In the feature interview, we talk to a member of the Communist-Maoist Party of Afghanistan, the largest militant revolutionary and secular organization in Afghanistan that is resisting the NATO occupation. Comrade ‘Fafdar’ talks to us about the the history and future of the occupation, the Karzai government, the Taliban, and the history of Maoism in Afghanistan.
For our second interview, we talk to York U PhD candidate Justin Panos on the recently released Drummond Report. Panos discusses how privatization is to blame for rising health care costs, not an aging population.
Click here to link to podcast or listen to the interview directly from the Mp3 player at the bottom of your BASICSnews.ca window.
Tuesday Feb 28th
Shooting & Technical Skills
5:30 PM-8:30 PM @ OISE (room and floor TBA)
Wednesday Feb 29th
Shooting & Technical Skills
5:30 PM- 8:30 PM OISE
Saturday March 3rd
Practical exercises: gather interviews and footage from the International Women’s Day Rally/Fair/March
Time and Location TBA
Sunday March 4th
Final Cut, Story line & Editing footage
9:30 AM-1:30 PM OISE
INSTRUCTOR: Alex Felipe
MATERIALS: Bring a digital recording device (CAMERA, CAMCORDER, EVEN CELLPHONE)*
WORKSHOPS: Try to attend all three workshops (28th, 29th & 4th) if you are interested in being able to properly record, edit and upload video interviews and reports. March 3rd will be spent applying the skills from the first two workshops, and get usuable footage that can be put up on basicsnews.ca by the end of the workshop series.
ATTENDANCE: PLEASE RSVP WITH BASICS IF YOU PLAN ON ATTENDING…SEND OUT TO ANY CONTACTS THAT WOULD BE INTERESTED
*At least two Canon T2is, and one Canon Vixia Camcorder will be BASICS-owned equipment by next week; available for any member to use to record interviews, rallies, events etc. We we all take turns on the T2is & Vixia during the workshops, but Alex recommended each person attending still bring a recording devide to practice on while they are waiting.
On February 25th, 2012, GABRIELA-Ontario will mark its founding General Assembly under the theme “Forging the Unity and Power of Women to Create Better Social, Economic and Political Conditions”. GABRIELA Ontario is a mass organization that seeks to extend the Filipino women’s mass movement to Canada. Under its banner, we will address and campaign on issues that have great impact on Filipino women in Ontario, and hold ourselves committed to upholding women’s rights and welfare, and dedicated to asserting and championing the momentous, though often simplified and devalued, role of women in nation-building and social transformation.
Under the aegis of GABRIELA Philippines, our name stands for General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality, Leadership and Action. The organization’s name and its very spirit draw inspiration from one of our many Philippine heroines, Gabriela Silang, who was one of the respected generals in the more than three centuries of resistance and uprisings against the Spanish colonizers. Without doubt, Gabriela has become a lasting symbol for justice and action in the minds of Filipino women.
GABRIELA-Ontario believes that any and all Filipino women in Canada – despite their status as migrant, immigrant, descendant, citizen, or person of mixed heritage – can be part of the organization. Over the last three years, we have been advocating for the rights and welfare of the women in our community awareness-raising campaigns on the oppression and struggles of Filipino women in the Philippines as well as for those of migrants/immigrants in Canada. We also have been addressing issues of oppression and have been improving women’s conditions through education and training programs aimed at skills building and self-empowerment. We are also part of the Migrante-Canada network, the Toronto-based Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body and the recently launched International Women’s Alliance.
The general assembly will take place at Wellesley Community Centre at 495 Sherbourne Street near Sherbourne and Wellesley from 1-5 pm. We will share with you the history of the formation of the group in the last three years and also publicly discuss our constitution and bylaws, and, as well, our program of action. We will then elect our officers. We envision the launch as one that will definitively formalize and solidify our unity as women in the community as we continue to move forward on our struggle in the social, economic and political sphere. Through the well-tested principles of GABRIELA – educating, organizing and mobilizing our members, family and friends – we will build firm foundations for better conditions among our women, alongside the rest of the Filipino people here in Canada and in the Philippines.
Women, our place is in the best of struggles!
For our feature interview, we talk to Arthur Manuel, a member of the Secwepemc Nation, in the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada, who served as Chief of the Neskonlith Indian Band for eight years and the Chairperson for the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council for seven years. Manuel also headed the Interior Alliance and currently serves as volunteer Chairperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade (INET), and is part of the Defenders of the Land network.
We talked to Arthur Manuel about the results of the First Nations-Crown Summit on January 25, 2012, a dissect the Conservative govt’s claims that First Nations will be given greater autonomy, which will actually amount to the liquidation of the land base of First Nations communities through municipalization and privatization of land through the ‘fee simple’ process.
