

The pro-coalition rally in Toronto was held in Nathan Phillips Square, at the foot of Toronto City Hall, and featured Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton as speakers.

An Angus Reid Strategies poll on this subject conducted on December 1 and 2, 2008, consisting of online interviews with 1,012 Canadian adults, and with a reported margin of error of 3.1%, showed that 40% of respondents agreed with the statement "The Conservative party does not deserve to continue in government," while 35% agreed with "The Conservative party deserves to continue in government," and 25% were "not sure." On the question "Should the opposition parties get together and topple the Conservative minority government headed by Stephen Harper?", 41% responded No, 36% Yes, and 23% not sure. If the government was defeated in a non-confidence vote, 37% of respondents would support a coalition of opposition parties taking power, 32% favoured holding a new election, 7% favoured an accord rather than a coalition among opposition parties, and 24% were not sure.

A Léger Marketing poll of 2,226 people, conducted on behalf of Sun Media and released on December 4, showed a regional split on what should happen if the Harper government fell. Nationally, 43% of respondents preferred a new election be held, compared to 40% who favoured allowing the coalition to govern. In Western Canada, however, respondents were sharply opposed to the coalition, led by Albertans, who responded 71% in favour of new elections. Quebec showed the highest level of support for the coalition, with 58% preferring it to a new election. Ontario was split, with 43% preferring an election compared to 39% supporting the coalition. This poll also showed that 60% of Canadians were concerned that the Bloc Québécois would hold the balance of power in a coalition, compared to 35% that were not concerned, with the majority of respondants in every region, excluding Quebec, expressing concern. 34% of those polled argued that the Conservatives were best able to handle the economic crisis, compared to 18% for the coalition. 14% felt the Liberals individually were best prepared, 7% felt the NDP individually were the best choice, and 2% felt the Bloc Québécois were best.

An EKOS Research Associates poll of 2,536 people, conducted on behalf of CBC and released on December 4, showed that if an election were held the next day, the Conservatives would have received 44% of the vote, up from 37.6%; the Liberals 24%, down from 26%; the New Democrats 14.5%, down from 18.2%; the Bloc 9%, down from 10.5%; and the Green Party 8%, up from 4.5%. 37% of respondents (including the majority of Conservative voters) expressed support in proroguing parliament, while 28% (including a majority of Liberal and Bloc voters, and a near majority of NDP voters) supported the proposed coalition taking power within the next few weeks, with 19% supporting an election. Additionally, 47% of respondents thought that Harper's Conservative government would better manage the financial crunch, versus 34% in support of the Dion-led coalition. Furthermore, 48% of respondents (including the majority of Liberal, NDP, and Green voters, but only 41% of Conservative voters) expressed confidence in the Governor General's ability to make decisions regarding the impasse.

An Ipsos-Reid poll suggested that if an election had been held on December 5, the Conservatives would have received 46% of the vote, enough to have easily formed a majority government. The poll also showed Liberal support had dropped to 23% from the 26.2% they received in the election, and New Democrat support fell to 13% from 18.2%. Also telling was that 56% of those polled said they would rather go to another election, rather than let the coalition govern.

Rallies

Public rallies, both in favour of and against the coalition, continued to be held a number of days after the prorogation, particularly on the afternoon of December 6. Besides the aforementioned that was attended by both Dion and Layton, other gatherings included one in Halifax, with Conservative MP Gerald Keddy attending; one in Calgary, at which Conservative MP Jason Kenney addressed the crowd; and at Queen's Park in Toronto, where Conservative MP Peter Kent spoke alongside John Tory, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. The rallies, all together, attracted thousands, with the largest assembly being in Ottawa, with an estimated attendance of 3,000.

Online activity

Web users across the political spectrum came out in force, leaving thousands of posts on news websites, blogs, and news articles; on December 1, The Globe and Mail website had over 4,500 comments posted on its articles related to the political dispute. This motion was in addition to the multiple specialized websites that were launched during the upset, and using the Internet to promote rallies and protests in the hopes of voicing their opinion.

