…Canada Uses It To Ban Protesters From Entry

Two well-respected US peace activists, CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin and retired Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright, were denied entry into Canada On October third. The two women were headed to Toronto to discuss peace and security issues at the invitation of the Toronto Stop the War Coalition. At the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Bridge they were detained, questioned and denied entry.

“In my case, the border guard pulled up a file showing that I had been arrested at the US Mission to the UN where, on International Women’s Day, a group of us had tried to deliver a peace petition signed by 152,000 women around the world,” says Benjamin. “For this, the Canadians labeled me a criminal and refused to allow me in the country.”

“The FBI’s placing of peace activists on an international criminal database is blatant political intimidation of US citizens opposed to Bush administration policies,” says Colonel Wright, who was also Deputy US Ambassador in four countries. “The Canadian government should certainly not accept this FBI database as the criteria for entering the country.” Both Wright and Benjamin plan to request their files from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act and demand that arrests for peaceful, non-violent actions be expunged from international records. “It’s outrageous that Canada is turning away peacemakers protesting a war that does not have the support of either US or Canadian citizens,” says Benjamin.

“In the past, Canada has always welcomed peace activists with open arms. This new policy, obviously a creature of the Bush administration, is shocking and we in the US and Canada must insist that it be overturned. Four members of the Canadian Parliament–Peggy Nash, Libby Davies, Paul Dewar and Peter Julian– expressed outrage that the peace activists were barred from Canada and vow to change this policy.

Ann Wright told OpEdNews that this was the second time the two Code Pink activists had been turned away from the border, the first event ocurring on August 19th.

Wright explained, “We decided to go to Canadian border to push the envelope to see if the Canadian Gov would not let us into Canada again until we had been “criminally rehabilitated.”

Read entire article.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At October 8, 2007, g. kortes, vancouver, WA wrote:

  This is an outrage! Both because it should NOT happen and because it has not appeared in the news publications.

  I have met both Wright and Benjamin in Portland and Crawford, TX. They are strong women leaders in the peace movement.

  Thank you for having this web site for news we might not have known.

  This list against our people must stop. Our country limits our rights of travel. Unthinkable.

Or were they?
Bizarre protest video from a protest on behalf of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, wherein three men dressed somewhat like the Black Block-types who are also there suddenly try to throw rocks and otherwise start trouble. When Don Coles - the president of the union - calls them out as Agents Provocateurs, the crowd turns on them, some yelling "policier!" (police en francais). The Black Blockers obviously don't know them and turn on them as well.
The police finally intervene and take the three down and ever so gently cuff and stuff them.

Click here to view the embedded video.
It's something else!
We've all heard stories like this, but this - if true - is pretty amazing.

Maybe Canadian cops are gentler than ours, but you usually see a cop driving a knee into someone's back or neck when they're being zip-tied. And all three got leisurely walked off camera, rather than dragged.

One damning little detail that has everyone buzzing about this is how the cops and these particular bad guys seem to buy their boots from the same outfitter. Look here.

Read more about it here.

Scary, and worth noting.

Post from: Democracy for Vancouver

1 Comments

• At August 25, 2007, arturo wrote:

  This is a great video. Good for the union guy. This stuff goes on all the time, the provocateurs were not very discreet.

  I have a relative who has spent 20+ years as a labor organizer and negotiator and can tell very similar stories. I hope they follow up and ID (freeze frame) the guy they unmasked.