Edney worked from 2004 to 2011 on Omar Khadr’s defence against charges stemming from the July 2002 firefight death of a US soldier. Khadr, who is Canadian, was 15 at the time. American forces interrogated him for three months in the US-operated Bagram Theatre Detention Facility in Afghanistan, before transferring him to Guantanamo Bay, where he remains. In 2005, Khadr’s chief interrogator from Bagram, US Sergeant Joshua Claus, was found guilty of offences relating to the routine torture and homicide of Bagram prisoners. Claus received a five-month prison sentence. He testified at Khadr’s military trial in 2010.

In April 2009, the Federal Court ruled that Canada was complicit in the US’s torture of Khadr and ordered Ottawa to seek his repatriation. The Federal Court of Appeal concurred, but the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that though Canada was violating Khadr’s human rights, it was not obliged to seek his repatriation.

In October 2010, after insisting on his innocence for years, Khadr pled guilty in a military trial to terrorism-related offences, in exchange for a promise from Canada to repatriate him by October 2011 to serve the rest of his prison sentence in Canada. On September 20, the Conservatives tabled the controversial omnibus Bill C-10, which adds “additional criteria” to decisions about “whether or not to allow the transfer of a Canadian offender back to Canada to serve their sentence.”

Shortly after the trial, Edney declared that Khadr “would have confessed to anything, including the killing of John F. Kennedy, just to get out of this hellhole” and that if he had refused, Khadr would have been faced with “an unfair [military] trial based on evidence that would be inadmissible in a real court.” On Thursday, Edney said the detainees are entitled “to all kinds of international protections, but our governments are not asking for them. And by not asking, we become complicit.” There are nearly 800 prisoners in Guantanamo, but only 4 have been charged and given a trial. Detainees cannot see the evidence used against them.

In his lecture, Edney denounced the Canadian government for perpetuating a culture of fear in the camp’s defence. Edney stated that “since there has always historically been terrorism, and since there will always be terrorist threats, this war on terror – if allowed to be one – is unlike any other, because it is never-ending.” Thus, last decade has been marred by “habeas corpus being abandoned, secret courts being created to hear secret evidence, guilt inferred by association, torture and rendition nakedly justified.”

“I went into Guantanamo Bay as a lawyer and I came out as a broken father,” said Edney. “I never thought that in my lifetime I would go to such an evil place and see such evil being done.” Of the infamous cages, Edney said that “people go into those cages thinking they’re having a holiday in there.” He drew attention to Camps 5, 6, and 7. The first two are “designed for enhanced interrogation tactics: torture.” He said about Camp 7 that “We are not allowed to talk about it. We have prisoners in there who came from Europe, about a year and a half ago, and they’re going to be there forever, because there’s no one there to help.”

Edney discussed the 9/11 witch hunt, in which “the US government detained hundreds, if not thousands, of people of colour on the suspicion of terrorist activity, some of them up to a year, all without charges.” He continued that “almost none of those individuals were found to have been in any way connected with terrorism. Yet many continue to be held without being formally charged with any crime or immigration violation.” In this way Guantanamo “provides powerful evidence of how America and the West are making war on terror synonymous with the war on Islam. No white Anglo-Saxon goes to Guantanamo Bay. Any American picked up for terrorism offences gets due process in a federal court system in New York.”

One audience member suggested that the camp must serve some purpose, because otherwise US President Barrack Obama would have followed through on his promise to shut it down. Edney responded that the camp primarily functions as “an important propaganda tool.” He argued the Obama administration has in fact “systematised” the culture of torture normalised under George W. Bush, for instance by disallowing victims of extraordinary rendition from suing Washington for torture suffered overseas.

Edney was also critical of “lazy” media and academics who have persisted in “slotting events into a sort of juicy clash of civilisations story,” as exemplified by mainstream media coverage of Anders Behring Breivik’s terrorist attack in Oslo. He killed 69 people in July, avowedly to protect Europe from Muslims. Edney said, “as soon as the bomb went off, media organisations began reporting on jihadist organisations.” This, he said, “fit perfectly the story we have all been telling each other since 9/11 that who else, who else could be so hateful, so crazy, so disrespectful of life but Muslims.” He pointed out that though Breivik is a white Norwegian Christian, “we don’t hold Christians or conservatives or liberals responsible for Brievek’s despicable acts.”

He said that “since September 11 2001, race, ethnicity, and religion have become proxies for suspected terrorist activity, which in turn has become a pretext for the application of Canadian immigration laws in an unequal manner towards Arabs, South Asians, Muslims and so on.” In an apparent nod to Bill C-4, the anti-refugee bill that the Conservatives tabled on Tuesday despite widespread condemnation, he noted that “we just have to listen to media descriptions coming out of Ottawa when we talk about refugees today. We call them queue jumpers and potential terrorists.”

Edney also expressed anger at the public’s willingness to be lulled into complicity. He described the transfer of the prisoners to Guantanamo “in rows in aircraft, hooded and shackled for transportation across the Atlantic” as similar to eighteenth century slave ships. He maintained that for “the watching world, no knowledge of international humanitarian conventions is needed to understand that what was being witnessed was simply unlawful.” He blamed public apathy for “allowing anti-Muslim sentiment to become part of our mainstream conversations.” He said, “I say to you we cannot tackle manifestations of intolerance, unless we learn and understand how the constant use of fear pervades our everyday life, and how that fear is being used to influence how you and I think and how you and I act. It’s that same manipulation of fear that has allowed military escapades into countries beyond those who bombed the twin towers. It is that same message that has been exploited by participating countries to reduce civil liberties and infringe upon human rights by allowing such places as Guantanamo Bay to exist.”

The need for action had been a prevailing theme throughout the lecture. Edney returned to it at his lecture’s close: “Not only does it [Guantanamo] continue to exist, they continue building it. Guantanamo is going to be there for a long, long time, unless you do something. Unless you really do something about it.” He concluded that “the only crime equal to wilful inhumanity is the crime of indifference, the crime of silence, the crime of forgetting.”

In that vein, we cannot afford to forget that Guantanamo Bay’s precedents in the West include Canada’s own internment camps, built in BC expressly to detain Japanese-Canadians during WWII. Similarly, Bill C-4’s predecessors include the Chinese head-tax policy.

