TORTURE IN PALESTINE: A GLIMPSE INTO ISRAEL’S HISTORY OF UNRIVALED CRUELTY

No country on the planet does not have blood on its hands and collective soul from the filthy process of torture. Not one. 

It is known that the countries of the Middle East are particularly skilled at these things. Whether done with skill or the brutality of the "rebels" in Libya, it goes on. Consider China. The torture there is also beyond belief. We all know about the horrors suffered by Americans soldiers in WW2 under the Japanese. 

There is the School of the Americas where such skills are taught. Every stinking special service has its own particular skill at breaking down the human psyche. However, Israel has a special place because of its open torture of Palestinians. Despite our collective horror over the doings of Abu Ghraib, however, the world is appallingly indifferent when at the fate of the Palestinian victims of Israeli torture.

 

The ugly truth about Zionism and Israel. Body thefts are just part of the atrocities these people do in the "safety" of their own borders. Or, excuse me, the ever-fluctuating borders they have stolen from the Arab populace, in this case the Palestinians. But remember, these things are done to any Arab. These things are also done to young detainees, not just seasoned adults. And note, discussed here are primarily male prisoners. It goes on with both genders and is not age specific. It seems, with the Israelis, even babies are fair game.

By Martin Iqbal.

EmpireStrikesBlack

October 4, 2011

Recognition of ‘Israel’ is tantamount to approval of the crimes against humanity that forged its existence. Such recognition is absolutely inexcusable on any level, moral, legal, or otherwise.

Amnesty International has concluded that there is no nation on the face of the planet in which torture is as well-established and documented as in the case of the state of Israel⁽¹⁾. 

This, coming from an organization not exactly renowned for its tenacity with respect to the Zionist entity’s crimes, is particularly telling. In addition to this the Zionist entity has a long history of refusing to investigate or even acknowledge the brutal torture that it visits upon its occupied, dispossessed, and terrorized victims.

The Shin Bet (known officially in English as the ‘Israel Security Agency’) is Israel’s domestic ‘security’ force, which boasts the motto “Defender that shall not be seen”. 

Reporting directly to the Office of the Prime Minister, the Shin Bet is responsible for carrying out the most unimaginably depraved torture on innocent Palestinian detainees, a handful of which will be documented herein.

Ever since its birth, forged in the fires of Jewish terrorism, ethnic cleansing, massacres and rape, the Zionist entity has encountered resistance (peaceful and armed) from dispossessed and occupied Palestinians. 

Having absolutely zero moral or legal claim to the land it now occupies, Israel responds to righteous peaceful or armed resistance in the only way it can: with violence and force characterized by unmitigated brutality.

Through a mere handful of examples, the reader will see how with unspeakable cruelty, the Zionist entity destroys individuals and families alike, physically and psychologically. Lives are torn apart; human beings are subjected to nightmarish treatment, inflicting unthinkable pain and distress. 

Their only crime? Exercising their right to self-determination in the face of a violent foreign occupier.

Torture by the Israeli regime is systemic in Occupied Palestine. It is the Zionists’ bulwark, indeed their only bulwark, against the rightful resistance mounted by the dispossessed and occupied Palestinians. 

What is euphemistically called ‘interrogation’, ranges from beatings, to isolation and sensory deprivation. From assault and mutilation of the genitals, to sodomy and rape. Electric shocks at the mouth, temples, and testicles are widely used, as are attack dogs. 

Invariably detainees are held in stress positions within tightly confined cells, and deprived of sleep, food and water. Detainees often have committed no crime other than having been politically active, voicing opposition to the occupation.

The cases that follow are taken from Ralph Schoenman’s 1988 book, ‘The Hidden History of Zionism’. 

The source materials he cites include the Al-Fajr Jerusalem Palestinian Weekly, case studies carried out by himself and Mya Shone, as well as a five-month 1977 study by the London Sunday Times.

I cannot stress enough the importance of reading these accounts in full; the pure brutality visited upon the victims stretches even the cruelest imagination.

Fazi Abdel Wahed Nijim was arrested in July 1970. He was tortured at Sarafand and set upon by dogs. Arrested again in July 1973, he was beaten in Gaza prison. 

Zudhir al-Dibi was arrested in February 1970 and interrogated in Nablus where he was whipped and beaten on the soles of his feet. His testicles were squeezed and he was hosed with ice water. 

Shehadeh Shalaldeh was arrested in August 1969 and interrogated at Moscobiya. A ballpoint refill was pushed into his penis. 

Abed al-Shalloudi was held without trial for sixteen months. Blindfolded and handcuffed while at Moscobiya, he was beaten by Naim Shabo, an Iraqi Jew, and Director of the Minorities Department.

Jamil Abu Ghabiyr was arrested in February 1976 and held in Moscobiya. He was beaten on the head, body and genitals and made to lie in ice water. 

Issam Atif al Hamoury was arrested in October 1976. In Hebron prison the authorities arranged his rape by a prisoner trustee.

In February 1969, Rasmiya Odeh was arrested and brought to Moscobiya. Her father, Joseph, and two sisters were detained for interrogation. Joseph Odeh was kept in one room while Rasmiya was beaten nearby. When they brought him to her she was lying on the floor in blood-stained clothes. Her face was blue, her eye black. In his presence, they held her down and shoved a stick into her vagina. One of the interrogators ordered Joseph Odeh “to fuck” his daughter. When he refused they began beating both him and Rasmiya. They again spread her legs and shoved the stick into her. She was bleeding from the mouth, face and vagina when Joseph Odeh fell unconscious.

THE CASE OF GHASSAN HARB

Ghassan Harb, a 37-year-old Palestinian intellectual and journalist for Al Fajr, a prominent Arabic daily, was arrested in 1973. He was taken by Israeli soldiers and two plain-clothes agents from his home to Ramallah prison where he was held fifty days. 

During this time he was neither interrogated nor accused. He was denied any contact with his family or a lawyer. On the fiftieth day, Ghassan Harb was taken with a sack over his head to an undisclosed place. Here he was subjected to sustained beating: “Fifteen minutes, twenty minutes beating with his hand across my face.”

Stripped naked and a bag placed over his head, he was forced into a confined space. He began to suffocate. He managed by moving his head against the “wall” to remove the bag and found himself in a cupboard-like compartment some 2 feet square and 5 feet high [60 cm. and 150 cm. Respectively].

He could neither sit down nor stand up. The floor was concrete with a set of stone spikes set at irregular intervals. They were “sharp with acute edges,” 1.5 centimeters high. Ghassan Harb could not stand on them without pain. He had to stand on one leg and then replace it continuously with the other. He was kept in the box for four hours during the first session.

He was then made to crawl on his knees on sharp stones while being beaten for an hour by four soldiers. 

After being interrogated, Ghassan Harb was returned to his cell and the routine was repeated: beatings, stripping, forced to crawl into a dog kennel two feet square and then the “cupboard.” While in the cupboard at night he heard prisoners pleading, “Oh my stomach. You are killing me.”

Ghassan Harb was released two-and-a-half years later, never having been charged with a crime or brought to trial. His lawyer, Felicia Langer, succeeded in taking the matter of his maltreatment to the Israeli Supreme Court. No full statements were taken or admitted into the court hearing; no witnesses were called. The court dismissed out of hand all charges of torture.

THE CASE OF NADER AFOURI

Nader Afouri was a strong, vital man, the weight-lifting champion of Jordan. When he was released in 1980 after his fifth imprisonment, he could not see, hear, speak, walk or control his bodily functions. 

Between 1967 and 1980, Nader Afouri was held ten and a half years as an administrative detainee. Despite the brutal treatment and torture inflicted upon Nader during five imprisonments, the Israeli authorities could neither extract a confession nor produce any evidence with which to bring Nader Afouri to trial.

The First Imprisonment-1967-1971:
“I was arrested initially in 1967, the first year of the occupation. They took me from my home in Nablus, blindfolded me and hanged me from a helicopter. All the people of Beit Furik and Salem villages near Nablus witnessed this.

“They brought me to Sarafand, the harshest prison, a military prison. I was the first man from the West Bank or Gaza to be brought there. When they set the helicopter down, they pushed me out and ordered me to run. I heard gunfire and ran as they were shooting at me.

“They took me to a large room full of red, yellow and green lights. I could hear screams and the sounds of beatings. I heard a man yell: ‘You’ll have to confess.’ Then I heard a man confessing. Soon, I discovered this was a recording meant to intimidate me.

“Then they took me to the interrogator. They tied me with chains to green doors. Each door had a pulley. They opened the door, spreading my hands and legs, and then wound the pulleys till I fell unconscious.

“They made me get up on a chair, tied my hands to chains hanging from a window and slowly removed the chair. My muscles tore as the weight of my body pulled on my hands. The pain was terrible.

“There were five or six men. They all beat me. They hit me with blows on the head. They chained me to a chair. One would beat me and some of the other men in the room would say ‘Stop.’ Then they would change from one to the other, each hitting me in turn. I was kept chained in that chair and never allowed to stand up.

“They kept torturing me. An interrogator sucked on a cigarette. When it was red, he placed it on my face, chest and genitals ~ all over.”

“One shoved a pen refill up my penis while the others watched. As they did this they asked me to confess. I started to bleed from my penis and was taken to Ramle Prison Hospital but was soon brought back again to Sarafand for further interrogation.”

“I was in Sarafand twelve-and-a-half months and was interrogated continuously. No one can endure twelve-and-a-half months. On four occasions my friends in the other prisons were informed officially that I had died.”

“The first month in Sarafand, I was always blindfolded and had chains on my hands and legs. After one month they removed the hand chains and blindfold. But I wore leg chains for twelve-and-a- half months. Day and night I had chains on my legs. The marks are still on my ankles.”

“This was the routine: They would beat me, interrogate me, and then throw me in the cell. I would rest awhile; then they would take me again.”

“The cell was 3 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet high [1 meter by 1.3 meters by 1.3 meters]. My height is 5 feet 6 inches [1.7 meters]. I slept crouched with my legs up against my stomach. There were no windows in the cell and no furnishings, only a pot for shitting. I had two blankets.”

“The stones on the floor were very sharp. They punctured my feet when I walked. They began to bring other prisoners. They gave us army clothes with numbers on the back. I was number one. They would only call me by my number, never by my name. They were always insulting me, yelling ‘Maniuk (Faggot), I will fuck you.’ When we were chained outside they brought savage dogs. The dogs jumped at us, grabbed our clothing and bit us.”

