April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

human rights

McGuinty: No Apology for Rights Abuses

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Two peas - same pod
Shorter McGuinty; Meh, not my problem.

* “I know that some folks feel that their rights have been abridged, and there are avenues available to them and I would encourage them to pursue any remedies that are available to them through those avenues,” he said.

Feel their rights have been abridged? Are you fucking serious?

Hey McGuinty have you seen this?

I was now around 2:00am. I’ve been held since 10:30pm, not read my rights, not explained anything, not yet charged, no phone call. And in an overcrowded cell with no access to water. Every guy had to pee; there was a line around the inside of the cell to piss. Trying to pee with your hand cuffed together was horrible…but we all managed…the outhouse was messy. No toilet paper. So, here we all were. Ages from 16-78. Three German men asked why the guard made a joke about Auschwitz. They were here from Germany, left a bar, got arrested. They said they had no idea Canada was like this; they said the world thought we were free. The said “poor Canadians, this is shame”.

In police custody for 6 hours now, no water, no anything. We start to get worried. We are still very polite guards “Please, we need water. Please help us. Please help this 16-year-old kid. Please split us up, we can’t even all sit in here”. We look at the camera and beg for help. We can hear people in the other cells yelling and begging for water. We hear a girl ‘Please! I need my medication! HELP ME!”. I yell “Help that girl, what the hell is going on here!” Other cages begin to yell. I find out later this girl was in my girlfriends cell and was way passed her medication time. The male officers were laughing in at her and tapping their keys along the bars leering at the girls in wet clothes. Finally two female officers took the girl away. They also had a 17-year-old girl in her cage as well. Still thirsty.

What about this?

G20 Toronto Police Rape Threats

or this
Guardian journalist Jesse Rosenfeld released after being beaten and arrested by Toronto police at G20

“the journalist identified himself as working for ‘the guardian.’ he talked too much and pissed the police off. two officers held him….”

“a third punched him in the stomach. totally unnecessary. the man collapsed. then the third officer drove his elbow into the man’s back.”

And as for the Tories well hardly surprising they don’t want an investigation but are more than willing to make political hay on the backs of the abused.

* “I don’t think we need a public inquiry to do that and I don’t think we should spend millions of dollars, and that’s what it would do . . . I don’t think we can afford to do that right now. I just think the premier — in good faith — should apologize on behalf of the government.”

An apology is NOT going to make this go away. It is NOT enough. But it would be a start to the appropriate course of action for a man in charge of a province and city who saw war declared on it’s citizens.

*quotes from The Star

Rights, the Right doesn’t believe in them

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Can you afford your rights?
Can you afford your rights?
In April of last year I blogged about the Court Challenges Program and this quote;
Rainer Knopff, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, said the program was “a biased boondoggle that had gone well past its `best before’ date.”

The program only funded groups on “one side” of the political spectrum while “socially conservative groups never got any money. Not a penny, as far as I know,” said Knopff.
He also echoed then-Treasury Board president John Baird’s suggestion, made in defending the decision to kill the program, that it made no sense for Ottawa to spend public money helping groups challenge its own legislation.
“I don’t want to pay for surrogate litigants,” said Knopff, arguing public interest groups should raise their own money for Charter cases. “If they can’t raise the money – tough.”

Today CTV has a story about the further erosion of rights in Canada;

OTTAWA — A Montreal court may be about to make Canadian legal history in a case that could see offenders considered guilty until proved innocent.

A bail hearing at the court this week is believed to be the first involving so-called “reverse onus,” in which a defendant must prove why they deserve less time behind bars and why they should be released on bail pending trial.

This ‘test case’ involves gangs. Naturally one chooses the circumstance least likely to garner public sympathy to launch such an attack. It goes without saying that any argument to democracy and rights will be met with an allegation of supporting gangs and violence. It being the case, unfortunately that some cannot hold more than one thought in their mind at a time. This law may start out as being about gangs and gun crime but it will not end there.

Image via Wikipedia

Dave Schroder of Edmonton’s Guardian Angels network thinks the reverse onus rule is “long overdue.”

“When somebody has demonstrated their lack of respect for Canadian law, we do have the right to expect them to be put away,” he said.

