[antiwar-van] (Toronto) Arrested Fahim Supporters Speak Out About Monday's Events At Judy Sgro's Office

[Sima Sahar Zerehi]

Arrested Fahim Supporters Speak Out About Monday's Events At Judy Sgro's
Office

On the morning of Monday March 22nd, eight young activists of colour from
Arab, Middle Eastern, West Indian, South Asian and First Nations
communities entered the constituency offices of Minister of Immigration
Judy Sgro to demand that she immediately exercise her discretionary
ability to stop the deportation of Fahim Kayani to Pakistan, where he is
in danger of persecution.

Supported by a group of other activists and supporters of Fahim who
remained outside, the eight of us entered Sgro's office and identified
ourselves to her office staff as an Emergency Committee in Support of
Fahim Kayani, asking for an immediate meeting with Judy Sgro or another
representative of the Ministry of Immigration and to demand that Fahim be
allowed to remain in Canada.

Within seconds of our entry into the office, we were met with an
aggressive response by office security. With no response forthcoming to
our request for a meeting with Sgro or her representatives, we announced
our intention to occupy the office until we were able to obtain answers.
Very quickly, the police arrived and escalated the situation: we were
pepper sprayed, assaulted, arrested, and taken to jail.

As people who have been intricately involved in Fahim's defence and in
direct support work around his case, we knew that all legal measures had
been exhausted to prevent Fahim from being deported to Pakistan, and we
are aware of the dangers which face him there as a result of his being
unfairly and untruthfully targeted by the RCMP and Citizenship and
Immigration Canada as part of their botched "Project Thread" operation.

We have seen what has happened to other victims of Project Thread who have
been deported to Pakistan in recent months. Since their deportation from
Canada, they have been detained, interrogated, attacked by vigilantees and
could not even call the police for help. They were and have been living in
daily terror.

Canada, through the RCMP and Immigration Canada's "Project Thread"
investigation and it's aftermath, had made Fahim into a refugee. He had
entered Canada as a student, intent to finish his studies. Project Thread
and the Canadian government have not only interrupted this plan, but have,
by their actions, placed him in danger.

With regular consultation with individuals who have been directly
victimized by Project Thread, it was agreed that we needed to send a loud
message to Immigration Canada and to very quickly bring Fahim's case to
public view through the media in order to put pressure on the Minister and
other members of the Liberal Cabinet.

We could not stand by and let Fahim be deported or simply accept his fate.
As activists we had exhausted all other possibilities in terms of doing
important educational/outreach work, community forums, press conferences
and regular media work.

Fahim had filed an application for Permanent Resident status eighteen
months ago, and has been awaiting a response throughout that time. Given
this, we knew that Immigration Minister Judy Sgro had the power to land
Fahim immediately, as he has more than the necessary qualifications within
the Immigration Canada "point system" by which Permanent Resident
applications are scored.

We felt that a non-violent occupation of Judy Sgro's office would send a
message, letting immigration know that Fahim and other Project Thread
victims have committed support in Canada and that Canada could not quietly
deport Fahim to Pakistan where his life was in danger. We knew that Sgro's
constituency office is used regularly by Ministry of Immigration officials
to conduct meetings, as we met weeks ago with senior Ministry of
Immigration policy advisor Ihor Wons, who refused to acknowledge the
discretionary ability of the Minister to ensure Fahim's safety and accused
us of trying to "subvert the process" and advised us to use the remaining
weeks until Fahim's deportation to approach our local Members of
Parliament before Sgro would even hear our concerns. We had exhausted that
process without any result. In the time since Fahim was denied his federal
court application for a stay of his deportation, we have made several
additional requests for a meeting with Sgro or other Ministry officials to
address this issue. These requests have remained unanswered.

The actions of Immigration Canada on Tuesday March 23rd in deceitfully
directing Fahim to report to them on a pretext, then arresting him and
immediately transferring him to Montreal prior to deporting him, are
reprehensible and we sharply condemn this further inhumane attack on
Fahim's rights.

We will continue work tirelessly to oppose future deportations of other
victims of Immigration Canada's racial profiling and targeting of
individuals. As people of colour, we understand the stakes of this sort of
racial profiling and attack. We know, from the example of the Mahar Arar
case, that even holding Canadian citizenship is no guarantee against
having the Canadian government collude to have an individual deported to a
country of origin where they may face extreme danger.

In Solidarity,

ahmad
mohan
farrah
hazem
daryl
marika
sima
abdel
amandeep
navyug