[antiwar-van] RE: Media Advisory

Thu Dec 9 15:02:17 PST 2004

Ms. Amy Mushinski
The Dominion Institute:

On Human Rights Day, we wish that you would also talk about the Canadian
Government's human rights abuses and its violations of Arab and Muslim human
rights and that you share their experiences with the public.

Following are samples of these stories:

Hanna Kawas
Host,
Voice of Palestine
www.voiceofpalestine.ca

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http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3411.shtml

Diaries
Ain el Hilweh in the heart of Montreal
Ali Abunimah, Live from Palestine, 8 December 2004

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I went to visit the Ayoub family while I was recently in Montreal. It was
freezing cold and snow was falling as along with two activists with the
Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees, I approached the
side door to Notre-Dame-de-Grâce church. We found Khalil Ayoub huddled
outside, smoking a cigarette. The small alley and adjacent yard are as far
as any of the family can go without facing arrest by Canadian police.

Khalil led us inside, down the steps to the basement, where church members
were holding a rummage sale. We made our way through the tables of books and
clothes and into the small room that has been the Ayoubs' world for almost
one year.

Khalil Ayoub, 67, his brother Nabih Ayoub, 69, and Nabih's wife Thérèse
Boulos Haddad, 62, sought sanctuary in the church after Immigration Canada
issued a deporation order against them in January 2004. The Ayoub brothers
were born in the village of Al-Bassa, near the port city of Akka, in
northern Palestine. In 1948, when Israel was established in their country,
they fled to Lebanon and over the years moved among several refugee camps,
trying to escape the horrors of the Israeli invasion and the Lebanese civil
war. In 2001, they obtained visas to the United States, and in April that
year crossed into Canada and applied for refugee status. Stateless, with no
passports and no where to go, their claim was rejected and they were ordered
deported. This is when they sought refuge in the church.

For many Palestinian refugees living underground in Montreal, the Ayoub
family is a local symbol of the larger Palestinian refugee struggle,
representing the fate of the forgotten majority of Palestinians in the world
who live in diaspora, denied the right to return to their own country.
Whether the Ayoubs and 100 other stateless Palestinians threatened with
deportation will ever find a place they can call home and live in peace
depends most immediately on whether Canada's Immigration minister will
decide to regularize their status in Canada. I had always thought that
Canada has been exemplary in upholding international human rights and
humanitarian principles. But while I was there, Ahmed Nafaa, a stateless
Palestinian, was deported to the United States to face an uncertain fate.
What will become of the Ayoubs if they are deported? Who will take them in
if Canada will not?

What was so shocking and moving about the situation Ayoubs find themselves
in, in their church basement room in Montreal, is how reminiscent it is of
the conditions they fled in Lebanon's Ain el Hilweh refugee camp. The little
room was like so many refugee homes I have visited in Lebanon, Jordan and
Palestine. One room suffices for all the family functions: a home despite
itself. All their clothes and belongings are meticulously stacked and
ordered, sometimes covered with brightly printed cloths to hide any
semblance of clutter.

As we visited with the family, Thérèse sat on a chair, shelling peas, while
Nabih and Khalil joked and speculated on their future. When I told Nabih
that my family is from a village in the West Bank, he told stories of people
he knew from our area, describing moments of his life as if they had
occurred yesterday. But all the stories he told occurred before 1948 --
before his life was incomprehensibly shattered into pieces that have yet to
stop careening in unknown directions. He described the family's search for
shelter after they heard about the deportation order -- the terror of not
knowing what would happen to them from one hour to the next. After they came
to the church, they found a certain tranquility, but no peace.

As we sat and talked, Khalil got up, insisting on making us Arabic coffee,
despite our protestations that he should not trouble himself. This gesture
is the most commonplace among Palestinians, and it is also the most
powerful. To offer someone coffee, to serve it with your own hands, is a way
to say "welcome to my home."

Related Links

a.. Action Items: Stop the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees from Canada,
EI/CADPR (8 December 2004)

Ali Abunimah is a co-founder of The Electronic Intifada
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-----Original Message-----

From: Palestinian Refugees - Montréal [mailto:refugees at riseup.net]

Sent: December 1, 2004 8:04 PM

To: refugees at riseup.net

Subject: Stateless Palestinian Refugee is now in a US jail, eventually

to be deported to the refugee camp!

Stateless Palestinian Refugee is now in a US jail, eventually to be deported
to the refugee camp!

Denounce the deportation of Ahmad Nafaa, demand his return to Canada!

December 1. 2004-- Tuesday morning, Ahmad Nafaa was deported from Canada to
the United States. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and the Canadian
Border Services Agency (CBSA) turned Ahmad over to the U.S.

Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), who immediately locked him up
in the Clinton County Jail in Northern New York. All of this occurred
despite the week-long efforts of the Coalition Against the Deportation of
Palestinian Refugees and allies, who had been working, since Ahmad was
detained on November 23, to prevent his deportation. The night before Ahmad
was deported, friends went to visit him in the Laval detention center, Ahmad
was very afraid of what is awaiting him in the US and felt that his last
hope for living a life in peace and dignity was being crushed in those few
hours. Ahmad removed a map of Palestine from his necklace and gave it to a
friend for fear of being harassed in the US by immigration officials or in
the US jail.

At this moment, Ahmad is being transferred from the Clinton County Jail to
the INS detention center near Buffalo, NY. The situation he faces in the US,
in addition to the injustice of an arbitrary detention, is difficult and
dangerous. It is unlikely that the US will not eventually deport him back to
the 56-year-old Palestinian refugee camp of Ein El Helweh in Lebanon, back
to a life of statelessness and a life void of all fundamental civil and
human rights. It is crucial to recall that occurs against the background of
the Canadian government’s continued support of Israel and the illegal
occupation of Palestine.  Ahmad will probably be found ineligible to claim
asylum as a refugee in the US. US immigration law imposes a one year time
limit for the filing of a refugee claim, and the time starts running at the
moment the claimant first enters the country. Because Ahmad first entered
the US, on his way to Canada, in 2001, that time period has expired. He can
apply for a 'Withholding from Removal', but the standards applied to such an
application are much higher than for a refugee claim, and it does not confer
the same status. The acceptance rates in the US for both types of claims are
disturbingly low. Even if Ahmad is released from detention during the time
that his claims are processed, he will not be eligible for a work permit for
six months.

While Ahmad was being forced into this situation by CIC and the CBSA, the
Minister of Immigration Canada, Judy Sgro, ignored a wide variety of efforts
to convince her to stop Ahmad’s deportation. Several members of Parliament,
including Bill Siksay (NDP), Meille Faille (Bloc), and Alexa McDonough
(NDP), personally pressured the Minister to review Ahmad's file and stay his
deportation. On Monday morning, Bill Siksay asked the following question in
Parliament: "Could the Prime Minister assure us that Canada will live up to
its obligations under the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
and, given his personal commitment to the protection of Palestinians, will
he ensure that stateless Palestinian refugees are not deported from Canada?"
Over the past week, the Minister and several high-level bureaucrats in CIC
received thousands of faxes, phone calls and emails explaining Ahmad's
situation and demanding a stay of deportation. Despite all of this, the
Minister remained intransigent.

The Coalition organized four demonstrations in support of Ahmad, two in
front of Immigration Canada’s Montreal office, one at the Laval detention
center where Ahmad was being held, and one in front of the Ministry of
Citizenship & Immigration in Ottawa. The Coalition’s allies in Toronto
organized a demonstration at the riding offices of Minister Sgro.

Several major media outlets, including the CBC, Radio Canada, La Presse, Le
Devoir, The Gazette and Global Television, provided extensive coverage of
these demonstrations and Ahmad's plight. Journalists were able to interview
Ahmad over the weekend while he was in detention in Laval. These interviews
appeared on television and in the print media.

Still, Sgro, who was surely made aware of the extensive media coverage and
public awareness regarding Ahmad, refused to act.

For a sampling of the media coverage, visit the following:

http://radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Index/nouvelles/200411/28/002-nafaa-laval.s
html

http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=e485c888-9
dd2-492c-a26b-f66479a64fb5

http://radio-canada.ca/regions/Montreal/nouvelles/200411/29/009-DEPORTATIONP
ALESTINIEN.shtml

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/article/article_complet.php?path=/actua
lites/article/1,63,0,112004,852430.php

http://radio-canada.ca/regions/Montreal/nouvelles/200411/24/012-MANIFDEPORTA
TIONPALESTINEN.shtml

The Federal Court also failed to prevent this injustice. On Monday
afternoon, Judge Beaudry rejected an application for a stay of deportation,
which had been filed by Ahmad’s lawyer, Annick Legault. The judge,
incredibly, found that Ahmad would not face ‘irreparable harm’ if deported
to the US. One wonders what reparations Judge Beaudry would therefore find
adequate for the indignity and loss of liberty that Ahmad has already
suffered during just his first 24 hours in the US. Judge Beaudry also denied
the application on the grounds that Ahamd did not have ‘clean hands’ because
he had been living underground for over a year before being detained (he
way, as they say, ‘illegal’). In essence, the judge refused the application
because Ahmad had been forced underground in order to avoid deportation to
the poverty and persecution that are daily life in the refugee camps of
Lebanon. This despite the fact that the initial refusal of Ahmad’s refugee
claim was clearly unjust. A clear indication of that is that fact that his
own brother, who has exactly the same case, was granted refugee status in
Canada and is allowed to stay simply because a different Immigration &
Refugee Board member heard his case.

The Coalition is now organizing to arrange to pay a $10,000 (USD) bond so
that Ahmad may be released from detention while he awaits his virtually
guaranteed deportation back to Lebanon.

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