Kenney—with some help from Prime Minister Harper and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews—used the arrival of two boatloads of Tamil asylum seekers in an attempt to prod public opinion toward the idea that “bogus” refugee claimants were overrunning Canada.

Pretending to punish smugglers—who were largely phantoms out of reach of Canadian authority—he put forward Bill C-49, which resolutely set out policies that would punish the refugees themselves.

C-49 was a profoundly flawed piece of work that proposed building special prisons for refugees who had the good luck to escape to Canada from foreign murder and mayhem but the bad luck to have been caught using the help of a smuggler. Further punishments included the withholding of family reunions as well as healthcare and other services.

It was a strategy that promised to sweep up more votes from ordinary Canadians who could be sold the idea that they needed to be protected from a flood of illegal arrivals. It was pure theatre, with the two ministers and even the prime minister turning up at the two rusting hulks, the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea, to promote their bill, the extremely wordy Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act.

“In a speech to the University of Western Ontario’s law faculty last week, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney launched an attack on Federal Court judges for rendering decisions he didn’t agree with. He suggested the judges were preventing him from properly administering the immigration program. [...]

The judges do not work, and should not be seen to work, for Prime Minister Stephen Harper or his immigration minister. And because of their special role in society, they aren’t expected to participate openly in the political process. Indeed, you haven’t heard the Federal Court respond to Mr. Kenney, despite his misrepresentation of cases, jurisprudence and statistical evidence. Judges don’t reply because they understand the importance of not becoming politicized.

When Mr. Kenney publicly criticizes judges for interpreting the law in a manner that diverges from his own preferred outcome, he shows contempt for judicial independence. That’s not to say the minister can’t take action when he disagrees with a court’s decision. As a member of cabinet, he has the power to introduce into Parliament amendments to any federal law. The cabinet may also pass regulations implementing existing law. The government possesses the unique jurisdiction to change the law to conform to his views. But using an address to a law school – of all places – to take potshots at judicial decisions the government doesn’t like is an inappropriate exploitation of political office.”

Human rights court slams EU asylum policy as inhumane

In a landmark ruling the European Court for Human Rights has criticized the EU’s asylum policy. It said forcing refugees to apply for asylum in the country of their entry into the EU was inhumane.

The European Court for Human Rights on Friday ruled illegal the deportation of an asylum seeker from Belgium to Greece.

The Afghan national first entered the European Union in Greece but then traveled to Belgium to apply for asylum there. Under current EU regulations, asylum applications must be processed in the country of entry into the 27-nation bloc.

Yet the judges at Europe’s top human rights court said that the appalling conditions in Greek refugee camps were inhumane and humiliating – and most importantly that Belgium was aware of those conditions but still sent the Afghan back.

The court ruling could mean that the European Union will have to rethink its entire asylum policy.

“This is a historic moment for the protection of Human Rights,” Marei Pelzer of rights group ProAsyl told Deutsche Welle.

“The ruling will have fundamental consequences in so far as the EU can not simply pretend that the situation with regards to asylum seekers is the same in all EU member states. And it’s crucial that refugees should not be forced to stay in Greece just because Greece happens to be the country where most of them arrive.”

Almost 90 percent of all illegal border crossings into the EU take place via Greece. The country has repeatedly come under fire for appalling living conditions in its refugee camps.

Human rights groups have long been calling for a more coherent EU policy that would make all member countries responsible for asylum cases in the same way.

Appalling conditions in Greece

The circumstances and procedures that refugees are exposed to in Greece are the worst in Europe, according to a recent report on asylum seekers by rights group Amnesty International.

The European Commission has also already proposed a reform to the current regulation in an effort to take some of the pressure off countries such as Greece, Italy and Malta, which see the main influx of refugees from outside the EU.

Germany has so far rejected the Commission’s proposals for reform yet rights groups hope that the Strasbourg ruling will have Berlin rethink its position. But Reinhard Grindel, member of parliament for Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrats insists the solution to the problem in Greece has to be fixed by Athens rather than by watering down EU regulations.

“All EU member states guarantee the international human rights standards,” he told Deutsche Welle. “We do have one problem case, and that’s Greece. However, what this means is not that we have to change EU rules but rather that Athens has to get its house in order.”

“For Germany a change to the current EU regulations would be a catastrophe,” he warned. “It would mean a flood of asylum seekers coming to Germany. And that’s something that everyone who now calls for changes of EU rules has to realize.”

And yet, to a certain extent, Germany has already changed its position. Berlin earlier this week announced that for one year it would stop sending back any refugees to Greece, because of what Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere described as “appalling conditions” for refugees there.

Britain, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have also stopped sending refugees back to Greece.

I am a first year law student in a Canadian Law School.  I lived in Iran until the age of thirteen.  My family and I immigrated to Canada in 1997 because of the lack of freedom of expression in Iran.  As immigrants, we were not always treated well and we suffered discrimination and were pushed back to work within our own small Iranian community in Toronto.  We loved Iran but actions by some Iranians have embarrassed our people at an international level.  In this letter, I will explain to you how I have personally suffered as a result of these actions.  If you and I, as Iranians do not treat each other well, how can we expect the international community to truly and genuinely respect our people?

One of the latest actions that bring disrepute to all Iranians all over the world is in regards to Blogger Hossein Derakhshan, 35, a dual Canadian-Iranian national.  He has been unfairly tried and sentenced on 28 September 2010 to 19 and a half years’ imprisonment on vaguely worded charges relating to national security. He was detained without charge for about 19 months prior to trial and denied regular access to his family and lawyer. Amnesty International believes he is likely held solely for the peaceful expression of his views, and if so should be immediately and unconditionally released.   

I have personally seen that in Europe, the situation is even worse for Iranians.  In addition, videos of Iranian refugees in places like Greece and Australia speak to the failure of our 1979 revolution.  In my opinion, you and your government are partly responsible for ensuring the well-being of all Iranians.  Your actions, though it highlights some of the malfunctions in the Iranian culture, have nevertheless followed innocent Iranians everywhere we have sought refuge.  Most Europeans and North Americans today look down on Iranians because we have created a bad image of ourselves.  We have been intolerant to women, homosexuals, bloggers, religious minorities, racial minorities and almost every other group that is different than the majority. 

