MP George Galloway - Viva Palestina!

Braidwood Inquiry : Dziekanski compliant after all

From the very beginning the RCMP justification for stunning Robert Dziekanski has been that he was "defiant" and "non-compliant".
Constable Gerry Rundel testified on Monday that Dziekanski turned away from the officers in a "to hell with you guys, I'm out of here," stance.
Const. Bill Bentley testified he feared for his safety after "Dziekanski disobeyed a police command, threw up his arms in the air and appeared to walk away from the officers, which he saw as an act of defiance."

Yesterday the lawyer for the Polish government blew that excuse away when he walked Bentley through five frames of Paul Prichard's video which clearly show that Dziekanski turned away from the RCMP officers towards a counter because he was directed to do so. In the video RCMP Cpl. Benjamin Robinson is plainly seen vigorously pointing towards the counter with his arm extended straight out in front of him and Dziekanski turns toward it as directed. At this point the four officers surround Dziekanski and RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington fired his TASER™ for the first time.

When the inquiry resumes on Monday, Const. Millington will face tough questioning as to why he then zapped Dziekanski for a further 20 to 25 seconds after he was already on the ground.
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Braidwood Inquiry : A second RCMP officer recants

RCMP Const. Bill Bentley in October 2007, prior to the public release of Paul Pritchard's video of Robert Dziekanski's death :

"Robert Dziekanski, 40, had grabbed a stapler 'and came at the police screaming' during the incident."

Const. Bill Bentley yesterday at the Braidwood Inquiry, after being walked through Paul Pritchard's video :

"If we didn’t have the video, would your evidence be today that Mr. Dziekanski grabbed the stapler and ran toward you screaming?” commission counsel Patrick McGowan asked.
“I don’t know,” Bentley replied, prompting derisive laughter from several people in the public gallery."

Now Bentley says : "Dziekanski "actually appeared calm and cooperative and wasn't doing anything as the officers approached."

That's quite the switch, Const. Bentley.

Vancouver Sun : "Lawyer David Butcher, representing Bentley, asked that official inquiry transcripts, video, audiotapes and exhibits at the inquiry should not be released without a court order. It is believed Poland is considering charges against the officers. The request will be ruled on later."

Transcript of RCMP testimony is still not up at the Braidwood Inquiry site yet but in the past it has usually lagged by several days.
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Circling the wagons for TASER™

Feb 12, 2009 : Tasers potentially lethal, RCMP head tells MPs when introducing new TASER™ policy guidelines to a House of Commons public safety committee in Ottawa :

RCMP Commissioner William Elliott :

"The RCMP's revised CEW policy underscores that there are risks associated with the deployment of the device and emphasizes that those risks include the risk of death."

However...
Feb 25, 2009 : Police defend use of tasers and proclaim their safety when they want to expand their usage in the face of an increasingly hostile public :

Chief Tom Kaye, VP of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police :

"To date, there is no evidence, either scientific of medical, that a conducted energy weapon has been the direct cause of death anywhere at any time on any person."

Charles Momy, the president of the Canadian Police Association :

"There has been no research to indicate clearly that tasers are involved in the deaths of any of the individuals that we've seen in the past years."

Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino:

"150 studies worldwide have proven that “there is no direct link in any case in which a taser was deployed” to show that it was linked to the demise of an individual"

Bottom line : All officers need Tasers, police associations say

Hey, guys, does TASER™ still sponsor your annual Canadian Conference of Chiefs of Police? Just askin' .
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Help Abdelrazik get a ticket home

Following yesterday's post on the plight of Abousfian Abdelrazik and the new catch-22 conditions our government has seen fit to impose on his return to Canada, Sumeet Jain, a member of BASAS, left the following comment.

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[BASAS, the British Association of South Asian Studies, is, according to their website,"the largest UK academic association for the study of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and the South Asian Diaspora."]

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Mr Jain's request :

"See the facebook group I have set up to support Abousifian. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69034411293
I am asking everyone to send him a token donation to get a ticket home and to protest the Canadian government’s stand that anyone who supports him is a supporter of terrorism."