“Over thirty people were arrested after my own detention and all underwent the same torture. All, however, broke down under torture and wrote confessions and are in prison for life. I didn’t confess. 

The torture destroyed my penis and I could only urinate drop by drop. I could not walk for three-and-a-half months when I finished the interrogation. But I did not confess. I never spoke a word in twelve- and-a-half months.”

Nader Afouri was sent to Nablus Prison where he began a hunger strike demanding his freedom. He took only water and a little salt. After ten days he was promised his release. Ten days later when Nader Afouri had not been released, he renewed the hunger strike for yet another week. Again the Administrative Vice-President of Nablus Prison promised to release him. When there was still no action after twenty-five days, Nader Afouri announced another hunger strike.

“I was sent to the cells of Ramle prison after twenty-two days of this hunger strike. Dr. Silvan, the director there, brought several soldiers with him. They beat me on the head. I passed between life and death. They chained my hands and forced a tube in my nose. It was like an electrical shock. I began to shake. I became hysterical when the food reached my throat and began to scream constantly. They gave me an injection in the hip and I relaxed. When this torture failed to make me talk I was placed in the Prison Hospital at Ramle and then sent back to Nablus Prison.”

Each time a confession was extracted from another prisoner incriminating him, Nader Afouri would be called for interrogation. Often he did not even know the people who spoke against him. But still he did not confess, nor was he brought to trial.

Nader Afouri was well respected in Nablus and became a leader of the prisoners. When Abu Ard, an informer, accused him of leading the other prisoners, Nader Afouri was sent to Tulkarm prison.

“Fifteen soldiers came in and beat me on the head with a chair. I fell unconscious. They put my shirt in my mouth and beat me more. I became hysterical as I was gagging. They gave me an injection and I fell unconscious. I awoke alone in the corridor. I couldn’t see. All Tulkarm Prison went on strike and the prisoners met with the Director to speak about me. He promised he would release me the next day if they stopped their strike.”

“The Director came the next day and shook hands with me and said: “I swear by my life that you are a man.” They brought me socks and a jacket and promised me a private visit with my family.”

Nader Afouri was not freed. Instead he was sent to Bet Il prison from which he was eventually released in 1971. His four years of imprisonment were without trial and labeled administrative detention.

Only a few months lapsed before Nader Afouri was detained again. His second imprisonment lasted from 1971 until 1972 and a third from November 1972 until 1973.

The Fourth Imprisonment: Nov. 1973 ~ Nov. 1976:

“Hebron, Moscobiya, Ramallah and Nablus: I stayed three months in a cell in each of these four prisons and the interrogation and torture continued.”

“It was snowing during the interrogation in Hebron. They stripped me and put me outside in the cold. They tied me with chains to a pole and poured ice water over me. They let me down and brought me to a fire to warm up only to bring me outside again for the ice water treatment.”

“Iron balls were put into my scrotum and squeezed against the testicles. Pain just enveloped me. “One of the investigators, Abu Haroun, said he would turn my face into a bulldog’s. He was scientific. He hit me with rapid punches for two hours. Then he brought a minor and said: ‘Look at your face.’ I did indeed look like a bulldog.”

“In Nablus they burned me with cigarettes and again pressed the metal balls against my testicles ~ squeezing the egg against the iron. They used pliers to pull out four of my teeth.”

“I was detained three years administratively. During that time as an act of revenge, they also dynamited my house.”

The Fifth Imprisonment: November 1978 ~ 1980:

“They arrested me again in November 1978 and sent me directly to Hebron. They greeted me, sneeringly, declaring: ‘We will make you confess from your asshole.’ I told them I speak from my mouth, not my asshole.”

“At first they spoke nicely to me because they knew torture wouldn’t work. Then they brought the men in charge of interrogation: Uri, Abu Haroun, Joni, the Psychiatrist, Abu Nimer who has a finger missing, Abu Ali Mikha and Dr. Jims.”

“They chained me to a pole and concentrated their beatings on my chest. They lay me down on the floor and jumped high in the air landing on my chest. Uri did this seven or eight times. It was savage, unending torture for seven days. They smashed their boot heels on my fingernails, breaking my fingers.”

“It was snowing so they poured ice water on me. They handed me a paper and gave me two hours to confess. I said I knew nothing. They chained me to a chair. All of them began to beat me with their hands and feet. I fell down. My head was on the floor. I saw Uri fly through the air and I felt his karate chop on my head. This was the last memory I had for two years. 

“I have been told that I was dragged back to the cell. The other prisoners had to feed me, clean me and turn me over. I was incontinent and shat on myself. I could not move my hands or walk. I could not hear. 

I could not recognize anyone. Only my lips could move and I would swallow whatever was put in my mouth. People had to move my head. They had to move my limbs from under my body. My weight fell to 103 pounds [47 kilos].”

“Two years later, I woke up in a mental hospital. I had five fractures in my hips and I couldn’t walk.” His friends were able to arouse public concern throughout Israel and the Occupied Territories. Israeli officials and journalists wrote that Nader Afouni was “feigning” and that he was an excellent “actor.”

But the prisoners who had taken care of him and the journalists and sympathizers who visited him when he was finally transferred from prison to a hospital, as well as the hospital staff that eventually treated him, bore witness to his condition. Nader Afouni became a cause célèbre for the Palestinian people, a symbol of the torment inflicted upon them and of the heroic dimension of their resistance.

THE CASE OF DR. AZMI SHUAIBY

Azmi Shuaiby, a dentist, was an active member of the El Bireh City Council in the West Bank and an elected representative to the National Guidance Committee. Since 1973, Dr. Shuaiby has been arrested, brutally tortured and imprisoned seven times. Between 1980 and 1986 he was forbidden to leave the limits of El Bireh and was confined to his house after 6 p.m. In 1986, he was again imprisoned and then deported from the West Bank.

He has never been accused of armed actions or of promoting violence. But Dr. Shuaiby refuses Israeli demands that he collaborate. He has written articles against the occupation and settlements and in favor of an independent Palestinian state.

In 1973, when first arrested at the age of twenty, Azmi was told:

“We have been watching you. You were first in your class at the University. We can make you a very rich and powerful man in the West Bank. You must cooperate with us and join the Village Leagues.”

Upon his refusal, the series of arrests and savage torture began. Dr. Shuaiby described the methods of torture, both physical and psychological to which he was subjected.

“They used heavy batons. They put my legs between chair legs so I couldn’t move. Then they beat the soles of my feet.

My feet swelled. After one minute I could no longer feel my legs. The pain was excruciating. I was unable to stand. They would stand behind me. I couldn’t tell if anyone were there. Suddenly, the interrogator clapped his hands over my ears with great force. It caused sudden, terrible pressure in my nose, mouth, and ears ~ a loud ringing which went on for five minutes. I lost my balance and hearing.

They used a giant guard to punch me constantly. He said: “You are a dentist? Which hand do you use? If we break your hand you will no longer be a dentist.” Then he beat my hand until I felt it break.

They tied my hands behind my back and suspended me on a hook. They spread my legs and beat me on the testicles with sticks. Then they squeezed my testicles. I cannot describe the agony produced by squeezing the testicles. You feel stabbing pain in your stomach, in all your nerves.

You want to faint.

They put me outside in the winter, naked and fully exposed, with my cuffed hands suspended from hooks. I was hung this way from 11 p.m. at night until just before sunrise. Then I was returned to my cell. They had put water on the cell floor so that I couldn’t sleep. They told me I must collaborate with them and that when I did I must tell neither the Red Cross nor anyone else that I was working for them.

I replied: “OK, I will tell them that you said I must not tell anyone you want me to work for you.” I refused to collaborate. They beat me endlessly.”

In 1980, the Israelis introduced new techniques. Dr. Shuaiby designates these methods “psychological torture”; he found them harder to endure than the physical torment. “Your brain is affected.”

Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was subjected to the following ordeal: Isolation: “No one was allowed to speak to me, not even the soldiers. The cell was 4.5 feet by 5.5 feet and 9 feet high [1.5m by 1.8m by 3m]. In one corner was a stinking hole used as a toilet. There was only a tiny window near the floor. I could never see the sky. The bare light was on day and night. I had nothing to read. I heard no voices. Food was put in the corner and the door opened very slightly. I had to strain to reach for it piece by piece.

“The bedding consisted of a plastic cover less than one half inch [1 cm.] thick. It was always wet. Once a week I was allowed to go out for a few minutes to air the bedding. No soldier was permitted to speak to me.

To maintain my sanity I collected small pieces of orange peel and made shapes with them. I would ask myself questions and then answer them. I also pulled threads from the blanket and knit them together.”

The Cupboard: 

“I was entombed for four days and nights, squeezed into a bent but standing position in a cupboard 20 inches by 20 inches [50cm. by 50cm.]. It was very dark. A filthy sack had been tied over my head. My hands were handcuffed behind my back with special cuffs. If I moved my hands in any way the cuffs automatically tightened. I was unable to move in the cupboard. I had to sleep while standing. I slept a minute at a time, awakening abruptly, convinced that I was suffocating.”

The Interrogators: 

“The interrogation and torture were carried out by a team. All were officers and captains, their names Gadi, Edi, Saini, Yacob and Dany. The interrogation room is their kingdom; no one can enter.

During the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the interrogation team was sent to Lebanon and a new staff brought to the West Bank prisons. The ‘new staff’ consisted of former torturers. One man had been an interrogator ten years before; now he was a businessman. 

‘Captain Dany’ returned from Lebanon during my imprisonment. Captain Dany is a very tall, handsome man of thirty-five years. He is very crude, constantly yelling ‘Fuck your sister, fuck your mother.’ 

He would force my mouth open and spit in it. In 1973, he tried to force a bottle into my anus. When he saw me on his return from Lebanon, he said: ‘Oh, Azmi is here,’ and proceeded to tell me about the young children in Ansar. ‘I interrogate children 10, 11 and 12,’ he began, giving me accounts of their beatings.”

Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was imprisoned three times in 1982. Between December 7, 1981, and January 16, 1982, he was kept in isolation during the General Strike in the West Bank and the closure of Bir Zeit University. From April 1 to May 3, when the Israelis disbanded the West Bank City Councils, Azmi was placed in the “cupboard” and then again in isolation. He was kept in isolation throughout the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

“Recently they told me: “We will destroy your clinic by jailing you every alternate month. Our computer will determine when you are scheduled to be imprisoned again.” In 1986, Dr. Azmi Shuaiby was deported.

