Some of you will remember the jailed Iranian trade unionist Farzad Kamangar. He was the subject of a LabourStart campaign more than a year ago.

Kamangar was accused by the regime of “endangering national security” and “enmity against God”. He was convicted in a sham trial that lasted less than five minutes, sent to prison and tortured.

Teachers’ unions around the world campaigned for his release, backed by the labour movement and human rights groups like Amnesty International.

Last weekend, the Iranian regime executed Farzad together with several other prisoners. He was hanged secretly, without his family being informed, in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran.

As the one-year anniversary of Iran’s fraudulent Presidential elections approaches, we have reason to fear that the regime will become even more brutal in its crackdown. Other trade unionists languishing in Iranian jails now fear for their lives too.

We must act now to send a loud and clear message to Tehran — no more executions! Please take a minute and send off your message.

And afterwards, please make sure to spread the word in your union. We must act quickly to save the lives of our fellow trade unionists. At a time like this, we cannot remain silent.

Thank you.

Eric Lee

Is the United States turning into a police state, as former Reagan-era official and columnist Paul Craig Roberts suggests in a recent interview on Russia Today?

Roberts was referring to the Feb. 3, 2010 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in which National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told representatives that American citizens could be assassinated by the US government when they are overseas.

Writing in the LA Times, journalist Greg Miller provides chilling insights into how CIA hit lists are put together:

From beginning to end, the CIA’s process for carrying out Predator strikes is remarkably self-contained. Almost every key step takes place within the Langley, Va., campus, from proposing targets to piloting the remotely controlled planes.

The memos proposing new targets are drafted by analysts in the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center. Former officials said analysts typically submit several new names each month to high-level officials, including the CIA general counsel and sometimes Director Leon E. Panetta.

As Roberts asks, how is this different from Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany?

It is no secret there has been a steady decline in democratic rights and freedoms in the United States over the past decade. This rather brazen announcement that American spooks can act as judge, jury and executioner is one more indication of how repressive and murderous the U.S. government has become.

If there is a difference between the United States of 2010 and the most notorious 20th century tyrannies it is that most Americans appear to believe they inhabit the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Will this naive mom ‘n apple pie state of mind persist now that the “government of, by and for the people” has publicly declared its intentions to murder some of “the people” without due process of law?

Americans may yet come to understand why so many non-Americans regard the U.S. government with suspicion, fear and loathing.

Abousfian Abdelrazik meets the press in Montreal on his return to Canada on Saturday, June 27, 2009. Photo: Tatiana Gomez

Delist Now!: Six-Month Campaign to Free Abousfian Abdelrazik from the
Prison Without Walls

June 27th will mark the one-year anniversary of Abousfian Abdelrazik’s return to Canada after six years of forced exile and imprisonment in Sudan. Though this anniversary is something to celebrate, many challenges remain for Mr. Abdelrazik and the broader fight against oppressive “security” measures and racism. Mr. Abdelrazik is home, but not yet free and the fight against the UN 1267 regime and for a normal life for Mr. Abdelrazik has only just begun.

The UN 1267 List, which has included Mr. Abdelrazik’s name since 2006, subjects individuals to a flight ban, an arms embargo and a complete asset freeze. These restrictions are severe and indefinite. Listed individuals face vague allegations, have no right to a hearing before they are placed on the list, and are provided with no evidence to support the claims against them. The Federal Court wrote in its June 2009 decision on Mr. Abdelrazik’s case, “There is nothing in the listing or de-listing procedure that recognizes the principles of natural justice or that provides for basic procedural fairness.” (For more information, please read our backgrounder on the 1267 List.)

Project Fly Home invites you to join us over the next six months as we wage an intense campaign focused on two specific demands, which we hope will help move us towards the abolition of the 1267 List and challenge the racist national security agenda as a whole. If this campaign is successful, Mr. Abdelrazik will be able to mark this upcoming one-year of his return with his fundamental rights and freedoms restored, and will be able to move on and live his life in dignity.

The two demands this six-month campaign will make of the government are:

[1] Immediately lift the domestic sanctions on Mr. Abdelrazik

In 2002, Canada changed the Al Qaida and Taliban Regulations (the domestic legislation implementing the 1267 regime) to exempt Mr. Liban Hussein, the only Canadian then on the 1267 list (for more information on Mr. Liban Hussein, see the paragraphs in this article. We demand that the government do the same for Mr. Abdelrazik, or otherwise take action to immediately free him from the sanctions in Canada, ideally repealing the regulations entirely, to be consistent with basic principles of justice and Canadian and international human rights law.

