“Once we had a country and we thought it fair”

To serve and protect: the G20 police riot revisited.

There will be no punishment. And most people, in their ignorance, will support their local police with their eyes wide shut.

No matter what. No matter the laws they break. No matter whom they assault. No matter whom they kill.

In Canada, 2010, the beasts are running the zoo.

[H/t Stageleft]

Umm...vegans?

Calm down!

Gotta go. Supper's ready. :)

Hassan Diab: the French deception 2

The courtroom demolition of France's case against Hassan Diab continued this morning.

Just as he did with the passport evidence earlier this week, Diab's lawyer Don Bayne dropped a sixteen-tonne weight on another misrepresentation in the Record of Case (ROC) certified by the wily French examining magistrate Marc Trévidic.

This time it wasn't conflicting accounts of Diab's alleged use of passport(s) to gain entry to France. It was what can only be described as deliberate deception by Trévidic: tailoring his ROC by omitting crucial evidence that made a nonsense of his claims--evidence, furthermore, that he was fully aware of.

In the ROC, Trévidic drew parallels between the rue Copernic bombing in Paris in 1980 and a subsequent bombing in Antwerp in 1981. In each case, a hotel had been selected that was near the target (a synagogue), and a nearby railway station for a quick getaway. The clear implication was, on so-called similar fact inference, that the same gang of terrorists, allegedly including Diab, was involved.

There was just one problem. In fact, there were four problems.

First, Trévidic somehow failed to note that his predecessor Guy Joly, who had travelled to Beligium and upon whom he had been relying for his account of the Antwerp bombing, also named the three suspects in the case.

Guess what? Diab was not one of them. They were known to the Belgian police: Kathleen Hill, an Englishwoman married to an IRA terrorist, Hasan Akbalickci, a Turk, and Atman Yusuf.

Trévidic didn't include three other salient facts either, that distinguished the Antwerp bombing from the Paris one. First, the Belgian police were not convinced that the bombing in Antwerp had even been targeting the synagogue. It was set off in the financial district of Antwerp and could, in their view, have been an anti-capitalist attentat. Second, the bomb type was entirely different. Third, two terrorist groups immediately claimed responsibility for the Antwerp bombing: Black September and Action Direct. In Paris, no group claimed responsibility.

So much for the "clear links" alleged in the ROC between the two attacks. All we are left with is a hotel, a railway station and a synagogue in close proximity. As Bayne noted, raising Antwerp was an attempt to further implicate Diab in the rue Copernic bombing when all of the evidence to the contrary, including the the fact that the participants in the Antwerp attack has already been identified, had been adroitly excised by Trévidic. Had that evidence been included, there would have been no argument to make--in fact there would have been no reason to talk about Antwerp at all.

So much for what the prosecution has called inconsequential errors. So much for the presumption of reliability in a Record of Case submitted by the requesting state (France). And--if the extradition case succeeds--so much for the Charter rights of any Canadian citizen being able to protect us from being framed by a foreign power.

And speaking of anti-Semitism...

Anti-Semitic imagery and stereotypes are just fine with conservatives--if it's Glenn Beck deploying them, and a progressive philanthropist is on the receiving end.

No word as yet from the authors of the Ottawa Protocol.

UPDATE: (November 12) Suing people for defamation if they incidentally happen to be supporters of Israel is apparently yet another instance of the New Anti-Semitism™. [H/t reader Marcus]

Lest we remember

My father was a WWII vet, having led the 1st Canadian Calibration Troop through the mud of Europe. A cousin was imprisoned in Buchenwald after being captured behind enemy lines. My ex-spouse's father was a Hong Kong POW, and, like his comrades, was shamefully abandoned by the Canadian government during his captivity and after his release.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said George Santayana.

Wrong.

Remembering dooms us to repetition. We remember everything and learn nothing. We absorb and reproduce the patterns of the past. Look around.

We are losing men and women in Afghanistan, because war is still the answer. We glorify (and profit by) the production of weapons of war.

We fret about the allegedly devious aliens among us. Once it was Japanese, Germans and Italians, now it's Muslims.

We fearfully close our borders. A few decades ago it was to keep out Jews, now it's Tamils, whose mass murder at sea was recently advocated ("lock and load") by a leading Canadian newspaper.

Our vets are fighting tooth and nail for decent treatment from our "Support Our Troops" government: the disgracefully abandoned Hong Kong vets had to fight for their pensions too.

