Arundhati Roy Under Attack, Canadian Activists Fight Back

Vancouver and Surrey social-justice activists protest contempt charge against Arundhati Roy

by Charlie Smith | The Georgia Straight | January 2nd, 2016

Arundhati Roy has received a contempt citation for criticizing the arrest of a high-profile Indian human-rights activist. Vikramjit Kakati

The judicial persecution of a prominent Indian author and essayist has riled activists around Vancouver.

Many of them gathered in Surrey to protest a charge of contempt of court filed against Booker Prize-winning Delhi writer Arundhati Roy.

The demonstration included Chinmoy Banerjee, Parminder Swaich, Hardev Singh, Harbhajan Cheema, Harinder Mahil, Jai Birdi, and Avtar Gill, all of whom belong to different progressive groups in the Lower Mainland.

The Wars At Home: What State Surveillance of an Indigenous Rights Campaigner Tells Us About Real Risk in Canada

DESMOGBLOG, NOVEMBER 2, 2014, a guest post by Shiri Pasternak.

 

Recent revelations that the RCMP spied on Indigenous environmental rights activist Clayton Thomas-Muller should not be dismissed as routine monitoring. They reveal a long-term, national energy strategy that is coming increasingly into conflict with Indigenous rights and assertions of Indigenous jurisdiction over lands and resources.

A “Critical Infrastructure Suspicious Incident” report was triggered by Thomas-Muller’s trip in 2010 to the Unist’ot’en camp of Wet’suwet’en land defenders, where a protest camp was being built on the coordinates of a proposed Pacific Trails pipeline.

The Unist’ot’en clan continues to hold their ground along these GPS coordinates today. Not coincidentally, they are members of a nation that took its assertions of jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Canada in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia in 1997, establishing in Canadian case law the underlying proprietary interest of Indigenous peoples to their unceded lands.

South Asian Diaspora in Canada Condemns the Political Persecution of Dr. GN Saibaba

SANSAD — South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy

Release political prisoner GN Saibaba

SANSAD News-release June 16, 2014

South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) condemns the illegal arrest of Professor GN Saibaba, who teaches English in Ram Lal Anand College of Delhi University by Maharashtra Police on May 9. We further condemn his cruel detention in solitary confinement without regard to his disabilities, his suspension from Delhi University by the university administration following his arrest, and the denial of his bail plea by the Gadchirol sessions court in Maharashtra on June 13. We strongly protest these violations of human rights and civil liberties. We demand the immediate release of Professor Saibaba and his reinstatement in his teaching position in Delhi.

Professor Saibaba is an outspoken civil liberty activist, who as the deputy secretary of Revolutionary Democratic Front has been campaigning against the Indian government’s counter-insurgency measures known as “Operation Green Hunt.” His home in Delhi had been raided four times since September 2013 by the police before his arrest and transportation to Maharashtra on May 9 without warning and without access to a lawyer. Dr. Saibaba is a paraplegic who lost the use of his legs to polio as a child. He has 90% disability and has been bound to a wheel chair since he could afford one after his arrival in Delhi.

Canada: The Settler Colonial-Security State’s Eyes on the First Nations

[The colonial suppression of indigenous peoples is at the foundation of settler-colonial states from Azania, Polynesia, Palestine, and on and on from South Asia to and through the Western Hemisphere.  At the foundation, and continuing, without respite.  Here, a report on the surveillance and efforts to suppress the risings anew of the First Nations in the land the settlers call Canada. — Frontlines ed.]

CSIS, Aboriginal Affairs kept close watch on First Nations protest movement

A federal department and the country’s spy agency closely monitored the activities of the aboriginal “Idle No More” movement in late 2012 and early 2013, with the intelligence agency claiming it was doing so not over fear of protests getting out of hand, but to protect the activists from potential violence by others.

A series of “weekly situational awareness reports” from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada reveals a rigorous cataloguing of Idle No More’s activities.

Each report begins: “This is a weekly report that provides current information and the status of activities that threaten public safety in relation to issues affecting Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.”

Canada: Media Watchdogs denounce phony “pro-life” promotion and faux “objectivity”

Nothing but contempt: Putting the lie to media coverage of Dr. Henry Morgentaler

By Joyce Arthur, www.rabble.ca | June 7, 2013

“I have nothing but contempt for people who wish to deny women one of the fundamental rights to control their reproduction.” – Dr. Henry Morgentaler, 2010.