Click here to link to podcast or listen to the interview directly from the Mp3 player at the bottom of your BASICSnews.ca window.
[Caution: strong language.]
By Corrie Sakaluk
Obviously, the best way for the matter of Rob Ford’s speech and conduct during his unnecessary calls to emergency services when This Hour Has 22 Minutes comedian Mary Walsh approached him outside his home on October 24, 2011, would be to release the tapes. If there is nothing to be covered up or untoward about Ford’s comments during the calls, then the tapes would reveal and prove this once and for all.
Instead, Chief Bill Blair referred the tapes to OPP Commissioner Chris D. Lewis in order to be reviewed and to have his accounts publicly validated. In an extremely brief letter to Blair on Jan. 20 the Commissioner stated that he could “confirm that the statement you made in a public release on October 28, 2011, is an accurate interpretation of the content of the tapes”.
Great. If that’s the case, then simply release them. It is only a matter of personal request on behalf of the Mayor that the tapes of his 9-1-1 calls have been kept private. He has also already admitted to using the word “fuck” during his call, and to behaving “inappropriately”.
I want to commend CBC ombudsman Kirk LaPointe who reported on January 5 that CBC would stand by their stories and pointed out that Chief Blair’s account of the tapes could not be trusted because his budget was controlled by Mayor Rob Ford. As far as I am aware LaPointe has not retracted or changed his mind, despite having taken flack from Blair spokesperson Mark Pugash, who has called it “offensive” that he would suggest that budget concerns would at all influence Chief Blair.
Is Pugash serious? Is the public really expected to believe that the allocation of money for the police force by Mayor Ford, and thereby Blair’s reputation amongst his colleagues and police officers, as well as their morale, would not be a motivating factor for his actions?
Blair himself is reported as asking for a review of Ford’s comments by the OPP Commissioner “in order to assist the CBC ombudsman in doing his job”. I am personally sceptical that Kirk LaPointe needs or should ever receive police assistance in doing his job as ombudsman at the CBC. In fact I would prefer that he operate independently, free from coercion and police pressure.
Frankly, I find the entire situation with Rob Ford, Mary Walsh and 9-1-1 hilarious. When Rob Ford got elected, I couldn’t have imagined (even in my wildest imaginings) that he would do so many absolutely ridiculous things to make himself such an easy target for political comedians and pundits.
What Rob Ford said or didn’t say during his 9-1-1 call is not even not of huge concern to me. The Mayor called the police on a sketch comedian because he felt truly at risk! The more extreme and frantic he was during the calls is actually the more uproariously side-splitting the story gets.
The broader issue is that even in a situation with so little at stake (i.e. the reputation of a Mayor who is so clearly a buffoon), the police force continues to act as a brotherhood where loyalty and protecting each others’ reputation is a number one priority, regardless of damage done to regular civilians or principles of public disclosure.
This time its whether or not Rob Ford said the word “bitches” or referred to himself as “Rob fucking Ford…the mayor of this city!”
Other times its cover-ups or acquittals when cold-blooded murder is perpetrated by police officers on Toronto streets. The collusion between city police and provincial and federal forces in developing and enforcing secret laws and covering up police violence was nowhere more obvious than in the G20 debacle of summer 2010.
Any attempts to hold police accountable through civilian organizations, such as the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) created in the 1990 Police Services act, have been completely undermined. After decades of civilian activism around police brutality against the Black community in Toronto, the SIU was originally set up to be comprised of civilians instead of police homicide investigators. However it has only been staffed only by retired police officers seen by the force as the only “civilians” qualified enough to conduct investigations of incidents.
Not surprisingly, the SIU has cleared police officers of any wrongdoing in the police murders of several Toronto youth since 2008, including 18-year-old Alwy al-Nadhir and 28-year-old Byron Debassige, leaving their families even more heartbroken and disillusioned.
In the 2010 police murder of 18-year-old Junior Alexander Manon, the SIU interpreted the cause of Junior’s death as a heart attack. They told police that their autopsy found “no broken bones and no anatomical reasons for the death of this 18-year-old”.
The only reason the Toronto-OPP cover up of Rob Ford’s true comments to 9-1-1 staff in October 2011 is of concern is because it points to the bigger problem of lack of police accountability overall. Whether or not he swore or spoke in an arrogant way is not the point.