THE CASE OF MOHAMMED MANASRAH

Mohammed Manasrah was a trade union activist, secretary of the Bethlehem University Student Senate and is currently a writer and journalist. He was imprisoned three times for a total of four-and-a- half years and then placed on additional probation for two years. 

His torture during interrogation was unrelenting, resulting in sexual dysfunction and hearing loss. He also endured numerous additional briefer detentions as well as house arrest and town restrictions.

The First Imprisonment:

“I was nineteen years old in 1969 when I was arrested for the first time. I was taken with a group of people and held in the Moscobyia [the Russian Compound in Jerusalem] for six months, where I was interrogated about demonstrations, publications and organizations. 

“Moscobiya was barbaric. They took our clothes and covered our eyes. They cuffed our hands and chained ten of us in a row. We were stripped naked. They threw water on us. Then they beat us in turn, using sticks on our heads and on our sexual organs. They would alternate throwing water on us and beating us on our sexual organs. We would hear them filling the buckets and brace ourselves, but no matter how we tried, we could never prepare ourselves for the beatings.

“My friend, Bashir al Kharya, a lawyer, has been in prison since 1969. They beat his head with heavy sticks for three days. His head became green from mold and was infected with bacteria for five years. He is still held in Tulkarm Prison.”

The Second Imprisonment:
“In 1971, the authorities accused me of membership in both the P.F.L.P. (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and Fatah [Yasser Arafat’s group in the P.L.O.] even though one couldn’t be a member of both organizations.

“The security services lacked any evidence but they gave me the choice of being charged with membership in an illegal organization and being sentenced to prison or voluntarily moving to Amman [Jordan]. I told them I would rather be imprisoned for a lifetime than be exiled. I confessed to membership in the United Student Council, the council of all student organizations which had been declared illegal. I was then imprisoned for one year in Ramallah and Nablus prisons.”

The Third Imprisonment:
“In 1975, they raided my house in Dheisheh camp and confiscated all my books. They brought me to Bassa Police Station where they beat me for two days. They asked no questions. One interrogator stood in front of me and another behind me. 

Suddenly the one behind would clap his hands with great force on both my ears. Blood flowed from my ears and mouth. I suffered brain damage. 

One prisoner, whom they were trying to terrify, fainted when they brought him to where I was being tortured. “They imprisoned me for three years. I was held in Hebron, Ramallah, again in Hebron, Farguna, Beersheba, again in Hebron and then again in Beersheba. They would transfer me for ‘security reasons’ as punishment after hunger strikes.”

Torture in Hebron Prison: 

Mohammed Manasrah was taken to Hebron and tortured in many different ways: They tied me upside down and beat me endlessly on the feet with a piece of wood. You can’t imagine how much they hit me. 

My feet swelled to a huge size and turned blue. I bled under the skin. They stripped me of my clothes and hung me by chains with my hands above my head and my feet barely touching the ground. They beat me constantly on the feet, always concentrating on my feet. Sometimes they would let me down and put my feet into a basin of filthy, stinking cold water. This would relieve the pain. Then they would hang me up again. I had to sleep chained up, with my hands above my head. This went on for fourteen days. 

Maisara Abul Hamdia was with me. For every blow I received, he got two.

Maisara would be hanging when I entered the torture room. Then Maisara would find me hanging when he was brought to the torture room. [Maisara was later deported to Jordan.]

After fourteen days, I would lose consciousness constantly. I was put in Cell #5. It was 5 feet 3 inches by 2 feet and 5 feet 6 inches high [160cm. by 60cm. by 168cm.]. It was as high as I am tall and its length was such that I had to put my legs on the wall when I lay down. The only sound I ever heard was that of the keys. I became terrified whenever I heard that sound. I don’t know exactly how long I was there. 

It was somewhere between five days and one week.

I was beaten all night when they transferred me from Cell #5 to Cell #4. They used wide sticks and beat me on the head and sexual organs. They pulled my hair and hit my head on the wall. I have a permanent problem with my sexual organs and have had many X-Rays taken of my head and sexual organs.

I was brought to the military courtroom early in the morning and made to wait all day. But there was no session. Instead, Abu Ghazal, the famous interrogator, came. He grabbed my hair and swung me around the room, smashing me against the wall. My hair was pulled out. He threatened to send me to Sarafand or “Akka” [a secret prison used in 1974 and 1975] if I didn’t confess within two days.

I was put in a cell and slept the entire time. I didn’t know if it were day or night, two days or ten. I still feel cold when I recall this period. I get chills in my legs. After two days, ten soldiers rushed into my cell and started to beat me. They dragged me along the floor to the torture room. They told me that my friends and comrades had confessed. 

I said: “Bring them to me.” I knew these were lies. They brought two types of people to me in order to make me confess: kind, weak people who couldn’t bear to see how I was being tortured and “asafir” [spies]. Now they initiated other methods ~ alternating between beatings and soft talk in the hope that I would crack and “confess.” They accused me of being a member of the P.F.L.P., Fatah and the Communist Party. They would change their accusation, but one thing remained constant: after each accusation-they would beat me savagely.

They brought two Majors to see me who lectured me for six hours ~ about the Soviet Union’s crimes against the Jews and China’s oppression of its national minorities. They accused me of being a communist because they found books on Marxism in my house. I told them there couldn’t be peace here without self-determination for the Palestinian people. They asked me to write this down and sign it and I did.

After forty-six days of interrogation and detention they sent me to a military court in Ramallah. I was accused of having carried out actions against the authorities. My lawyer, Ghozi Kfir, asked for specifics. The court responded: “This is a revolutionary and a deceiver.” 

Before the hearing my lawyer and the prosecutor had worked out a deal. I was to be released without charge if I did not speak in court about how I was tortured. But the judge ignored the agreement and sentenced me to five years. I served three years and was placed on probation for two.”

The above testimonials are from: 

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF ZIONISM BY RALPH SCHOENMAN;

CHAPTER 10: THE PREVALENCE OF TORTURE.

The Zionist entity doesn’t limit its thirst for cruelty to adults; Palestinian youths are targeted with brutality in equal measure. In 1983 Himsam Safieh and Ziad Sbeh Ziad, from the Galilee, committed the crime of raising the Palestinian flag on the first anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. 

As a result they were detained for six months, during which time they were stripped naked and left in a cold room. They were sprayed with cold water and beaten from head to toe, including their genitals. On top of this they were electrocuted ~ all in an attempt to extract false confessions. At the end of their detention, they were released without charge. 

During the first intifada in 1987, over 17,000 Palestinian youths were detained by Israel, many of whom were subjected to this kind of treatment.

In an attempt to crush the uprising (which consisted of mass strikes and demonstrations), Israeli soldiers roamed Palestinian villages and towns, terrorizing the population. 

Youths as young as 13 years of age were taken from their homes, beaten senseless, and then buried alive. Some were subsequently dug up and rescued by villagers who had seen where they had been buried, others were not so lucky.

Israeli soldiers poured boiling water over a two-year-old infant, rendering her catatonic.

Israeli helicopters flew over towns, dropping an unknown green gas on the defenseless population. 

They fired canisters of the mysterious gas into homes and prevented the residents from leaving. 

Throughout the West Bank and Gaza, cases of miscarriages, vaginal bleeding, and asphyxiation occurred as a result. Needless to say, the gas was a gift from the U.S.A, bearing the markings: “560 cs. Federal Lab. Saltsburg, Pa. USA MK2 1988”.

What is most significant about these horrifying cases of torture and brutality is that they are not uncommon, nor are they the results of ‘rogue’ cops or soldiers.

They are a direct result of Zionist policy. 

As discussed by Schoenman, the patterns of torture reported are “similar to those found in hundreds of testimonies published by Israeli lawyers, Felicia Langer and Lea Tsemel, by Palestinian lawyers Walid Fahoum and Raja Shehadeh, by Amnesty International and the National Lawyers Guild and the series of accounts this author documented from former prisoners.” 

Furthermore, it is worth reiterating the fact that Amnesty International has found the Zionist entity to be the world’s most prolific torturer.

Israel’s Shin Bet, the very group responsible for perpetrating the horrific torture outlined in the examples above, continues its savage practices to this day. From 2001 to 2009 inclusive, the Israeli State Attorney’s Office received over seven hundred complaints of torture carried out by the Shin Bet; the Zionist entity refused to investigate a single one of these cases⁽²⁾.

In a recent example a Palestinian youth was held for six years by Israeli jailers, during which time he was held mainly in solitary confinement, and had boiling oil poured over him⁽³⁾. As a result, Raf’at Bani Odeh now suffers from serious physical and psychological scars.

As brutal, vicious, and barbaric as these practices may be, it is difficult for one to be surprised. 

The usurping Zionist entity is literally built on lies, blood, and hate. Al Nakba, euphemistically referred to by historical revisionists of the negationist persuasion, as ‘The War of Independence’, was an orgy of violence levied at an innocent, defenseless indigenous population. 

Massacres of men, women, and children were committed in an attempt to terrorize the Palestinian population at large into flight. Hundreds of villages were razed to the ground so that their rightful residents could never return. ‘Israeli’ towns and villages took their places, with Hebrew names to supplant the Arabic. As ‘Israeli’ war criminal Moshe Dayan would say: “There is not a single community in the country that did not have a former Arab population”.

To this very day, Al Nakba continues in slow motion as Israel ‘Judaizes’ the entirety of Occupied Palestine and ethnically cleanses the rightful occupants from their land.

It is not enough to decry the ethnic cleansing, land theft, and occupation that afflicts the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza, whilst recognizing ‘Israel’. 

The violent, racist, usurping Zionist entity occupies the entirety of Historic Palestine. What is happening to the West Bank and Gaza is simply a continuation of the very crimes that forged Israel’s existence: terrorism, massacres, extra-judicial murder, torture, ethnic cleansing, and land theft. Recognition of ‘Israel’ is tantamount to approval of these crimes against humanity, and such recognition is absolutely inexcusable on any level, moral, legal, or otherwise.

NOTES

(1) ‘The Hidden History of Zionism’ by Ralph Schoenman, 1988.

(2) ‘Failure to investigate alleged cases of ill-treatment and torture’ ~ B’Tselem.

(3) ‘Family says Israeli jailers poured boiling oil on its son’ – The Voice of Palestine.

STEPHEN HARPER'S HITLIST PT 2

Manipulating and Muzzling the Media

Harper’s undermining of the Access to Information Act

Public access to information

about what government is doing

is at the heart of democratic accountability.