In the media avalanche following Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s death on May 29, two radically different views of the man quickly emerged. It was a rare article or newscast that didn’t use words like “polarizing” or “controversial” or “divisive” to describe him. The Globe and Mail was first out of the gate with the phrase “revered and hated” dominating their headline, while CBC gave us a choice between “hero or murderer.” Other media competed with catchy alliterations like “lauded and loathed,” “hero or hellion,” and “revered and reviled.”

Although nearly all mainstream media sources quoted pro-choice views, most also interviewed at least one anti-choice spokesperson (22 out of 35 news articles or broadcasts that I reviewed). Apparently, the media thinks that view has some kind of legitimacy and must be presented against the pro-choice view in the name of “balance.” Well, NO. The anti-choice position — that women must be compelled to carry every pregnancy to term under threat of criminal law regardless of circumstances — is an extremist view held by only 5 per cent of Canadians. It is also profoundly mistaken, cruel and undemocratic. As such, it does not deserve equal time or respect in Canada.

That tiny 5 per cent minority has great representation though — most, if not all, anti-choice organizations in Canada adhere to that same extremist belief. They don’t advocate it openly anymore because they know the public finds it abhorrent. But don’t be fooled — their dream is to ban abortion completely with no exceptions, the same goal as other anti-choice groups around the world. Recent cases in Ireland and El Salvador have shown conclusively that the anti-choice movement considers women to be merely vessels for babies, and that their lives should be sacrificed even for a doomed fetus with no chance of survival. Savita Halappanavar died tragically because of that doctrine — after suffering three days of “pro-life” induced pain and agony — and Beatriz in El Salvador came close to death’s door because of the same malevolent belief.

Canada: The Legacy of Abortion Rights Champion Honored

Honouring the legacy of the late Dr. Henry Morgentaler

June 17, 2013
National Statement

Toronto, ON–We, at the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC), celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Henry Morgantaler, whose dedication and commitment in fighting for abortion rights have been a fundamental contribution in women’s historical struggle for basic rights and entitlements  here in Canada and throughout the world. His strong will and determination, over the past few decades in pushing to make abortion accessible for women had been and continues to be an inspiration for all of us to continue to be vigilant in upholding reproductive justice as an integral component in achieving genuine women’s equality and liberation.

Greek opponents of Eldorado mine take message to company’s Canadian HQ: ‘Leave us alone’

Anti-gold mining protest — Halkidiki, March 25, 2013

More than 3.000 people chanting slogans against Eldorado Gold marched three kilometres from the village of Megali Panagia to the location where the first clash of anti-mining protestors with the riot police took place one year ago. This was the last in a series of powerful demonstrations against gold mining that took place in the last couple of weeks in Alexandroupoli, Komotini and Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, where an unprecedented 20.000 people chanted “Eldorado Gold go away now!”.

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By David P. Ball, rabble.com, June 4, 2013

[Photo: Greek activists outside Eldorado’s Vancouver headquarters May 31 / David P. Ball.]

Greek villagers brought their region’s fierce battle against Vancouver-based Eldorado Gold to the firm’s headquarters Friday, marking the end of the activists’ cross-Canada tour opposing open-pit gold mining in their homeland.

Over the past year, a growing conflict in Greece’s Halkidiki region — birthplace of the philosopher Aristotle –has seen thousands of residents blockade roads, raid mine sites, and skirmish with police they say are corrupt and beholden to the company. Another demonstration brought 20,000 protesters to the streets of Thessaloniki.

“Our will will not be curbed,” said Maria Kadoglou, a resident of Ierissos village, Greece. “We will keep on fighting until Eldorado Gold goes away.”

Mohawk warrior and champion of the people dies

 

 

by John Hill, Mohawk Nation News, mohawknationnews.com, May 2, 2013

 

A great loss to the people, to the nation, to the resistance, anti-imperialist movement right across Great Turtle Island. 

On March 13th, Dacajeweiah, Splitting-the-Sky, 61, left us forever when he passed away in his home in Adams Lake, British Columbia. Dac’s colonial name was John Boncore Hill, from Six Nations. “From Attica to Gustafsen Lake,” and thereafter, he was a warrior, a comrade, a brother, a father, a grandfather, a friend.

 

 

We deeply mourn his loss.

 

 

The family will release a biographical statement and details of memorial arrangements in due course. With deepest love to his wife, She-Keeps-the-Door, and children. We stand with Dac’s many many co-fighters and friends. He loved the People. The AIM song is dedicated to the continuance of the resistance after a warrior has fallen.