“For far too long we have tolerated the unacceptable activities of CSIS, whether through a false sense of loyalty or fear. We are here today to say that we will no longer voluntarily cooperate with CSIS when its agents come knocking on our doors or show up unannounced at our workplaces. We will not put ourselves, our neighbours, our friends, our families here or overseas, our organizations and our work for justice at risk by speaking with or listening to CSIS agents. We will say no to CSIS and yes to freedom from fear and political control,” said Marie-Eve Lamy, active in the People’s Commission Network.
Over the last decade, CSIS’s budget has increased by 140%, reaching $430 million in 2009. In 2010, the agency maintained almost 3000 employees. It also had information-sharing agreement with 147 countries. CSIS has been heavily involved in several Canadian cases of rendition to torture but has emerged from these and other scandals unscathed, protected by a broad mandate, laws assuring the secrecy of its operations, and lack of any real accountability.
“By questioning Arabs about their political views and about each other, and by implying that pro-Palestinian and anti-colonial perspectives are suspect, CSIS has in the past succeeded in sowing fear and silencing support for justice and freedom in the Middle East,” said Amy Darwish, an organizer with Tadamon! Montreal, which works for justice in the Middle East.
“Intelligence agencies have a tendency to view union activists as subversives; we cannot encourage informing, nor passing on information that could be used against people whose only fault is to want to have their rights recognized,” said Francis Lagacé, second vice-President of the Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain de la CSN.
“CSIS tactics create fear and isolation in our communities, particularly immigrant communities. In the face of their intimidation and racial profiling, migrant justice groups are responding with weapons of solidarity and support, aiming to render CSIS ineffective with a campaign of non-collaboration, while also supporting individuals pressured by CSIS during the immigration process,” said Jaggi Singh, a member of Solidarity Across Borders.
“Migrants, refugees, women in crisis are already insecure. CSIS exploits them, preying on their vulnerability. With this campaign of non-collaboration, we convey to them they are not alone; there are many of us working in solidarity to protect our communities; to protect one another,” said Dolores Chew, on behalf of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre.
The People’s Commission and its allies will be carrying out a series of activities over the next months to shine a spotlight on CSIS abuse and break the fear and isolation among those targetted by CSIS.
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Media Contacts
514 222 0205 (english)
438-838-8498 (french)
Source
People’s Commission Network
www.peoplescommission.org
[email protected]
The following groups have endorsed the People Commission Network’s Community Advisory concerning non-collaboration with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS):
Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians
Apatrides anonymes
Association facultaire étudiante des sciences humaines de l’UQAM (AFESH-UQAM)
Quebec Trans Health Action (ASTT(e)Q)
Barriere Lake Solidarity Collective
Base de Paix de Montréal
Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada
Canadian Arab Federation
Centre communautaire des Punjabis du Québec
Centre de ressources éducatives et communautaires pour adultes (CRÉCA)
Centre for Philippine Concerns
Centre Québécois de Formation pour les jeunes en matière de droits humains
Certain Days Political Prisoner Calendar Committee
CKUT Steering Committee
Collective against police brutality (COBP)
Comité des sans-emploi Montréal-Centre
Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique latine (CDHAL)
Community Coalition Against Racism (Hamilton, Ontario)
Convergence des luttes anti-capitalistes (CLAC)
Coalition contre la répression et les abus policiers
Conseil central du Montréal Métropolitain – CSN
Canadian Council of Muslim Women – Ottawa Chapter
Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)
CUTV
Dignidad Migrante
DIRA Bibiothèque Anarchiste
El-Hidaya Association
Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN)
Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU)
Haiti Action Montreal
Halifax Peace Coalition
Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War
Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC)
Independent Jewish Voices
Indigeous Solidarity Committee (Montreal)
l’Union communiste libertaire (UCL)
La Pointe Libertaire
Latin American Canadian Solidarity Association (London, Ontario)
Le Mouvement RebELLEs
Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal
No One Is illegal Montreal
No One Is Illegal Ottawa
No One Is Illegal Toronto
No One Is illegal Vancouver
NOWAR-PAIX (Ottawa, Ontario)
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
Organisation populaire des droits sociaux de la région de Montréal (OPDS-RM)
Ottawa Muslim Women’s Organization (OMWO)
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)
Parti communiste revolutionnaire (PCR)
People for Peace, London
People’s Commission Network
Project X
Projet Accompaniment Solidarité Colombie (PASC)
QPIRG Concordia
QPIRG McGill
Queer McGill Political Action Working Group
Société Bolivarienne du Québec/Hands Off Venezuela
Solidarity Across Borders
South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC)
Sudbury Against War and Occupation
Tadamon! Montreal
The Dominion
Toronto Action for Social Change
Vancouver Media Co-op (Editorial Collective)
Yeni Hayat
8th March Committee of Women of Diverse Origins
2110 Centre