It has been called democracy’s oxygen.

In a system where ordinary citizens

determine who has state power

through elections,

their elec­toral decisions

can only be well informed if

they are based on government

transparency regarding its actions.

Whether that information is sought

by individuals, civil society groups,

researchers, or journalists,

democracy cannot function as promised

if information is systematically denied

by the gov­ernment of the day.

While no government in the past 20 years has a clean record of transparency and enthusiastically providing information (often used to criticize it) the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has been widely accused of taking secrecy to obsessive levels.

Many journalists and others trying to prise information out of the current government have written about their experi­ences. In addition, W.T. Stanbury, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, wrote an article for The Hill Times in June 2009, that pulled together the many examples ~ and the various methods ~ of the Harper regime’s efforts at maintaining a tight grip on information.

One of the methods of slowing down the flow of infor­mation, if not stopping it altogether, was the practice of designating certain requests as needing “special handling.”

Information Commissioner Robert Marleau “found that there is ‘amber lighting’ or special handling applied to access to information requests coming from specific groups.… It turns out that, yes, journalists [are included], but Parliamentarians, lawyers, immigration lawyers, a whole series of other users were in a worse situation than the media,”

Yet, according to the Canadian Newspaper Association’s own analysis

“more than one in four of all requests designated for special handling comes from media requesters, even though fewer than one in six requests overall come from the media. In fact, media requests are about twice as likely to get the tougher treatment as requests overall.”

The vice grip on information, and the deliberate undermin­ing of the Freedom of Information Act led to Marleau (who was appointed by the prime minister) telling Canwest News Service in February 2009:

“A lack of leadership at the high­est levels of the Conservative government has contributed to a ‘crisis of information management’ that has slowed the disclosure of public records to a trickle.”

Another method of slowing down the distribution of infor­mation is to make more and more of it subject to the access-to-information (ATI) process ~ in other words information that has traditionally been made available as a matter of course for the public and the media is now placed behind the barrier of ATI.

According to Sun Media columnist Greg Weston, the Harper government has “forced virtually all gov­ernment information to flow through access to information and, in so doing, (has) completely overwhelmed the system to the point where it is now dysfunctional.”

If manipulating the rules of ATI doesn’t do the job, the government can always resort to pushing the question into the courts, which both delays the issue indefinitely but can also end up in an out-of-court settlement in which the details of the case are kept secret.

Harper sued the Liberal Party over allegations it made about the government regarding the Conservatives’ efforts to persuade independent MP Chuck Cadman to vote with the Conservatives to defeat the Liberal minority government. The suit was launched March 8, 2005 and effectively closed off any access to information about the issue. An out-of-court settlement (the Conservatives were seeking $3.5 million) almost a year later locked the informa­tion away forever.

The easiest way to block access to information you want to keep secret is to simply delay producing the information by seeking repeated and/or lengthy extensions of the time necessary to “find” and produce it. As reported in a Hill Times editorial of March 2, 2009:

“Access to Information Com­missioner Robert Marleau released a scathing report on how quickly 10 federal institutions responded to access to infor­mation requests in the last fiscal year. He gave six of them failing grades.… Foreign Affairs took an average of 132 days to meet requests and Public Works 126 days.”

Another popular method of thwarting public and media ef­forts is to unilaterally charge large fees for the “preparation” of information. According to David Akin of Canwest News Service “Two legal experts say the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) violated Canada’s Access to Information laws when it decided to systemati­cally charge ‘preparation fees’ before responding to Access to Information requests…”

The department assembled over 160,000 pages to be released but refused to put them on the public record because those requesting the information aban­doned the request due to cost considerations.

And on Feb. 8, 2010, the Harper government was caught breaking the law regarding the ATI Act. A Conservative political operative working for Public Works Minister Chris­tian Paradis forced the Department of Public Works to break the Access to Information Act and deny the full release of a report to The Canadian Press. The department was in the pro­cess of mailing the material out when the aide rushed into the room and ordered bureaucrats to “unrelease” the documents.

Controlling the message, managing the media

On May 23, 2006, some two dozen journalists from the Parliamentary Press Gallery walked out of a news conference even before the prime minister had shown up. They did so in protest over efforts by Harper’s deputy press officer, Dimitri Soudas, to exercise control over who would ask questions.

Reporters had to sign up if they wanted to ask a question and then Harper could choose whom to answer. It was like the White House, not at all like the practice that had existed for decades in Ottawa where the media itself made such deci­sions.

This was the showdown, just four months after Harper had won his first minority government.

It was a battle that the press gallery would lose. Indeed, some believed that the whole confrontation was staged by the Prime Minister’s Office in the hopes for such a confronta­tion, a theory given some credence by an interview Harper gave later to the rightwing Alberta-based Western Standard magazine.

Harper told the magazine: “Well, I’ve got more control now I’m free to pick my interviews when and where I want to have them.”

The Press Gallery also had a meeting with Harper’s very tough press officer, Sandra Buckler, in May 2006. She had worked for Harper for years and prior to this for the Reform Party’s Preston Manning. If the gallery had any illusion that there was simply a misunderstanding with a new prime min­ister, Buckler disabused them of the idea.

Hill Times journal­ist Sean Durkin wrote:

“Sandra Buckler did everything she could to antagonize the press gallery, prompting its president, Emmanuelle Latraverse, to call an end to the meeting after 20 minutes. Buckler made it clear she didn’t care about any of the gallery’s concerns, and indicated that even more plans were in the works to control the flow of information to re­porters and limit their access to government.”

Harper had suggested to The Western Standard that breaking the gallery’s control of the news was “good for democracy.” But as the Toronto Sun’s Alan Findlay told the Ryerson Review of Journalism, when government tightly controls access to information it is the government that escapes accountability by deliberately making it impossible to ask the tough ques­tions.

“Not returning calls, not holding press conferences, cherry-picking reporters for interviews ~ all make it difficult to collect and scrutinize government information.”

By the end of the first year of the Harper government ~ SEVEN MONTHS had passed without a single news conference or scrum ~ things were no better. Chris Cobb, a political writer for The Ottawa Citizen, told The Review:

“Mr. Harper has adopted a communications strategy unlike any Ottawa has seen before. Government-by-surprise is part of a Harper communications package that also includes tight control over public statements from his cabinet ministers, and a muzzle on senior bureaucrats, parliamentary secretaries and ministerial communications advisers.”

One of Harper’s strategies was to virtually ignore the Ottawa press gallery altogether and communicate through local and regional media, where reporters would not have the contacts and collective information sharing that the Ottawa reporters had. It would be easier to get an intermediated message through to the public by giving interviews to reporters who did not normally cover national politics, and who would be less able to ask questions based on the deep background their Ottawa counterparts might have.

Some predicted that cutting off the press gallery’s access to the prime minister and to information would cause them to dig harder and do investigative pieces, resulting in better journalism and more exposure of Harper’s government. But it didn’t turn out that way for the most part.

Harper is now well known for being brutal in his treatment of those he sees as enemies in the media and for rewarding his friends. And it works.

According to Robin Sears, a political strategy consul­tant, “...there is little appetite for a non-government-driven news agenda at most news organizations, so independent or investigative stories are not encouraged. Finally, it is hard work to find, develop, source and write stuff on your own, so few people try.”

Sears’ analysis turns out to be right as Harper’s iron discipline has largely worked, according to Ekos pollster Frank Graves. The Parliamentary Press Gallery has given up the fight and little has changed since the reporters walked out in March 2006. If anything, things have worsened.

The prime minister does not even enter the House of Commons for Question period through the front door, but takes a circuitous route “…ducking down through a narrow hallway, behind the public gallery, atop the west side of the Chamber, down a small staircase, and then scuttling into the government lobby through a back door across from the Speaker of the House of Commons’ chamber,” according to Hill Times reporter Tim Naumetz, writing in November last year.

There aren’t even any photo-ops anymore ~ the Prime Minis­ter’s Office sends a constant stream of favourable photos of the prime minister to media outlets across the country almost every day. Thus, Canadians never see the hard side of Harper ~ just the warm Beatles fan playing the piano at the National Arts Centre.

According to Naumetz, press gallery veterans believe that Harper’s deputy communications director Dimitri Soudas keeps a blacklist of reporters who will not be recognized for questions.

A Personal Agenda

Harper’s obsession with reforming the Senate

Whatever Canadians feel about the Senate, for the vast major­ity it is not a priority, indeed it does not show up in any poll that asks Canadians to name their most important issues. But an elected and equal Senate has always been a priority for Stephen Harper and was a key plank in the Reform Party platform when Harper was its policy director.

The Conser­vatives had it as part of their platform in 2008, but Harper, once again, seems disdainful of the fact that only 38 per cent of Canadian voted for Senate reform by voting for his party. As with so many items on his agenda stymied by the opposi­tion, the prime minister has expressed anger that the opposi­tion parties are blocking his way on Senate reform, and on this issue he has demonstrated again that the end justifies the means.

It is both ironic and hypocritical that Harper, in his quest for a democratic senate, is prepared to run roughshod over democracy to get it. He denounces the Senate, for example, for “blocking” or “delaying” his legislation on a whole range of issues.

But the job of the Senate (elected or otherwise)

is precisely to provide “sober second thought”

to the legisla­tion passed by

the House of Commons and is not a rubber stamp

for the government of the day.

And with the evidence that this prime minister is more controlling than possibly any other in Canadian history, it is even more incumbent on the Senate to play the role of a check and balance on the power of the executive ~ the prime minister.

In both the 2006 and 2008 elections Harper pledged not to appoint Senators as vacancies arose. Yet Harper is so de­termined to behave as if he has a majority that he will do anything in his power to achieve an elected Senate.

On Dec. 22, 2008 ~ at the time his government was facing defeat by the Liberal-NDP coalition – he appointed 18 new senators, the largest number ever in a single day. He stated that this was to prevent any potential coalition from appointing senators:

“If Senate vacancies are to be filled… they should be filled by the government that Canadians elected rather than by a coalition that no one voted for.”

Coalition governments are normal in parliamentary democracies and Harper’s complaint notwithstanding, a majority of Canadians actually did vote for the coalition parties, taken together.