Canada: Against Rape and Violence Against Women, The Global Struggle Continues to Grow

Halifax, Nova Scotia protest of the rape of Rehtaeh Parsons

End violence against women, justice for Rehtaeh Parsons!
National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) — National statement
For immediate release — April 12, 2013

Toronto, ON–Members of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) are deeply saddened and mourn the loss of Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17 year old high school student from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. Rehtaeh’s young life was taken away by the grief of a crime committed against her dignity and humanity as a woman. As the news of her rape and the cyberbullying inflicted on her fill the mainstream media, we are reminded of the ongoing brutality of crimes perpetuated against women. We are also reminded that our escalating victimization and violation continue to be bolstered by the institution of patriarchy and male domination in its effort to further subordinate and subjugate women in this society.

Moreover, we are angered and appalled by the obvious neglect of the RCMP to treat Rehtaeh’s tortuous ordeal as a case of violence. By turning a blind eye on the seriousness and the gravity of the assault, the RCMP shows their complicity in condoning the actions of the perpetrators. Thus, their outright denial to do an investigation, when the case was brought to their attention, was and continues to be an outright denial of her worth and value as a woman.

Rehtaeh’s tragic death, along with the countless experiences of women who have been raped, sexually assaulted, physically beaten, and violated on the streets, in schools, and workplaces, is a testament of the increasing and continuing attacks against women’s bodies and women’s lives. We refuse to let these be neglected; last December 16, 2012, Jyoti Singh Pandey, a 23 year old university student from New Delhi, India, was gang-raped and later died from her injuries; the suicide of Amanda Todd from Surrey, British Columbia who committed suicide after pictures of her body was circulated through every school she moved to; the sexual assault and killings of Jessica Lloyd, and Corporal Marie-France Comeau by former Canadian Forces Colonel, Russel Williams; and Rheena Virk from Saanich, British Columbia in 1997, who was beaten to death by so-called close peers. These are all evidence of the increasing exploitation and the rampant assault faced by all women. Indeed, time and time again, we are faced with the bitter reality that the struggle to end violence against women is far from over.

As such, we at the NAPWC vow to continue our fight to stop violence against women, and to end patriarchy at all costs. We support the demands of Rehtaeh’s family for a full investigation on the case. We will also continue in our educating, organizing, and mobilizing to uphold and advance the women’s struggle for genuine liberation in our society.

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For more information, contact:
www.magkaisacentre.org
Twitter: PWC_Ontario
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MAGKAISA CENTRE

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Philippine Women Centre
Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada / Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance
SIKLAB Ontario
————————————EMAIL:
pwc-on@magkaisacentre.org
ukpc-on@magkaisacentre.org
siklab-on@magkaisacentre.org
————————————WEBSITE:
www.magkaisacentre.org
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DARE TO STRUGGLE! DARE TO WIN!

Over 200 arrested in annual Montreal police brutality clash

Nelson Wyatt, Canadian Press | March 15, 2013

[THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz – At an anti-police brutality demonstration in Montreal on Friday March 15, 2013. Police used horses, pepper-spray and kettling tactics to clamp down Friday on an annual protest that has a history of “getting rowdy.”]

MONTREAL — Police wasted little time Friday cracking down on an annual protest that has a history of getting rowdy, deploying charging squads of helmeted officers, cops on horseback and pepper spray to corral demonstrators.

Montreal police, who have been dealing with regular protests since student unrest last year, usually let peaceful marches proceed even if they have been declared illegal under municipal bylaws.

On Friday, police massed platoons of officers around their downtown headquarters — which was the target of the annual rally against police brutality — and had made their first arrest before the march even began.

“We sent up a message right at the beginning,” said Cmdr. Ian Lafreniere of the Montreal police at a late evening news conference after the march. “They haven’t shared a route, they haven’t shared their itinerary, they refuse to give us a location where they were heading. That’s the reason we made a stop to that.”

Canada: First Nations’ artist Zig Zag on the resistance movements today

Zig Zag interviewed about Idle No More: “In any liberation movement there are internal and external struggles”

by kersplebedeb

We are living in exciting times, with large numbers of people clearly fed up and taking action, no longer content to wait for the right moment or the right ideas or the right leadership to tell them what to do. Whether we think of Occupy, the Arab Spring, or the current Idle No More upsurge, spontaneity and taking a stand seem to be the order of the day. For those of us have lived through less exuberant times, it is a welcome change. That said, this new environment that clearly comes with its own potential pitfalls and weaknesses.

In order to try and understand this better, i asked some questions of Zig Zag, also known as Gord Hill, who is of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation and a long-time participant in anti-colonial and anti-capitalist resistance movements in Canada.  Gord is the author and artist of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book and The Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book (published by Arsenal Pulp Press) and 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance (published by PM Press); he also maintains the website WarriorPublications.wordpress.com.