I was born in Iran but see myself as belonging to the 6.8 billion people on Earth, and yet, the actions of the Iranian government constantly undermine my attempts personally to make a good living.  Mr. Khamenei, this is how your actions at the macro level results in problems for an Iranian like me at a micro level.  It is time to address the negative image that Iranians have created for us.  Iran was the first country in the world and Iranians are a warm and passionate people who have many beautiful cultures.  You as an Iranian and selected leader need to promote the positive aspects of our culture.  It is easy to shout and be critical of individual bloggers and exploitative foreigners.   Maybe it is time to pick the difficult path of self-reformation.  Why divide people based on their differences such as religion, race, and way of thinking when we can bring them together through our similarities?  We don’t need enemies in this world; we don’t need to shout “death” at others; what we need is to show that we can respect people who think different, act different, and live different than the majority.  The strongest people are the most merciful and the kindest.  

Releasing Hossein would be a first micro step that would help all Iranians show how we are a kind people.  As the leader you are responsible for reforming a positive image for all Iranians especially in Europe and North America.  The world watches how we treat one another as Iranians, and they treat us in the same way that we choose to treat each other.  Please act in a way that Iranians will be treated better from now on inside and outside of the land where both you and I opened our eyes to this world.

See the full interview tonight on CBC Television.

The Public Service Commission is investigating 13 appointments made by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, some involving its most senior officials.

The investigations were sparked by a 2009 audit that found serious flaws in the Ottawa-based IRB’s hiring practices. The PSC is probing whether the 13 appointments were based on merit and followed “guiding values” laid down in the Public Service Employment Act.

The IRB claims the investigations “violate the rules of procedural fairness.” It has asked the Federal Court to halt them until the court can rule on a judicial challenge of their methodology. If allowed to proceed, it says in court documents, the investigations will cause “irreparable harm” to the IRB.

The IRB is Canada’s largest independent administrative tribunal, making more than 47,000 decisions on refugee protection and immigration matters every year.

Its effectiveness depends on maintaining the public’s trust, the IRB argues in a memorandum filed with the Federal Court. “Any adverse finding on an appointment can permanently breach the public’s trust in the IRB and erode public confidence in the administration of justice.” One of the commission’s investigations was completed in June and found the appointment in question was not based on merit. The other 12 are ongoing.One of the high-profile officials under investigation is the director general of the IRB’s immigration division, according to an affidavit filed by the agency’s executive director, Simon Coakeley.

Its the circularity of the logic that gets me — because the revelation that the IRB may be doing irreparable harm to people’s lives may do irreparable damage to the IRB’s reputation, we can’t reveal the study’s results.

This argument seems to stems from the fundamental concern that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. But what would normally be understood as an edict on transparency gets used to justify the propping up of false reputations. This isn’t to suggest that all IRB adjudicators are terrible people or terrible judges, but that the tribunal is badly in need of an overhaul, and refusing any independent examination into the IRB only makes trusting it that much more difficult.

August 23 is the “International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition,” established in 1997 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) during the 29th session of the General Conference (Volume 1).

The purpose of the day is to examine:

• the historical study of the causes and workings of the transatlantic slave trade,
• the clarification of the consequences and interactions to which it gave rise, and
• the contribution of the project to the establishment of a culture of tolerance and peaceful coexistence between races and peoples.

This year UNESCO has developed a documentary for this day Slave Routes: A Global Vision.

A companion document has has been released with the film, and will be referred to periodically throughout this post.

The Causes and Workings of Transatlantic Slavery

The origins of the Transatlantic slave route go back to the Iberian wars, between the Christian and Muslim kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. Both sides engaged in the enslavement of captives of war. As Slave Routes notes, the institution of slavery existed well before the Transatlantic route, both internally within Africa and to the Near East. But something different began with the European enslavement of Africans from the 15th c. onwards.

The first known African slaves sold in markets of recognizable European states was in Lisbon, Portugal in 1441, obtained from what is now Mauritania. The Portuguese had good reason for attempting to circumvent the Atlas Mountains and raiding the West African coast. In 1086 a black African dynasty originating from this area known as Al-Murabitun (Almoravids in English) provided military support and temporarily halted the expanse of the Christians. Soon after, Pope Alexander II provided the papal standard (vexillum sancti Petri) and an indulgence to the Christians in the conflict in 1063, making it officially a holy war that would culminate centuries later in the Spanish Inquisition.

The motivation for European slavery of Africans was therefore initially military, as an extension of the Western Crusades known as La Reconquista, or the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula by the Christians. In reality this term was probably too broad and an exaggeration, as many of the diverse peoples in the Muslim kingdoms of Spain and Portugal included native Iberians who had adopted the Islamic faith.

A permanent Portuguese fort was established at Arguin in 1448, and the 1452 Dum Diversas papal bull of Pope Nicholas V specifically authorized Alfonso V of Portugal,

…full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be… and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.

This established the basis for a racialized slavery, hereby unknown to Africa or any region engaging in African slave trade. As the motivations for slavery shifted from military goals to economic incentives, sheer greed resulted in a complete and utter destruction of African civilization and society. This is what made the Transatlantic slavery exceptionally devastating and worthy of particular scrutiny.

Web resources on the subject are expanding, archiving historic documents for amateur historians looking to deepen their knowledge on the subject. J.L. Bell has a post on Boston 1775 announcing American Slavery Debate, a new database of primary source documents.

Marco Randazza thinks slavery would be a pretty good alternative to some judicial punishments out there.

In some ways we’re all a slave to something. Those of us starting out in our legal careers are often a slave to the billable hour, or a slave to making partner. Norm Pattis is eying some of the pro bono work big firms are doing and wondering if they can spare him a partnership. Ronda Muir gives some tips to young lawyers on how to be a better lawyer by improving specific behaviours. Social media might boost a career, but Adrian Dayton cautions on a guest post at Above the Law that it takes time and dedication to get true returns.

