SK Hussan

http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/blog/hussansk/33683

A week ago, Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan, a 39 year old Somali man died in immigration detention custody after being denied adequate medical care, and then being ‘restrained’ by border and prison officials. Hassan, as he was known to his friends, came to Canada from Mogadishu in 1993 as a teenager. He was granted refugee status, but according to family members, didn’t gain permanent resident status because of his mental illness.

“He was moved from school to school. No one knew how to deal with him. He finally dropped out and we kept him at home,”  Deina Ibrahim told the Toronto Star. “Being bipolar, he had his good days and bad days. On a bad day, he got agitated and people would call police on him. He was just in and out of hospital a lot.”

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https://nacla.org/blog/2015/04/23/how-human-rights-organizations-are-implicated-migrant-deaths

by Joseph Nevins

The deaths of unauthorized migrants have long scarred the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. But as evidenced by a single incident on Sunday, April 19, the Mediterranean is the global epicenter of such fatalities.

An estimated 850 migrants—from a variety of countries, including Eritrea, Syria, Sierra Leone, and Bangladesh— perished when their less-than-seaworthy vessel capsized in the waters between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa. According to one report, “authorities described a grisly scene of bodies floating and sinking in the warm waters, with the majority of the dead apparently trapped in the ship at the bottom of the sea.”

In response, Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, borrowed a page from the talking points of U.S. authorities by pointing the finger at migrant smugglers. Using words that obscure how the growing strength of the European Union’s border policing apparatus—what many call “Fortress Europe”—effectively requires migrants to rely on professional smugglers and take ever-riskier routes to reach their hoped-for destinations, Renzi called smugglers “the slave drivers of the 21st century.”

It is hardly surprising that officials charged with policing national territorial boundaries do not indict the very system that kills migrants: the nation-state and its associated apparatus of exclusion for those deemed undesirable or unworthy. In the case of international human rights organizations, however, one can and should expect much better. Instead, one gets (at best) handwringing and calls for governments to make greater efforts to rescue endangered migrants. Meanwhile, these same organizations uphold and legitimize the very practices that make migrant fatalities inevitable, and thus help reproduce them.

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Video: Naverone Woods Family Statement

Naverone Christian Landon Woods, 23 year old Gitxsan man, fatally shot by transit police on Dec 28, 2014. His death at the hands of police was profoundly tragic. It was also incredibly troubling; raising many questions about the use of deadly force by police, the role of armed transit police on our public transit system, and the broader dynamics of racism and colonial violence.

Watch statement from his family:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UmMRLObbW0&feature=youtu.be

Hubie, The Watchman

Since 2000, Hubert Jim has watched over the area known as Sutikalh—in the pristine wilderness of Cayoosh Canyon near Pemberton, British Columbia—with an attentive eye and clear love for it. From the nearby highway, following along a creek bed to a small opening, he occupies a lone cabin that was erected during a blockade. Hubert Jim, a member of the local St’át’imc First Nation known as “Hubie” to locals, has lived at Sutikalh since the blockade began. Outsiders commonly refer to Sutikalh as a “camp,” but Hubie explains that “15 years is too long to call this place a camp. For me, its Sutikalh Home.”

Read more: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/opinion/hubie-watchman

Grassy Narrows First Nation Holds Logging Protest in Kenora

In March of last year, the Grassy Narrows’ youth group released a statement rejecting the plan, as did the community’s chief and council. “The trees, like the water, are sacred,” stated Brenda Kokokopenace, an Anishinabe Elder from Grassy Narrows. “We have a duty to protect Mother Earth, and that duty is sacred, too. It is good to see the youth standing up for the land. It shows they know who they are and that they can wake up the people who have lost that connection.”

Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/grassy-narrows-first-nation-holds-logging-protest-in-kenora-1.2996899

Number of temporary foreign workers tripled in Canada between 2002 and 2012

The number of foreign workers in Canada tripled between 2002 and 2012 — although they still made up less than two per cent of the overall labour force, the parliamentary budget office reported Thursday.

Read more:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/number-of-temporary-foreign-workers-tripled-in-canada-between-2002-and-2012-1.2276261

Canada Is Spending Millions Keeping Immigration Detainees in Jail

“Today is Family Day—I miss my dad,” said Melika Mojarrab, the teenage daughter of Masoud Hajivand, who has been detained in Lindsay for the past eight months while the government attempts to deport him to Iran. Hajivand, who publicly converted to Christianity from Islam, says he fears imprisonment, torture, or even death if he returns to Iran. “If Canada deports him to Iran, I will not be able to see him again,” Mojarrab said. “His life is in extreme danger.”

Read more:
http://www.vice.com/read/no-crime-no-problem-canada-is-spending-millions-keeping-immigration-detainees-in-jail-786

Supreme Court Ruling Could Alter Landscape for Refugee Advocates

Every day Francisco Rico, co-director of the FJC Refugee Centre in Toronto, gets calls from undocumented migrants wondering how to get to Canada. Some have tracked his organization down on the Internet; others heard about it through friends. Their constant refrain: ‘We want to come to Canada and we don’t have any papers.’ But in offering advice, he could be committing a crime under a controversial section of the 2002 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that critics say is written far too broadly and puts people who legitimately help refugees at risk of prosecution.

Read more:
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/03/14/supreme-court-ruling-could-alter-landscape-for-refugee-advocates.html

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The Ekos Poll: Are Canadians Getting More Racist?

Not only is opposition to immigration in general scaling heights not seen in twenty years but the number of Canadians saying we admit too many visible minorities has just cracked the 40-point ceiling for the first time ever.

Read more:
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2015/03/12/the-ekos-poll-are-canadians-getting-more-racist/

A detailed timeline of Stephen Harper’s weird, racially divided vision of Canada

Before Stephen Harper became an international laughingstock and trended on Twitter and BuzzFeed for telling women he knows best how they should dress, there was the divisive — and weird — campaign with racial overtones that came before it. How weird? Scroll down our 2015 timeline:

Read more:
http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/detailed-timeline-stephen-harpers-weird-racially-divided-vision-canada

Why I intend to wear a niqab at my citizenship ceremony

My desire to live on my own terms is also why I have chosen to challenge the government’s decision to deny me citizenship unless I take off my niqab at my oath ceremony. I am not looking for Mr. Harper to approve my life choices or dress. I am certainly not looking for him to speak on my behalf and “save” me from oppression, without even ever having bothered to reach out to me and speak with me.

Read more:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/03/16/why-i-intend-to-wear-a-niqab-at-my-citizenship-ceremony.html?referrer=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2Fd7ezjYQz0U

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