Here is what he had to say…

K: What are the living conditions of Indigenous people today within the borders of what is called “canada”?

ZZ: Indigenous people in Canada experience the highest levels of poverty, violent death, disease, imprisonment, and suicide.  Many live in substandard housing and do not have clean drinking water, while many territories are so contaminated that they can no longer access traditional means of sustenance.  In the area around the Tar Sands in northern Alberta, for example, not only are fish and animals being found with deformities but the people themselves are experiencing high rates of cancer.  This is genocide.

K: Dispossession has been a central feature of colonialism and genocide within canada. Can you give some examples of how people have resisted dispossession in the past?

ZZ: Well in the past Native peoples had some level of military capability to resist dispossession, which ended around 1890.  More recently there have been many examples including Oka 1990, Ipperwash 1995, Sutikalh 2000, Six Nations 2006, etc.  At Oka it was armed resistance that stopped the proposed expansion of a golf course and condo project.  At Ipperwash people re-occupied their reserve land that had been expropriated during WW2, and they still remain there to this day.  At Sutikalh, St’at’imc people built a re-occupation camp to stop a $530 million ski resort. They were successful and the camp remains to this day.  At Six Nations they re-occupied land and prevented the construction of a condo project.

K: The canadian state has an army, prisons, police forces, and the backing of millions of people – not to mention the fact that it is completely integrated into world capitalism, both as a major source of natural resources and as an imperialist junior partner, messing up peoples around the world. What kind of possibilities are there for Indigenous people to successfully break out of this system, and resist canadian colonialism? What is the strategic significance of Indigenous resistance?

ZZ: Indigenous peoples must make alliances with other social sectors that also organize against the system.  The strategic significance of Indigenous peoples is their greater potential fighting spirit, stronger community basis of organizing, their ability to significantly impact infrastructure (such as railways, highways, etc, that pass through or near reserve communities) and their examples of resistance that can inspire other social movements.

First Nations on the Move — the Idle No More movement

The willow that weeps no more

by Hera Chan , The McGill Daily, 17 January 2013

Τhe air was cold, sharp, biting. A medicine man was burning sage in a cleansing ceremony and a sacred fire burned in my peripheral. An elder called forth all the women who knew the Willow Song to come share their voices. In my Torontonian grade school, Canada’s history begins with the so-called discovery of the Americas. The Willow Song, as well as many other Indigenous traditions, was never taught. As the beat of my heart blended with the beat of the drums, I began to understand the immensity of the history I did not know. So I took some notes from the Willow Song: willow trees bend by the force of the wind. They do not break.

Through the smoke of the fire, I could see the slow rush of the Ottawa River and on its noble cliff, Parliament Hill. Samuel de Champlain wrote in his journal on June 14, 1613: “the savages call it Asticou, which means kettle.” The waterfalls that gave the land its name are no longer there. Today, most call this Algonquin territory Victoria Island, home of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence. A woman who, through her hunger strike – still ongoing at time of writing – is inspiring thousands of people to march for Indigenous rights in the social movement now known as Idle No More.

The grassroots movement brings to light three main goals: the decolonization of Indigenous peoples by the federal government, the reversal of omnibus Bill C-45, and the union of Indigenous people and their allies in a collective, nationwide movement. Omnibus Bill C-45 amends 64 acts or regulations, including the Indian Act and several acts regulating natural resource extraction. Many of the reforms will allow the federal government to streamline projects and profit from Indigenous territories.

***

A fellow Daily editor and I arrived on the island the morning of January 11 – one month after Chief Spence began her hunger strike. There was a demonstration planned for that day and buses were already arriving from all over the country with people ready to walk the short distance to Parliament Hill. The Ontarian band chiefs had convened the day before in Ottawa’s Delta hotel to discuss whether or not to negotiate with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This was our second attempt at getting past the camp gates. A media blackout that began the previous Monday had kept journalists like us out. The following day, we came as students instead, without recorder, notebook, or camera. (Thus, I won’t be talking about the demonstration inside the camp.)

Before entering the camp, my colleague and I spent a good ten minutes idling among the parked cars, unsure how to respectfully approach a movement we felt was not ours. A woman wearing traditional indigenous regalia approached us and introduced herself. She laughed with us and chatted amicably about where she was from. “Go make your observations inside,” she said.

Hundreds Of Indigenous Women And Girls Were Murdered In Canada

By Farooque Chowdhury, Countercurrents.org

30 October, 2012

Hundreds of indigenous women and girls were murdered in Canada . To many, it’s a baffling fact.

Recently, there were proposals in the UK parliament to expand the use of secret court hearings in civil cases.

