Consider this disquietingly funny moment from a May 30th Standing Committee on Finance hearing on the dense but important topic of proposed changes to the Investment Canada Act.

Shortly after Steelworker economist Erin Weir began his presentation Saskatchewan Conservative MP Randy Hoback actually launched into – and this is a quote – “Have you, or have you ever been a member of the NDP Party?” in a line straight out of the red-baiting McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s, only substitute “‘NDP Party” for “Communist Party”. And just like the McCarthy hearings (whatever Hoback’s intention) the effect was to get far off track from the issue of changes to the Investment Act.

And these changes to the Act are important. According to the law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg (hardly a bastion of pot-banging communards) the “apparent intention” of amending the threshold for direct acquisitions of Canadian companies by foreign investors is to, “to reduce the number of foreign investments subject to a general net benefit review under the Investment Canada Act.”

While committee hearings do get broadcast by CPAC, and there are sources of consistent news about all things Ottawa – the Hill Times, for instance – it all still can feel a little too “inside baseball”. And if you were in government and trying to push through controversial legislation this might be a state of affairs you would welcome. Hoback’s run at Weir, noteworthy at least because he was backed by the other members of the government on the committee, only got picked up that I can see by his Prince Albert riding’s local news site, while the changes to the Investment Act, making it easier for foreign companies to buy Canadian assets, has gone virtually uncovered by the media.

Angola rodeo or Angola 3?

The National’s Paul Hunter recently went to the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary, or “Angola” prison. His reason for going? To cover the prison’s rodeo. Now it’s true the prisoners of Angola do stage a rodeo every year – and that’s interesting as it goes – but the whole time I was watching I was thinking that only a month before Hunter’s report human rights campaigners were marking an anniversary that also takes place at Angola.

Two of three men known as the “Angola 3” have now been in solitary confinement for forty years – the longest known stretch spent in prison isolation in the U.S.. Found guilty of killing a prison guard during an inmate uprising against conditions in the former slave plantation in the early seventies, the Angola 3 have filed a civil lawsuit against the state for prolonged, “cruel and unusual punishment” to be heard by the courts in 2013.

They couldn’t have been very far away from where the rodeo was being staged, and it wasn’t very hard to find information about their case. For me it was four or five items into a Google search for “Angola prison”, right after the official prison page, a page about the religiosity of the prison’s warden, and pages pumping the rodeo – which gave me the uneasy feeling that a message was being crafted here (Both the story of the Angola 3 and the rebranding of the prison were taken on by Jim Hightower in a Mother Jones article in 2011 – also available through the Google search.)

And the only CanCon I could pick-up in the National piece was a throwaway line about how Canadian officials are contemplating bringing the idea of a prison rodeo this way. But again, in light of the massive changes expected by the passage of Bill C-10 the more important question, seems to me, is should we expect prolonged solitary confinement in Canadian prisons of the type experienced by the Angola 3?

It’s not like Hunter doesn’t tackle hard topics – he extensively covered the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Who knows, maybe his crew were shooting b-roll and biding their time before bringing us the story of the Angola 3 at a later date? – I mean they were already down there.

As was mentioned last time, this blog will appear bimonthly, every other Monday, on This.org. I’ve now created a twitter account, follow me @StoriesUndone.

That was on July 21, 2011. And the irony was likely lost on De Young and his executioners that, only days before this execution was filmed in the interest of scrutinizing lethal injections, Canada was entering its thirty-fifth year without the death penalty.

On July 14, 1976, the House of Commons voted to strike capital punishment from the Canadian Criminal Code. The road to abolition had been a long one. The first time an MP had introduced an anti-capital punishment bill was 1914, and several more such bills would be shot down over the following decades. After 120 years, and 710 executions, Canada’s capital punishment laws were pretty well-ingrained into judicial society.

It wasn’t until 1956 that Parliament even considered removing the death penalty as a punishment for youth offenders. But by the end of that decade, politicians and the public alike had begun to question the humanity of capital punishment and its effectiveness as a deterrent. Anti-death penalty protesters had started picketing executions, serving as foils to the rabid crowds who had once gleefully swarmed public hangings.