If we don’t make it seems like we’re all likely to move back in with our parents. Stephanie West-Allen discusses these millennials on IdeaLawg. Scott Greenfield just sort of bashes them. Jordan Furlong thinks law firms should pay more attention to a workplace trend:

…a daydream about the courage to quit a job that treats you with less respect than you deserve… As Daniel Gross explains in a Newsweek commentary, “the poor labour market and workers’ antagonism toward employers and customers are actually connected”

Slavery means different things to different people. James T. Harris quotes Alan Keyes, who describes the experience of slavery as a guarantee of shelter, clothing and a job. “Socialism,” and Obama, is a form of slavery, if you buy the Keyes line that government-dominated largess is an infringement on freedom. Blunt Politics gives us more black Republicans who claim that real freedom comes through independence from the state, which they liken to the slave plantation,

This is not the land of guarantee, it’s the land of opportunity… but when you say racism is the problem, you put the power for your future in someone else’s hand.

My take is that the modern descendants of slaves are more likely to find guaranteed food, shelter and clothing in prison. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and African-Americans are disproportionately affected for a variety of reasons. I always wonder why Keyes doesn’t talk more about that, because it seems like race is the problem. Or part of it, at least. If nothing else it makes confidence and belief in the system difficult for minorities in the U.S. Abdul Hakim-Shabazz has his own doubts about police on the Indiana Law Blog after the David Bisard case, where an intoxicated on-duty officer struck and killed a biker and somehow had the charges dropped.

Law enforcement is not always right. James Morton thinks Col. Patrick Parrish is wrong about Omar Khadr. Confessions are only valid if they are free and voluntary. Threats of gang rape in prison usually vitiate that consent.

Eric Lipman reminds us about Terry Nichols in prison, not notable for being African-American, but rather for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Seems he’s not too happy with his food in prison due to the lack of insoluble fibre which doesn’t give him regular bowel movements. Seems the judge doesn’t give a…

Consequences and Interactions of Transatlantic Slavery

The most immediate consequence of the Transatlantic slavery was the dominance of European powers in the world. Western civilization as we know it today would not be possible without the hundreds of years of free labour, and the continued exploitation of natural and human resources. Operation Black Vote said,

The UK reaped huge profits for the despicable trade financing the developments associated with the industrial revolution. Britain made unprecedented profits and benefited enormously for the bloody trade. The legacy of racism remains with us some 400 years later.

Transatlantic slavery also created a system of oppression that places people of European ancestry on a higher level in a hierarchy maintained by what Slave Routes refers to as europhilia, ethnophobia and endophobia. It resulted in a far greater polarization of cultures in the world, as those attempting to restructure this hierarchy or seeking independence through an anti-colonial stance invariably adopted a counter-European philosophy. We see this pattern not just across Africa, but all of the colonized world, including the Middle East, across Asia, and Latin America.

August 23 was selected by UNESCO because it corresponded with the Haitian revolution, a major landmark in the resistance against colonialism and slavery. Slave Routes points out,

In the United States, the North America historian, Herbert Aptheker, has estimated that approximately 250 acts of sedition in all were organized by Afro-Americans to free themselves from slavery during the history of that “particular institution” in that country.

These revolts existed throughout the Caribbean and the Americas, and were a far more compelling reason for abolitionism than any humanitarian or compassionate grounds. For more on the Haitian revolution and slave revolts, see Blawg Review #249.

Although the direct domination of the developed world by European powers has largely ceased, the exploitative relationship continues to this day and is a major source of civil unrest and political tensions in the world today.

I came across this poster the other day on Queen Street West stating that “Slavery wasn’t abolished in 1834,”

It’s an advertisement from The Body Shop, who have raised over a million dollars to fight sex trafficking through partnerships with ECPAT USA (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) and The Somaly Mam Foundation. The greatest consumers of modern sex trafficking continues to be wealthy European and North American citizens.

The Morning Quickie shares a review of Not Natasha, a photo book documenting the lives of survivors of sexual slavery in Moldova.

The key thesis behind Siddarth Kara and Devin T Stewart’s Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery is not that different from the Transatlantic slavery,

…the enormity and pervasiveness of global sex trafficking is driven by the ability to generate immense profits at almost no real risk.

They suggest the most effective way to address the profitability of modern slavery is to elevate the risk.

Not For Sale | Cambodia from Not For Sale Campaign on Vimeo.

Michael Platzer of the U.N.’s Center for International Crime Prevention said,

…200 million people are victims of contemporary forms of slavery. Most aren’t prostitutes, of course, but children in sweatshops, domestic workers, migrants. During four centuries, 12 million people were believed to be involved in the slave trade between Africa and the New World. The 200 million — and many of course are women who are trafficked for sex — is a current figure. It’s happening now. Today.

The Not for Sale Campaign has a slavery map tracking incidents near you revealed largely through law enforcement. The campaign focuses on more than just sexual slavery, and in their 2010 “Stop Paying for Slavery Tour” uses supply chain monitoring programs and looks at various forms of exploitation and economic dependence that result in a de facto rather than de juris forms of slavery.

Or as Jason Mustian recently put it,

Ron Soodalter at the Huffington Post talks about The Slave Next Door, and reaffirms that slavery is alive and well today. He’s calling for California to pass the Transparency in Supply Chains Act. A Heart for Justice reviews the same book.

Bruce Reilly visits the Modern Slavery Museum focusing on agricultural workers. Actually, the museum visited him, because it’s on wheels,

Farmworkers in this country have been the most exploited group of folks since the Abolition in slavery in 1865. As one farm owner puts it, “Before, we used to own the workers. Now we just rent ‘em.”

Faces of Slavery from David Hepburn on Vimeo.

Those interested in learning more might want to attend the Global Forum on Human Trafficking in Yorba Linda, CA on Oct. 14-15, or a number of workshops being held in the UK by UCL.

My Fight Planet gives us an edited version of highlights from “Fight Traffic,” a Mixed Marital Arts (MMA) event raising funds to abolish slavery and human trafficking. Maybe we can do something like that over here, because MMA fights are coming to Ontario.