Precedents

Reserve powers of the governor general

Main article: Reserve powers > Canada

The reserve powers of the governor general have been used twice in respect to declining the advice of the prime minister. The first took place in 1896, when Charles Tupper refused to resign as prime minister following his party's loss in the election of that year, and Governor General Lord Aberdeen refused to make several appointments, forcing Tupper to relinquish office. The second instance was in 1926, during the King-Byng Affair, when Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, already in minority government and having lost two votes that suggested he was likely to lose a third vote – one on a confidence question – asked Governor General Lord Byng of Vimy to dissolve parliament. Byng refused, as constitutional convention leaned to the view that parliament should sit for a reasonable period before a new election may be called, and then only if members of parliament are demonstrably unable to work together to form a majority government. More importantly, however, Byng also refused King's request that he consult the British government, as Byng believed that Canadian constitutional questions should be settled in Ottawa, not London – a position that was thereafter adopted throughout the Empire, as it began to transition into the Commonwealth of Nations. One view would hold that in applying the constitutional conventions relied upon by Byng to the matters in 2008, Jean would have been obliged to deny a request to dissolve parliament within less than six months of the previous election, unless Harper had a valid reason consistent with Commonwealth constitutional history. However, the situation in 2008 is not identical that which pertained in 1926, and so the precedent may not be directly applicable. In the 1925 election, Meighen had emerged as the plurality seat winner, and the Liberals had suffered an electoral rebuff, with King losing his own parliamentary riding, although the King government struggled on with Progressive Party support. In 2008 the Tories were in the electoral ascendant while the Liberals suffered one of their heaviest defeats. In addition, scholars are in agreement that Byng was in error in not re-appointing King as prime minister on the defeat of Meighen in the vote of confidence.

The 1931 Statute of Westminster clarified the independence of the Dominions (then, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State) from Britain, and also clarified the role of the governor general as one advised by the dominion government, not the British government, notwithstanding that the Dominions and Britain all had the same monarch. The historic "indivisibility of the crown" was transformed into an abstract concept, in which the crown is not a literal person or a thing, but an idea represented by a person, thus enabling the one monarch, and his/her governors, to serve each different country according to its own national traditions.

Similiar prorogation requests

In 1873, during the 2nd Canadian parliament, Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald asked Governer General Lord Dufferin to prorogue parliament in order to stop the work of a committee investigating MacDonald's involvement in the Pacific Scandal. While the governor general did reluctantly prorogue parliament, he limited it to a period of ten weeks; when parliament returned, Macdonald was censured and had to resign.

Previous Canadian coalitions

Federal coalitions

Canada was federated in 1867 under a coalition government, called the Great Coalition, and led by John A. Macdonald. Since that time, there have been no formal coalition governments, though, the Unionist Party was quickly formed after a coalition was proposed in response to the Conscription Crisis of 1917, and, in 2000, the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservatives were allegedly secretly considering forming a coalition government with the Bloc Québécois if, together, their three parties had won a majority of the seats in the 2000 election. Four years following, Stephen Harper sent a letter to then Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, suggesting that, if the Liberal minority government fell, the Conservatives would be willing to form a government with the support of the Bloc Québécois and NDP, and, during a subsequent press conference, said "...in a minority parliament, if the government is defeated... the governor general should first consult widely before accepting any advice to dissolve parliament. So I would not want the prime minister to think that he can simply fail in the House of Commons as a route to a general election – that's not the way our system works."

Provincial coalitions

Unlike in the federal sphere, there have been examples of coalition governments in the Canadian provinces, such as that which was formed in Manitoba between the provincial Liberal Party and the Progressives, following the 1932 election. The two parties subsequently merged, and also led a coalition government with several other parties through the 1940s. At approximately the same time, British Columbia was governed by a Liberal-Conservative coalition, formed to keep the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) from power.

In Ontario, the Progressive Conservative party under Frank Miller won a plurality (but not a majority) of seats in the 1985 provincial election, after which the New Democrats, then led by Bob Rae, entered into negotiations with the second-place Liberals. An accord was reached between the Liberals and the New Democrats, and Miller's government was defeated on a no-confidence motion over the Speech from the Throne of the newly elected legislature. The Liberals, led by David Peterson, were then appointed to government by the Lieutenant Governor, though the New Democrats did not participate in a coalition government, only agreeing to support the Liberals on confidence motions for a period of two years. The most recent coalition was seen in Saskatchewan, when, in 1999, the New Democratic Party formed such an arrangement with two Saskatchewan Liberal Party MLAs.