[2] Actively advocate to delist Mr. Abdelrazik from the UN 1267 List.

Though the Canadian government asked the UN 1267 Committee to remove Mr. Abdelrazik’s name from the 1267 List in 2007, it is very difficult to get off the 1267 List once you are on it. There are, in fact, dozens of dead people on the list. Delisting requires the consensus of all members of the committee. Thus, each member of the committee can block a delisting request, and is not required to provide any reason for doing so. This leads to decisions that seem to have much less to do with the individuals in question than external political objectives. The Canadian government must champion Mr. Abdelrazik’s case to the Committee, by clearly making it a diplomatic priority in their relations with the members of the committee, in order for him to be delisted.

In the next six months, Project Fly Home Montreal will be organizing a number of actions and events in the context of this campaign. Please stay posted for more details! Please plan your own actions to support this campaign in the lead-up to the first anniversary of Mr. Abdelrazik’s return to Canada.

To get involved, for more information, or to inform us of your plans to support this six-month focused campaign, please contact us at projectflyhome@gmail.com.

Project Fly Home’s six demands are endorsed by:

1. Advocacy Collective (Fredericton, NB)
2. Apatrides Anonymes
3. Boundary Peace Initiative from the B.C. Southern Interior
4. CAIR-CAN – Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations
5. Canadian Arab Federation
6. Canadian Labour Congress
7. Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)
8. Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice
9. Coalition contre la répression et les abus policiers
10. Common Cause – Hamilton
11. Council of Canadians – Montreal
12. Council of Canadians | London
13. El-Hidaya Association
14. Fredericton Peace Coalition
15. Immigrant Workers Centre
16. Indigenous Solidarity Committee
17. New Brunswick Public Interest Research Group
18. NSPIRG (Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group)
19. OPIRG Carleton
20. People for Peace London
21. People’s Commission Network
22. PINAY
23. Pointe Libertaire
24. Project Fly Home
25. QPIRG Concordia
26. Soeurs Auxiliatrices
27. South Asian Women’s Community Centre
28. Students for Sustainability – St Thomas University
29. Students for Sustainability – University of New Brunswick
30. Sudbury Against War and Occupation
31. The Calgary Committee in Support of Abousfian Abdelrazik
32. Ziba Kazemi Foundation
33. Canadian Peace Alliance
34. No One Is Illegal Ottawa

* To add your organization to this list, please read the sign-on statement and email your organization’s name in English and French to projectflyhome@gmail.com.

It all started when Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law filed a complaint on January 19, 2010 with the ICC against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales for crimes against humanity in the “extraordinary rendition” (kidnapping) by the Central Intelligence Agency of approximately 100 people to secret prisons for torture and interrogation.

Bush to the Hague now has a website, a Facebook group, and a Facebook cause page. They are asking for support from individuals and organizations who care about human rights and justice. That describes you, right? Good. Don’t hold back.

While these are undoubtedly the least of their crimes, because they were committed in countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute that established the ICC there are legal grounds for the ICC to prosecute Bush and his cronies, even though the U.S. is not a signatory.

There is a long distance between filing a complaint and seeing Bush in an orange jumpsuit, but with Boyle as the author, it has a solid legal foundation. He is an internationally recognized expert in the area of human rights, war crimes and genocide, nuclear policy, and bio-warfare, and played a key role in developing the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic for committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I doubt that the ICC prosecutor will act on the complaint in the absence of international public pressure. With the exception of Pravda, the mainstream media has ignored the story so far. Given Boyle’s international stature, this is scandalous (though not surprising.)

While the corporate media has blacked out the story, Boyle’s complaint got a big boost the other day when he appeared on the Alex Jones Show, a nationally syndicated US radio program with millions of listeners via broadcast and the Internet.

Jones’s brand of libertarian populism and his penchant for histrionics probably would not not sit too well with staid Canadian lefties, but if you fall into that category, step outside your comfort zone for a bit and spend some time with his website and his show. The man is a fierce defender of democratic rights and freedoms who has done much to inform and mobilize against America’s descent into tyranny.

So, it’s up to the alternative media to get out the word and fan Boyle’s spark into a raging fire. If there was ever an opportunity to hold Bush and his cronies accountable for their heinous crimes, this is it.