As resistance to capital punishment grew, the death penalty was removed from several crimes, including rape and some murder charges. By 1963, it had become de facto policy for the federal government to commute death sentences and, in 1967, a moratorium was placed on capital punishment for all crimes except the murder of on-duty police officers and prison guards. Nine years later, total abolition was made official. The vote on the hotly contested bill, which had prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau himself to take the floor and make a plea for abolition, transcended partisan lines, and split Canada’s MPs 131 to 124.

Canada, post-death penalty

Thirty-five years on from that landmark legislation, and nearly 50 years after the last executions were carried out, debate over the death penalty in Canada still rages on. Public opinion has almost always favoured the death penalty in theory, if not in actual practice. A poll conducted by a private research firm this past January found that 66 percent of respondents support capital punishment in some cases, though only 41 percent of Canadians surveyed actually want to see the death penalty reinstated. Those figures are still astonishing considering how long Canada has been without capital punishment, and that the only attempt to reinstate it was defeated in 1987, 148 to 127, an even greater margin than the one in the original abolition vote.

Is there an empirical reason for the continued support of the death penalty, or the need for harsher sentences in Canada? The numbers would suggest not. Canadian murder rates have been on a steady decline since their peak in the mid-1970’s, the years leading up to abolition. As of 2009, the murder rate was at its lowest in 40 years. There has never been any conclusive evidence that abolishing the death penalty directly results in lower murder rates, but the trend debunks the theory that capital punishment is necessary to keeping murder rates low. What’s more, according to Amnesty International, the conviction rates for first-degree murder cases doubled, from 10 percent to 20 percent, within ten years of abolition, the implication being that the high stakes of capital punishment actually got in the way of justice.

And yet support for the death penalty remains. Amongst the cohort of Canadians who believe in capital punishment is Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, during an interview with CBC earlier this year, said he “think[s] there are times where capital punishment is appropriate.”

Although the PM also insisted he has no intentions of trying to reinstate capital punishment, his remarks sparked a minor furor during the recent election, as members of the opposition suggested that a Conservative majority would push the death penalty back into the lawbooks. But the most notable controversy surrounding the PM and his stance on capital punishment has been over the case of a Canadian fighting his own death sentence in the United States.

A Canadian on death row

In 1999, Alberta-born Stanley Faulder was put to death in Texas, becoming the first Canadian in almost 50 years to be executed south of the border. In the run-up to his death, the Jean Chrétien government tried to have Faulder’s sentence commuted, but the appeal was rejected by Texas’s then-governor, George W. Bush. Today, with another Canadian facing the death penalty in the States, the government is less interested in helping.

Ronald Allen Smith, of Red Deer, Alberta, has been on death row in Montana since 1983. His death sentence has been overturned three times and, each time, he has been resentenced with the same outcome: death by lethal injection. Just as they did in Stanely Faulder’s case, the Chrétien government went to bat for Smith. Throughout the early years of his appeals, Canadian officials had stayed in constant contact with Smith’s council, and made a formal request for clemency on his behalf in 1997.

Clemency requests for Canadians sentenced to death in foreign countries had been standard government policy at the time. But Harper’s Conservatives, who took power in 2006, changed that policy, announcing that they would not seek clemency for multiple murderers convicted in democratic states. They withdrew their support for Smith in late 2007, prompting Smith and his lawyers to appeal to the Canadian Federal Court. A judge there determined that the government had to follow the old policy until a suitable replacement was enacted, and Harper finally complied, and the Canadian government resumed its talks with Montana officials. Smith has currently been granted a stay of execution while he fights a civil court battle against lethal injections, which he argues are unconstitutional.

Looking ahead

Thirty-five years after it abolished capital punishment, Canada continues to soldier on without it, in spite of the opinions of 41 percent of its populace, and even the personal opinion of its prime minister. The U.S., meanwhile, continues to hand out death sentences in all but 14 states.

But American capital punishment laws are being challenged, as some people look to revive the brief ban on executions that existed between 1972 and 1976.

The execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung, was filmed in order to determine the effectiveness of the drug pentobarbital in sedating condemned criminals during lethal injections. The video will be used in the appeal of another inmate on Georgia’s death row who, much like Ronald Allen Smith, is fighting his death sentence on the grounds that execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

These men’s appeals will bring before American courts the same question that was put to Canada’s legislators 35 years ago. Is the death penalty fair and just in a liberal democratic country? At the end of that long debate, it was Pierre Trudeau who, as was so often the case, provided the most eloquent, definitive answer:

“I do not deny that society has the right to punish a criminal, and the right to make the punishment fit the crime, but to kill a man for punishment alone is an act of revenge. Nothing else. Some would prefer to call it retribution because that word has a nicer sound. But the meaning is the same. Are we, as a society, so lacking in respect for ourselves, so lacking in hope for human betterment, so socially bankrupt that we are ready to accept state violence as our penal philosophy? … My primary concern here is not compassion for the murderer. My concern is for the society which adopts vengeance as an acceptable motive for its collective behaviour. If we make that choice, we will snuff out some of the boundless hope and confidence in ourselves and other people, which has marked our maturing as a free people.”

Child soldier? War Criminal? Both? Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr’s trial may be over, but his ordeal is not. Here are some of the crazier details about the affair, now that Khadr’s sentencing is complete:

1. The facts remain unclear: The prosecution argued that since he was the only Al Qaeda fighter still alive at the end of the fight, it must have been him who threw the grenade that killed an American soldier. But another U.S. soldier who was present at the battle testified under oath that there were two fighters alive at the end of the fight.
2. The case is likely to affect child soldiers worldwide: The UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict sent out a statement denouncing the trial, arguing that the prosecution was completely inappropriate since Khadr was a child soldier at the time of the battle. The statement said that charging Omar Khadr for war crimes would set a precedent that would endanger the status of child soldiers all over the world. Khadr is one of at least 12 (and as many as 21) people under the age of 18 who were held at Guantanamo Bay.
3. The jury’s sentence is purely symbolic: The plea agreement (which the jury was not told about) was for 8 years, the prosecutor asked the jury for 25 years, and the jury came back with 40 years.
4. Khadr’s living conditions are going to get worse before they get better: Now that he has pleaded guilty he will spent the next year in solitary confinement. As a compliant, non-violent prisoner at Guantanamo Bay he had for the past few years been kept in a communal, more open section of the prison. Khadr will probably not serve the full eight years, and after one year in US custody, his lawyers will seek to bring him back to Canada to serve the rest of his sentence. The Canadian government has told the American State Department that if Khadr requests to serve the remainder of his sentence in Canada that they would “favourably consider his application to be transferred.”
5. A book deal won’t save him: The plea agreements include small print which seek to prevent Khadr from benefiting financially from his ordeal. Profits from any book or film deal will be re-directed to—and how’s this for adding insult to injury?—the government of Canada.

Last week we learned that the federal government spent $107,749.52 on Nikon DSLR D300s for the G20. For those of you who, like me five minutes ago, don’t know anything about photography let me tell you all you need to know about the D300s: it’s a really good camera. You can check out the reviews but, take my word for it, this is a whole lot of camera for a whole lot of money.

Now I don’t know what these particular cameras are used for but I do have a guess: mug shots. I asked a friend of mine who was arrested at the G20 protests about this. Here’s his response:

DSLRs? Well there were a whole bunch of cops with point-and-shoots — but I honestly think that was mostly for themselves: “Posterity’s sake?” I asked one of the (many) officers taking a picture of me with cuffs on, and he looked a little embarrassed. Initial “mug shot” at Queen’s Park was an SLR, but for some reason they had to do it again at the jail — an SLR there too… And then they had to do it again at the jail — which I assume was just a lack of organization. So yeah, at least two DSLRs, two high-quality video cameras, and piles upon piles of point and shoots, for what it’s worth to you.

