RSS FeedUttering threats
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer (I am a law student). The text below contains only my understanding of the applicable law. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your particular situation. Do not assume you can make any decisions based on this text. I do not intend this text to apply to anyone’s situation. This text is not legal advice. I am not qualified to give legal advice anyway. The purpose of this text is to encourage debate and create awareness of certain criminal offences. Please consult a lawyer if you need legal advice or help with your particular situation.
Watch your mouth. Your mom or buddy told you this in high school when you blurted out something stupid or offensive. But it’s also what the law tells you now with all its authority and with all its might. Freedom of speech is not absolute, and for some speech, the law will put you in jail. It is a crime, for example, to make death threats or to promise to injure someone or to burn someone’s house. In 2009, at least two high-profile stories of prosecution for uttering threats hit the papers. The father of baby Kaylee was charged with threatening death and causing damage in September, and the sister of Toronto’s deputy mayor was charged with threatening death in April. The potential punishment is up to five years in prison. And if you are not a Canadian citizen, they can kick you out of the country. The law may come crushing down on you if you “utter threats,” so how does it work, exactly?
Section 264.1 of the Criminal Code defines the crime and the punishment for uttering threats. If you threaten anyone with death or “bodily harm,” you can get up to five years in prison. If you threaten to harm anyone’s property or animal, you can get up to two years in prison. The courts have said that you don’t need to be violent, to slap anybody on the face, to step on a dog’s tail, or to punch anybody’s car to commit this crime. Words are enough. Of course, if you jokingly yell “I’ll kill you!” and chase after your best friend who kicked you during a ball game, the law is not interested. You must intend to intimidate when you make your threats. You must want the other person to take your words seriously. But the victim does not need to understand or even know about the threat. All the Crown must prove when they haul you to court is that you “uttered the threat.” Even if you threatened not a specific person but a member of a race or a religion or some other group of people, you can be convicted.
A special warning to those who are not Canadian citizens. The government can deport you for certain crimes, and the law may ignore how long you lived in this country. They can kick you out even if you are a permanent resident and you lived here for 50 years. Uttering threats is one such crime. Under section 36(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the government can tell you to leave Canada, if you are a permanent resident and you were sentenced for any crime to more than six months of imprisonment. Uttering threats fits the bill because you can go to prison for up to five years. If you are not a permanent resident but just a visitor, a foreign student or worker, etc., it’s even easier for the government to expel you. Even if you don’t go to jail for uttering threats, the conviction alone is enough for deportation. Words can cost you dearly.
Most people are not criminals, and you can even say that it’s not that easy to commit most crimes. But some crimes are crimes of mere words with severe punishment in prison. There is no freedom of speech for these words. If you tell someone that you’ll kill them, or that you’ll cut their balls off, or that you’ll burn their house, or that you’ll kill their parrot, or that you’ll stab their tires, you can go to prison. If you are not a Canadian citizen, they can also throw you out of Canada. So know the law and watch your mouth.
Criminalising Refugees
The arrival in Vancouver by boat two weeks ago of 76 refugees from Sri Lanka has triggered a predictable wave of paranoia and xenophobia, not the least of which has come from our own Ministry of Immigration. Alykhan Velshi, director of communications and parliamentary affairs, felt compelled to reassure the public that:
We won’t allow Canada to become a place of refuge for terrorists, thugs, snakeheads and other violent foreign criminals. Nor will we support those who want to create a two-tier immigration system: one tier for law-abiding immigrants who wait patiently in the queue, and a second, for-profit tier for criminals and terrorists who pay human smugglers to help them jump the queue.
Minister Jason Kenney, somewhat less flamboyantly, has said, “We don’t want to develop a reputation of having a two-tier immigration system – one tier for legal, law-abiding immigrants who patiently wait to come to the country, and a second tier who seek to come through the back door, typically through the asylum system.”
On the face of it, the preemptive criminalisation of the 76 men as terrorists and snakeheads aside, it seems like a fair thing to ask: that whatever system Canada have in place for immigration be respected.
The fact is, however, that Kenney is being willfully misleading. As Shauna Lubman, of UBC Law, notes:
[Kenney’s] statement belies the fact that Canada has a two-pronged system already – the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) that legislates the entrance of both immigrants and refugees. There is no “back door.” There is an immigration door and an asylum door. While there is a clear legal process for entering Canada as an immigrant, it is specifically acknowledged in the 1951 Refugee Convention, whose signatories include Canada, that asylum seekers cannot be penalized for illegal entry. [emphasis mine]
Moreover, she continues,
Minister Kenney’s two-tier concern is misleading and completely misses the point that the Sri Lankan men might be genuine refugees. There are legitimate concerns with the arrival of migrants by boat, be they false or genuine refugee claimants. Human smuggling is a corrupt and exploitative criminal enterprise that should not only be discouraged but prosecuted. However, it is the smugglers who are the criminals, not the vulnerable migrants who in desperation pay their way into the smugglers’ hands.