Not all sports are so philanthropic. Tom Kirkendall is following the Roger Clemens case. Meanwhile, Howard Wasserman is cheering speech at the Sports Law Blog. Lilian Edwards comments on the case of the anonymous star of BBC’s racing show Top Gear trying to reveal his true name to cash in on an autobiography. (Sorry, no hockey here this time).

A Culture of Tolerance and Peaceful Coexistence between Races and Peoples

Michael Lynk, one of my former profs at UWO and currently Associate Dean, has the 2009 Rand Memorial Lecture on SSRN, Labour Law and the New Inequality. The premise behind the paper is that poor labour practices that stem from global inequity leads to instability and civil strife, limiting both social capabilities economic potential of these communities. UNESCO is currently mobilizing a response for the Pakistan floods, an issue of global concern to avoid radicalization, militancy and religious extremism in the region.

An obvious prerequisite for the horrors of Transatlantic slavery was the development of racial ideology. Slave Routes notes one of the major obstacles to political independence in Latin America was persistent and divisive racial ideologies. The Human Genome Project and countless scientific studies in recent years indicate the biological impossibility of human “races,” yet the resurgence of eugenics around the world is quite disturbing.

But genes can be used in good ways too. The Innocence Project announces that after 30 years DNA evidence has proven a Virginia man is innocent of rape charges due to the pro bono work of lawyers at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. Another recent exoneree, Michael Anthony Green, wants to become a paralegal to help others wrongfully accused.

Speaking of wrongfully accused, Christine Corcos reports that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was charged in Sweden for rape and molestation charges. Not so quick though, seems those charges were dropped in a hurry. Other charges of espionage against Assange are contemplated by Kenneth Anderson, but Julian Ku on Opinio Juris says in true spy form that they have to catch him first.

The most effective approach to peaceful coexistence might simply be for people to get to know and understand each other, a variation of the contact hypothesis used in sociology. But sociologists know that contact alone is not enough.

Eugene Volokh thinks Islamophobia is not quite irrational, citing a Time article indicating 46% of Americans believe Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions. Maybe, after several centuries of slavery and colonialism justified through religious practices, to restore some balance or equilibrium in global power. But sometimes, as Simon Fodden points out on Slaw, patience can be just as effective in the face of intolerance.

Volokh does note however that the accommodation laws invoked by many American Muslims today were intended for all religions and have primarily benefited Christians. And although Islamophobia is not a typical form of racism, it does rely on classic Social Darwinism thought.

By the way, Obama is not a Muslim, even though his middle name is Hussein (Can we get over this already?).

Slave Routes rejects the premise that racism is based on xenophobia or ignorance,

Racism can be defined as a process of suppression of the human being, based on socially selected phenotypical traits. This system classifies people according to their external physical characteristics and establishes a hierarchy of groups. In the long run, one of those groups defined as the superior race and the others are placed in inferior positions on the scale. Racism, therefore, is not a product of ignorance, the result of fear or concern over the ‘other’ or a natural phenomenon. [emphasis added]

Racism is more than a word, according to Marco Randazza. One word by a Dr. Schlessinger is what a lot of people are talking about right now. I’ll let you guess the word, but Norm Pattis weighs in too. One of his readers doesn’t agree though,

That someone as smart as yourself would join the oh so ignorant and completely off base “young black men say nigga, why can’t an old white woman say nigger?” team I hope speaks only to a generational divide and a complete lack of understanding of the context in which nigga is used and that it is a different word than nigger.

Where we do typically see racism manifested today is with immigration. Kevin Johnson at the Immigration Prof Blog discusses the 14th Amendment, which gives citizenship to the children of immigrants born in the U.S. Instead of repealing it, the real solution he proposes is immigration reform. Daniel Cubias points out how difficult it is to repeal an Amendment, and the unlikelihood of it happening, while J.E. Robertson considers it an attack on all Americans. Hegemomy notes that repealing the 14th Amendment used to be the talk of the fringe-right, and calls it the rise of the “Old South.” They heavy-handed tactics used in places like Arizona inevitably spill over into the general population, as evidenced by a case presented to us by Scott Greenfield.

What is needed is for group to have meaningful interaction with each other in a shared space and common goals to overcome deeply ingrained stereotypes and prejudices. It’s very difficult to hate others when you have extensive and nuanced encounters with a group that demonstrate the diversity found within them. For example, Martha Minow raises concerns that charter schools in the U.S. have the potential to create self-segregation.

Maybe that’s what the opponents of a new community center in lower Manhattan are really afraid of, that others won’t harbour the same hatred and animosity towards other that they do. Originally Park51 was appropriately called Cordoba House, invoking the city in Spain that was once a Muslim capital of a flowering multicultural and multi-religious literary civilization, extinguished by the same movement that led to the Transatlantic slavery.

Or maybe, as Jon Stewart suggests, Fox News is a terrorist command center (see here in Canada). Randazza doesn’t have much to say about it, aside from invoking through Sam Seder bull-size helpings of Terry Nichols’ favorite prison past-time:

Daniel Luban just calls it “The New Anti-Semitism,”

While activists like Pam Geller have led the anti-mosque campaign and the broader demonization of Muslims that has accompanied it, leaders like Abe Foxman have acquiesced in it. In doing so they risk providing an ugly and ironic illustration of the extent of Jewish assimilation in 21st-century America. We know that Jews can grow up to be senators and Supreme Court justices. Let’s not also discover that they can grow up to incite a pogrom.

It was through Cordoba that toothpaste and under-arm deodorant were introduced to Western Europe, and where literary works were translated freely between Arabic, Hebrew, Latin and Greek. It was in Cordoba that the Golden Age of Judaism flourished, giving birth to rabbinic scholars such as Maimonides.

Despite being one of the most tolerant and inclusive societies on Earth today, and all the lofty constitutional and human rights ideals, the United States has yet to accomplish the same culture of tolerance and coexistence that once briefly existed – in Cordoba.

Perhaps that’s something though we can all aspire to in Park51, if we’re willing to open our minds to it.

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Charon QC has his own little law review going on, and Jordan Furlong has six for the road. Next week’s Blawg Review is by Mirriam Seddiq, a criminal defence and immigration lawyer who posts on Not Guilty. Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

In November, 76 Tamil refugees escaped Sri Lanka on a rusty freighter. They arrived in Victoria, where they were met by RCMP and Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) officials, who promptly jailed them for three months on allegations of terrorism. It would be fully half a year before the CBSA would admit that it had never had any evidence.

