Raise your voices to demand the immediate release of the 76 detainees and their right to stay in Canada in peace and dignity. Take a few minutes to make a phone call, write an email or letter or send a fax to Minister Kenney, your member of parliament and the media to let them know that we are not going to sit quietly and let the government detain, imprison and deport people.
Thursday November 12, 6-9 pm. SFU Harbour Centre, Rm 1315. 515 West Hastings St, Vancouver
Concerned about the rise of racist, anti-immigrant sentiments since the recent arrival of 76 Tamil refugees on Vancouver shores? Unsure about what’s going on in Sri Lanka and the connections of the Canadian government to the war abroad? Curious about the ongoing changes Jason Kenney has been making to Canada’s immigration system? No One is Illegal-Vancouver invites you to an informative discussion regarding The Ocean Lady and its consequences for those concerned with migrant justice in Canada.
By Cassidy Olivier, The Province. October 25, 2009
A coalition of community organizations, faith-based groups, refugee rights advocates and lawyers rally in support of Sri Lanka refugees in Vancouver on Friday. The immigrants were discovered a week ago after illegally entering Canadian waters aboard the ship Ocean Lady. Advocacy groups speaking on behalf of 76 Sri Lankan refugee claimants are warning against “unsubstantiated” claims surrounding the detained men’s backgrounds and alleged involvement with terrorist organizations. The men, seized Oct. 17 from a dilapidated ocean freighter off B.C.’s coast, remain at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge.
Nicholas Keung, Toronto Star, Fri Oct 23 2009
“A woman between the ages of 20 and 30 was found murdered – and with evidence of childbirth – with blows to her body and a bullet in the forehead, a classic revenge from drug trafficking,” said a June 5 story in the Mexican newspaper El Informador de Jalisco. A death certificate later classified the woman’s death as a homicide. What the coroner’s office didn’t mention was that the 24-year-old murder victim and her mother and sister had twice sought refuge in Canada, in 2004 and 2008, from drug traffickers. The same men are thought to have kidnapped and killedyoung Grise, leaving the fate of her baby unknown, after she was forced back to Mexico.
This working paper employs research undertaken by the Global Detention Project (GDP)—an inter-disciplinary research project based at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies—to help situate the phenomenon of the privatization of immigration detention within a global perspective. This working paper endeavors to extend analysis of this phenomenon by demonstrating the broad geographical spread of privatized detention practices across the globe, assessing the differing considerations that arise when states decide to privatize, and comparing the experiences of a sample of lesser known cases.
Report available here.