To be fair, I’m sure the lighting conditions at the Eastern Ave. Jail weren’t exactly optimal so, um, maybe the cops did need something slightly better than a cell-phone camera. Either way, cameras, and lots of them, seem to be part of the new policing.  Again, my friend:

I remember one cop saying to another, in reference to some of the people that had been arrested, “that’s the biggest thing: You just don’t take pictures.” There is, in short, something they really don’t like about all the protesters with cell phones/cameras, etc., and they literally armed themselves with their own cameras in anticipation of this… and apparently arrested some people for the same reason.

In other G20 expense news: the feds also spent just under $18,000 on snacks at the Pickle Barrel. At that price, you’d think they might choose a better restaurant to eat at.

Credit: PearlyV

1. Mental health, depression, and suicide are rampant

We all know that prisons are too often warehouses for those amongst us suffering addictions or mental health problems. The actual numbers, however, are harrowing.  In federal penitentiaries 11% of prisoners have some sort of mental health diagnosis and 21.3% take prescription anti-psychotics on admission.  Almost 15% of male prisoners, at some point prior to their incarceration, had a psychiatric hospitalization; the number almost doubles for women.  The suicide rate in prisons is seven times the rate outside of prisons; as is the rate of people hurting themselves in prisons. All this and more can be found in a report issued by the Office of the Correctional Investigator last week. The punch line: “The mental health needs of offenders exceed the capacity, services and supports of the federal correctional authority to meet the growing demand.”

2. Women are the fastest growing prisoner population in the world

That’s true in Canada, too. Canadian Elizabeth Fry society executive director Kim Pate argues that the massive cuts made to the welfare state in the 1990s and 1980s particularly affected women. It’s no coincidence, she says, that mentally ill, poor and racialized women were imprisoned just as support services were scaled back.

3. It’s worse than ever to be Indigenous, poor, or illiterate in prison

It used to be (as of February of this year) that those convicted of crimes and sentenced to prison would receive a 2-for-1 credit for the time they spent in jail awaiting trial. Jails, unlike prisons, are notoriously overcrowded, dirty and dangerous. The 2-for-1 credit was an explicit acknowledgement from judges that prisoners remanded to jail suffered inordinately.  The Conservative government, however, disagreed and last year passed the Truth in Sentencing Act. An internal Corrections Canada report, obtained by the Canadian Press, finds that, as a result of the new law, Indigenous individuals, low-income people, and people with low literacy are spending much more time in prison.

4. There are over 2 million people in prison in the United States.

For comparison’s sake, on the eve of the Second World War there were 1.3 million people in Stalin’s gulags. 3.2% of America’s adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults, is in jail, on probation or on parole.  The rate of incarceration for black men is four times that of white men.  If prisoners, who are generally idle, were counted in unemployment figures along with discouraged workers the United State’s unemployment rate would jump two percent.  The number of people in prisons in the United States has increased roughly ten times over since the 1960s. Canada’s incarceration rates are lower but have jumped in similar proportions over the past four decades.

One of the most notorious images from Saturday was a Twitpic of a burning police cruiser, snapped by Alex Posadzki, which as of this morning had been viewed more than 18,000 times. As many commentators pointed out, the G20 saw four police cruisers burnt, compared to the 16 destroyed in Montreal by celebratory rioters after the Montreal Canadiens won a hockey game in April. But this has still become an indelible image, and footage of burning police cars quickly became a recurring motif of the television coverage over the weekend.

The sense of creeping anxiety didn’t start for most of us until Friday afternoon when Jeff Robson tweeted this photo of riot police crammed dozens deep in an alleyway as peaceful protesters went past on College Street. In hindsight, it was a harbinger of things to come:

The strange juxtapositions came hard and fast this weekend; while protests and a record 900 police arrests continued outside, reporters from the foreign press were a the international media centre at the CNE, where the Toronto Star‘s Richard Lautens found them watching the Germany-England match at the World Cup. For big-media skeptics (like us!) this photo says a lot about the failings of the mainstream media covering the G20.

