Toronto Torture Tour: March 8

Join the Torture Tour of Toronto, Thursday, March 8, 8:30 am-1:30 pm

Sponsored by Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture and Toronto Action for Social Change

WHAT IS A TORTURE TOUR?

The tour is an opportunity for people to publicly name andprotest at sites of Canadian complicity in torture and other forms of cruel, degrading treatment. These sites include government agencies found by judicial inquiries to be complicit in the torture of Canadian citizens, agencies that regularly deport refugees to torture and other grave fates, Canadian military facilities, and symbols of the ongoing war against women, who experience torture and other forms of alarming violence on a daily basis at the hands of men in Canada. The Torture Tour is yet another step in the years-long campaign of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture seeking accountability, apologies, compensation, and systemic changes to put an end to this country's growing complicity in human rights abuses both here and abroad.

GETTING INVOLVED:
1. To join the torture tour, email tasc@web.ca
2. Bring a bag lunch or snacks for the road. There will NOT be a lot of walking; rather, it will consist of mainly driving between spots and standing vigil for a few minutes at each location.
3. If you drive and can offer spaces to others who need a seat on the torture tour, please let us know.
4. Contributions to help with our expenses are greatly appreciated, and can be made out to Homes not Bombs and mailed to PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 1R0.

BACKGROUND
March will mark 3.5 years since a secretive federal inquiry found the government of Canada complicit in the torture of Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin. Yet the government refuses to accept the findings of its own inquiry, an inquiry in which only its side of the complicity in torture was heard, an inquiry in which none of those who were tortured, nor their lawyers, nor the public, nor the media were allowed to attend. And even with the cards stacked so much in favour of the government, the government was found to be complicit. Now that these three men seek an apology, compensation, and accountability, the government questions the fact that they have been tortured.

REPORT BACK FROM CSI: OTTAWA, ENDING CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE

(apologies for the belated nature of this report; the issues, however, remain urgent, so see at the bottom what you can do to help)


REPORT BACK FROM CSI: OTTAWA, ENDING CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE

In the early morning hours of October 26, an Ottawa communiqué was produced by the RCMP’s home-grown Crisis Management Cell (Al Qaeda is not the only disreputable and shady organization that organizes itself with cell structures). The communiqué warned of an impending evolving situation at the Prime Minister’s Office and called on Special Operations as well as Ottawa Police to attend to the scene.

The cause of the crisis, apparently, had to do with “anti-torture” protesters who were set to gather that morning at 9:30 am. While the special bulletin did not explain the whys and wherefores, it would have been obvious to anyone who had been in the city for the previous three days, during which copious amounts of crime scene tape had appeared, accompanied by evidence flags and hooded “detainees,” at a variety of Canadian government agencies and private corporations complicit in torture.

Members of the Crisis Management Cell were also concerned, no doubt, with the banner headline of that morning’s Ottawa Citizen, which revealed that just-released internal RCMP documents indicated that the Mounties knew that the alleged case against Ottawa engineer Abdullah Almalki was completely unfounded. Yet the Mounties nonetheless made up dangerously inflammatory allegations about him that resulted in 22 months of torture in a Syrian dungeon. No one in the institution has been held to account. (for more on those memos see http://rabble.ca/columnists/2011/11/taking-liberties-three-years-after-finding-canadian-complicity-torture-silence-li )

Indeed, October marked three years since the release of a report based on the highly secretive and biased Iacobucci Inquiry, which, despite its major structural faults (the three men at the inquiry’s focus were not allowed to attend the completely secret process), nonetheless found that Canada was complicit in the men’s torture. Despite a subsequent Parliamentary committee’s recommendations, and a vote by the majority of the House of Commons calling for an apology, compensation, and accountability, Prime Minister Harper, as well as the complicit institutions and individuals, have failed to comply with that vote and simply do the right thing.

Hence, public pressure to jump-start a process of accountability to mark that anniversary sprang into action, and for three days, members of Crime Scene Investigation: Ottawa (CSI Ottawa), a fully realized subsidiary of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, had been showing up at dozens of locations, reading aloud damning documents from federal inquiries, court decisions, and independent research that focused both on the cases of three Canadians targeted for torture – Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nereddin – as well as the larger pattern of complicity in torture that has ruined the lives of countless Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and refugees.

DAY ONE: CHURCH RENTS TO RCMP
And so individuals dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods, accompanied by others in CSI jackets and one booming sound system, set out to mark the city’s numerous shameful connections to torture. The first day began during the bitterly cold and damp morning rush hour on Monday, October 24 in the city’s east end where, after the group members parked their vehicles in the massive St. Laurent shopping centre parking lot, they headed out on the torture trail leading to the RCMP.

Suncor/PetroCanada Must Stop Fueling Syrian Repression

"Some of the dead, who include children, were also mutilated either before or after death in particularly grotesque ways apparently intended to strike terror into the families to whom their corpses were returned." – Amnesty International, August 30, 2011

Although the Canadian government has instituted sanctions against the Syrian regime, the oil and gas sector, which earns the regime about $3 billion per year, remains untouched by Canadian sanctions.