On January 29, 2010, Harper repeated his performance, appointing five new senators and in so doing, achieving a plurality in the Senate (more seats than the Liberals but not an absolute majority due to several independents). All were appointed in a highly partisan atmosphere, and all have almost certainly pledged to support his vision of a reformed senate. But as conservative Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin pointed out:

“There’ll be no pretense of the Senate as a collection of honourable citizens trying to provide a differ­ent take on legislation. It’ll be a lapdog kennel.… Harper is setting up a stark partisan division of the Senate with surpris­ing gusto given he’s a leader who promised to reform it into an effective and elected regional counterbalance to the Com­mons.” All of these senators can serve until they 75 ~ even if the rules change in the meantime.

It is still not entirely clear what a final Senate reform package would look like but when he was the Reform Party’s policy director, Harper espoused the view that the Senate would have a veto over legislation passed in the House of Com­mons.

Given his aversion to any active role for government, this rearrangement of the Houses of Parliament could work to Harper’s ideological advantage over time. It could conceiv­ably produce a situation of continuous deadlock whenever different parties controlled the Senate and the House of Commons.

Not only did Harper violate his own promises and principles in his appointments, his threat to implement the change with a simple parliamentary resolution, without any reference to the provinces, promised to create a constitutional crisis.

Most of the Atlantic provinces immediately challenged the prime minister, as did Quebec. But for Harper it was just another occasion for brinkmanship ~ in your face politics, showing contempt for other elected first ministers and risking a consti­tutional crisis in which the Supreme Court would have to rule on the question.

Stephen Harper’s vendetta against the Canadian Wheat Board

There is no more dramatic example of Stephen Harper’s determination to remake the country than his sustained attack on the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). Harper ~ aided by his agriculture ministers Chuck Strahl and, later, Gerry Ritz ~ bent and broke the law more times trying to eliminate the CWB than he did regarding any other institution.

Harper’s personal campaign against the Wheat Board goes back to his time in the Reform Party and extended through his stint running the rightwing National Citizens Coalition, where he ran an extremely expensive campaign attacking the board. As soon as he was Prime Minister, he took it up again.

The CWB, established in 1935 to protect farmers from the gouging of middlemen and grain companies, is what is called a “single desk” seller ~ it has a monopoly on the selling of wheat and barley produced by Canadian prairie farmers. By selling the entire western Canadian crop, the CWB has enor­mous leverage in the marketplace (it controls up to $7 billion in grain stocks) and gets the best price possible ~ resulting in an annual boost to farmers’ profits of about $600 mil­lion (when you factor in the CWB’s economic influence on western rail transport fees the advantage jumps to more than $1.5 billion).

The attack on the board is purely ideological and Harper, backed by the private grain industry, claims it is about “choice.” But the “market” is monopolistic itself: 73 per cent of it is controlled by four giant grain companies. Contrary to the arguments of the government, you could not have both systems operating simultaneously: the single desk would lose its market power if farmers could sell to private companies.

The CWB is run by farmers who elect a majority of the board members (the government appoints the remainder). Farmers have consistently voted in favour of maintaining the CWB monopoly ~ in spite of the campaigns against it.

Ignoring the repeated elections of pro-CWB farmers to the board, Harper made it clear on numerous occasions that regardless of farmers’ support he intended to crush all dis­sent, stating in June 2008:

“But the bottom line is this. Mark my words. Western Canadian farmers want this freedom [an open market] and they are going to get it. And anybody who stands in their way is going to get walked over.”

In Dec. 2008, five months later, yet another election confirmed the CWB’s monopoly over the selling of wheat and barley.

This was in spite of an intensive Conservative campaign in support of anti-CWB candidates. Five prairie Conservative MPs had campaigned for these anti-CWB candidates, using tens of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars.

This followed a legal change in the regulations by the gov­ernment that restricted candidate spending to $15,000 but explicitly permitted anyone else (other farmers, corporations, politicians) to spend an unlimited amount supporting candi­dates. The five MPs refused to report their spending to the election co-ordinator.

It seems that the Conservative MPs somehow had access to the CWB mailing list, a fact investi­gated briefly by the RCMP on a complaint from the National Farmers Union. They dropped the case because they could not “guarantee” a conviction, according to former NFU President Stewart Wells.

In 2007, the government had attempted to end the CWB’s monopoly over the sale of barley, using an Order in Coun­cil ~ essentially a cabinet edict. But a federal court ruled that was illegal. Another court ruled against the government on another issue: it declared illegal the Harper government’s gag order against the CWB, preventing the CWB and its chairman from publicly defending its own institution. (The government eventually won a court appeal of the ruling.)

The court ruling against the Order in Council (any change had to be passed by Parliament) did not faze Harper. In re­sponse he stated:

“[The ruling] does not change the determi­nation of the government of Canada to see a dual market for Canadian farmers. I hope the wheat board will start working with the government to make sure this is going to happen, ‘cause it’s going to happen one way or another.”

The list of dirty tricks used by the government to undermine or destroy the CWB is a long one. The National Farmers Union (NFU), the principal defender of the Board in its long fight to survive, provided this chronology of attacks on the CWB:

● Then-minister, Chuck Strahl, holds a closed-door meeting in Saskatoon with anti-CWB organizations (July 27, 2006);

● Minister Strahl appoints a “Task Force” on the CWB stacked with industry-linked, CWB-opponents (Sept. 19, 2006);

● Minister Strahl issues a gag order on the CWB ~ it cannot publicly defend its single-desk mandate (Oct. 6, 2006);

● In the middle of a CWB board election, Minister Strahl summarily cuts 16,000 farmers from the CWB directors’ elec­tions voters’ list, out of a total of 44,000, with no consulta­tion with the board (Oct. 17, 2006);

● Strahl begins firing incumbent government-appointed CWB directors and replacing them with anti-CWB directors (Oct.-Nov. 2006);

● The government fires CWB CEO Adrian Measner (32 years with the board) for refusing to obey the gag or­der and refusing to promote the government’s position of “choice”(Nov.-Dec., 2006);

● The government conducts a sham “plebiscite” ~ unclear question, no public voters’ list, no spending controls, and no guarantee of ballot secrecy. Some farmers received multiple ballots (Jan.-Mar. 2007);

● The government introduces a Cabinet Order in Council to strip barley from the CWB mandate (Apr. 21, 2007);

● The federal court rules the government’s actions illegal (July 31, 2007);

● The federal government appeals (Aug. 30, 2007) and loses, again (Feb. 26, 2008);

● The Harper government introduces legislation, Bill C-46, to fast-track removal of barley from the CWB, to terminate farmers’ right to vote on removals, and to create a CWB-harassment mechanism in the form of an arbitration system (Feb. 29, 2008);

● Another ministerial letter of instruction forced the CWB to remove thousands of legitimate voters from the initial voters’ list for the fall board vote. These farmers were never directly contacted by anyone to tell them that they had been removed (July 2008).

The government also attacked the CWB on other fronts: legal actions, a staff purge, and attempts to pressure CWB direc­tors. During the 2006 board elections (won overwhelmingly by pro-single desk candidates), Conservative-friendly advertis­ing agencies solicited phony letters to newspapers to create an illusion of producer support for the gutting of the board.

The CWB still currently enjoys its single desk monopoly on wheat and barley (and farmers enjoy their $600 million to $1.5 billion in extra yearly income). All the anti-CWB legislation introduced in the House has been defeated by the opposition or died on the order paper as all three opposition parties have worked hard to defend the board.

But Harper has not given up. On the record, Conservative MP David Anderson has said that the government should sacrifice the board in the current WTO negotiations, and Alex Binkley, writing in the Manitoba Co-operator, claims the government has new legislation ready to introduce.

It is almost certain that they will use a tool they have used twice before: trying to further suppress the eligible voters by intro­ducing a minimum volume of deliveries to qualify, an anti-democratic move aimed at small farmers.

Failing to Protect Canadian Citizens

Refusing to seek clemency for Canadian death row inmates overseas

Ronald Smith is a convicted killer who has spent years on death row in Montana State Prison.

The Harper government refused to seek clemency for Smith from the U.S. govern­ment. It had been Canadian government policy since the abolition of the death penalty in Canada to seek clemency for Canadians sentenced to death in other countries.

The logic is straight forward: if Canada does not believe Canadians should face the death penalty here, then they shouldn’t face it elsewhere. There were no exceptions.

The Harper government’s new policy stated that it would decide to seek clemency on a case-by-case basis, based on the particular circumstances including the nature of the crime and whether the host country is democratic and respects the rule of law.

Once again, it seemed that Harper’s personal preferences trumped Canadian law and tradition by inserting subjective criteria for deciding a Canadian citizen’s fate.

Harper knew he couldn’t execute prisoners in Canada so he took the opportunity to ensure that at least some Canadians would face the penalty he preferred. The practice of seeking clem­ency was not written in formal legislation but until Harper’s election, all other prime ministers had recognized the practice. It was not clear under the new rules who would be making such subjective life and death decisions.

The Canadian Bar Association, at it 2007 annual meeting, de­nounced the new policy: “The case-by-case approach invites arbitrary and discriminatory decisions, implying that the death penalty may be appropriate for some Canadians,” stated the resolution passed unanimously. “It puts the administration of justice into disrepute,” association president Guy Joubert said.

Not only was the new position a violation of years of practice and not debated in Parliament, it also revealed a government either ignorant of the potential consequences or dismissive of them. The Bar Association pointed out that based on the new policy, Canada would only seek clemency if it determined that the country in question was not demo­cratic or had a flawed justice system ~ declarations that would hardly encourage that country to co-operate in the request for clemency.

A graphic picture of Omar Khadr's severe wounds was released by the Toronto Star.

The Omar Khadr case

One of the best known and notorious cases of Stephen Harper’s contempt for the law and the rights of Canadians ~ key concepts in any democracy ~ is the case of Omar Khadr. Khadr was just 15 years old when he was arrested in Afghani­stan in 2002, at the height of the illegal U.S. invasion of that country.

While he clearly fit the UN’s accepted definition of a child soldier, he was charged with “murder, conspiracy, and support of terrorism” by the U.S. for allegedly fighting back against U.S. soldiers (he was shot in the back three times). He was sent to the now infamous Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He has been awaiting trial for almost eight years. He has, for sev­eral years, been the only prisoner from a western democracy who has not been repatriated by his government.

Despite international consternation, calls for his repatriation from dozens of sources in Canada ~ including the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International, the Harper government has absolutely refused to budge from its position.

Its only explanation is openly ridiculed by legal experts: that Canada will wait until Khadr goes through the legal process in the U.S. Of course, even the U.S. courts have ruled that the “legal process” fol­lowed in Guantanamo is a violation of the most basic prin­ciple of habeas corpus.

