The Zundelsite - Canada: Stalinism in a so-called "democratic" country!


Canada: Stalinism in a so-called
"democratic" country!

May 20, 2003

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny: Now more than ever!

I am beside myself about the complacency of some of my friends and acquaintances about what has happened to Ernst Zundel with his transfer to the Metro Toronto West Detention Center. and how I know his safety is imperiled. This is no time to sit back and hope for the best!

LISTEN UP: I AM NOT EXAGGERATING! MY HUSBAND IS IN DANGER OF HIS LIFE!

You have to realize that Canadians have been poisoned about Ernst via a virulent mainstream media campaign against him for decades. The simple person on the street has never heard a kind word about him - nothing but hate, hate, hate against Zundel! For decades! That such a propaganda-poisoned person - whether guard or inmate - might take out his own frustrations and rages against Ernst, in a situation where Ernst cannot defend himself, does not take a rocket scientist mind to conclude.

How much more is this situation aggravated when an agency, namely CSIS, that KNEW about a parcel bomb sent to him from Vancouver to Toronto via passenger plane, warned their own agents not to handle it, and yet did not see fit to tell Ernst, holds secret hearings about him and against him on ridiculous grounds of "national security"!

I am telling you that Ernst is in very grave danger! He needs to get out of that hellhole!

Here is what I found out about that place. I don't know when it was written:

[START]

An estimated 100-125 refugee claimants and others being detained on immigration matters at the Metro Toronto West Detention Centre (MTWDC) went on a hunger strike for a week in July. Other prisoners, those awaiting trial on criminal offences, joined in the protest, because of the overcrowding and forced transfers Canada's Immigration detention policy is creating. The refugees, who alone account for 20% of the Metro West's adult male prisoner population and others facing deportation were hoping that the strike would bring local and international attention to the following concerns:

Indefinite detention
Poor living conditions
Lack of access to community resources and legal services
Arbitrary deportations
Human rights abuses & brutality by staff
Racism and discrimination

Many of those awaiting deportation are kept languishing in jail for 2-3 years at a time (more time than some federal sentences), with many never even being accused of committing any criminal offences in Canada and many others never seeing any more of Canada than the inside of a jail cell. Many were previously detained at the Celebrity Inn, a private detention centre run by Immigration Canada and Metropol private security firm, which was built to hold some 80 inmates but which usually ends up holding more like 150. A large number have refuted their refugee claims, preferring to face potentially deadly fates in their home countries than to die of abuse and neglect in a foreign jail. Such was the case with Michael Akhimen, a Nigerian man who had been sick with diabetes, who died from medical neglect and physical abuse at the Celebrity Inn in December 1995, after he was thrown into solitary confinement with no food and water for more than one week, after he complained about the lack of medical attention.

The Metro West Detention Centre is one of the only Toronto area jails without a Streetlink centre, making it especially difficult for prisoners to get in contact with legal clinics, community organisations, and other agencies that provide services to refugees. Since the provincial cutbacks to legal aid, access is severely limited for everyone, doubly so for people who are not recognised as Canadian citizens.

All prisoners at the MTWDC are double and triple-bunked in single person cells, further adding to an already tense situation where people have zero personal space or privacy. In a setting where health care is virtually non-existent, this makes people extremely vulnerable to illness and disease.

The criteria on which they are kept in detention is extremely arbitrary, the most commonly cited pretence being that immigration thinks it has reason to believe a person won't show up to their hearing, with alternative arrangements for supervision very rarely being tried. People with claims in more than one country are frequently detained, with no consideration paid to the fact that many of the refugees - the majority of whom are continental Africans - went to Europe first, where many encountered neo-nazi violence and racist immigration policies identical to Canada's, where many found themselves detained under identical circumstances.

Improper travel documents are another commonly used justification, an especially frustrating situation for Africans from nations such as Rwanda, Liberia, or Nigeria (which lack either governments or diplomatic relations with Canada), and Palestinians, who are not allowed to return home because of the Israeli government's genocidal expulsion policies.

Physical abuse, brutality, and racist insults and provocations from the mostly white staff is very common, with many people citing an incident June this year, when Steve Williams, a failed refugee claimant from Nigeria, was beaten severely both at the jail and at the airport on the eve of his deportation, and citing attempts by certain guards to deliberately incite tensions between different ethnic groups when they don't exist, and exploit them when they do.

The Metro West Detention Brothers are urging the public to get involved in making their demands and their situation an international issue, to shed light on Canada's hypocritical and racist policies and practices. Struggling in obscurity and isolation is no longer an option; as Kashif Ali, a man from Ghana who has been in detention for the past 28 months has put it, "I have nothing to lose, I have lost everything already."

NATIVE AFRICAN INMATES & FAMILIES ASSOCIATION

http://www.ncadc.org.uk/letters/news8/can.html

[END]