By then, however, it was too late: anti-Tamil and anti-refugee hysteria had spread like wildfire. Now, mere weeks after that most tepid of mea culpas from the CBSA, the hysteria greeting the Tamil MV Sun Sea passengers is worse. As with the Ocean Lady, these migrants will be detained in Maple Ridge jails before their refugee claims are considered. The Conservatives have begun to create new rules to treat refugees who arrive by boat differently from others. Meanwhile, Paul Fromm, the infamous neo-Nazi, has been receiving uncritical coverage in mainstream media with his demands that the migrants be sent back.

As the paranoia grows ever more heightened, it becomes increasingly important that we resist it. The universal rights of safety and mobility must be upheld, not only for the Sun Sea migrants, but for all people fleeing violence.

I.      Sri Lanka: War, Then “Peace”

In May 2009, the Sri Lankan government closed 26 years of intermittent civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with the killing of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians. The International Crisis Group (ICG), an advising NGO to the UN, notes the Sri Lankan government was able to achieve a massacre of this magnitude by, among other things, the targeted shelling of non-combatants:

The government and security forces encouraged hundreds of thousands of civilians to move into ever smaller government-declared No Fire Zones and then subjected them to repeated and increasingly intense artillery and mortar barrages and other fire.

The government followed its declaration of victory by forcing over a quarter of a million Tamil civilians into detention camps. Some 80,000 Tamils are still behind barbed wire. Numerous NGOs have condemned the desperate living conditions in the camps, citing severe overcrowding, erratic medical care, and irregular access to water. About a third of children under the age of five in the camps are moderately or severely malnourished.

Meanwhile, roughly 12,000 detainees have been transferred, on suspicion of involvement with the LTTE, to separate prisons operated by Sri Lankan security forces and affiliated paramilitary groups. Many of these groups have been implicated in human rights violations. Amnesty International contends that the “incommunicado detention of suspects in irregular places of detention [...] has been a persistent practice in Sri Lanka associated with torture, killings and enforced disappearances.”

II.    Escape

Small wonder then that people are fleeing Sri Lanka. Yet the escapes they attempt are only marginally less dangerous than the situations they leave behind. One of the Ocean Lady migrants described his 45-day long journey thus:

All of the faces on the ship were new, no one knew each other. What I saw were people who feared for their lives. [...] At the beginning of the trip, it was extremely hot on the ship. We would go for fresh air on the deck, but most passengers stayed in the bottom of the ship. We must have been way deep under the water. At the end of the trip and closer to Canada, the cold was extremely difficult to handle. [...] This is a journey that plays with death: We faced seven or eight treacherous storms, and I remember one — on maybe Oct. 10 or Oct. 11 — that still haunts me. I thought death was inevitable.

His account of their arrival in Canada provides some humanising context to the photograph of waving men that became associated with the story:

Two days before we arrived, we saw an airplane that had the word ‘Canada’ on it in green letters. People from the bottom of the ship raced to the top and started waving their hands. Everyone was hopeful, we were so happy just to communicate with someone.

III.   The Ocean Lady

Soon after that picture was taken all 72 refugees were taken to a Maple Ridge jail. Meanwhile, the Canadian government went into overdrive. Alykhan Velshi, Kenney’s spokesperson, went on record with rhetoric flamboyant enough to rival most Internet message boards, such as when he proclaimed, “We won’t allow Canada to become a place of refuge for terrorists, thugs, snakeheads and other violent foreign criminals.” (In his analyses of the politics of global migration, the imminent danger of “snakeheads” is always a recurring fear for Velshi.)

They remained in jail while the government argued that they were terrorists and thus ineligible to make refugee claims. The RCMP contacted the Sri Lankan government to identify the detainees, endangering their families in Sri Lanka, despite objections from lawyers and civil liberties advocates.

Rohan Gunaratna, head of a think tank in Singapore, was the source of most of the government’s “evidence.” He was soon discredited. Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator Otto Nupponen charged that besides Gunaratna’s lack of sources, there was an “ongoing close relationship between Dr. Gunaratna and the government of Sri Lanka.”

By January, every one of the migrants had been released, but it would be another six months before the CBSA would finally admit that it had had no proof.

IV.   The MV Sun Sea

It has been scarcely a month since that admission. On August 13, after nearly three months at sea, the Sun Sea arrived in Victoria. Roughly 490 people were on board, including women and children. The CBSA has already removed some of the children from their parents and placed them in BC foster care. After “processing” is complete, the refugees will be moved to two Maple Ridge jails.

This mass imprisonment occurs when only last month the Conservatives revealed that, despite falling crime rates, it intends to spend $9.5 billion on expanding prisons. In addition, provincial officials have stated that BC will receive “full compensation” from Ottawa for “housing” the migrants. This speaks to the interlocking relationship of Canada’s immigration and prison systems. Still, few care to admit that if refugees are a financial burden on the system, it is because Canada is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars jailing them.

V.    Speculation as News

The criminalisation of refugees, however, is a process that extends well beyond the walls of Canadian jails, buttressed as it is by shoddy journalism. First, the number 500 is being used to whip up fears of “tides” of refugees pouring into Canada. In fact, only a small minority of the 20 million refugees worldwide make claims in the West. Canada accepts less than 0.1% of this population. On top of this, the Sun Sea migrants constitute only 0.1% of the refugees who even apply to Canada.

Second, every article about the Sun Sea opens by reprinting the allegations against the Ocean Lady migrants. Most of these articles do not mention that all the allegations were proven false. The kinder articles limit themselves to ambiguous statements like “All have since been released [and] few, if any, face a realistic prospect of deportation.” Many are much more disingenuous. The National Post authoritatively reported:

According to a Canada Border Services Agency report – marked secret and obtained by the Vancouver Sun through the Access to Information Act – at least 25 of the 76 migrants were members of the Tamil Tigers.

The CBSA created this report in January, the Vancouver Sun published it in June, and the CBSA publicly recanted it in July.