Other Westminster system democracies

Canada is one of many nations that use the Westminster system of government, a democratic parliamentary system modelled after the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The most recent major constitutional crisis in a country using the Westminster system of government was in Australia in 1975, when Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr. It had been described as the greatest political and constitutional crisis in Australia's history, and bore similarities to the Canadian situation in 2008.

Labels: Anne Humphreys, Canada, Dion, Elections, Harper

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 1:22 PM 0 Comments

Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in every Roman Catholic school, church leaders have said.

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want facilities in schools for Islamic pre-prayer washing rituals.

The demands go way beyond legal requirements on catering for religious minorities.

But the bishops - who acknowledge 30 per cent of pupils at their schools hold a non-Christian faith - want to answer critics who say religious schools sow division.

The recommendations were made in a document, Catholic Schools, Children of Other Faiths and Community Cohesion.

'If practicable, a room (or rooms) might be made available for the use of pupils and staff from other faiths for prayer,' the bishops said.

'Existing toilet facilities might be adapted to accommodate individual ritual cleansing which is sometimes part of religious lifestyle and worship.

'If such space is not available on a permanent or regular basis, extra efforts might be made to address such need for major religious festivals.'

The Islamic cleansing ritual, called 'Wudhu', is carried out by Muslims before they pray.

Islam teaches that Muslims are unfit for prayer if they have not performed Wudhu after breaking wind or using the toilet.

Wudhu involves washing the face, hands, arms and feet three times each, gargling the mouth three times and washing the neck and inside the nose and ears. Some Muslims also wash their private parts.

Catholic schools would need to install bidets, foot spas and hoses to facilitate such extensive cleansing rituals, Muslims say.

Daphne McLeod, a former Catholic head teacher from south London, said it would be 'terribly expensive' for the country's 2,300 Catholic primary and secondary schools to provide ritual cleansing facilities.

She said: 'If Muslim parents choose a Catholic school then they accept that it is going to be a Catholic school and there will not be facilities for ritual cleansing and prayer rooms.

'They do their ritual cleansing before they go to a mosque, but they are not going to a mosque.

'I don't think the bishops should go looking for problems. Where will it stop?'

But Majid Khatme, a Muslim who sent his children to a London Catholic school, said he was delighted by the gesture.

'It is very kind of the bishops if they give this facility for Muslims to pray,' he said.

'I would love to send a letter of thanks to the bishops, really. If they do this all Muslims in Britain will be thankful to the Catholic Church to have facilities to pray. It is very, very encouraging.'

The recommendations have been approved by Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham and the favourite to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as Catholic primate.

But it would be up to governing bodies of each school to decide whether to act on the guidance.

Link

Labels: Human mistake, Iba Bouramine, Religion and fanaticism, United Kingdom

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 6:40 PM 0 Comments

(Athens, November 26, 2008) - Greece systematically rounds up and detains Iraqi asylum seekers and other migrants in dirty, overcrowded conditions and forcibly and secretly expels them to Turkey, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued today. Under EU rules, most Iraqis who enter the European Union through Greece must claim asylum there.

The 121-page report, "Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey Entrance to the European Union," documents how Greek Coast Guard officials push migrants out of Greek territorial waters, sometimes puncturing inflatable boats or otherwise disabling their vessels. For those managing to gain a foothold in Greece, the authorities block access to asylum procedures and deny nearly all asylum claims.

"Greece denies protection to vulnerable people and abuses them in detention," said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "Until Greece cleans up its act, EU states shouldn't send asylum seekers back there."

The report also documents abuses of migrants by Turkish border authorities, including detaining the migrants in inhuman and degrading conditions. Migrants returned from Greece have no meaningful opportunity to seek asylum in Turkey and are often detained indefinitely. Turkey continues to return Iraqis to Iraq without giving them meaningful opportunities to seek protection.

Based on the false assumption that all EU states have the same standards and procedures for determining refugee status, the European asylum system, governed by the regulation known as Dublin II, generally holds the state of first entry responsible for examining an asylum claim.

Consequently, the Greek authorities try to prevent asylum seekers from entering the EU at the Greek border, and if they do succeed in entering, try to block their access to asylum procedures. Those who manage to lodge asylum claims are almost always denied. In 2007, out of 25,111 asylum claims, Greece granted refugee status to eight persons after the first interview, an approval rate of 0.04 percent; the approval rate at the appeals stage was 2 percent.

