- 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.
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- LISTEN UP: I AM NOT EXAGGERATING...MY HUSBAND'S LIFE
IS IN GREAT DANGER
-
- 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 being a threat to "national
security."
-
- I am telling you that Ernst is in very grave danger!
He needs to get out of that hellhole!
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- Here is what I found out about that place. I don't know
when it was written:
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- News Release NCADC.org.uk
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- 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:
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- 1. Indefinite detention
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- 2. Poor living conditions
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- 3. Lack of access to community
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- resources and legal services
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- 4. Arbitrary deportations
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- 5. Human rights abuses & brutality by staff
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- 6. Racism and discrimination
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- 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."
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- NATIVE AFRICAN INMATES & FAMILIES ASSOCIATION
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- http://www.ncadc.org.uk/letters/news8/can.html
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