Canadian courts have been ruling on various aspects of Khadr’s case for almost six years ~ and every lower court ruling found in favour of Khadr demand that the Canadian government be forced to bring him home to Canada.

On April 23, 2009, federal court judge, James O’Reilly, ordered the government to seek Khadr’s return, concluding it failed to ensure his treatment complied with international human rights norms. That decision was upheld by a two-to-one deci­sion by the Federal Court of Appeal on Aug. 14, 2009.

Judge O’Reilly found that Canada had been complicit in tor­tures, which included sleep deprivation and the use of vicious dogs to intimidate him, by virtue of their refusal to take an active role in protecting him from such abuse. This placed on the Canadian government a constitutional “duty to protect” a Canadian citizen imprisoned abroad.

While the Supreme Court of Canada reversed the lower court’s decisions this past January in a unanimous ruling, it had extremely harsh words for the Canadian government and made it clear that the government had to act to end the viola­tion of Khadr’s constitutional rights, or the court would force it to.

The court unanimously upheld Khadr’s claim that his Charter rights had been violated, stating:

“Canadian officials questioned Mr. Khadr on matters that may have provided important evidence relating to his crimi­nal proceedings, in circumstances where they knew that Mr. Khadr was being indefinitely detained, was a young person, and was alone during the interrogations.

“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 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.”

Khadr had been interrogated twice in 2003 and 2004 by Canadian officials from CSIS and DFAIT (the foreign affairs department) who knew that he had been "softened up" (pre tortured to make him more maleable) in the days before by the extended use of sleep deprivation.

The Supreme Court also pointed out that the breaches of Khadr’s rights were on-going since the information obtained in violation of his rights could still be used against him in the U.S. proceedings so that: “…the effect of the breaches can­not be said to have been spent.”

But the court seemed to be responding to veiled threats from the Harper government’s lawyer in the case who warned the panel of judges not to intervene in ~ or “micromanage” a foreign policy matter that could create serious difficulties in relations with the U.S.

On February 3, 2010, the PMO stated it would not seek the repatriation of Khadr. If the prime minister does not follow the court’s explicit order or takes perfunctory action that does not substantively remedy the situation, he could create the crisis the court sought to avoid by “...leaving the government a measure of discretion in deciding how best to respond.”

The court was clear that if the government does not substan­tively address the Charter of Rights violation: “...courts are empowered to make orders ensuring that the government’s foreign affairs prerogative is exercised in accordance with the constitution.”

A publicity shot before the last election.

This man oozes insincerity.

Security certificates ~ Violating the Charter of Rights

It is difficult to know exactly why Harper is so ferocious in his determination not to bend to the law, broad legal opinion, or opposition arguments when it comes to matters connected with Islamic terrorism.

Some have suggested that it is his way of demonstrating to the U.S. the Canadian government’s dedication to the “war on terror.” This phrase has been ban­ished from the Obama White House but Harper still uses the term and seems to still be proving his loyalty to George W. Bush.

Others have speculated (citing as well, Harper’s carte blanch support of virtually any Israeli action in the Palestin­ian territories or Lebanon) that his Christian fundamentalism makes him hostile to Islam and not just terrorists.

Whatever the explanation, there is no area more subject to Harper’s studied disdain for democracy, human rights and civ­il liberties than the area of Canadian national security. Harper has demonstrated that he will fight every case, no matter its particulars, to the last possible battle ~ often in the Supreme Court of Canada. This was true with the Khadr case and also with the issues surrounding so-called security certificates.

Security certificates are a legal mechanism by which the Gov­ernment of Canada can detain and deport foreign nation­als or any non-citizen living in Canada for various reasons, including being a perceived threat to national security. The certificates have been around in one form or another for over 20 years but used primarily since the 9/11 attacks.

Those held under these certificates are denied the same legal and constitutional rights enjoyed by Canadian citizens and one of the most egregious aspects of the certificates was that neither the defendant nor his lawyer were allowed to see the evidence justifying their detention.

They were faced, effectively, with indefinite detention, fighting in the courts for their rights, or the alternative: being deported to their home countries many of which were known to use torture. The effect of the certifi­cates was that individuals could be deported based on secret intelligence presented to a federal court judge at closed-door hearings.

The certificates were challenged on constitutional grounds by three of the alleged Al Qaeda-linked detainees ~ Algerian-born Mohamed Harkat, Moroccan-born Adil Charkaoui and Syrian native Hassan Almrei. The Harper government had refused to engage the men or their legal counsel, rejecting claims of rights violations, and the men were forced to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, alleging that the certificates violated various sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The court found in favour of the men, striking down the security certificate system but giving the government a year to change it so that it was in compliance with the Charter. The court recognized the need for national security and the principle of the certificates, but found in a unanimous 9-0 de­cision that this could be accomplished with greater attention to the rights of the detainees.

On Feb. 22, 2008, just one day before the court’s deadline for changes, the Harper govern­ment complied with the order by signing into law amend­ments to the security certificate process that introduced a “special advocate”: lawyers who could view the evidence against the accused. It was, however, the absolute minimum required to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision; the lawyers would be chosen by the justice minister (the same one who defended the certificates), and the lawyer would see only a summary of the evidence. He or she could reveal nothing about this evidence to their client ~ even to seek clarifications or corrections.

The Abousfian Abdelrazik scandal

The case of Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik demon­strates dramatically just how perverse the Harper government can be when it comes to its determination to be tough on ter­rorism. Most Canadians are aware of the case and the mul­tiple, bizarre twists and turns it took before this man ~ never charged with anything ~ was finally repatriated to Canada after spending six years marooned in Khartoum, Sudan.

The Harper government looked not only callous in its treatment of Abdelrazik, it looked inept, giving one reason for keeping him in the Sudan one day and when that rationale fell apart, providing a totally different rationale, and then, yet another. It was as if they could not even be bothered to spend a little time getting their lies and deception in order.

For over a year Abdelrazik had been living in the lobby of the Canadian embassy, a form of recognition that he was a Canadian citizen. He had been released, for a second time, by the Sudanese government because they had no evidence that he had committed any crime. The government even offered to provide a plane to fly him home if the Canadian govern­ment would contribute to expenses. It refused. The Sudanese government ~ hardly a paragon of democracy ~ was more embarrassed by the situation than Abdelrazik’s own govern­ment.

When the government claimed that Abdelrazik could not return because he was on a United Nations (UN) no-fly list, the UN quickly pointed out that this was not a barrier to his return. Richard Barrett, co-coordinator of the UN’s Al-Qae­da and Taliban Monitoring team told The Globe and Mail:

“Whether it is Abdelrazik or anybody else, it is up to the state in question whether they want to allow the person to come back or not.”

The monitoring team oversees United Nations resolutions establishing the blacklist on which Abdelrazik was placed in 2006 (at the request of the U.S.). Barrett said the travel ban exemption allowing for the return of a citizen is so clear that governments need not even apply for permits.

When that reasoning was dispensed with, the government stated it would still not provide a travel document because all the countries that a flight would pass over would also have to agree to an exemption from the no-fly list. This, too, was de­clared untrue by the UN Barrett stated: “The overflight states don’t come into it and they haven’t ever come into it.”

Earlier in the saga, Foreign Minister Lawrence Minister Can­non had made a promise in writing that Canada would pro­vide a travel document if an airline could be found that would fly him to Canada.

But when an airline was found, Cannon casually reversed his position with no explanation. Even when more than 200 Canadians raised money for a ticket for Abelrazik, the government initially refused to budge ~ even though it now had no rational whatever to fall back on. They were simply refusing because they could.

In this particular case, the only motive of the Harper govern­ment seemed to be to kowtow to the U.S. and its tendency to put tens of thousands of people on terrorist watch lists. Abdelrazik, 47, was cleared by both CSIS and the RCMP, pre­sumably the security organizations that a Canadian govern­ment would listen to. But the Bush administration, giving no explanation, had him placed on the UN Security Council ter­rorist blacklist, and refused to take him off. Harper ignored Canadian security services in favour of those of the U.S.

On June 4, an Ottawa judge ordered the federal government to issue travel documents and ensure Abdelrazik was able to return home within 30 days. The government did not appeal and Abdelrazik finally returned to Canada on June 27, 2009.

Harper Attacks Rights

The attack on human rights

On Jan. 11, 1999, while he was on leave from formal politics and running the National Citizen’s Coalition, Stephen Harper told the right wing BC Report newsmagazine, that:

“Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a demo­cratic society… It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff.”

With this extremist view on human rights it should come as no surprise that in the first year in power Harper eliminated one of the most effective and innovative programs promot­ing and facilitating human rights ~ the Court Challenges Program (CCP).

The CCP, established in 1978, provided funding for individu­als challenging government legislation that was discriminatory (it expanded its program after the Charter came into existence in 1982). Here is what the Community Social Planning Coun­cil of Toronto said of the program:

“The rationale behind the program lies in the fact that access to justice requires signifi­cant financial resources which are beyond the reach of most individuals and groups, particularly those most marginalized. Without financial support to test the constitutionality of questionable laws, constitutional rights are only protected for the wealthy that have the resources to access the courts.”

In short, the CCP made constitutional rights accessible ~ that is, they made them real rather than theoretical. The CCP was instrumental over a period of 20 years in advancing the rights and equality not only of women (including First Nations women) but of gays and lesbians, and the disabled.

“The program has also enabled many community-based agencies to undertake court challenges regarding laws and policies that negatively affect racialized communities, immigrants and refu­gees, and other disadvantaged groups in Canada.” Even the CCP-funded cases that lost in the courts often led, as a result of the high-profile challenges, to changes in legislation.

Prime Minister Harper cannot get rid of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but by eliminating the modest ($5.6 mil­lion) budget of the CCP he has effectively made challenging discrimination in Canada a luxury available only to those with access to a quarter of a million dollars ~ the amount it can cost to take a case all the way to the Supreme Court.

The attack on women’s rights and equality

No other part of society has suffered from Harper’s con­tempt for democracy and his determination to turn back the clock as women. After three decades of (admittedly uneven) progress towards equality and full human rights, women have experienced the full force of Harper’s visceral disdain for the notion of women’s equality. It is one of the most shocking and dangerous examples of Harper’s assault on democracy.