"The Dublin system traps asylum seekers in a revolving door," said Frelick. "They can't move onward because the Dublin II regulation normally requires asylum seekers to lodge their claims for protection in the first EU country in which they set foot, and they also can't move back home because of fear of war and persecution. They are almost never provided asylum in Greece."

An Iraqi Kurd from Kirkuk who was among the scores interviewed by Human Rights Watch, made five attempts to cross from Turkey to Greece and was beaten and summarily expelled from Greece. He was also beaten and detained by the Turkish authorities. After the Greek authorities finally registered him, they used detention to deter him from seeking asylum. "They told me that if I asked for asylum and a red card that I would need to spend more time in jail beyond 25 days, but if I didn't want asylum and a red card I could leave detention after 25 days. So, I refused the red card and after 25 days they released me. I got a white paper telling me I needed to leave the country in 30 days.

"I wanted to go to another country to seek asylum, but a friend told me that because they took my fingerprints, they would send me back to Athens. I have now been here a month without papers. Now I am in a hole. I can't go out. I can't stay. Every day, I think I made a mistake to leave my country. I want to go back, but how can I? I would be killed if I go back. But they treat you like a dog here. I have nothing. No rights. No friends."

Greek and Turkish immigration enforcement authorities seem as frustrated with the revolving door as the asylum seekers. Their frustration regarding a system that provides no resolution is often expressed in abusive behavior, as they push migrants - and potential refugees among them - back across borders, often with brutality.

A 34-year-old Iraqi Turkoman from Kirkuk who said that he made 10 attempts to cross into Greece before succeeding provides another typical example. "One time I crossed the river into Greece and arrived in Komotini," he said. "They put us in jail for five days and then took us to the river and pushed us back. We were 60 persons. They put us in a small river boat with a motor in groups of 10. They did it in the middle of the night. It was raining hard, and the Greek police started beating us to make us move more quickly. I saw one man who tried to refuse to go on the boat, and they beat him and threw him in the river. They beat us with police clubs to get us to go on the boat."

The report contains recommendations to the Greek government and the European Union, including:

As the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has urged, other EU states should suspend transfers of asylum seekers back to Greece under the Dublin II regulation and instead should examine their claims themselves;

The Greek government should make a public commitment to ensure that migrants apprehended in Greek territory or at the border - whether on land or at sea - are treated in a humane and dignified manner, are given the opportunity to seek asylum if they choose, and are not subjected to forced return to Turkey; and

Greece should immediately stop the routine and systematic police practice of gathering migrants in police stations in the Evros region, trucking them to the Evros River, and sending them across the border secretly in small boats.

"A more equitable and better-managed approach by the EU might have put less of a burden on Greece and resulted in better protection for Iraqi refugees," said Frelick. "But whatever the EU's failures, this does not relieve Greece of its own responsibility to treat all human beings humanely and its obligation not to return refugees and asylum seekers to persecution, or anyone to the real risk of inhuman and degrading treatment or worse."

Link

Labels: Greece, Human Rights Watch, Irak, Noémie Cournoyer

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 2:59 PM 0 Comments

(Kinshasa, November 25, 2008) - Congolese state security forces have killed an estimated 500 people and detained about 1,000 more, many of whom have been tortured, in the two years since elections that were meant to bring democracy, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The brutal repression against perceived opponents began during the 2006 elections that carried President Joseph Kabila to power, and has continued to the present.

The 96-page report, "‘We Will Crush You': The Restriction of Political Space in the Democratic Republic of Congo," documents the Kabila government's use of violence and intimidation to eliminate political opponents. Human Rights Watch found that Kabila himself set the tone and direction by giving orders to "crush" or "neutralize" the "enemies of democracy," implying it was acceptable to use unlawful force against them.

"While everyone focuses on the violence in eastern Congo, government abuses against political opponents attract little attention," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher in the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "Efforts to build a democratic Congo are being stifled not just by rebellion but also by the Kabila government's repression."

On the second anniversary of Kabila's November 28, 2006 election victory, the Congo remains impoverished and in conflict. Those in western Congo who might challenge government policies face brutal repression, while in the east the armed conflict with renegade general Laurent Nkunda's forces has resulted in horrific atrocities by all sides.