Quite right. Both Sudan and the RCMP have already cleared Abdelrazik of suspicion :

"The RCMP conducted a review of its files and was unable to locate any current and substantive information that indicates Mr. Abdelrazik is involved in criminal activity,"wrote Mike McDonell, the force's assistance commissioner for national security criminal investigations, in a Nov. 15, 2007, letter that formed the basis for the government's request that Mr. Abdelrazik be taken off the UN blacklist.
However, that request was blocked by at least one member of the UN Security Council – presumed to be the United States."

It is appalling that this has been allowed to drag on for more than five years, leaving Abdelrazik destitute and living in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum. If he is guilty of anything other than being on a no-fly list, bring him home and charge him.

Mr. Jain's facebook link above. Go.

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Update : Dr. Dawg's letter to Mr. Abdelrazik.

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Braidwood Inquiry : First RCMP testimony today

Today the Braidwood Inquiry heard from the first of the four RCMP officers involved in the Vancouver airport death of Robert Dziekanski in 2007. The transcripts will not be available for a couple of days yet so here's what the media have reported. It is the first time the officers have spoken in public.

Constable Gerry Rundel, who was not carrying a TASER™ that night, testified that he feared "for my safety to a certain degree" although he was not clear why.

Dziekanski did not appear to shoot any staples at the officers, Rundel agreed.

Global :
"Rundel said he knew from the police radio that a fellow in the international arrivals area was "throwing objects" and breaking glass and was likely intoxicated.
(In fact, Dziekanski had thrown a small table but did not break glass or threaten other passengers. Toxicology reports after his death showed he had no drugs or alcohol in his system.)"

"Rundel said Const. Bentley first spoke in a "calm, friendly" manner to Dziekanski, but the incident escalated swiftly after that.
Dziekanski gestured toward his luggage but was told "No," by Const. Kwesi Millington.
Dziekanski complied with the request and moved away from his bags.
At that point Dziekanski threw up his hands and turned away from the officers in what Rundel interpreted as a "to hell with you guys, I'm out of here," stance.
"Within split seconds the Taser was deployed," said Rundel.

Pressed repeatedly by commission lawyer Patrick McGowan to say what specific command Dziekanski had disobeyed, Rundel became flustered but insisted that Dziekanski had moved away from his luggage, as he was commanded to do so by Cpl. Robinson, but then became "non-cooperative" or "non-compliant."
"Non-compliance" triggers the Taser deployment in the RCMP's training and use-of-force regulations, Rundel said."


The Star :
"He appeared to not be behaving like a normal person would behave," said Rundel. "It was all part of my observation formed by opinion."

"A criminal investigation conducted by the RCMP into its four members' conduct, which was given to crown counsel late last year, determined that the officers' actions were not criminal.

Dziekanski died Oct. 14, 2007 after getting hit five times with shots from the Taser gun. He fell screaming in anguish to the ground and the officers piled on top of him. Within seconds, he had stopped breathing.

The inquiry had heard earlier testimony from firefighters who later attended the scene that the RCMP officers appeared to do nothing to help the man."


In other news, RCMP in B.C. plan to buy 40 new Taser weapons. The force is budgeting $50,000 for the new model X26E Taser guns.
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Ottawa continues to fuck Abdelrazik over

You remember him - one of Canada's other Maher Arars.

G&M : "Mr. Abdelrazik must present a fully-paid-for ticket home before “Passport Canada will issue an emergency passport," the government said in a Dec. 23 letter to his lawyers. But Mr. Abdelrazik, who is living in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, is destitute and the government has warned that it could criminally charge anyone who lends or gives money for a ticket under its sweeping anti-terrorist regulations."

Previously, when Abousfian Abdelrazik, who has been cleared of all charges by both Sudan and the RCMP, previously when he did have the ticket money sent to him by his family in Canada to get home, a Foreign Affairs official confirmed :

"There is no unwillingness to allow him to come to Canada aboard a private plane which the Sudanese government is willing to provide".

So in Aug. 2008, Abdelrazik booked a flight to Canada on Etihad Airways, which was willing to fly him despite the fact it would mean they would be banned from entering U.S. airspace due to his presence on the U.S. no-fly list as a consequence.

Oh but the catch that time was Ottawa refusing him travel documents to get on the plane because :

Senior [Transport Canada] intelligence officials warned against allowing Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, to return home from Sudan because it could upset the Bush administration, classified documents reveal.

"Senior government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik's return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list," intelligence officials say in documents in the possession of The Globe and Mail.