Democracy is not just political parties, voting and Parlia­ment ~ it is a whole array of institutions and traditions of the country and the evolution of norms in society. Specifically, it encompasses human rights and civil liberties. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a relatively new institution in Canada but when it was enacted it both reflected and helped establish in law the changes that Canadian society was already going through.

One of the most critical areas of change was that of women’s rights and equality. The Charter merely recognized that Canadian society had moved on from the period where women were treated as second-class citizens and discrimi­nated against as a matter of course.

Like the earlier, decades-long struggle of women just to get the right to vote, this was a classic example of how society changes through the influence of powerful democratic move­ments ~ the feminist movement in this case ~ and how the law is then forced to catch up. It could not be any other way.

Contrary to what the political right likes to say, this was not “social engineering” from the left, some conspiracy by a “lib­eral elite” ~ it was social change created from the bottom up by women throwing off decades of discrimination. Indeed, even before the Charter became law, the federal government, in 1981, ratified the United Nations Convention for the Elim­ination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ~ a convention that reflected the strength of the global women’s movement.

In the very first year that Stephen Harper was prime minister he moved in a myriad of ways to reverse the course of prog­ress for women and he has not stopped since then. In his first year in power the Harper government summarily cancelled the national child care program that the previous Liberal government had spent years negotiating with the provinces ~ their partners in the planned multi-billion dollar program.

This program was hardly a radical proposal ~ Canada is one of the most backward countries among western developed nations regarding early childhood education. This program would simply have begun to close the gap. According to Sharon Gregson of the Coalition of Childcare Advocates of B.C.:

“Other countries are able to provide childcare for up to 100 per cent of children between the age of three and six. Other countries, like Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, even England and the United States, invest more per capita in ear­ly-childhood-development services than Canada does.”

The universal program was “replaced” by a taxable $100 a month payment to parents of kids under six, a pittance compared to the cost of professional childcare (but an approach recom­mended by the right wing group REAL Women).

As referred to above, Harper then eliminated the Court Challenges Program amongst whose major beneficiaries were women. At a forum in Vancouver, organized after the Sep­tember 2006, announcement that the CCP would be elimi­nated,

Gretchin Brewin listed some of the advances made because of the program: “...pregnancy discrimination is (now) actually considered sex discrimination. … “implied consent” ~ meaning what a woman wears ~ cannot be cited in court to justify sexual assault... men accused of sexual assault are no longer entitled to unfettered access to the personal records of their accusers. (And) human-rights law now prohibits discrim­ination based on sexual orientation.”

The government also closed 12 out of 16 regional offices of Status of Women Canada across the country as well as elimi­nating the $1 million Status of Women Independent Research Fund. Changes were imposed to the criteria for funding for the Status of Women Canada’s Women’s Programme which precluded support for advocacy or lobbying for law reform. That meant that dozens of women-run NGOs would no longer receive funding because virtually all of them combined advocacy with the provision of services ~ such as women’s shelters advocating for an end to violence against women.

One of the most cynical and callous acts by the Harper government was its decision ~ again, with no reference to Parliament and no consultation with women or women’s or­ganizations ~ to simply refuse to take the issue of pay equity any further than the law already allowed. Harper, breaking a promise made in the 2006 election, simply rejected recom­mendations from a federal task force to move toward what is called a “proactive pay-equity system.”

Shelagh Day, one of Canada’s foremost feminist and human rights scholars, told a Vancouver forum in December 2006: “The Harper govern­ment has come forward a few months ago and simply said they’re not going to do anything on pay equity. The law will stay the way it is.”

In 2009, the Harper government introduced the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act but according to human rights advocates the bill emptied “...the right to pay equity of its meaning. The new legislated criteria for evaluating ‘equitable compensation’ will reintroduce sex discrimination into pay practices, rather than eliminate it.”

The law (passed by stealth by placing it in the 2009 budget where it could not be voted down without forcing an election) introduced additional criteria that would allow public sector employers to consider “market demand” in determining compensation ~ meaning higher pay for men even if the work was of equal value.

While women’s groups organized forums across the coun­try to draw attention to the assault on 20 years of progress, Harper has not listening to them. He was, however, listening to a group that had demonstrated its full support for himself and the Conservatives during the election: REAL Women.

Responding to the $5 million in cuts to the Status of Women, REAL Women stated: “This is a good start, and we hope that the Status of Women will eventually be eliminated entirely since it does not represent ‘women,’ but only represents the ideology of feminists.”

It also congratulated the government for canceling the “troublesome” Court Challenges Program and revealed the “social engineering” argument so often used by the right: “...the Court Challenges Program was a pro­foundly undemocratic use of taxpayers’ money to restructure society …The elimination of the Court Challenges Program will go a long way to promoting democracy in Canada.”

If there was any doubt that it was Stephen Harper’s personal determination to set back women’s equality, Garth Turner, a Conservative MP who eventually left the caucus, told the Georgia Straight:

“[Harper] said, ‘We have determined a series of cuts… which will be announced…. They are our position. And… anyone [who] has got any problem with that ~ who says anything about it ~ is going to have a short political career.’ He said that in caucus.”

Which one only sends men to be killed?

Gotta have the Timmy's even over in war zones, a taste of Canada!

Political Advocacy Under Fire

The war on Insite and the Harper government’s obsession with punishment

Insite is the first supervised safe injection site in North America and describes itself as “…a safe, health-focused place where people can go to inject drugs and connect to healthcare services ~ from primary care to treat disease and infection, to addiction counseling and treatment.”

While it has always been controversial ~ it has an exemption from federal drug laws so users and staff cannot be charged ~ the provincially-funded project has been so successful that the otherwise very conservative government of Gordon Camp­bell, the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Depart­ment and even Health Canada are all strong supporters of the program. Culturally, it represents a huge advance in attitudes towards drug use and users by a public highly aware of the limits of criminalization.

It has dramatically reduced drug use on the streets of Van­couver’s Downtown East Side, has saved scores of lives (over a one-year period Insite dealt with 200 overdoses without a single death) and has resulted in many referrals to drug rehab programs. It treats addiction as a disease, as do the vast ma­jority of Canadians. Its cost effectiveness has been calculated as high as a $4 return for every government dollar spent.

But despite its popularity it has been in the Harper govern­ment’s gunsights from the beginning. Starting with denying the program long-term constitutional exemption (providing only short extensions starting in September 2006) the Harper government has defied the democratic will of the community and the province by trying to shut it down. For Harper and his government it seems drug use is a crime that must be punished ~ full stop.

A very extensive, peer review study of Insite by the B.C. Cen­tre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, recognized as one of the world’s leading research organizations, had no impact on the Harper government. It still refused a three-year extension and said it was waiting for more research on the program before making a final decision.

In April 2008, supporters of Insite (which was facing a federal government closure deadline of June 30) decided to launch a B.C. Supreme Court challenge of the federal govern­ment’s legal authority to shut the project down. Arguing that the site addresses a public health crisis supporters won the first round in May 2008, when the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government did not have the authority to close Insite, ordering it to change Canada’s drug laws to allow Insite to operate.

Still the Harper government would not budge, and appealed the decision. In January of 2010, the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision stating: “Like palliative care, it is a form of harm reduction with benefits for both the patient and the community.”

Score one for democracy.

On February 9, 2010, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson an­nounced that the federal government was appealing to the Supreme Court of Canda.

Contempt for international law and international relations

Canada signed and ratified the Kyoto Accord on Climate Change, yet Harper simply dismissed the Accord when he became prime minister, and stated that his government had no intention of following its dictates, and, without any debate in the House of Commons, declared that Canada’s position would be whatever the position of the U.S. turned out to be.

No other government in the world has signed, ratified and then simply refused to acknowledge the Kyoto Accord. It was not brought before the House of Commons for a debate or vote, presumably because in a democratic forum such a rever­sal would have been defeated.

While the full details of the Afghan detainee torture scandal have not yet been revealed, there is strong evidence (backed up Harper’s prorogation of Parliament to avoid further revelations) that it was not just the military commanders in Afghanistan who treated the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners with disdain.

It seems extremely likely that it came from the highest levels of the Harper govern­ment. Of course, the previous Liberal government was also guilty of turning a blind eye to these violations of interna­tional law, but the Harper government has been accused of a cover-up and has demonstrated disdain for due process in getting to the bottom of the violations ~ aggressively attack­ing the character of its own senior intelligence officer, refus­ing to call an inquiry, and ignoring a parliamentary resolution to hand over key documents.

In almost every international forum, the Canadian govern­ment has either mimicked the positions taken by the U.S. or pursued its own right wing, narrow corporate interests agenda. On the issue of asbestos we have attracted outrage from around the world for our leading effort to keep asbestos from being listed as a dangerous substance under the Rotter­dam Accord. Canada has also taken a lead role (with just two other countries, New Zealand and Australia) in preventing a ban on the anti-farmer terminator seed technology.

Canada joined the United States and Argentina in a WTO trade complaint against Europe for its decision to ban GMO food ~ a demand made by an ever-increasing majority of EU citizens.

Some of these reactionary positions were inherited from the Liberal regimes of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien , but some are new. Harper has angered France and other EU countries by simply abandoning, with no explanation either at home or internationally, its decades long commitment to development in Africa. Canada had been a close partner with Europe in this regard.

With much of Latin America slowly emerging from a period of neo-liberal economic disaster, and an earlier period of U.S.-supported dictatorships, Canada is pulling in the op­posite direction. Latin America has never been a major area of interest for Canada until now and instead of engaging the newly emerging consensus, Canada is playing the role of turning back the clock and supporting the U.S. and its one re­maining client state, Colombia. It has also supported the U.S. (one of just three governments to do so) in its recognition of the military coup government in Honduras ~ a development that has alarmed experts who had concluded that the era of military coups was truly over.

In the Middle East, Canada is now seen as even more ag­gressively pro-Israel than the United States ~ a radical depar­ture from Canada’s traditional, even-handed approach. The government has engaged in a de-funding witch hunt against any organization that criticizes Israel: eliminating funding for Kairos (the ecumenical group working on development and human rights in many countries around the world), stacking the board of Rights and Democracy (an arms length interna­tional human rights organization) with pro-Israeli members, and withdrawing funding from UNWRA, the UN agency that provides aid, education and other services to Palestinian refugees.

Harper’s public statements have also made this new policy clear ~ as when he called the wanton destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure in the July 2006 war, “a measured response” to the kidnapping of a handful of Israeli soldiers. Harper refused to protest the Israeli air force’s repeated bombing of a clearly marked UN post at which a Canadian UN peacekeeper was killed.