The report is based on months of extensive field research including interviews with more than 250 victims, witnesses, and officials. Human Rights Watch documented how Kabila's subordinates worked through several state security forces - including the paramilitary Republican Guards, a "secret commission," the special Simba battalion of the police, and the intelligence services - to crack down on perceived opponents in the capital Kinshasa and in Bas Congo province.

Following the 2006 elections, which were largely financed by international donors, foreign governments focused on winning favor with Kabila's new government and kept silent about human rights abuses and the government's increasingly repressive rule. United Nations reports documenting government involvement in politically motivated crimes were deliberately buried or published too late to have any significant impact on events, Human Rights Watch found.

The report says that state agents particularly targeted persons from Equateur province and others thought to support the defeated presidential candidate, Jean-Pierre Bemba, as well as adherents of Bundu Dia Kongo (BDK), a political-religious group based in Bas Congo that promotes greater provincial autonomy and had considerable support in legislative elections.

At least 500 perceived opponents of the government were deliberately killed or summarily executed. In some of the most violent episodes, state agents tried to cover up the crimes by dumping bodies in the Congo River or by secretly burying them in mass graves. Government officials blocked efforts to investigate by UN human rights staff, Congolese and international human rights monitors, and family members of victims.

The detentions came in waves of arrests during the past two years. Detainees and former detainees described torture, including beatings, whippings, mock executions, and the use of electric batons on their genitals and other parts of their bodies. Some were kept chained for days or weeks and many were forced to sign confessions saying they had been involved in coup plots against Kabila.

In mid-October 2008, state agents arbitrarily arrested at least 20 people in Kinshasa, the majority from Equateur province, including a woman and her 3-month-old baby. Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 200 people detained in politically related cases continue to be held without trial in prisons in Bas Congo and Kinshasa.

Armed groups associated with Bemba and BDK adherents also were responsible for killing state agents and ordinary people, including in incidents in Bas Congo in February 2007 and in Kinshasa in March 2007. In these cases, the police and army had a duty to restore order, but often did so with excessive force.

Congolese officials have refused to acknowledge abuses committed by state agents despite inquiries by the National Assembly, the media, and other citizens or groups. The officials claimed that the victims were plotting coup attempts or otherwise threatening state authority, but they provided no convincing evidence of such charges and brought only a handful of cases to court.

Journalists who were linked to the political opposition or who protested abuses were threatened, arbitrarily arrested, and in some cases tortured by government agents. The government closed down radio stations and television networks that were linked to the opposition or broadcast their views. Several of these stations were later permitted to operate again.

The National Assembly has tried to scrutinize the conduct of the government. Opposition members sometimes boycotted sessions in protest of the abuses, with some limited impact. However, these efforts have not been enough to stop the killings or the wide-scale arbitrary arrests.

Human Rights Watch called on the government to establish a high-level task force under the authority of the Ministry of Justice with input from human rights experts to document the abuses by state agents and release those held illegally. It also called on Congo's National Assembly to conduct a public inquiry into the abuses by state security agents and to prosecute those responsible.

"The Congolese people deserve a government which will uphold their democratic rights, not one that represses opponents," said Van Woudenberg. "An important first step would be to bring to justice those officials responsible for killings and torture."

Selected accounts from the report:

"As they beat me with sticks and whips, the soldiers repeatedly shouted, ‘We will crush you! We will crush you!' Then they threatened to kill me and others who opposed Kabila."

- A political party activist detained and tortured in Kinshasa in March 2007 by President Kabila's Republican Guards.

"At 3 in the morning seven Republican Guards came into the prison. They took 10 of the prisoners, tied their hands, blindfolded them, and taped pieces of cardboard over their mouths so they couldn't scream. The captain who did this said he had received orders. He said he would drink the blood of Equateurians that night. They took them away.... I knew one of the guards and asked what had happened. He said the others had been taken to the [Congo] river near Kinsuka and killed."

- A Congolese army officer from the Ngwaka ethnic group, arrested by the Republican Guard on March 23, 2007 and detained at Camp Tshatshi.

"They started to hit me. They stripped off my clothes. They took four sets of handcuffs and tied my hands behind me and then to my feet. I was thrown on the ground in this position... They gave me electric shocks all over my body. They put the electric baton in my anus and on my genitals.... I cried so much that I could hardly see any more. I shouted I would sign whatever they wanted me to."