We're condemned to repeat history, over and over and over again--unless we forget.

I'm not advocating that we dismiss the sacrifices made to turn back fascism, or disrespect the countless men and women killed or wounded in that essential task. But in this annual attempt to confer immortality upon those and other brave young people--"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old"--we are also immortalizing old ways of thinking and acting, closing off the possibility of alternatives.

We are trapped in remembrance. We must have a radical break with the past, a strategic obliteration. Because only a deliberate act of forgetting will allow us to dream the wild new dreams that may yet save us.

Hassan Diab: the French deception

The case against the extradition of Hassan Diab, as laid out this week by lawyer Donald Bayne in a preliminary motion to stay the proceedings, has begun to look unassailable. Yesterday the credibility of crusading French examining magistrate Marc Trévidic, who prepared the Record of Case (ROC) upon which the deportation proceedings are based, was shredded seemingly beyond repair.

Readers need to be aware of precisely how little recourse a defendant in an extradition case has available under current legislation. Any Canadian citizen may be extradited by a treaty partner merely by establishing a prima facie case. The defendant does not have full Charter rights, no right to disclosure of evidence from the accusing party, no right to cross-examine witnesses. As Bayne described it this week, mounting a defence in such a one-sided contest is "an uphill climb."

It's not a climb, in fact, that many undertake, and still fewer manage to make. But there is precedent, as Bayne showed earlier this week, for making a Charter argument for a stay. This rests upon the integrity of the ROC submitted by the requesting state--in this case, France.

That integrity doesn't have to be proven: it is generally assumed. But what if it is possible to show that the ROC is deliberately deceptive? It is in such a case, rare in the extreme, that the extradition judge has the right to exercise a residual discretion and put a stop to the proceeding. The proposition that the certifying authority for the ROC has a duty of "fairness and good faith," and of "utmost diligence and care" in ensuring the accuracy of the document, is established in a number of precedent cases.

The prosecution will attempt to show later this week that the demonstrable flaws in the ROC are merely "inconsequential errors." Here is one: judge for yourselves whether it is inconsequential, and even if it is an honest error.

The question of Hassan Diab's passport(s) is key to the case. Why do I use a possible plural? That would be because of the contradictory evidence of the French examining magistrate, Marc Trévidic.

In the defence counsel's factum supporting the motion for a stay, Bayne points out that Trévidic certified in the ROC that Diab entered France using a false Cypriot passport in the name of "Alexander Panadriyu." He didn't have a lot of choice, because the copy of Hassan's real passport, obtained in 1981, showed no entry stamps to France.

The ROC states that the "hit team" that bombed the rue Copernic synagogue, allegedly including Diab, entered France via Madrid by train, using false papers. The assertion that Diab was using a false passport is repeated seven times.

But there's a problem. On November 12, 2008, 29 days before he certified the ROC now before the Ottawa court, Trévidic told quite a different story. He was attempting to obtain an arrest warrant for Diab through an application to the Ontario Superior Court, the first step in the extradition process. And in that application, he stated that the "hit team" has used their real passports.

Well, which was it? If real passports were used, then Diab is in the clear--no entry stamps to France. It is speculated by a source close to the case that Trévidic used the "real passport" theory in this instance because it sounded more impressive ("we have his passport and it shows he entered France"). Trévidic knew that, under current law, he didn't have to produce the passport to a Canadian judge, and may have thought that a different judge would preside over the extradition hearing itself. Perhaps unluckily for him, however, Justice Robert Maranger was the judge in both instances.

But it gets worse. In the substantial ancillary material attached to the ROC, a report turned up from a French police officer who had stopped the mysterious "Alexander Panadriyu" for an ID check.* The officer had been thorough enough to list the stamps found in that false Cypriot passport--very few, as it turns out, because the passport was only four months old. Besides, a fake passport would have only the minimum number of stamps inserted to allow it to pass for the real thing.

And guess what? He found an entry stamp through France's Lyon airport--not one for an arrival by train through the Spain-France border.

This meant that both of Trévidic's theories were bunk--and he had to have known it. To put it bluntly, he used whatever tale he thought would work best in the circumstances.

The case continues. It will be interesting, to put it mildly, to see how the prosecution copes with this clear evidence of malfeasance that goes to the very core of the extradition case.
_____________
*I am now reliably informed that much more than an ID check was involved. The French police officer examined Panadriyu's passport after he was arrested for trying to shoplift pliers from a Paris hardware store. Panadriyu was questioned and released after signing a statement admitting to the attempted theft.