And lastly, from the Department of Grimly Hilarious Symbolism came this Torontoist photo of the “eternal flame” at Metro Hall—a symbol of the “hopes, aspirations and triumphal achievements burning within the human spirit,” says its commemorative plaque—extinguished and encased in a plywood cover. It’s been lit since May 1996, but the G20 was enough to snuff it out:

At a protest against Arizona's SB 1070 law that allows police to demand proof of citizenship. Creative Commons photo by Flickr User Fibonnaci Blue.

Canadians like to feel good about our official policy of multiculturalism, and in general there’s plenty to feel good about. But as the introduction of the ominous new law SB 1070 in Arizona in April swept the news—a law that allows police in that state to demand proof of citizenship from people in public and detain them if they suspect them of being illegal migrants—Canadians seemed blind to similar tactics being deployed in their own backyard.

We have every right to condemn Arizona’s law, but we have nothing to be smug or self-righteous about. No One Is Illegal, the national network of migrants, refugees and immigration activists who have been doing some amazing work on exactly these kind of topics, issued an alert recently reporting that Canadian Border Security Agents are working locations in Toronto’s west end, stopping people, asking for identification, and making arrests, and have already detained more than 20 people who don’t have “adequate documentation.”

This kind of “papers please” policing is sinister and—while I generally dislike this kind of phrase—un-Canadian. (As far as I can tell, this hasn’t been reported by a major news outlet, which means so far all the reporting we have is from NOII itself.) Here’s their advisory:

Immigration Enforcement is stopping people on the streets, at work, and while shopping based on their skin color and accent. This is systematic racial profiling that creates fear in our communities. It is part of the social-cleansing of Toronto in the lead up to the G20 Summits. It is the same racist policy that is being opposed vehemently in Arizona in the United States.

No One Is Illegal-Toronto has received confirmed reports that further raids are being planned specifically in the St. Clair Area THIS WEEK. Latin@ restaurants will be targeted, and ID checks based on racial profiling may take place. We believe that raids on Bloor West will also continue.

This fundamentally unjust harassment must be opposed.

Read the full alert at No One Is Illegal’s website. I’ve also submitted NOII’s report to OpenFile.ca to see if we can’t get some more reporting on this issue.

Hillier is a former NATO forces commander and was Canadian Chief of Defense Staff until last year. In his recently released memoir, A Solider First, Hillier offers his take on the first headlines about detainee torture in 2007.

Canada had no official policy on detainees when our government first sent troops to Afghanistan in 2002, he writes, and the “minuscule number” of prisoners wasn’t a major concern in the early days. When the fighting heated up in spring of 2006, our military started handing their captures over to American Coalition troops, and then the NDS, Afghanistan’s intelligence service.

The main thing, Hillier contends, is these were the bad guys. “We were capturing these guys red-handed, in many cases in the middle of firefights or attacks on Canadians, and many were found with gunpowder or explosive residue on their bodies.”

Not so, says Richard Colvin.

As a Canadian diplomat, Colvin volunteered to go to Afghanistan in 2006, after the death of Glyn Berry. He stayed for 17 months.

While working for the Department of Foreign Affairs, and later in the Canadian Embassy, Colvin visited detainees. He told the parliamentary committee that he sent numerous reports to Canadian Forces and Foreign Affairs, airing his concerns about who was being captured, and the horrific abuse most, if not all, of the detainees faced contrary to the Geneva Convention. Many were innocent locals, farmers and truck drivers, Colvin said. His reports were mostly ignored, until he was asked to stop putting them in writing in 2007.

The government has attacked Colvin’s credibility and denied that the current government knew anything about torture. Peter MacKay called the opposition a bunch of “bobbleheads and muppets” during question period when Bob Rae asked about the government’s knowledge and action on the issue multiple times, in both official languages. MacKay’s continued response was to reference “the previous government” (and presumably his predecessor, Gordon O’Connor).

If Hillier stays true to his book, he’ll deflect the blame too. Any torture that might have occurred during the early transfers, he writes, was due to the “nascent” nature of the Afghan prison system. The system wasn’t perfect, and as for prison reviews: “it took an awfully long time to get them organized.”

