Opinion:

Human Rights abuses don't match the rhetoric

by Daya Gamage

Severely influenced by the diplomatic offensive the US State Department has taken in relation to Sri Lanka, partly due to separatist elements within the Tamil Diaspora, Canada has reacted to the influential Tamil lobby in Toronto, in declaring its inability to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka this November. In the words of its Prime Minister Stephen Harper, “Canada is deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Sri Lanka”.

He said, “It is clear that the Sri Lankan government has failed to uphold the Commonwealth’s core values, which are cherished by Canadians. As such, as the Prime Minister of Canada, I will not attend the 2013 CHOGM in Colombo, Sri Lanka. This is a decision that I do not take lightly”.

Canada's leading newspaper National Post, in a critical report questioning Harper's wisdom in not attending the Summit said, “Canada is not even sending Foreign Minister John Baird, as Mr. Harper did last week to show his lack of regard for the UN General Assembly. Instead, Deepak Obhrai, Parliamentary Secretary to Mr. Baird will attend. His voice will carry little clout in a room crowded with other leaders. Mr. Harper is sacrificing a forum in which Canada’s voice had real force, in the apparent belief that silence will work better instead. It rarely does”.

Serious scrutiny

Stephen Harper chose to make this statement on Monday when he attended the APEC leaders summit in Bali, Indonesia.

Harper noted in his statement that, “Canada believes that if the Commonwealth is to remain relevant, it must stand in defence of the basic principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human dignity, which are the very foundation upon which the Commonwealth was built”.

Let's investigate Canada's human rights record which is under serious scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Commission, and how much Canada believed and practised the ‘basic principles of freedom, democracy, and respect for human dignity’ as Harper said, in his statement, as ‘the very foundation upon which the Commonwealth was built'.

In June last year, the UN's top Human Rights official, Navi Pillay included Canada in a list of the world's worst on human rights, and criticised Quebec's Bill 78 for restricting freedom of assembly. The emergency legislation requires protesters to notify police eight hours ahead of assembly, restricts education employees’ ability to strike and gives the Minister of Education the right to change the Act.

One media commentary said, “As Canada comes under UN criticism once again - this time for Quebec's new law on demonstrations – some legal experts here are wondering whether it's time Canada reconsiders its membership in the 193-nation international body”.

Most recently, on April 30 this year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a report on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Canada’s human rights record, which included a large set of questions, recommendations and comments from countries across the world about violence against indigenous women and girls.

The attention should spur Canada to take decisive action to address the hundreds of murders and disappearances of indigenous women and girls over the last four decades, Human Rights Watch said after the report was adopted.

“It is not surprising that violence against indigenous women and girls figured so prominently in the discussion of Canada’s human rights record,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, Women’s Rights Director at Human Rights Watch. “It reflects the persistent insecurity faced by women and girls, the urgent need for a public accounting of what has gone wrong for so long, and a robust national plan for addressing it going forward.”

In February 2013, Human Rights Watch released Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada. The report documents the failure of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia to protect indigenous women and girls from violence.

Abusive police behaviour

It also documents abusive police behaviour against indigenous women and girls, including excessive use of force and physical and sexual assault. The report also found that Canada has inadequate police complaint mechanisms and oversight procedures, including a lack of a mandate for independent civilian investigations into all reported incidents of serious police misconduct.

The report, released in Geneva on April 30 (2013), summarises Canada’s second Universal Periodic Review which took place on April 26.

The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Sweden and Mexico submitted questions in advance about Canada’s response to violence against indigenous women and girls. While recognising efforts made by Canada on this issue, China, the United States, Estonia, Finland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Slovakia, Togo and others expressed concern about the situation during the review and made recommendations to the government.

So much for Stephen Harper's call for Sri Lanka's accountability!

Human Right Watch said, “To be successful, any effort to address violence against indigenous women and girls will need to address the issue of police accountability,” Gerntholtz said. “That includes accountability for the police response to reports of violence in the community and accountability for any acts of violence committed by police officers themselves.”

Here's how Canada treated the request by the UN Human Rights Commission to visit the country to probe allegations:

“In conjunction with the Human Rights Council’s review on 26 April 2013, Canadian government representatives said that Canada had recently approved the requests of three human rights authorities to visit the country, which had been pending for varying lengths of time. James Anaya, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, said in February 2013 that he was awaiting a response to a February 2012 request to visit Canada to examine and report on the human rights situation.

At a March 2013 hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights regarding violence against indigenous women and girls, a commissioner noted that the government had not yet responded to a 2012 request to visit. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women announced its decision to launch an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada in late fall 2011. Canada’s statement at the Human Rights Council on Friday was the first public notice that the committee had received permission to visit.

“Granting human rights authorities permission to visit is an important step forward,” Gerntholtz said. “We hope it signals that the government is more receptive to meaningful examination of these issues and will heed the call for a national public inquiry into the murders and disappearances.”

Indigenous women and girls

The Native Women’s Association of Canada documented 582 cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada as of March 2010. Many happened between the 1960s and the 1990s, but 39 percent occurred after 2000. The number of cases is undoubtedly higher today, but comprehensive data is not available since the government reportedly cut funding for the organisation’s database and police forces in Canada do not consistently collect race and ethnicity data.

Amnesty International has called on Canada to stop the violation of human rights in the country, particularly with respect to the rights of indigenous peoples.