Out of Africa

Or, "Stephen Harper doesn't care about Black people."

[H/t Kanye West]

Push comes to shove

Criticism of Israel will shortly become illegal in Canada.

That's the message of the "Ottawa Protocol" agreed to behind closed doors this week by a group of international parliamentarians calling themselves the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism. The Canadian wing, of course, is the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism.

Here is what is about to descend upon us:

[The Ottawa Protocol] aims to implement a series of measures to put an end to hateful propaganda in places like universities. In particular, the group aims to stop the growth in the criticism of Israel and its policies that, it says, is increasingly a vehicle for anti-Semitism. [emphasis added]

It's what some of us have been arguing all along--and we've been denounced as paranoid for doing so. But you don't get a group of parliamentarians deliberating for months and holding hearings if legislation isn't in the works.

Of course the protocol claims not to be what it is. Here's the usual sinuous language:

"Let it be clear: Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is wrong," the protocol says.

"But singling Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium -- let alone denying its right to exist or seeking its destruction -- is discriminatory and hateful, and not saying so is dishonest."

The first paragraph is a kind of alibi that shields, not the hapless critic of Israel, but the legislative project itself. The second one has the meat. "Selective condemnation"--I've been accused of that in this very blog because of the paucity of posts about North Korea and other hellholes. "Seeking its destruction" could mean anything from mass extermination to merely supporting a one-state solution in the Middle East. Even opposing the current loyalty oath for new citizens of Israel could be interpreted as seeking the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

Norm Spector, a former Canadian ambassador to Israel, asks a salient question this morning: will criticism of Israeli building projects in Jerusalem be deemed "anti-Semitic" under the new expanded definition? The answer, I think, is obvious.

And here's Israel’s Minister for Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, Yuli Edelstein, who is ecstatic about the Ottawa goings-on:

[Edelstein] agreed with the need to expand the definition of anti-Semitism beyond the usual stereotypes, such as “having horns, killing Christ, laundering money.” He said there have been successes in combating overt anti-Semitism, such as Internet stories suggesting that Israeli military doctors in Haiti were harvesting organs. He added that criticisms of Israel that include double-standards, or de-legitimize or demonize its existence, amount to anti-Semitism.

“I think we have to be very inclusive in this definition to really fight the tendency, and not just a certain part of it,” he said. [emphases added]

"Very inclusive," indeed. Almost anyone can be accused of employing double standards, even if most of us who criticize Israel simply want to impose one and the same standard upon it as currently applies to other nations. "De-legitimize" can refer to nearly anything. "Demonize" means whatever these political exorcists choose it to mean.

So now Israel will achieve a status in Canadian law that no other nation possesses. It will be shielded even from the silly commentary that is so much a part of popular culture. You'll continue to be able to say "Bomb Iran," but possibly go to jail if you say "Bomb Israel." The Toronto Sun can still use the phrase "lock and load" in reference to a boatload of Tamils, but a similar injudicious remark directed against Israeli settlers on the West Bank would become a criminal matter.

Make no mistake, this thing is a slam-dunk. When (not if) the Conservatives introduce legislation to outlaw criticism of Israel, likely when a federal election is in the offing, the Liberals will tamely go along, not wanting to fight accusations of anti-Semitism in the thick of an electoral contest.

No doubt the legislation will pretend to draw a non-existent distinction between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" criticism--non-existent, because the concepts are purely subjective. To some, in fact, there simply is no "legitimate" criticism of Israel. The legislation will, in word and in practice, be "very inclusive."

Such legislation would quite possibly not withstand Charter scrutiny. But that's small comfort at this point. It's on its way, and I, for one--who have fought genuine anti-Semitism for decades, on the Internet and on the ground--can feel a cold wind blowing. So should we all.

[H/t the ever-wakeful Alison]

UPDATE: Full text of the Ottawa Protocol here, via BCL.

Do police forces talk to each other?

G20 "best practices" on display in Oakland, California.

Oscar Grant was an unarmed, handcuffed Black man murdered by an Oakland cop, Johannes Mehserle. A white judge, Robert Perry, kissed the killer with a sentence of two years less time served--the minimum sentence possible. The cop had claimed that he mistook his gun for a Taser.

The judge refused to allow prior use-of-force testimony against the officer, but permitted the defence to introduce evidence about the defendant's past criminal record.