During the ten pages in his book Hillier devotes to the issue of detainee abuse, most of it is centralized around what a good job he believes many Canadian Forces soldiers did not killing the prisoners themselves. “We had all learned something from Somalia,” he writes repeatedly. Yes, we did. The Canadian Forces saw its budgets hacked to bits, its numbers drop, and the country’s pride in its image of the “peacekeeping” soldier suffer a critical blow.

The Canadian Forces has changed dramatically since the death of a Somali teenager at the hands of two Canadian soldiers in 1993. An inquiry into that matter lasted four years, and never uncovered what the upper levels of government knew about the incident, or any attempt to cover it up.

Only time will tell whether Hillier’s testimony, and that of others called to speak before the committee, will be any more revealing.

Ahmadinejad speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in 2008

Almost one year ago Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the currently contested President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, delivered his infamous speech at the U.N. General Assembly. Putting aside for a moment that the U.N. has failed its mandate to prevent wars between countries and, therefore, is rather debunked as an institution, it has also been a microphone-box for some of the world’s most notorious self-proclaimed leaders.

In his 2008 speech, Ahmadinejad alternately wooed and unsettled the audience with his defiant, confident and eloquent rhetoric that challenged everything from the U.S. occupation of Iraq to the existence of gays in Iran. The reaction of the crowd was mixed: some lamented the fact that the world was forced to choose between leaders like Bush and Ahmadinejad, while others lauded Ahmadinejad’s criticism of the U.S. occupation and chastised Colombia’s president for his hypocrisy (Bush, whose track record is worthy of war-criminal stature, after all, received a reception that was much more welcoming).

The problem with some portions of the left is that in the quest to establish a genuine alternative to Western—and, especially, American—imperialism and hegemony, some of the most unsavoury and unscrupulous characters are embraced. After all Ahmadinejad has met with Chavez, the darling of so much of the left, and supports Cuba, leaving activists somewhat confused and befuddled.

However, illusions cannot be easily maintained after this summer’s disputed Iranian elections and the ensuing atrocities. Regardless of how Ahmadinejad may have appeared before—sometimes as the defiant underdog who will not be intimidated, sometimes as the goofy, ugly-yet-comical figure—there should be no room for confusion anymore: Ahmadinejad represents a callous, bloody and tyrannical regime.

The reality is that the current Iranian government doesn’t care about the peoples of Afghanistan or Iraq or Palestine – it doesn’t even care about the people of Iran. The events following the contested June elections are testament to this fact. Wide-spread documentation of systematic imprisonment, torture, abuse, rape and death of protesters is all too well known now, though still vehemently denied by the regime. Unfortunately, the Iranian government is capable of much more painful, despicable and violent acts than those which met Neda Agha-Soltan’s fate. At least she died by a bullet wound and not due to the “rupturing of her womb and anus.”

But a question that is often asked among leftist circles, or anyone trying to challenge any status quo, is what to do now, knowing what we know? How should we proceed? What strategies can we employ? And, perhaps above all, what is our objective? For those Canadians of Iranian descent, who have ties with Iran, or who are simply concerned citizens who feel that injustice anywhere should be opposed everywhere, the options are fairly limited. But creativity sometimes grows in the most desperate of situations.

One Toronto-based group, Cycling for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) decided to express their solidarity with the peoples of Iran by biking from Toronto Ottawa’s Iranian embassy to deliver a petition that features the following demands:

1. immediately and unconditionally release the political leaders and activists arrested on June 15th, and all others who have been arrested for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression and assembly;
2. allow them immediate access to their family members, lawyers of their choice and to any medical treatment they may require, and that they be protected from all forms of torture or ill-treatment;
3. allow peaceful demonstrations by those wishing to express their opinion of the elections, even if critical.

The positive response to the Ottawa ride has encouraged CHRI to plan another one, this time a four-day, 800 km journey, starting this Saturday, September 19th, to New York. Information about the bike ride can be found here, and it is not too late to participate/volunteer for the ride.

Why New York? Ahmadinejad is planning another speech, after all.