We certainly do have a right to expect criminals to be “put away”, right after they have been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers.

I say this as someone whose life has been touched by violent crime. The criminals never even charged. While I still am affected by these crimes, I don’t believe the Canadian criminal system should be built upon whatever revenge fantasies I may hold.

Our rights and freedoms are being stripped away by those who value sound bite over substance, authoritarianism over democracy and big brother over individual freedom. It is time for us, all of us, to speak up before our right to speak is taken too.

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  • Controversial ‘reverse onus’ law faces first test

There, there dear…

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personalgrowth.jpg So the partisans have decided that party politics trump human rights.

Surprising? Well not really. Sickening? Definitely.

Thanks guys for suggesting that we are over reacting. Perhaps if as fern suggested you read that pink blog aka Birth Pangs once in a while you would be cognisant of the fact that this is exactly how rights started being eroded in the states. You would be aware that this isn’t a few “Bread and Roses women” getting their knickers in a knot. The NeoCons start with women because they know how to pick their targets. They know the partisans will gladly throw the women under the bus. Women and children first, eh guys?

It won’t stop with us. Perhaps you have read about the little spot of trouble with habeas corpus? The pronouncing of the Geneva Conventions as quaint? I’ll let you in on a little secret guys…..it’s the same people.

Don’t worry about us though, we’ll be over here fighting the same fucking fight we have been fighting for years. But when your party finally gets the fortitude to force an election don’t fucking count on our vote!

Free Khadr

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From the CBC;

A U.S. soldier at the battle said in sworn testimony that two al-Qaeda fighters were alive after the fatal grenade attack.

The unidentified soldier says he killed the first al-Qaeda fighter before spotting Khadr, whom he said was wounded, on his knees and facing away from him. For reasons he does not go into, he says he shot him in the back twice.

The Pentagon says American soldiers fired on Khadr in self-defence after he tried to attack them.

Khadr’s military lawyer Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler suggests that the U.S. military may have been involved in a coverup.

“The U.S. government had a problem on its hands when it found that it had a 15-year-old Canadian on its hands with two gaping bullet holes in his back that had been facing away from the fight,” said Kuebler.

{emphasis mine}

So here we have a 15 year old shot in the back, imprisoned, tortured, denied basic human rights and dignities and Harper can’t take Bush’s dick out of his mouth long enough to demand Khadr’s immediate release and return?

Harper is not a leader. He is a school yard bully who got left in charge in of the class, and it is time the class pulled their heads out of their books and got a teacher back in charge.

I’d leave off by asking that Harper look deep inside and do the right thing. But he already has his head as far up his ass as it will go.

Be nice when someone Spitz on you

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What is up with the feminist baby eaters? Why are they so cranky? Must be “that” time of the month.

Let me try and explain it in small easily digestible pieces. This isn’t about making friends, or appealing to those who are fucking clueless about lifes realities. This is about fighting against a belief that things were better when men were men, sheep were nervous and women had no control over the number of babies they had and were denied abortions even to save their lives.

This is about dealing with those who post comments in support of women dying and doctors being killed on ones blog. I usually just delete them. But maybe it’s time we let the sunshine under the rocks so the gatekeepers of civility can grab a fucking clue. [Read more…] about Be nice when someone Spitz on you

Omar Khadr

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Two stories in The Star today about Omar Khadr.

One on a video tape that was released to the press, despite not having been allowed to be aired in court. Oops wonder how that happened?

The lawyer for detained Canadian terror suspect Omar Khadr accused the U.S. government yesterday of abusing the legal process after CBS News broadcast for the first time a controversial video recording which allegedly shows his client manufacturing explosive devices.

“I think it’s outrageous that this tape has been released without the approval of the court,” lawyer Dennis Edney said in Edmonton.

Long seen as a key piece of evidence against Khadr in the eyes of the prosecution, Edney believes the U.S. government leaked the video after stalled proceedings prevented it from being shown in court.

The courtroom airing of the 12-minute tape, which allegedly shows a 15-year-old Khadr planting land mines and assembling bomb timers, was delayed during a hearing Nov. 8. The recording was broadcast Sunday on the CBS newsmagazine show 60 Minutes.

[Read more…] about Omar Khadr