Take Action, Contact both Suncor/PetroCanada executives and your MPs and demand that Suncor/PetroCanada leave Syria immediately

BACKGROUND
The atrocities no longer garner media attention, but over 3,000 Syrian people have been murdered by the Assad regime since peaceful demonstrations began earlier this year. Over 12,000 have been imprisoned, with untold numbers tortured to death (including children). Although Canadian oil giant Suncor/PetroCanada left Libya soon after the crackdown on protests there, the oil giant has refused to leave Syria, even though its operations financially support the Syrian regime. According to Human Rights Watch, "Under Syrian law the government is the major shareholder in the oil and gas sector through its ownership of the Syrian National Gas and Syrian National Oil companies [now replaced by the General Petroleum Corporation (GPC)]. These two companies have a 50 percent share in every oil and gas project in Syria."

In March 2010, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the Syrian government earns around €2.1 billion (about CND$3 billion) from oil and gas per year.

Given that 50% of all profits from oil and gas operations in Syria are shared with the Syrian regime, Suncor/PetroCanada's continued presence there is a major vote of confidence in brutality, torture, and mass murder.

Amnesty International reported earlier this month that "The sharp rise in the number of reported deaths in custody has been one of the most shocking features of the government’s bloody crackdown on the protests. No less than 88 such deaths have been reported to Amnesty International as occurring during the period from 1 April and 15 August 2011, a figure for four and a half months which is already many times higher than the yearly average over recent years. In at least 52 of these cases, there is evidence that torture caused or contributed to the deaths, a concern exacerbated by reports of widespread torture in detention centres in recent months. Some of the dead, who include children, were also mutilated either before or after death in particularly grotesque ways apparently intended to strike terror into the families to whom their corpses were returned."

Asked about the role that Suncor is playing in the brutal repression in Syria, Suncor/PetroCanada CEO Richard L. George told The Current (CBC Radio) on August 19th, "We're actually not connected to the Assad regime in any way. ... We operate with a partner in Syria, the General Petroleum Corporation, which is a state corporation." (www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/08/19/suncor-syria.html)

But being partners with the state-owned General Petroleum Corporation (GPC) does tie Suncor/PetroCanada to the regime. The state corporation reports directly to the Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Sufian Allaw. In any case, there is no effective distance between state, regime and government in Syria. Suncor/PetroCanada works in alliance with the Syrian regime.

CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Involvement in Torture

CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Involvement in Torture
October 24-26, 2011

Join us for three days of public witness, vigils, speakouts, and walks throughout Ottawa as we shine a spotlight on Canadian institutions, public and private, that are complicit in the torture of human beings. Details of getting involved are at the bottom of this email.


WHY A CSI-STYLE FORENSIC INVESTIGATION OF TORTURE IN OTTAWA?
Quite simply, because the Government of Canada condones torture, and there are crime scenes throughout the city where evidence of this complicity has been found by courts, judicial inquiries, and other venues. Examples of such institutions include the RCMP, CSIS, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Dept. of Justice, and the War Department. Secrecy has repeatedly been invoked to prevent further evidence of such complicity from entering the public sphere, and those who have made criminal decisions leading to torture have not been charged and held to account.

Clearly, yellow crime scene tape needs to go up all over the city.


WHY NOW?
October 21 will mark three years since a secretive federal inquiry found the government of Canada complicit in the torture of Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin. Yet the government refuses to accept the findings of its own inquiry, an inquiry in which only its side of the complicity in torture was heard, an inquiry in which none of those who were tortured, nor their lawyers, nor the public, nor the media were allowed to attend. And even with the cards stacked so much in favour of the government, the government was found to be complicit. Now that these three men seek an apology, compensation, and accountability, the government questions the fact that they have been tortured.

October will also mark 28 months since a report from the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security of the House of Commons called for an immediate apology for all thee men, along with compensation "for the suffering they endured and the difficulties they encountered." The committee released a report that also called on the federal government to "do everything necessary to correct misinformation that may exist in records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad with respect to" the three men and their family members.
(full report: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4004074&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=2 )

CLEAR DIRECTION NEEDED ON TORTURE
Importantly, the Committee called on "the Government of Canada [to] issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture for all departments and agencies responsible for national security. The ministerial directive must clearly state that the exchange of information with countries is prohibited when there is a credible risk that it could lead, or contribute, to the use of torture."

On December 3, 2009, that report and its recommendations were endorsed by the majority of the House of Commons. The Harper government refused to act on the will of the majority of the House of Commons.

The rationale behind CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Involvement in Torture is to place renewed focus on federal institutions in Ottawa that are complicit in the torture of Canadian citizens, refugees, and immigrants, as well as citizens of countries occupied by Canadian forces. While Canada’s broader complicity in torture will provide an educational backdrop for the week’s events, the specific demands will be:

the federal government's acknowledgement of and implementation of the Standing Committee’s recommendations;
that the Harper government act immediately on the December, 2009 majority vote of the House of Commons endorsing that report;
the full release of all documents related to these cases to the men and their lawyers;
acts of accountability to ensure such actions never again occur.