Boyle has asked supporters of the complaint to write or fax the ICC Prosecutor. This is where you can contact Professor Boyle:

Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Law Building
504 East Pennsylvania Avenue
Champaign, Illinois 61820
Phone: 217-333-7954 – Fax: 217-244-1478
Email: fboyle@illinois.edu

And here is how to contact the ICC.

What are you waiting for?

Shame!

Photos of Omar Khadr as a teenager, left, and as an adult, right. Khadr has been jailed for the last seven years in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Photos: National Post.

The conduct of Canadian officials “establishes Canadian participation in state conduct that violates the principles of fundamental justice,” said the court.

“Interrogation of a youth, to elicit statements about the most serious criminal charges while detained in these conditions and without access to counsel, and while knowing hat the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the U.S. prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects,” says the judgment.

The court said theses acts violated section 7 of the Charter of Rights – the right to life, liberty and security of the person. And it said the violation of Khadr’s rights is still ongoing.

The Supreme Court does not believe it has the legal right to intervene in foreign affairs, even when an intervention would force the federal government to defend our constitutional rights.

That is not only Omar Khadr’s loss; it is our loss, as well. It empowers and emboldens Harper and all future enemies of freedom who end up living at 21 Sussex Dr. to continue to attack human rights.

The Khadr case demonstrates the limitations of our legal system. It also makes it clear that, ultimately, justice is a political problem that demands a political remedy.

• The Omar Khadr Project
• The Omar Khadr Case

Instead of watching out for people who actually have a track record for mass destruction and terrorism, we are directing our efforts against folks who might be pissed off at us because we have bombed them, strip-mined their economies and plundered their futures.

(The fact that almost all people detained at our borders, coincidentally, are brown or black, leads some to conclude our government is racist because it is engaged in “racial profiling.” While this may be true, that is the subject of another post.)

We have, in the words Stephen Harper, used a “long gun registry approach” that criminalizes everyone when we should limit our efforts to catching “the bad guys.”

So, in the interests of air safety and national security, as well as more convenient air travel, here are my suggestions for Canada’s border watch and no-fly lists.

1. Anyone who has ever used or authorized the use of weapons of mass destruction. While it might seem unfair to single them out, this would include Barack Obama, George Bush (father and son), Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Collectively, these fellas have slaughtered millions.

But we shouldn’t stop there. Any current or former head of state who told the his military to kill people would qualify for the list. This would crimp Stephen Harper’s travel schedule, or course, but it would also ensure that Jean Chretien and Paul Martin would have to stay home. I’d let Kim Campbell, John Turner and Joe Clark on the plane, but only because they weren’t in office long enough to do much damage.

2. Anyone who has implemented the decisions of their political masters to engage in the above mentioned mass destruction. This would include cabinet ministers, military commanders at all levels, heads of government departments, and so forth.

3. Anyone who has used, or attempted to use a weapon equivalent in destructive power to that of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underpants (UFAU), which, if you have been following the story, have been deemed by US Justice officials to be a weapon of mass destruction. This means that any military grunt of either gender who has participated in combat loses their opportunity to get on a Canadian plane, or visit Canada. (I guess we should let our grunts come home, soon, today even.)

4. Anyone who benefits from the development, production and sale of weapons of mass destruction (once again, these weapons are defined as being UFAU equivalent.) Now, I’m not arguing that we should outlaw war industries (that’s a subject for another post). I’m just saying that we shouldn’t let these bastards or their products cross international borders.

5. Academics, politicians, religious leaders, editorial writers, journalists, PR flacks, bloggers and anyone else who whores, pimps, shills and otherwise facilitates the climate of fear that promotes our bogus war on terrorism, invasions of other countries and erosion of human rights at home or abroad. You know who you are. Cut up your Aeroplan cards and get into another line of work.

Now, if my modest proposal for air safety and national security were to catch on, it would most certainly have a deleterious impact on the air travel industry, at least in the short term. Many folks who travel by air and cross borders are either war mongers or cannon fodder. However, this is a price I think most folks would be willing to pay for a safer, more secure world.

Joshua Key is an American war resister who fought in Iraq and who sought refuge in Canada because of his war experiences. Author of “The Deserter’s Tale,” Joshua told the story of his recruitment into the U.S. Army, the carnage he witnessed in Iraq and his subsequent flight to Canada to an audience in Winnipeg, the first stop on a 13-city tour of western Canada.

Like so many young people, Joshua joined the army to escape a life of poverty and support his family. The Army promised he would remain in the US and learn to build bridges, but the ink on his contract was barely dry when he learned he would be deployed  to Iraq. Basic training turned him into a killing machine, but the brutalities of war transformed him into a deserter, a refugee and a peace activist.