One Globe and Mail editorial pondered thusly:

All 76 Sri Lankan Tamils from the first migrant smuggling ship, Ocean Lady, which arrived in B.C. last October, were released after 60 days in detention, and all now await refugee hearings. Not one was declared ineligible to make a claim, despite expert testimony from Ronan Gunaratna.

Tragically, they were unable to spell said expert’s name (Rohan) correctly.

VI.   Tamil, Tiger, Terrorist.

A National Post article printed the following:

Gunaratna [...] said there were Tamil Tiger leaders among the group that arrived on the Ocean Lady and even more onboard the MV Sun Sea. “The ship carries not just refugees, but is staffed by a Tamil Tiger crew,” said Mr. Gunaratna, who has studied the Tamil Tigers and their 25-year war, since 1984. The Tamils lost their fight for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka’s north in May 2009.

How can a sentence about the LTTE segue so blithely into a gross generalisation about all Tamil people? How can Tamil people have “lost their fight” when not all Tamil people are separatists?

Since the end of the war, Sri Lanka’s government has resisted all calls for impartial investigations into its alleged and ongoing war crimes. Accordingly, the ICG’s recommendations included this specific note for Canada:

11. Do not extradite LTTE suspects to Sri Lanka unless guarantees of humane treatment and fair trials are in place. Instead prosecute in domestic courts where possible and appropriate.

In the Sri Lankan state’s imagination, all Tamils are LTTE suspects. It used this formulation to justify the blanket killings and detentions. Furthermore, this is the fiction Sri Lanka continues to sell to the rest of the world. Approximately 1,000 Tamil asylum seekers, for instance, have fled to Australia. Experts there have responded to claims that half of them are Tiger supporters by pointing out that most Tamils would necessarily have had contact with the LTTE, since the group had ruled a large swath of northern Sri Lanka.

Yet the vilification of the Sun Sea migrants, both for being Tamil and being refugees, is so unchecked in Canada, that the day after their arrival, Fromm was able to arrange a rally of “concerned citizens of Victoria” at CFB Esquimalt, where the migrants are being held. Fromm, who had already arranged a rally with the White National Aryan Guard outside Kenney’s Alberta office, sent out a press release entitled, “Stop the Tamil Tiger Smuggling Ship.” Its premise is that “the Sun Sea is just the beginning of an all-out invasion.” To that end, it concludes with “Send the illegals back!!!!!”

CTV is now serving as Fromm’s soap box. In none of its coverage – neither its online video interview with him nor on Victoria’s main radio station, C-FAX 1070 – have his connections with the KKK been disclosed, thereby accelerating the normalisation of his racism.

Little wonder, then, that besides all this, there is no acknowledgement of the hypocrisy of Canada, a settler country built on the theft of Indigenous lands and the forced assimilation of Indigenous communities, denying brutalised people their right to safety.

Instead, the collective punishment of the Sun Sea migrants is being presented as necessary “to reverse this country’s growing international reputation as an easy mark,”  thus making synonyms of “refugee” and “criminal.” One article quoted Gunaranta saying, “Canada’s response to the Ocean Lady determined the MV Sun Sea’s voyage because it was a weak response.”

“Weak” is an odd word to describe the release of innocent civilians from jail.

VII. “Boat People”: “None is too many.”

Keith Martin, Liberal MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, has argued that “the feds are using the migrants as a straw man to make themselves look strong.” In his words, “[Public Safety Minister Vic] Toews loves to talk about this boat being filled with terrorists and human traffickers. But if you’re a trafficker, you don’t get on a boat and spend three months risking your life on a filthy, crowded boat.”

However, despite opposition, the Conservatives have begun working on new tools that would treat refugees who arrive by boat differently from other claimants. Yet according to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, to which Canada is a signatory, refugees cannot be penalised for arriving without pre-authorization or irregularly. Moreover, the number of Sea Sun migrants is about the same as the number of asylum seekers who arrive in Canada by plane in a week.Yet refugees who arrive by sea have always been stigmatised more than those who arrive on shiny airplanes.

In 1914, the Komagata Maru arrived with 376 Indian passengers, most of them Sikh. “Hindu invaders now in Vancouver harbor,” read a newspaper headline. They were forbidden to disembark for two months, until the ship was finally forced to leave. British soldiers killed 26 of the passengers upon their return to India.

In 1939, the St. Louis, carrying 900 Jewish passengers, sought entry into Canada, but the Immigration Director said no country could “open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who want to leave Europe: The line must be drawn somewhere.” The ship returned to Europe. Most of its passengers were killed in concentration camps.

In 2008, the federal and provincial governments were forced to issue apologies for the Komagata Maru. Now, two years later, if those words are to mean anything, we cannot afford to repeat history: let them stay.

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For a concise breakdown of the 6 most popular myths about refugees see Myths and Realities about 490 Tamil Refugees on MV Sun Sea.

—
Cross posted on The Media Coop.

While every traveler has their own unique motivation for visiting any part of the word, there are certain areas which no matter what the tourist appeal may be, are probably best avoided. While anytime you want to leave your homeland you’re most likely going to need a passport, several countries have additional requirements of entry. Some countries also carry conditions or costs for exit. In the case of these 5 nations, in addition to passports and visas, escorts, in some cases armed, may also be handy tools for travelers.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or North Korea

Travel Logistics: Up until January 2010, travel to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was severely restricted for US citizens, and remains difficult, though not impossible for citizens of many countries.  As it stands, North Korea can only be visited through organized tours or with escorts. Foreigners are not allowed to roam freely or use local currency around the country. There is no embassy for North Korea in Canada or the US and only a United Nations head quarters in New York City. Most people wishing to travel to North Korea must obtain their Visas in another country, most often China. As a result of tensions between North and South Korea, most travelers will need to pass through China before entering the DPRK anyway, making a Chinese Visa a necessity as well. Although since the visit there is not wasted. In addition to the standard forms, Chinese visas are bound for expiration the moment they are issued, meaning that one must apply for one as close to their date of departure as possible.  In order to get a DRPK Visa in China one must arrive at least a day early, and send the Visa application and passport information at least 5 weeks ahead of time.