This Magazine spoke to CHRI founder Ali Bangi and asked the following questions:

Why are you riding to New York?
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s (Iran’s controversial president) visit to the U.N. General Assembly is a good opportunity for us to raise awareness about the situation of human rights in Iran. We believe extreme forms of human rights violations have happened and continue to happen during his presidency and he has failed to respond and address the issue. Instead, he has endorsed government sanctioned violence against peaceful protests by Iranian students and ordinary people who have expressed their critical opinion about the recent presidential elections.

Why bike?
We use cycling as a tool to raise awareness. Cycling from Toronto to New York is kind of a mental and physical challenge that we believe is kind of similar to those facing many Iranian students, activists and political leaders that have been imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly, which are both recognized rights by Iran’s constitution and the universal human rights. Cycling also keeps us together. We bike every Sunday and that’s how we have become a team/group. Finally, cycling long distances for human rights is what draws the necessary media attention and helps us deliver our message to the Iranian government that people in Canada are concerned about the human rights situation in Iran, as well as send a message to the Iranian people that we have not forgotten them.

What is CHRI position on Ahmadinejad being able to travel to New York? Do you feel like he should be arrested on spot?

No, he should not be arrested yet! If he was convicted of crimes gainst humanity and the U.S. was a member of the International Criminal Court (ICJ) he would/should have been arrested. He is not yet convicted of any crime and the U.S. is not a member of ICJ. So, he should be able to travel there and return to Iran. Iran is a member of the U.N. and he is going to the UN General Assembly meeting to represent a member state, Iran. The recent presidential election was controversial and there are allegations/evidence of vote rigging. However, Iran’s Guardian Council approved the election and announced him as Iran’s president. I disagree with the decision of the Guardian Council but I believe we should deal with the issue through lawful acts. Finally, I disagree with isolating Iran and its leaders. We should keep them engaged and deal with them within the established international law and customary international law.

If you were able to actually speak to Ahmadinejad, what would you tell him?
I would provide him with extensive evidence of human rights violations by his government and ask him to respond.

What concerns you most about the situation in Iran, and why do you feel that Canadians should pay attention to it?
The human rights situation in Iran is unfortunately getting worse. Widespread arrests, intimidation of the opposition, closure of newspapers, torture, rape in the prisons by the prison guards, etc. have proliferated at an alarming stage. Why should Canadians pay attention? Iran’s elections are partly an internal matter (if we want to strictly observe Iran’s soverignty) and there is not much Canadians can do about them. However, human rights are universal and it is the responsibility of everybody, regardless of their background and nationality, to protest violation of human rights, anywhere, when it happens.

How can people get involved with CHRI?

• They can come bike with us on Sundays (contact our volunteer coordinator at volunteer.chri@gmail.com) or join us as a member and attend  our events and meetings, etc. If they are interested in human rights advocacy this is a great group to join (just email the noted email address and you will be added to our email list serve).
• They can come and see us off on September 19th, at 12pm, at Hart House, when we leave Toronto to NYC (more info on our website or Facebook event page)
• They can donate at: http://www.cyclingforhumanrightsiniran.org/donation/ or write a cheque to CHRI
• They can also check our website, spread the word about CHRI and post CHRI links on their Facebook walls, these are great awareness raising support.

Who’s funding this? How can people donate if they are unable to participate in the ride?
We are an independent and non-partisan group. All our funds come from supports from individuals who care for human rights in Iran.

People can donate online, at the above link, or write a cheque to CHRI or just donate during our many fundraising events, usually in the busy parts of Toronto. We set up our bikes, hand out flyers and ask for donations. Here I would like to thank people of Toronto for their very generous donations/support. I also want to thank people from almost all over the world who have made online donations.