These are all substantive changes in Canadian foreign policy, yet none of them were ever the subject of official debate or discussion in the one democratic forum where Canada’s place in the world should be discussed: the House of Commons.

Attacking political advocacy

Political advocacy, which by its nature involves critiquing and criticizing governments, is arguably one of the most crucial activities in any healthy democracy. Taken together, the orga­nizations involved make up civil society ~ that part of society that provides citizens with opportunities to engage in their democracy year round, not just at election time. Such activity is already severely restricted in Canada.

Groups with charita­ble status ~ environmental organizations, anti-poverty groups, progressive think-tanks, women’s organizations ~ cannot spend more than 10 per cent of their staff time on advocacy activity on pain of possibly losing their charitable status.

Loss of this status ~ which allows the organizations to issue tax receipts for donations ~ could have a devastating impact on their finances. This rule was implemented under a Liberal government, but in the year before the 2006 election there was a flood of complaints to Revenue Canada about such advocacy, complaints that many groups suspected were gener­ated by Conservative supporters.

Many environmental organizations were audited ~ that is, investigated by Revenue Canada for how they spent their money and staff time. It is by all accounts a very intimidating and time-consuming process. Preceding the 2006 election, all charities received a warning letter from the Charities Division of Revenue Canada, saying that they should not comment on or participate in elections.

It had an immediate chilling effect on advocacy from groups with charitable status. Virtually all charitable groups responded cautiously ~ they interpreted the warning to mean a charity could not even publish a survey on party policies.

In recent months, the Harper government has taken the sup­pression of such advocacy up a notch. According to a Febru­ary 13, 2010 article in The Globe and Mail, the government has been issuing warnings to groups about the political positions they take:

“An official with a mainstream non-governmental aid group said that Keith Fountain, policy director for In­ternational Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, gave a verbal warning that the organization's policy positions were under scrutiny: ‘Be careful about your advocacy.’”

The ecumenical group Kairos, involved in development work and human rights advocacy around the world, saw its $7 million grant summarily canceled even though it had been approved by and developed in co-operation with senior officials of the government. The reason: pro-Israeli groups had falsely accused the organization of supporting a boycott of Israel.

Large groups like World Vision, Oxfam and CARE as well as smaller Anglican and Mennonite aid agencies get the bulk of their development money from CIDA ~ the Canadian Inter­national Development Agency for which Oda is responsible. They also do advocacy work with their own, privately raised funds.

The Canadian Council for International Co-operation, the umbrella group which includes aid organizations in its membership, claims its members have received “…veiled warnings about positions that clash with Ottawa's on issues such as climate change, free trade with Colombia, or the Middle East… .”

Alternatives, a Montreal-based group, is apparently going to have its $2.1 million in CIDA funding eliminated, accord­ing to a National Post story. Since the story was published, CIDA has refused to respond to inquiries from the group. Its apparent misstep: suggesting a single-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis instead of the conventional two-state solution (which most commentators now consider effectively dead).

Other groups, as mentioned elsewhere in this study, have also been targeted politically and completely shut down for their advocacy work: the Canadian Policy Research Networks, the Law Commission of Canada, the Court Challenges Program, and the advocacy activities of Status of Women Canada. The group Rights and Democracy experienced direct political interference through the appointment of a hand-picked ma­jority of board members who set out to change the group’s traditional philosophical stance.

Conclusion

These are not normal times. Canada’s democracy is in crisis. We have a prime minister and a government that have dem­onstrated they are unfit to govern. But crises also present opportunities ~ opportunities to ensure the same crisis is not repeated.

The latest shutting down of Parliament by Stephen Harper was a wakeup call for Canadians who expressed their outrage on the streets, in letters-to-the-editor, on talk shows, and in the polls ~ driving the Harper Conservatives down 10 per­centage points in popularity. Our democratic system ~ while not always abused the way Harper abuses it ~ has been ex­posed as extremely vulnerable to any prime minister who has power, and not just majority government power.

Tremendous damage can be done to the fabric of the country by a prime minister with a minority in the House of Commons, and sup­port from a minority of Canadians, if he or she is determined to bend and break the rules meant to protect democracy.

There will always be disagreements about the direction of the country ~ unanimity in terms of actual social, economic, cultural and foreign policies is impossible. But the system we use for ensuring an honest competition between those differ­ent views of the country must be sacrosanct. There must be a level playing field; a government of laws, not men ~ or we simply no longer have democracy.

That is why, in this unique situation in Canadian history, all Canadians who are dedicated to democracy ~ no matter what their political beliefs ~ must come together at the earliest op­portunity to remove Harper from power. His many violations of democracy and the dangerous precedents they set are a threat to democracy itself.

There are many Canadians who like the policies of the Harper government and are willing to turn a blind eye to the violations of democracy that are being used to achieve them. But what goes around comes around: by allowing these precedents to be set, the next government ~ with or without a mandate ~ could use those precedents set by this prime min­ister to implement policies that the majority does not support or want.

We must get back to a democratic equilibrium whereby all the political parties and their leaders do politics by the rule of law.

One of the consequences of having no rules is politi­cal chaos: with society and its government policies being wrenched first this way, then that ~ with no stability, no certainty, and no time for reflection or consensus building. Politics that, in normal times, have been characterized more by relative consensus than by constant partisan warfare is not intended to dominate people’s lives.

It is meant to provide a context and atmosphere in which people can live their lives and communities can thrive ~ with security, confidence and a sense of continuity. The current political atmosphere, created largely by Harper (though not exclusively ~ his bad behav­iour often brings out the worst in other politicians) provides none of these things.

Politics at its best encourages people to get involved ~ they see the exercise of democracy as being in their interest, something they believe will respond to their needs, and a process in which they can trust. When they quit feeling that way, democracy cannot work.

It could be argued that democracy today is clearly not work­ing because so many people are opting out. In the last elec­tion, fewer people voted than in any other federal election in Canadian history ~ just 59.1 per cent of the population cast a ballot. That means that four in 10 citizens no longer believed that democracy had anything to offer them or meant anything to them. That is amongst the lowest in the developed Western democracies and is reaching crisis proportions.

Stephen Harper’s reign as prime minister must come to an end as soon as possible. But beyond that, his record of run­ning roughshod over democracy tells us that we have to put in place reforms that make such abuse of power, if not im­possible, then much less likely. No single reform can address all of the many different kinds of abuse we have witnessed over the past four years.

We need restrictions on the power to prorogue;

we need to protect watchdog organizations from being undermined by the prime minister of the day;

we need to ensure that Access-to-Information really is about access and is not subject to partisan intervention from ministers or the Prime Minister’s Office.

But perhaps the most important democratic reform we can call for is electoral reform, which would eliminate the feeling of many voters that their votes are “wasted.” Our current first-past-the-post system means that a party with as little as 40 per cent of the votes can achieve a majority government, and a party like the Greens can achieve nearly 7 per cent of voters’ support and not get a single seat (meaning that nearly a million people have no voice in Parliament).

In fact, Canada is among just a tiny handful of Western democracies that still uses this arcane, elitist system of electing governments. Most countries now have some form of proportional repre­sentation ~ that is, a system that guarantees a political party the same percentage of seats in parliament as it receives in percentage of the popular vote.

If we had a system of proportional representation, the par­ties that could put together a coalition based on a mutually acceptable package of policies would have the constitutional authority to form the government ~ not the party that simply received the most seats in a minority parliament.

If the last election had been run on such a system, the Conservatives would have had just 116 seats, not the 143 that has allowed them to govern the country as if it had a majority. The Liber­als would have had 81, not 77; the NDP would have had 56 seats instead of 37 and the Greens 21 instead of none. The Bloc would have had 31, not 49. Under these circumstances, the Conservatives could not possibly have governed as no other party shares its ideology or policies. One possible sce­nario would have been a Liberal-NDP-Green coalition (total seats: 158) representing more than 50 per cent of Canadian voters.

But however it was worked out, the coalition government would have represented a much larger proportion of Canadi­ans ~ and their values. Executive dictatorship ~ the complete dominance of Parliament by the Prime Minister’s Office ~ would be a thing of the past because the prime minister would have to negotiate every major policy decision with at least one and possible three other parties. There would be no ideologically rigid government because no single party, regardless of ideology, could impose its agenda on Parliament (except in the extremely rare situation in which a single party received more than 50 per cent of the vote). Combined with other reforms that would make parliament – rather than the prime minister – supreme, proportional representation would restore the true meaning of democracy to Parliament.

As Canadians will remember, we almost had such a govern­ment in December 2008 when all three opposition parties declared their lack of confidence in the Harper Conservative government. The Liberals and NDP announced their inten­tion to form a coalition government for 18 months based on a limited set of policies they agreed upon. The Bloc Québe­cois agreed to provide critical support. Just 43 per cent of Ca­nadians supported the idea of a coalition or a more informal opposition accord. But this was not a true test of a coalition government. Many Canadians understandably opposed the coalition because its leader, Stéphane Dion, had just been soundly rejected in the election. They did not want him to become prime minister through the back door.

Electoral reform is some ways off. Only the NDP and the Green Party have it in their election platforms. Yet we do not have to wait for an official change in the electoral system to achieve something similar. It would appear that Canadians fundamentally do not trust the current system, even if they are still undecided about a new one.

Canadians show no signs of giving any party the level of support required for a major­ity government. That means we will face the same dilemma after the next election as we face at the moment: another gov­ernment by a party (Conservative or Liberal) with a minority of seats and support form a minority of Canadians. Unless we demand of the opposition parties that they go into the next election with a pledge to form a coalition government that represents the majority of Canadians and their values.

That could serve as the litmus test of the proportional repre­sentation system and its catalyst. If it worked to the satisfac­tion of Canadians, if it reduced the partisan bickering, if it put serious restrictions on the executive power of the Prime Minister’s Office, if it produced policies and programs that reflected our values, it would become the consensus position of Canadians ~ and the default position of any political party that wanted their support.

If you managed to read this entire piece, thank you. Canadians, we have no time to waste. By the way, do you have ANY idea it was for me to not comment at least 100 times throughout it all? I will wind up with one last comment. Years and years ago we had a Liberal majority and Harper was, if I remember correctly, the only Conservative in the house. At that time I also saw on line a small photo of him at the Chateau de Rothschild with Lord R. I knew immediately, he was just one, but that he was our next Prime Minister. A cold feeling because I despised him even back then. Call it an instinct. He has surpassed my every bad dream and then some.