Join us for a panel and community gathering to discuss the aftermath of the Ottawa shooting.

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 4TH
6:30-8:30 PM
YWCA 733 Beatty St (one block from Stadium Skytrain station)
Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territories

With Muslim, South Asian, Arab and Kurdish speakers and performers:

• Itrath Syed studies and teaches on moral panics and Muslim bodies in the West. She is also involved with the local antiwar movement and in resisting the erosion of civil rights and the racial profiling of the Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities in Canada.
• Jahanzeb Hussain writes on South Asian politics and the impacts of the War on Terror in the region. He has worked with Newsline, Pakistan’s premier English language current affairs publication, and is also an editor of Ricochet.
• Sozan Savehilaghi comes from a family of Kurdish guerilla fighters. She is engaged in migrant justice, antiracist, and anticapitalist activism, and is a collective member of No One Is Illegal on Coast Salish territories.
• Razan is a Palestinian and Syrian musician and performer. They are still learning what it means to live as a settler on the stolen lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
• Hosted by Hasan Alam of No One Is Illegal Vancouver – Coast Salish Territories.

We are witnessing an escalation in Islamophobia with racist and fear-mongering media tropes all over mainstream and social media, as well as a number of reported hate crimes targeting mosques. At the same time, Harper has promised new legislation to curtail civil liberties and is sending troops into Northern Iraq under the guise of fighting ISIS as part of the War on Terror that has brutalized people through military occupation and drone attacks for thirteen years. As recent media attention focuses on the West’s saviour crusading against ISIS, we stand in solidarity with Kurdish communities in Kobane and elsewhere in the region who have been fighting for decades against domination on all fronts.

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Wed at 8:00am
Supreme Court of British Columbia
800 Smithe Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6Z 2E1

We – the Klabona Keepers – are currently blockading the road to Red Chris Mine owned by Imperial Metals, the same company responsible for the Mt.Polley disaster. Their wreckless operation and management of the Mt. Polley disaster on unceded Secwepemc territory pushes us to continue theNopposition we’ve had of this project since its beginning. They haven’t even begun to clean up Mt. Polley. They’ve destroyed the second largest salmon-run in the world. Their largest investor, Murray Edwards, is shifting assets and bailing out Red Chris rather than using that money to clean up the catastrophe they have caused.

And now there is another attempt to undermine the sovereignty of Indigenous Nations on our unceded land and water… We have been served a court injunction through the Supreme Court of British Columbia, between ourselves and Imperial Metals, which ultimately will result in the arrests of our elders this coming week for peacefully protecting what is rightfully theirs.

This Wednesday the injunction will be taken to court in Vancouver at 10:00am, with presentation from the applicant.

WE ARE CALLING ON ALL NATIONS TO COME TOGETHER AND MAKE NOISE OUTSIDE OFTHE COURTHOUSE AND OCCUPY THE SPACE FOR THE ENTIRE DAY TO LET THEM KNOWTHAT THEIR UNRULY ACTIONS WILL NOT PROCEED UNACCOUNTED FOR.

The BC Coroners Service is currently conducting an inquest into the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez. Jimenez was a 42-year Mexican hotel worker who died while in Canadian Border Service Agency’s custody in December 2013 after being turned over to immigration authorities by TransLink police. Just prior to her scheduled deportation to Mexico, she hung herself in a cell at the Vancouver International Airport. She died eight days later, on December 28, 2013.

As part of a coalition of grassroots immigrant, community and Latin American groups, we have been denied participant status at the inquest. With the inquest coming to a close, we would nonetheless like to take this opportunity to reiterate our vision and demands.

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by Harsha Walia

http://themainlander.com/2014/10/06/10-key-facts-about-the-lucia-vega-jimenez-inquest/

This past week an all-white jury listened to testimony at the inquest into the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez while in Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) custody.

During the last month of her life, every institution that Lucia came into contact with was most interested in law enforcement and least interested in her safety. Though this is not shocking to anyone familiar with the immigration system, the facts that are emerging about what happened to Lucia while in custody are illuminating to those unfamiliar with how immigration enforcement really operates.

While the inquest has focused on proposals for suicide prevention, better communication between officials, and training for private security employees, it has stayed clear of systemic issues. Lucia’s fears were due to her deportation to Mexico (a country Canada deems ‘safe’ under the new Refugee Exclusion Act), fears she relayed multiple times to numerous authorities. But CBSA does not care for refugees like Lucia; their mandate is to callously enforce deportations. The holding cells below the Vancouver International Airport and Vancouver Public Library are a grim metaphor of the invisible underclass of 11,000 migrant detainees, including children, held in CBSA custody every year. The inquest does not insist on an end to these coercive practices nor does it interrogate the criminalization of migration.

Emerging story about Lucia’s tragic death

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