As you’ll see from the video I recorded Wednesday evening, Joshua speaks with authority, simplicity, warmth and honesty. He is a man traumatized by what he has seen and done who has bravely stepped forward to resist the monsters who prosecute this war.  He deserves and needs our support. If you can, get out to one of the meetings on his tour.

But don’t stop there. Contact the War Resisters Support Campaign and see what else you can do to support the courageous young men and women who have said no to America’s criminal wars.

It’s a cheap announcement: only 400,000 loonies have been allocated for this program, but it’s a useful one for Harper because it helps perpetuate the myth that Mexico is just like Canada — poorer, perhaps, but fundmentally democratic — and in no way a legitimate source of refugees.

However, it is no coincidence that refugee claims have grown at a time of escalating drug war violence and a marked increase in human rights violations by Mexican police and military forces.

According to the CBC, “Mexico is now the No. 1 source of refugee claims, with the number almost tripling to more than 9,400 since 2005 . . . The figure represents one-quarter of all claims made. About 90 per cent of the claims are rejected.”

In February 2009, Amnesty International reported that:

• Mexico has so far failed to explicitly recognize the status of international human rights treaties in its Constitution.
• The authorities have yet to hold anyone to account for the 100 killings and 700 enforced disappearances that took place between the 1960s and 1980s.
• Mexican federal, state and municipal police officers implicated in serious human rights violations, such as arbitrary detention, torture, rape and unlawful killings, particularly those committed during civil disturbances in San Salvador Atenco and Oaxaca City in 2006, have not been brought to justice.
• The military justice system continues to try cases of human rights violations despite international human rights standards insisting these should be tried in civilian courts.
• The number of reports of abuses such as arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, sexual violence and unlawful killings by security officials has increased during security operations to combat violent criminal gangs.
• Human rights defenders, particular those in rural areas, often face persecution and sometimes prolonged detention on the basis of fabricated or politically-motivated criminal charges.
• Indigenous and other marginalized communities sometimes face harassment for opposing development projects affecting their livelihoods.
• Irregular migrants in transit in Mexico routinely face ill-treatment by state officials as well as sexual and other violence at the hands of criminal gangs.
• Despite advances in legislation to protect women from violence, implementation is weak. Reporting, prosecution and conviction rates for those responsible for domestic violence, rape and even killings of women remain extremely low. Two years after the adoption of the 2007 General Law to prevent violence against women, two states have not even introduced legislation to enforce it.
• Poverty and marginalization continue to deprive many rural communities, particularly indigenous peoples, of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to development, in accordance with their own needs and interests.

You can get the entire report here.

It sounds to me like there are plenty of good reasons why someone might claim to be a Mexican refugee.

Meanwhile, education is a 2-way street. I wonder what the Federales will teach our taser-wielding Mounties.

Armed men surround the mainly Mixtec community of Santo Domingo Ixcatlan, Oaxaca on December 3, 2008. The attackers were working for a local political boss who stood to profit from the sale of communal lands. For months, the group threatened those who opposed the sale and killed three of them in April 2008. Photo credit: Private/Amnesty International. Read more.

Speaking at the University of Southern California in April 2009, Mexican senator and human rights activist Rosario Ibarra presents a lecture on forced disappearances (the state’s covert persecution, apprehension and execution of individuals for political reasons) in Mexico, and on her work to promote human rights and freedom.

The ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation), EI (Education International), ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation), IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations) are forming a coalition for the event, which is the latest move in an ongoing campaign to secure justice and trade union rights inside Iran. Amnesty International has backed this campaign.

They are calling for:

• The immediate and unconditional release of all imprisoned trade unionists including Mansour Osanloo, Ebrahim Madadi and Farzad Kamangar;
• Unconditional recognition of all independent workers’ organisations in Iran and reinstatement of workers who have been disadvantaged as a result of their support for these organisations;
• Ratification of core ILO Conventions on freedom of association and the right to collective bargain by the Iranian government;
• Conclusion of collective bargaining agreements between the independent unions and the relevant employers.

This campaign, which has been ignored by the mainstream media, might be lost in the coverage of the popular opposition to the fraudulent June 12 election that returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. That would be a shame. Whether Ahmadinejad retains his grip on the presidency or not, Iran’s sordid record of human rights abuses will continue without fundamental changes.

Find out what you can do at Justice for Iranian Workers.