- A former detainee held at Kin-Mazière prison on the orders of the "secret commission."

"Kabila took a decision to beat-up on Bemba and to teach him a lesson."

- A member of Kabila's inner circle just before violence in Kinshasa in August 2006 following the inconclusive first election round.

"We all saw this coming, but again we did not do enough to avert the crisis."

- A European military advisor with close links to the Congolese army about the March 2007 violence in Kinshasa that left hundreds dead.

"You JED who do you think you are? If you don't agree with the regime, go into exile and wait until your champion takes power. If you don't leave we'll help to shut you up for good. We won't miss. Too much is too much. You have been warned."

- A threat received by the local organization Journalists in Danger (JED) in June 2007 after they raised concerns about repression against members of the media.

Link

Labels: Congo, Human Rights Watch, Marie-Êve Marineau

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 2:35 PM 0 Comments

Haiti) The government of Haiti is failing to protect the country’s girls against rape and sexual violence, Amnesty International said today, as it launched a report calling for authorities to recognise the severity of the problem and to fulfil its duty to protect young women.

Fifty five per cent of the 105 rapes reported so far this year were of girls aged under 18. This is according to one of the few organizations which records the number of sexual attacks on women and girls. Last year the same organization recorded 58 per cent of rapes or sexual violence involving girls aged between 19 months and 18 years. Crucially, however, the real scale of the problem is not fully known because of a lack of central figures.

Amnesty International said the police unit in charge of protecting minors, the Minors’ Protection Brigade (Brigade de Protection des Mineurs), is woefully under-staffed. In March 2008, the unit had only 12 officers to cover the entire country with not one vehicle at its disposal. If complaints are investigated, the organization said, the response of the justice system is weak and largely ineffectual.

“Sexual violence against girls, and in particular rape, is pervasive in Haiti and it can no longer be ignored,” said Gerardo Ducos, Amnesty International’s Caribbean Researcher.

“The Haitian government does not fulfil its obligations to protect girls. Given the lack of official help, it is perhaps not surprising that most of those who rape and attack girls are not brought to justice and are able to continue committing these crimes with no fear of punishment. For many girls, surviving sexual violence means keeping silent.”

The organization said that, while widespread reports of groups of armed men raping women started under the military regime between 1991 and 1994, it has now become a common practice among gangs of young men, especially in the run up to Carnival each year.

While Amnesty International recognised the country’s National Plan to Combat Violence Against Women as a step forward, it urged the Haitian authorities to implement it effectively and to fulfil their obligations under regional and international human rights law.

"We recognize that the government faces serious challenges. It is trying to strengthen development, good governance, and the rule of law - none of which could be fully achieved without the protection of girls' and women's rights,” said Gerardo Ducos.

“Leaders must address the lack of confidence in the police and the justice system so girls can rely on them when they’re seeking help and redress. There must also be a coordinated way to collect information across Haiti to measure the nature and extent of violence against girls and women and to make these results public in both official languages. The government must not turn its back on the girls of Haiti."

Amnesty International is highlighting this sexual violence in Haiti as part of its Safe Schools for Girls project within the campaign Stop Violence Against Women. The Safe Schools for Girls project is founded on the belief that the violence that girls face as they pursue their education violates their fundamental human rights. If violence against school girls goes unpunished this sends out a message to other children and society at large that violence against women and girls is acceptable and that suffering violence in silence is the norm.

Background

This report ‘Don’t Turn Your Back on Girls: Sexual violence against girls in Haiti’ is based on research carried out by Amnesty International and interviews carried out during visits to Haiti by Amnesty International researchers in September 2007 and March 2008. Girls’ names have been changed in this report in order to protect their privacy and ensure that their security is not compromised.

Haiti is one of the few countries in the Americas region which doesn’t have specific legal provisions addressing domestic violence.

The report was launched as part of a series of workshops by Amnesty International representatives in Haiti, and as part of a global campaign of actions about women’s rights, around Women Human Rights Defenders Day on 29 November 2008. The Stop Violence Against Women campaign pushes for the implementation of existing laws that guarantee access to justice and services, calls for new laws to be enacted that will protect women's human rights, demands an end to laws that discriminate against women, and urges the ending of violence against women perpetrated by a state and its agents.

The Safe Schools for Girls project recognises that no violence against girls is justifiable and all such violence is preventable.