Other considerations:

• The lack of a Canadian embassy in DRPK means that all Canadian travelers must instead seek assistance through the Swedish Embassy. Though, the Swedish embassy may not be able to offer much assistance in certain circumstances. The DRPK reserves the right to restrict consular access and little is known about the legal system in this nation.

• The lingering tensions between north and South Korea also pose challenges to a tourist. While the threat of attack is somewhat minimal, the activities of travelers may be highly monitored.

• Cellular phones are prohibited and will be confiscated if discovered. While computers may be allowed, internet access is not. Cameras are permitted but visitors may not take pictures of airports, train stations or government buildings.

• Only government sanctioned tours are allowed, and only to specifically sanctioned parts of the country. Politics remain a driving force in DRPK, making it necessary for any travelers to remain vigilant in their efforts to appear supportive of the Korean government. In fact, all tourist institutions are government owned making tourism dollars a source of government funding.

• Journalists are almost never granted Visas under any circumstances.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Travel Logistics: It takes some doing to visit the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  Visas for the DRC mandate an application filled out in triplicate, 3 photos and 3 letters. Those letters are: one letter of Employment, one letter of reference and one letter of invitation. An itinerary, proof of financial support and a yellow fever vaccination will also be required. In most case travelers will also need a multi-entry pass, which can cost upwards of $300. Aside from the legal papers being expensive; some travelers also report having been asked by security personnel to pay “special fees” upon entry.  On the way out, travelers will also be  obligated to pay a departure fee called the “Redevance de Développement des Infrastructures Aéroportuaires” without paying this and receiving the accompanying “Go Pass” one would not allowed to board their returning flight.

Other considerations:

• The general lawlessness in the DRC make this a highly unadvisable place to travel. A Canadian Embassy exists in Kinshasa but may be of limited assistance in some circumstances.

• Civil unrest among the country’s inhabitants combined with foreign interest in the DRC’s vast wealth of natural resources, have resulted in a country fraught with murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and war for the past few decades. Among these resources is Colton, a material used in mobile phones, computers and game consoles, the rapidly increasing demand for these products has only intensified the blood-shed in the DRC.

• Travelers may be exposed to random acts of violence or attacks at any time or place throughout the country even in “safer” areas such as Bukavu.

• Unannounced curfews, border closings and flight suspension may occur at any time.

• Multiple Humanitarian and Non Government Organization (NGO) workers have been victims of attacks, robbery extortion and sexual assault.

• Tourist facilities are limited and road travel can be difficult due to the lack of public transportation and established roads. On what remains of the roads, truck travel may be possible but impeded by fake “security personnel” attempting to extort money or valuables.

Afghanistan

Logistics: In order to travel to Afghanistan, any traveler will need a Visa. An Afghanistan Visa is procurable through the Embassy of Afghanistan in Ottawa and Toronto. While the turn around time and expense of this Visa is reasonable extensive documentation may be required. It may be necessary to present proof of residence, travel itinerary or employment upon return. 2 identical photos with explicit specifications are also necessary. Failing to obtain a Visa prior to entry will likely result in detention or deportation and attempts to enter this country with an Israeli visa or passport stamp will probably end in refusal. Air Entry is the only viable option for security reasons and because roadways into the country are considered dangerous.

Other Considerations:

• While Canada does have an embassy in Afghanistan, the Canadian recommends that citizens avoid all travel.

• All buildings and public area remain at risk for terrorist attacks representing extreme danger to all travelers.

• In addition to attacks, there are landmines throughout the country and the Taliban has identified kidnapping foreigners as a primary goal.

• In addition, health care facilities in Afghanistan are unsanitary, creating severe risk of infection. Medical Evacuation is highly unlikely and certain remote areas of the country may be outside of consular assistance.

Iraq

Logistics: Getting into Iraq my not be as impossible as entering this international war zone would seem. Visas can be obtained through Iraqi Embassies ahead of time, or like with the DRPK, entrance may be obtained from a neighboring country.  The most popular places for border crossings are Turkey, Jordan and Iran, and producing an invitation for entry to Iraq may help expedite the process. Though at present time religious Visas are suspended, Iraqi visit Visas are remarkably inexpensive ranging from $30 – $100 for multiple entry Visas. Although, the wait times may be significant, and thorough documentation of identity must be presented.  The logistical difficulty of visiting this country lies in the fact that all visitors must be cleared once they have arrived in Baghdad and entry may be denied even after a Visa has been issued. The length of stay is also an issue. Anyone staying in Iraq for more than 10 days must obtain a residency stamp, the procurement of which will require HIV test results in addition to other credentials. In order to leave Iraq visitors must also obtain an exit stamp.

Other considerations:

• Iraq is at present in a state of war with extremely dangerous, and life threatening activities occurring in most regions.

• Travel by road, particularly at night, can be extremely dangerous and Railway travel is discouraged.

• A strict curfew is imposed at midnight and curfews may be enforced at any given time throughout the day.
• Security escorts should accompany all travelers due to the extremely high risk of danger and the high number of civilian deaths as a result of random acts of violence.

Somalia

Logistics: While Visas are required for Somaliland and Puntland, visiting the majority of Somalia does not mandate obtaining a visa. Primarily because for the past 18 years Somalia has had a complete lack of government which has made the creation of an organized Visa issuing process nearly impossible. At present, the closest one can get to Somalia is Somaliland, and Visas to this small nation can only be obtained through the UK or Ethiopia. Even if one were to get into Somalia the sealed borders and frequent shutting down of the airport could prohibit departure. Here, a body guard, preferably armed, is more important than a Visa.

Other considerations:

• This is another nation that comes with strenuous advisories of avoidance. The complete lawlessness and lack of a governing body makes for a highly dangerous environment.

• Guerilla attacks, pirating, explosives, and gunfire can be expected at any time in all places. Here, residents harbor extremely anti-western sentiments, representing a particular danger to US and Canadian citizens.

• Foreigners here are frequently kidnapped or assassinated.

• Land travel is difficult because road conditions are dangerous and made even more so by the threat of landmines and flash floods.

• There is no consulate aid available to any Canadians within these borders.

Article provided by Canadian Pardons Service – For Canadians who need help obtaining US Entry Waivers. – CanadianPardons.ca