What else can be done?
A lot more and there are many other good organizations doing great work, some of whom we are partners with. We are organizing a conference on advocacy at the University of Toronto on October 17th, with support from the University of Toronto we are helping Iranians to by-pass the Internet filters put in place by the Iranian government to block them from access to many internet websites, we are involved in cultural events, we organize panel discussions by professors, activists and students, etc. Recently Iranian students from Toronto colleges and universities have got together and created Iranian Students Federation of Colleges and Universities (ISFCU). By joining our efforts together we can achieve and have already archieved a great deal

Augustus Hill had it easy. At least he had a wheelchair inside Oz. Real disabled inmates aren't so lucky. Image courtesy Home Box Office

If, as a disabled person, you think you’re still getting the shaft out in the real world, then you better thank the Lord you didn’t land in prison. Though twenty-five-to-life can be utterly soul-destroying for anyone, no one has it worse than the disabled inmates around the world.  For them, even basic human rights are hard to come by.

In 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] of Southern California and the Disability Rights Legal Center commissioned a study that found deplorable conditions in LA County jails.  The study found that disabled inmates struggle every day to overcome physical barriers to toilets, shower stalls and visitor areas, according to the LA Times. The study also revealed that cells for disabled inmates had broken plumbing, lacked natural light and had only limited access to recreational areas. LA’s disabled prison population is also limited in job and educational training, since those sections of the prison are often located in inaccessible areas. That wasn’t the worst of it. Disabled inmates, in sworn declarations, said they had their wheelchairs and crutches confiscated because guards failed to classify the prisoners as being truly disabled, thinking the devices were weapons As a result, inmates were forced to crawl around in their cells. The LA Times also interviewed a paraplegic man who asked to use the washroom while being booked on petty theft charges. The guards told him he would have to hold it because the washroom wasn’t accessible. The man eventually lost control of his bowels and was forced to sit in his own feces for six hours. The study prompted the ACLU and the Disability Rights Center to file a class action lawsuit against the LA County Sheriff’s Office for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. As of right now, both organizations are still waiting for their day in court–a year later.

But abuse of disabled inmates is not limited to Los Angeles.  In  May 2009, The Independent reported that a disabled inmate, held at HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wright in the U.K., couldn’t clean himself for a year because staff outright refused to carry him to the shower, while another inmate couldn’t have a shower for six months because the three staff members who were “trained” to push his wheelchair were unavailable. The director of the Prison Reform Trust has called on the Ministry of Justice to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and the director general of the National Offender Management Service acknowledged that the prison had “fallen below standard.” The general manager hopes a new management team and a redesign of the prison will help rectify the situation.

Canada is hardly immune. Though Canadian prisons are supposed to provide a basic level of medical care, 52%  of its institutional healthcare facilities failed to be accredited in 2006 because they didn’t meet basic standards. Failing to pass out all required medication at regular dosage times and failing to check insulin levels, were only some of the named offences.

Inmate abuse at such systemic and international levels is especially heinous given that many of the world’s prisons hold a disproportionate number of disabled inmates. In Canada, estimates put the number of prisoners with intellectual disabilities at almost 10% and those with learning disabilities at more than 55%.  I couldn’t find estimates for prisoners with physical disabilities. In the U.S., 40% of all people with serious mental illness are in jails and prisons, which translates to 10-30% of all inmates in the overall prison population, depending on the prison.

Essentially, this is re-institutionalization.  Prison guards are taking the place of  the attendant care staff that are often unavailable.  Also, assistive devices are often confiscated as weapons when disabled people are arrested and it can take a court injunction before inmates who rightfully need them get them back. The prison system in North America is already so overburdened and under-funded, regular inmates are sometimes housed in gymnasiums instead of cells and staff are grossly outnumbered.  If there aren’t enough resources for able-bodied inmates, it’s difficult to anticipate that anyone will give disabled inmates due care.

Still, someone has to wake up and put this pattern of double-punishment to an end. While able-bodied inmates are punished for their crimes and have to acclimatize themselves to the gangs and violence, disabled inmates are punished for their crimes and for being disabled. If prisoners are treated as the lowest class in society, then disabled inmates must be society’s pond scum.   It’s scary to think that in the 21st century,  a disabled inmate probably has a better chance dying as a victim of a neglectful judicial system, than an able-bodied inmate does from a shank to the chest.