When girls are denied their right to education, this is often linked to other human rights violations. For example, if girls are denied their right to adequate housing by being forcibly evicted from their homes, they may not be able to attend school. If their right to the highest attainable standard of health is violated, for example if they are denied essential medication, this will adversely affect their educational opportunities. If girls are not protected from physical, psychological and sexual violence, the effect is to undermine their right to education, as well as their right to freedom from violence. Girls who are subjected to violence report that they have difficulty learning, find that their sense of self-worth is diminished, and may drop out of school altogether. Once they leave the formal education system, most will never return.

Link

Labels: Amnesty International, Francis Chartrand, Haiti, Human rights

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 2:10 PM 0 Comments

Nine out of ten children with HIV do not have access to life-saving antiretroviral drugs. Governments and donors need to be more ambitious in bringing existing pediatric HIV tests and drugs to the children who need them, says the medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). This lack of treatment is particularly threatening for babies who are born with the virus because half of them will die before their second birthday if untreated.

Labels: Children, Doctors Without Borders, Renata Daninsky

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 12:22 AM 0 Comments

In the region of Kirotshe, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the west of Goma, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is working on both sides of the front, supporting a referral hospital and conducting mobile clinics. In the Shasha camp for displaced people, MSF provides psychosocial assistance. Carmen Martinez, a psychologist working for MSF in the area, explains .

Carmen, can you describe the psychosocial activities in the Shasha camp?

We started a psychosocial program to help displaced people, as well as certain members of the resident population, to overcome the trauma they have suffered as a result of the war. This is a community program, namely a program using the community base, without “technicians.” I am the only psychologist. Last week, I trained 22 outreach workers. They are organized in six groups, which correspond to different sections of the camp. In addition to these group or community activities, there is a one-on-one component to the program, with individual consultations for those who have been most deeply affected.

In concrete terms, what do the outreach workers do?

They organize discussion groups, with a discussion theme. There are 60 to 80 people in each discussion group. During a session last week, the theme was health. Health in a global sense: physical, social and mental. Some people spoke about headaches, stomach aches, sleeping difficulties. Others experience a sense of isolation. Today, we talked about the population’s concerns. We tried to identify the events that marked them. They spoke to us about their fear of going into the fields to grow crops, their fear of dying. They recalled their flight as something very sudden. We tried to find some tools that would help them overcome this situation. For example, having spokespeople to gather information about community needs. Or using traditional practices such as rituals.

What do the individual interviews involve?

In addition to social motivation, there is also individual counselling. Two people have been
trained to work with me as psychosocial counsellors. A counselling session takes place much like a medical consultation, where we try to identify the most important problems, recent events they have experienced, or very intense life experiences. First we deal with the physical and mental reactions, by allowing the person to express what they’ve gone through. One session was with a demobilized soldier. In other words, he had left the armed group to return to civil life. He spoke about flash-backs, night terrors, nightmares, intense emotions at night when he hears the slightest sound. He said he was afraid to leave his home. In fact, through this behaviour, he was avoiding a situation that could remind him about something he had lived through. There are many similar examples among the displaced people.

What are living conditions like in the camp?

Here, in the Shasha camp, there are approximately 4,300 displaced people. Some of these people are also in foster families. They left everything behind them, families were separated. At Shasha, about 20 children are unaccompanied, most because we don’t know where their parents are. People have also told me that armed men have stolen their belongings. On Oct. 27, everyone quickly evacuated the Shasha camp to go to Minova, farther south. Once the area was secure enough for them to return, everything had been pillaged. They have almost nothing; they received a few blankets, plastic sheets, buckets. Their huts are very small. The hygiene conditions in the camp are abominable. It’s important for us to insist on basic hygiene and health promotion measures. Some of the discussion groups, for example, focus on hygiene.

How can people get over such traumatizing experiences?

Together with the patient, we have to find mechanisms that still work well. For example, the ability to confide in someone or, for some people, to be with their whole family, etc. The demobilized soldier I spoke about told me he was still able to work at least, that he could go into the field occasionally. During individual counselling we identify these positive points and we come to an agreement about what we can do together. We have to make them understand their reactions are normal and that they are a response to events that are not normal.

Link

Labels: Congo, Doctors Without Borders, Noémie Cournoyer

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 12:02 AM 0 Comments