"Continued co-operation between Canada and the U.S. in the matters of security is essential. We will need to continue to work closely on issues related to the Security of North America, including the case of Mr. Abdelrazik," the document says.

The Security of North America.

I really like how you capitalize "security" - makes it look so much more official.

Odette Gaudet-Fee, a senior Foreign Affairs official in Ottawa, July 13, 2005 :

"I wish I had a magic wand and make this case go away ... I find it unethical to hold him like this in limbo with no future, no hope and all because ... Obviously I cannot address the issue of the no-fly list"

Possibly the fact that Canada evidently arranged secretly for Sudan to arrest and imprison him, and then sent Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents to interrogate him in a Sudanese prison even as diplomats knew that he was being tortured - possibly that has dampened Ottawa's enthusiasm for seeing him again. Just like Arar.

Update : As Dr. Dawg notes, "No word as yet from human rights scholar Michael Ignatieff."

Send him a clue : Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca

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National Geographic does the tar sands

National Geographic, March 2009, excerpt:


"Here Syncrude, Canada's largest oil producer, digs bitumen-laced sand from the ground with electric shovels five stories high, then washes the bitumen off the sand with hot water and sometimes caustic soda. Next to the mine, flames flare from the stacks of an "upgrader," which cracks the tarry bitumen and converts it into Syncrude Sweet Blend, a synthetic crude that travels down a pipeline to refineries in Edmon­ton, Alberta; Ontario, and the United States. Mildred Lake, meanwhile, is now dwarfed by its neighbor, the Mildred Lake Settling Basin, a four-square-mile lake of toxic mine tailings. The sand dike that contains it is by volume one of the largest dams in the world.

To extract each barrel of oil from a surface mine, the industry must first cut down the forest, then remove an average of two tons of peat and dirt that lie above the oil sands layer, then two tons of the sand itself. It must heat several barrels of water to strip the bitumen from the sand and upgrade it, and afterward it discharges contaminated water into tailings ponds like the one near Mildred Lake.

The oil sands cover an area the size of North Carolina, and the provincial government has already leased around half that, including all 1,356 square miles that are minable. It has yet to turn down an application to develop one of those leases, on environmental or any other grounds."


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The Afghan Trap

What do you call a mousetrap which also captures the hand that baits the trap?

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North America Next

A year ago the U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave Arizona State University $15 million to establish a Center of Excellence for Border Security and Immigration. The border security research centre is led by Rick Van Schoik, director of ASU’s North American Center for Transborder Studies.
Arizona State U presser, Feb. 2008 :

"The establishment of the center by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security follows more than two years of work assembling a team of U.S. universities, Mexican and Canadian institutions, government agencies, technology companies and national laboratories.

Research at the center will focus on new technologies such as surveillance, screening, data fusion and situational awareness using sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and other technologies. The center will also provide research on population dynamics, immigration administration and enforcement, operational analysis, control and communications, immigration policy, civic integration and citizenship, border risk management and international governance."

Canadian advisors to NACTS include Former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Anne McLellan and Christine Frechette, Director of the North American Forum on Integration, and York University and the University of Alberta, along with notable US deep integrationists Stephen Blank and Robert Pastor.

In their Feb 2009 policy paper "North America Next: A Report to President Obama on Building Sustainable Security and Competitiveness", they make eight recommendations calling for deeper integration, including :

• the inclusion of private sector and public-private P3 partnerships in meet-ups prior to the North American Trilateral Leaders’ Summits
• a National Security Council deputy to expand their "focus on traditional security to include law enforcement, commerce, transportation, environment, water, and regional development in the three countries"
• enhanced overall joint defense of North America which would allow Canada to continue responsibility for the Artic
• a joint revolving fund for infrastructure investments in North America
• a North American Greenhouse Gas Exchange Strategy to "ensure the United States continues to have priority access to Canada’s wealth of hydro-electricity, natural gas, light petroleum and uranium in exchange for offsets for the greenhouse gases created by their development"
• "moving the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders (and their processing costs) away from the (actual) borders to the factories and farms from which trade goods originate", and
• "building and improving trade corridors like CANAMEX that go from northern Canada to southern Mexico".

The paper recommends less emphasis on "integration" and more on "plug and play interoperability".

Just keeping you up on the new North American language here.

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