By Petre Marin
December 5, 2008

This past Thursday, December 4, the Hamilton branch of the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) held a town hall meeting at the United Steelworkers hall to inform the public of a wave of health care cuts planned by the provincial government. About 80 people filled the hall. Among them were health care and steel workers, union representatives, senior citizens, and various community groups. I attended the meeting on behalf of Common Cause Hamilton. The following is a brief report highlighting the main points that were made on the night.

By Petre Marin
November 29, 2008

A Kanienkeha (Mohawk) militant, intellectual and professor at the University of Victoria, Taiaiake Alfred was invited to McMaster University because he is widely acknowledged as among the most renowned scholars in indigenous studies on the continent. But Taiaiake is not a typical academic nor was he here to give an academic talk as he made clear right away. Speaking at Convocation Hall surrounded by portraits of bearded upper class white men, the wealthy elite of McMaster's past, Taiaiake, a former US marine had this to say: “In the marines we have a saying. 'The enemy is in front of us, behind us, on our left and on our right. We have the SOBs right where we want them.” The scene captured perfectly the situation of all rebels today: within and against the system that exploits and oppresses us.

October 19th marked the beginning of Hassan Almrei's eighth year in prison, most of it spent in solitary confinement, and of course without ever having been given any kind of fair hearing or opportunity to clear his name.

The following day, in downtown Montreal, a few people set up a mock solitary confinement cell, decorated on the inside with drawings of torture techniques. The drawings in recognition of the fact that Hassan has not only been locked up all these long years, he has been kept under the threat of deportation to Syria. As Hassan knows - and as all the judges, government ministers, members of Parliament, government lawyers, and CSIS officials who
have been involved in keeping him in this situation know - Syria is the country where Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin, and Ahmed El Maati were detained and tortured with, as it turns out, the involvement of
Canadian officials.

October saw the travels of the Caravan against torture swing into Hamilton. They were on a southern Ontario tour and came to highlight Canada’s complicity in torturing people abroad.

The stars of the tour, tortured Canadian-Syrian citizens Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin, could not be there unfortunately. They were in Ottawa looking over the contents of the newly released Iacobucci Inquiry. The inquiry found that the department of Foreign Affairs, the RCMP and CSIS was indirectly responsible for their torture. Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin were never allowed to attend their own inquiry.

In their place members of the Caravan spoke about other acts of torture Canada has been complicit in and why they chose to go on the road.

This is the October/November 2008 issue of the Linchpin paper, published by Common Cause. We publish articles written by our members as well as by others involved in action / movements. Please contact us if you would like to contribute or have any feedback.

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