Attn CSIS: American Airlines Flight 93 Doesn’t Exist
Justice Tremblay-Lamer of the Federal Court has quashed the controversial case against Adil Charkaoui, the alleged terrorist detained on a security certificate.
In his 2004 case before the Federal Court, the government made submissions that his interest in karate could infer his involvement in terrorism,
[50]To add to the demonstration of danger to national security and to any person, the Ministers link the respondent with violence and explain that he is a karate and martial arts enthusiast, and add that (see page 5, exhibit R-3):
[translation] In the past, it has been observed that some individuals involved with Al-Qaeda are devoted to the practice of karate and/or the martial arts. In particular Ziard Jarrah, who was part of the group that hijacked American Airlines Flight 93, (sic) had trained in the martial arts in preparation for the September 11, 2001 operation.
[51]The Ministers expressly and unequivocally associate the respondent with a sleeper agent in the bin Laden network and use Ressam’s story as a typical example.
[emphasis added]
All those with even a peripheral interest in martial arts should take notice, especially since no such flight on 9/11 even existed.
The Charkaoui case has been yet another one pointed to by critics of the shoddy research and baseless allegations used against vulnerable populations, who repeatedly are determined innocent by the courts.
Kenney’s Canada: Who’s in, who’s out and who is getting kicked out
By Krystalline Kraus
Published on rabble.ca (http://www.rabble.ca), reproduced here on author’s request
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney have the political power to decide who they want to let into Canada and who they want to keep out.
A Tale of Two War Criminals: Bush and Clinton do Toronto
Reproduced with permission of the author.
[1]When you accuse anyone of war crimes, you’d better be sure you have the evidence to back it up; such an accusation is the equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded shopping mall.
It’s a serious charge, something that sits heavily on our psyche as fragile human beings who generally tend to disbelieve that any one could be capable of committing crimes against humanity, especially if they have elected him president.
Perhaps that’s why such a presidential event as a “conversation” between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton happened in Toronto, Canada on May 29, 2009 — the event was billed as a “conversation,” [2] maybe because the terms “meeting of the minds” or “great intellectual debate” would embarrass one of the two parties involved?).
The two men got a standing ovation from a packed audience that paid from $200 to over $2,000 a ticket at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Yes, that’s right, a standing ovation from the crowd inside the Convention Centre. And both Presidents got paid for their time. While no one is telling how much each ex-President made off the 90 minute conversation, Bush reportedly received (US) $160,000 for his last appearance in Canada, in Calgary Alberta in March 2009. Clinton can charge up to (US) $350,000 per speaking engagement. Good work if you can get it.
But ask the 500 or so protesters across the street from the Convention Centre, organized by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War [3], and the only standing up the presidents got were erect middle fingers. It was this side third and uninvited side of the conversation that chanted slogans such as “Bush and Clinton, war criminals: shame on you!”
Here are a few of the numerous examples of war crimes committed by each of the two men.
Bush as a war criminal
Bush is accused of numerous war crimes, resulting from him ignoring his own constitution’s “supremacy clause,” Article II, section 4, and the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18USC §2441).
Regarding the United States’ War Crimes Acts, author Mike Ferner from Veterans for Peace [4], writes:
“To give just a snapshot of how serious these laws are, consider this portion of 18 USC 2441 which defines a war crime as ‘… a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party …’ The guilty can be ‘… fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.’”
Not to mention important international treaties and conventions such as the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg rulings, the Laws and Customs of War on Land and UN General Assembly Resolution 3314. Breaches of these international treaties and conventions amounting to war crimes are too numerous to mention here (though they are listed at the website War Criminals Out [5], which has lists of charges and broken resolutions.)
The invasion of Iraq is cited as a prime example of Bush’s war crimes, where activists insist Bush should be charged under the UN Resolution 3314, Article 5 (codified from the principles of Nuremberg concerning “Wars of Aggression,” [6] which cites as an historical example Hitler’s invasion of Poland) for committing a “crime against peace.” The invasion of Iraq is thus considered a war crime and a crime against humanity, which is spelled out in detail in the Geneva Conventions [7].
In Iraq alone, Ferner points out that Bush is responsible for, among other things, “illegally invading a sovereign state, using banned weapons such as white phosphorous and napalm, bombing hospitals and civilian infrastructure, withholding aid and medical supplies, terrorizing and knowingly killing civilians, torturing prisoners, killing a million people and displacing 4 million more in Iraq alone.”