Protesting this travesty was deemed illegal. A peaceful protest led to 152 arrests: everyone was released, many after harrowing experiences in custody. The decision to charge the protesters is still up in the air.

Meanwhile, in backwoods Canada, sundry far-Right wingnuts are howling about "white privilege." No, no, they aren't opposing it. They don't like the term, and claim that no such thing exists.

HUAC North and the missing report

While the fate of Canadian critics of Israel is being decided behind closed doors this week, perhaps a little juxtaposition might lighten the mood.

Readers may recall that the Final Report of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism, which conducted one-sided "hearings" earlier this year, was due this past Spring. But somehow it hasn't surfaced, even during this week's international gabfest.

Scott Reid, the Conservative MP who chairs the CPCCA, is miffed with the critics. But let's do that juxtaposing thing:

Some critics have pointed out that Statistics Canada says there are more hate crimes directed at black people in Canada than at Jews and suggest that the focus on anti-Semitism by MPs is a crude political attempt to court the Jewish vote.

And here's the indignant yet disarmingly frank Mr. Reid:

The report will be released, he said, hopefully before the next federal election.

All we can do is smile, as we wait for the other shoe to drop.

ADDENDUM: Shriek! Campus anti-Semitism!

Just a few months ago, for example, two Carleton University students reported being attacked by fellow students wielding a machete at an off-campus bar; the attackers berated them as “Jews” and “Zionists.” Last year, Jewish students were besieged inside the York University offices of Hillel, a Jewish campus group; assailants reportedly banged on walls and floors and yelled anti-Semitic slurs. These two incidents, sadly, are part of a broader pattern of hostility that many Canadian – and American – Jewish students are reporting.

"Reported." "Reportedly."

Big City Lib has done the heavy lifting on the first "example," which he aptly names "Machetegate." The York "anti-Semitic slurs," like an earlier claim of physical assault, have never been substantiated. But here, as a reminder to readers, is how the York University's aptly-named Hasbara Fellowship rolls.

Last word to Jonathan Kay. And when I call upon him as a beacon of common sense, you just know something is way out of whack in the continuing narrative of Canadian anti-Semitism.

Calgary Social Services: "Anti-racist? We'll take your kids!"

Early this morning, five thugs broke into the home of anti-racist activists Jason and Bonnie Devine. Their four children were asleep upstairs. The goons attacked Jason and another male with hammers and bats.

The Devines are well-known in the area for their anti-Nazi activities, which most recently included leafleting an area where "Aryan Guard" members were known to hang out.

The children were not harmed--no doubt the brave Nazis were unaware that they were upstairs sleeping.

Enter Calgary Social Services.*

Unbelievably, they are threatening to apprehend the Devine children unless the Devines stop their anti-racist activity.

Here is part of the Devines' account:

We have been the victim of a hate crime. We have not broken any laws, committed any crimes,nor acted violently or ever called for violence. Yet today we were compared to gang members and drug dealers by people who say they have our best interests in mind. Social Services came into our home and began an investigation on us, not only about our parenting but on our children's safety. They stated that because of our high level of activity we have placed our children in unnecessary risk and that we should stop before they either see it or are a victim of it.

--

This was attempted murder, when 3-4 people simultaneously hit you with hammers and bats to your head and body this is not with the intention of leaving you as function [sic] person but dead. Now we are not allowed to bring our children home,our family who has our children has been advised that if we attempt to leave with our children they are to be notified. We are now living in terror that our children will be apprehended while at school and it was implied that only if we stop being active and follow everything they deem safe that our children may be returned to us, and I stress maybe as they did.

The very issue is that whether we stop now or not we will be forever targeted by Neo-nazi groups and members. They have pictures of not only us, but our children which they took while we were shopping at our local co-op grocery 4 weeks ago. We will be targets for the rest of our lives. We call to the public, family and friends to put pressure on making the Police find the true criminals in this matter and stop social services and others from dividing and separating our family and causing us further torment.

Words fail. Apparently the Devines, by engaging in anti-racist work, have been "asking for it." When they are attacked, Calgary Social Services steps in to blame them, rather than the bums who assaulted them. Perhaps--I wouldn't be surprised--they also go after the children of rape victims, threatening to apprehend the kids if their mothers insist on wearing "provocative clothing."

No wonder Calgary is the "hate capital of Canada." In what other Canadian city will Social Services line up with neo-Nazis to punish anti-racist activity?