In a report released on December 19, 2012, the humanitarian organisation highlighted that three United Nations reviews conducted in 2012 all found a wide range of human rights abuse, especially for indigenous peoples.

In particular, according to the report: “By every measure, be it respect for treaty and land rights, levels of poverty, average lifespans, violence against women and girls, dramatically disproportionate levels of arrest and incarceration or access to government services such as housing, health care, education, water and child protection, indigenous peoples across Canada continue to face a grave human rights crisis.”

In addition, independent UN committees responsible for supervising treaties dealing with racial discrimination, torture and the rights of children stress that the Canadian government has failed to fulfil its obligations.

Furthermore, the report underlined that Canada needs to address the issue of human rights abuse in more areas such as women’s rights, corporate accountability and trade policy, the rights of refugees and migrants, Canadians subject to human rights violations abroad, and engagement with the multilateral human rights system.

As a result, Amnesty International called on Canada to draw a new human rights agenda to establish a formal mechanism for transparent, effective and accountable implementation of the country’s international human rights obligations.

The United Nations has previously condemned Canada's abuse of children's rights, and accused Ottawa of systematic discrimination against aborigines and immigrants. In 2008, Canada admitted forcing 150,000 aboriginal children into ghastly residential schools where they were abused sexually, psychologically and physically. In addition, more than 600 aboriginal women and young girls are said to be missing in the country while reports of rape, mutilation, and murder against female aborigines are reportedly a common phenomenon.

Canada and Sri Lanka

The Asian Tribune, sensing what position Canada will take regarding its attendance at the CHOGM in Colombo, carried an investigative report on January 25 this year under the caption ‘Canada's treatment of her ethnic minorities exposed: Uses double-standards to address Sri Lanka issues'. Then we commented, “Way back in September - October 2011 when the Canadian Government of Stephen Harper and his Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird notified the United Nations General Assembly and the House of Commons that Sri Lanka's reconciliation process is not effectively taking place to bring the 12 percent minority ethnic Tamils into the mainstream, the mistreatment of its native Indian ethnic people, referred to as the First Nations, was appalling and has been rightly highlighted by commentators and the UN with contempt”.

The Asian Tribune further wrote: (Quote) At a time Harper's Canadian government has been accused of breaching Canada’s treaty obligations with the First Nations people, the treaty rights incorporated in the Canadian constitution since 1982 and Supreme Court declaration imposing on the federal government “a duty to consult” the First Nations before making any changes to the obligations flowing from the treaties, Mr. Harper and his foreign affairs minister need to know that a vital piece of the rights of the Sri Lankan minority Tamils enshrined in Sri Lanka's legal system – The Thesavalamai Law - has guaranteed the century old land and other social rights to the Sri Lankan Tamil people untouched.

What a difference when Harper's Canadian government talks about Tamil rights in Sri Lanka when it itself abrogates certain vital rights to the people of the First Nations, the Indians and other minority tribes.

Harper and Baird are being driven by the fact Canada is widely viewed as the home of the largest Tamil Diaspora in the world. An estimated 300,000 Tamils now reside in Canada, many in the Toronto area.

The Tories won their majority government in the last election by making major breakthroughs in the ethnic communities of Canada's major cities, and any goodwill they foster among Tamils would only solidify those gains. (End Quote)

Harper and his regime must stop the ‘Holier Than Thou” attitude when Sri Lanka struggles to lift her head from the devastation of a 26-year separatist-terrorist battle noting that successive Sri Lankan governments, despite their military battle with the Tamil Tigers in the North and the Eastern regions of the country, did not fail to send all essentials to the vast Tamil population in the Tamil Tiger-controlled territory without breach until terrorism ended in May 2009.They kept essential services running to facilitate the Tamil population as much as the successive Sri Lanka regimes did their part toward the people in other regions in the country.

Torture practices in Canada

In another report by Asian Tribune on July 27 this year under the caption ‘Canada uses ‘torture’ but talks human rights in Sri Lanka’ we wrote, “Despite the ‘counselling’ position Canada has thrust upon itself to give lectures to Sri Lanka, Canada has given the country’s spy agency - Canadian Security Information Service - permission to use information extracted from suspects through torture, despite claims that it would never use such data, Press TV reported this week.

“Canada's intelligence services, including the Communications Security Establishment Canada have recently been given an annual budget of about $400 million to use and share information extracted through the use of torture, despite the Canadian government saying it does not condone such acts.

“Human rights activists condemned the move, arguing that Canada is propagating the use of torture”. Last year, on September 20, columnist Mathew Behrens in the popular Canadian website rabble.ca wrote: “The ease with which self-described democratic states embroil themselves in torture continues to be illustrated by the manner in which agencies of the Canadian state, from spies to judges, have wedged open a door to legitimise complicity in a practice that both domestic and international law ban outright.”

He then justified what he wrote in this manner: “Before dismissing that paragraph as preposterous, it is worth considering that two federal inquiries into the torture of Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin revealed a sinister level of Canadian complicity in torture, from which no accountability or systemic changes have emerged. Further, damning documents reveal Canadian knowledge of and culpability in the renditions and torture of Benamar Benatta and Abousfian Abdelrazik. Meanwhile, the Federal Court, while accepting CSIS memos acknowledging that secret trial “security certificate” cases are based largely on torture, continues with hearings that could result in deportations to torture. That latter possibility is courtesy of a 2002 Supreme Court of Canada decision that left open the possibility of such complicity in torture under “exceptional circumstances.”

Oh Canada!

Courtesy: Asian Tribune