In Greece , migrants and asylum seekers are being hounded by police and right-wing extremists.

These are only a few bitter, and unbelievable to a section in broader society, facts related to human rights in the advanced capitalist world. These facts are difficult to swallow to the section that trusts moral standing of state.

Hard facts related to human rights in these advanced capitalist democratic countries accompany human rights situation in Iraq and Pakistan , countries in the fringe of the world system, but part of the system. In one of these countries, democracy, considering it as a simple commodity, has been exported/imported or is being constructed.

A dirty picture overwhelms human perception. It’s a picture of asserting power, imposing authority, calculus of competition, internal power game, failure to resolve conflicting demands, subjugation, and silencing souls dissenting.

First Nations lead the way in Victoria protest against pipelines and oil sands

Carrie Saxifrage

October 23rd, 2012

First Nations are leading the way in British Columbia’s opposition to pipelines, tankers and exploitation of the climate damaging oil sands

Protesters trickled in like salmon heading home—a few signs on the Canada Line at 5:30 in the morning, a big line up at the Bridgeport bus stop, a ferry full of protesters, all ages, a few costumes, lots of signs. I asked a man on the ferry if he planned on committing civil disobedience. “They’re having trouble figuring out what to do,” he said. “They’ve been given permission to protest on the lawn. Now they’re thinking about driving stakes into the lawn because that’s illegal.”

Eric Boyum, an eco-tourism operator in the Great Bear Rainforest offered a ride to several of us so we could avoid the over packed buses in Schwartz Bay. Boyum stated that tankers would destroy his business, Ocean Adventures, without an oil spill.

“The tankers would travel right through where I operate. They won’t be attractive to tourists.” Protecting his business is not his primary motivation.

“The First Nations in the area are like family to me,” he said. “They’ve subsisted there for thousands of years. Tankers are the biggest threat to their way of life that they’ve ever had.” He also feels responsible for the natural world. “Someone has to speak out for the animals,” he said. “The whales, bears and salmon don’t have a voice in this, but we can fight for them.”

Filipino-Canadian internationalists declare: Migrants are inseparable from the Canadian working class struggle

[Hundreds of millions of migrants worldwide, driven and displaced from their homelands by brutal repression, hunger, trafficking, and other crushing forms of oppression, are major parts of the exploited workforces in their new homes, where they continue to suffer racist and xenophobic attacks, brutalities, and exclusions in new conditions.  Historically, the struggle against such conditions has been framed by resistance to the oppressive treatment of migrants, by solidarity among migrants of different origins, and by steadfast support for the struggles in their homelands.  But, in time, these migrants have brought their anger and resistance–and their experience in struggle–into the peoples movements and class struggles in their new lands of residence, where they play an ever increasing role as transnationals in raising the banners of resistance, internationalism, and revolution.  Now, in Canada, an organized group of Filipino-Canadians, has announced their unity with a Maoist Canadian Party, the PCR-RCP (not to be confused with the RCP-USA which has no organizational or political commonality with the Canadian group).

    We are not able to assess other aspects of the Filipino-Canadian group, or of the PCR-RCP at this time; but we think this announcement is a potentially important development and crosssing of a threshold, in the relations between migrants and working class forces–not only in Canada, but in every country where significant migrant forces endure exploitation and oppression, and whose resistance is reshaping the class struggle to reshape the world in revolutionary and internationalist ways. — Frontlines ed.]

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http://theredflag.ca

Filipino Canadian Proletarians Join Forces With the PCR-RCP!
Partisan #25 • August 24, 2012

We, the Filipino Canadian Proletarian Committee of Cote-des-Neiges,
Montréal have announced our intention to add our forces to the
growing strength of the Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire –
Revolutionary Communist Party (Canada). The leadership and contributions
of the PCR-RCP are to be found in the building of the proletarian
movement that is needed in Canada and the necessary international
communist movement and it is with revolutionary pride and social
responsibility to the Canadian working class that Filipino Canadian
proletarians based in the west end of Montréal join the dynamism of
their Marxist-Leninist-Maoist comrades.

Since the 1970s there has been a rich revolutionary movement among the
Filipino Canadian proletariat, largely because of the solidarity built
around the struggle against Marcos’ dictatorship in the Philippines.
Through the 1980s and 1990s and early 2000s support and solidarity work
by Filipino Canadian comrades continued for the Philippine revolutionary
movement. As the consciousness of Filipino Canadian proletariat
continued to be raised about the struggle “back home” there was
a growing need to resolve the issues of the Filipino Canadian people as
part of Canadian working class.