Tag Archive for Canada

Outsourcing Torture

January 19, 2010 David Parker No comments

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Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested while on vacation in Sudan on the recommendation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). He was beaten and threatened while detained with no charges. He remained in Sudan for six years.

He is one of many victims of Canada outsourcing torture, including Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin and Maher Arar.

Under the Security Certificate program, condemned by the UN Committee against Torture and UN Human Rights Committee, non-citizens living in Canada are detained under secret evidence, and under the threat of deportation to torture.

Stefan Christoff, human rights activist and journalist, believes in generating a nation-wide discussion on Canada’s involvement in torture. The CKDU News Collective had the chance to catch up with him in Montreal.

For more information please visit peoplescommission.org. Music in this podcast performed by the Black Ox Orkestar.

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Uncovering Canadian Involvement in Honduras

January 4, 2010 David Parker One comment
Hondurans in Tegucigalpa surround Braziliam Embassy this afternoon, upon learning Manuel Zelaya is inside. Photo by Sandra Cuffe.

Hondurans in Tegucigalpa surround Braziliam Embassy this afternoon, upon learning Manuel Zelaya is inside. Photo by Sandra Cuffe.

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Since June 2009, Honduras has seen it’s democratically elected leader, President Manuel Zelaya, ousted from government and sent into exile. He now resides in sanctuary at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Canadian journalist Dawn Paley (Dominion Newpaper, MediaCoop.ca) is spending a month in Honduras to uncover Canadian corporate and government involvement in the coup d’etat. Since the coup, Honduran civil society has risen up and taken to the streets by the tens of thousands to demand a return to democratic rule by re-instating President Zelaya. The de facto government, headed by Porfirio Lobo, held elections on November 29th, that saw a record low turnout.

The pro-coup regime has used violence to instill fear in the resistance, yet voices continue to speak out, such as Radio Globo, an anti-coup radio station operating in Honduras.

CKDU had the chance to do an exclusive interview with Dawn Paley for Operation Wake Up, on December 11, 2009.

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Canada to hear appeal for Omar Khadr's repatriation from Guantanamo

September 17, 2009 David Parker No comments
 Protestors demand for Omar Khadr's repatriation in front of Stephen Harper's house, dressed as a Guantanamo detainee. Photo: Ehab Lotayef.

Protestors demand for Omar Khadr's repatriation in front of Stephen Harper's house, dressed as a Guantanamo detainee. Photo: Ehab Lotayef.

Canada’s Supreme Court will hear an appeal from the Canadian government of a lower court order to ask the United States to repatriate Canadian national Omar Khadr. Khadr is the only remaining citizen of a Western country detained at the infamous U.S. detention and torture centre, Guantanamo Bay. He was captured in 2002 in Afghanistan, when he was 15 years old, and declared a ‘child combatant’.

Last month, Canadian federal judge James O’Reilly agreed with Khadr’s lawyers that the government’s refusal to demand repatriation violates their client’s constitutional rights. Stephen Harper has refused to ask for repatriation of Khadr, saying the US legal process must take place, according to CTV and Al-Jazeera.

The three Canadian opposition parties, who make up the majority in the House of Commons, have called for Khadr’s repatriation. The Guantanamo detention centre has been the centre of much controversy about their methods of interrogation such as beatings, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, and water boarding.

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VOICES OF OUR NATIONS: Eight hour special broadcast

June 26, 2009 David Parker No comments

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VOICES of our NATIONS
First Annual Radio-a-thon
on CKDU 88.1 FM
Friday, July 3rd from midnight to 8 am
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There are over one million First Peoples, from dozens of nations, with dozens of languages, living in Canada.

The Voices of our Nations Radio-a-thon is the first-ever collaboration of Indigenous programmers from radio stations in all corners of the country.

Tune-in on Friday, July 3rd from Midnight to 8 am for eight hours of First Nations stories, music and issues, celebrating Aboriginal identity, history and culture.

Topics include land rights, resources, missing and murdered indigenous women, the 2010 Olympics and the 120-year history of Residential schools.

After centuries of land and resource theft, attempts at assimilation and hundreds of missing and murdered women, it is time Indigenous peoples take something back. Join us as we take back the airwaves!

With such guests as Audrey Redman, Arthur Manuel, and many others, join host Irkar Beljaars of Native Solidarity News for this special broadcast on CKDU 88.1 FM in Halifax, on Mi’kmaw territory.

This special broadcast is brought to you by the Native Caucus of the National Campus and Community Radio Association, CKUT fm in Montreal, and the CKDU News Collective in Halifax. For more information, call 494-2585.

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Investigating Haiti Since the Coup: Five Years of Resistance

March 7, 2009 David Parker No comments

The CKDU and CKUT Campus/Community Radio News Collectives present:

A SPECIAL BROADCAST TO INVESTIGATE HAITI SINCE THE COUP: FIVE YEARS OF RESISTANCE.

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On Operation Wake Up
CKDU 88.1fm
Tuesday to Friday,
March 10th to 13th,
8 AM to 9 AM.

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Five years ago, Canadian soldiers participated in a military operation to overthrow Haiti’s elected government. In the weeks following the 2004 coup d’état, minimum wages were rolled back, ministries were closed, corporate taxation was canceled, and Haitian activists who criticized the new order did so at the risk of their liberty or their lives. Today, after five years of neoliberal “shock therapy”, Canadian personnel remain in Haiti under the cover of a UN mission. Haiti remains Canada’s other, untalked-of, occupation, along with Afghanistan.

The shows will feature in-depth interviews with Haitian union leaders, progressive politicians, and rights advocates, and a panel discussion with members of the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN). This special programme will aim to explore Canada’s strategy and praxis in Haiti as indicative of its broader imperialist designs through the Caribbean and the Latin American regions, and to highlight and celebrate the patterns of the Haitian people’s resistance to those designs.

For more information, please call the CKDU News Collective at 494-2585.

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