Now, we’re talking big crimes here, a big fire someone should point out to the general public.
Clinton as a war criminal
While Clinton’s presidency might enjoy a different reputation (think blue dress), there’s a case to be made regarding his culpability in committing war crimes. He was not the focus of the demo, but I don’t think he should get a free pass. Again, using the same international conventions and treaties listed above, there’s a list of actions to consider in regards to charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Clinton imposed, through the UN Security Council, sanctions on Iraq between 1990 and 2003, which had a devastating effect on the Iraqi population. The UN, in 1999, reported [8] more that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions, disproportionately among children.
On June 26, 1993, the Clinton administration bombed Baghdad [9] in retaliation for an alleged but unproven Iraq plot to assassinate former President George Bush, Sr.
Clinton’s administration and NATO conducted the bombing campaign of Bosnia from March 22 to June 11, 1999 without UN Security Council approval, against the rules of the Geneva Conventions [10].
Again, big fire here! Not only should Bush and Clinton’s actions translate into war crimes charges, but their disregard for not only American law but also international treaties and conventions undermines the rule of international law and undermines the consensus of the international community.
And we’re not even talking torture charges against Bush regarding his country’s treatment of foreign nationals at military and CIA run prisons, military or rendition sites around the world, an obvious breach [11] of the Geneva Conventions. Reports from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay alone might be enough to prosecute Bush and win convictions.
These reasons alone were enough to compel the group Lawyers Against The War [12] to issue this statement [13] to the RCMP on March 12, 2009, asking that Bush be denied entry into Canada under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (section 35(1)(a)), because Bush is a war criminal (Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWC)).
War crimes in World Court
The latest rumour regarding actually holding Bush and his administration accountable for war crimes comes from Spain, where Harper’s reports [14] that the Spanish press El País and Público state,
“the Spanish national security court has opened a criminal probe focusing on Bush Administration lawyers who pioneered the descent into torture at the prison in Guantánamo.”
This could be the first step of bringing the Commander and Chief himself before an international court if the lawyers claim they were just following orders.
Is prosecuting the leaders enough?
While I am certainly not against using international criminal courts to prosecute political leaders with war crimes, I believe their function and scope to be too limiting to bring about real justice to victims of crimes against humanity. The problem with any war crimes court stems from the fact that, as prosecution goes, the international community at best gets to nail one of two ringleaders with convictions but leaves the functioning war machine or war bureaucracy untouched, the unknown number of faceless bureaucrats and military personnel untouched.
While we get a vicarious sense of justice because we got the top brass, those big arrests give the media permission to declare justice complete and us permission to move on to the next conflict of the day. And by “us,” I mostly mean the Western world, as if prosecuting international, political criminals has become a judicial white man’s burden.
This assumed distance can also amount to a coolly calculated mood of international NIMBY and moral superiority, where one nation can quickly vilify another by pointing out the atrocities committed in that country while claiming such crimes could never occur in their own.
It also assumes a stance of culpability after the fact. Regarding Iraq, the American public needs to look inwards to whether domestically they did enough to prevent the events of Iraq from occurring in the first place.
But can we as Canadians sit so smugly with the notion that we did not invade Iraq, or that it was the progressive Left that kept Canada out of Iraq and therefore we have clean hands and the permission to look the other way. Can we point to Bush and Clinton, two American presidents, and declare their country the new international fixture of Evil while in contrast considering ourselves the good guys?
Instead of sitting on our presumed laurels and pointing to our deified notion of peacekeeping, perhaps we should be more aware of our own actions, non-actions and culpability in global and domestic affairs. Everything from Rwanda, Darfur, Sri Lanka to the treatment of our aboriginal citizens.
If Americans need to look inward to understand their own heart of darkness, then we must demand that we as Canadians do the same.
My Day with George Galloway
George Galloway, the controversial British MP scheduled to speak in Canada this week, and parties supporting him, sought an injunction at the Federal Court today.
Although I don’t agree with everything Mr. Galloway says, his views as it relates to non-military solutions to problems largely grounded in social and economic conditions, are ones that in my opinion should be heard.
I attended the hearing at the Federal Court today, where a session was conducted via videoconference to Ottawa.
Barbara Jackman, counsel for the Applicant, noted that in her 30 years of immigration practice she had never seen a case like this, or one which so closely resembled the Supreme Court decision in Roncarelli v. Duplessis, [1959] S.C.R. 121, cited by the Applicants in their submissions.
The presiding judge, Justice Luc Martineau, also noted that unless either counsel could indicate otherwise, there was no case law on anything resembling this fact scenario.
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