[H/t Anti-Racist Canada]

ADDENDUM: No doubt the Free Dominion conservatives think Devine and his friend attacked themselves. There's never been any doubt, after all, where their sympathies lie.

UPDATE: (November 10) Dr.Dawg, with unprecedented traffic thanks to this post, gets results! Welcome back, kids.

_____________
*Some readers object to this shorthand. The full name of the agency is the Calgary and Area Child and Family Services Authority (CFSA). It comes under the purview of Alberta's Ministry of Children and Youth Services.

Life in Tehran Toronto

As recounted by some ordinary folks--who, post G20, have a somewhat different take on "Serve and Protect" than they once did.

Can't happen here? Already has.

[H/t Let Freedom Reign]

"Ungodly to look at"

That would be the Turkish flag, pictured above.

The management of an Oshawa apartment complex has, for the second year running, ordered a Turkish-born resident to remove the flag from his balcony, where he had placed it to celebrate Republic Day.

Quoth the building manager, one "Diane":

It was a huge red flag in the middle of the living room window, in the middle of the balcony. It was very ungodly to look at."

When Mahmut Bak protested that other residents were permitted to place flags on their balconies, this is what the manager circulated to all residents of the building:

Could you please remove your flag from your balcony. This is a result of asking the person . . . to take his Turkish one down. He is yelling discrimination.

At least one tenant displaying a Canadian flag protested. Two days later, it was all a terrible mistake:

Gerald Ash was asked to take down the small Canadian flag he had affixed to the inside of his balcony with a plastic tie.

“I just had a little one, the kind you fly outside your car. I’ve been here seven and a half months and no one has said squat about it. Now, all of a sudden, some guy puts a Turkish flag up and I have to take mine down. That’s ridiculous,” Ash said.

But now, two days after the memo went out, management says it’s all a big misunderstanding. Erika Bradbury, a senior property manager for Valiant, said the policy has always been that residents cannot make holes in the building exterior to hang any object and that items cannot dangle over the balcony edge.

She sent Ash an email Thursday stating that management “does not, nor has it ever had, anything against properly displayed flags on tenant balconies.”

It’s good news for Ash who’s eager to put his flag back up for Remembrance Day in honour of his great-grandfather who fought in World War I.

Perhaps needless to say, however, Bak has received no such email. Welcome to Stephen Harper's Canada, 2010.

[H/t Emre]

Halifax Security Forum : Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

And not just their nuclear site, but pre-emptive bombing of their navy, their air force, their army.

Political leaders and security and defence officials and generals are in Halifax from November 5 to 7 for the second Halifax International Security Forum, presented by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and hosted by Airshow MacKay. Airshow is credited by GMFUS with having the idea for these annual security conferences.

Attending : Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security; Condoleezza Rice; Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Mark Udall ; Stephen Hadley; Ehud Barak, Minister of Defense, Israel; Amos Gilad, Political-Military Affairs, Israeli Ministry of Defense; Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute; Ron Covais, Lockheed Martin; John Manley, CEO Canadian Council of Chief Executives; Janice Gross Stein, Munk School of Global Affairs; Walter Natynczyk, Chief of Defence Staff; Mark Carney, Governor Bank of Canada; Vic Toews.

I just watched a panel with US Senators Mark Udall and Lindsey Graham, and Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute - introduced by John McCain and moderated by the CBC's Susan Bonner.

Here's Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Budget, Armed Forces, and Homeland Security committees, supporting pre-emptive bombing of Iran [at half-hour mark]:

"Republicans are looking for a way to support Obama on Iraq and Iran.

My big fear about the Iranians developing a nuclear weapon is not so much they'll put it on top of a missile and send it to Israel, is that those materials can work their way into the hands of people who would use them in a variety of fashion.
The one thing that changes the world as I know it is Iran with a nuclear weapon.
The consequences are enormous, the idea of containment to me is off the table, so that takes us back to the idea of being tough.

And if you use military force, if sanctions are not gonna work - and a year from now it's pretty clear they're not gonna work, [inaudible] what our friends in Israel are gonna do - so I would like the President to make it abundantly clear : all options are on the table. And we all know what that means. My advice to the President : If you take military action against Iran as the last effort to stop their nuclear ambitions, you do open up Pandora's box but if you let them acquire nuclear weapons, you empty Pandora's box.

So my view of military force would be not to just neutralize their nuclear program, which would probably disperse and harden, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force, and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard.

In other words - neuter that regime, destroy their ability to fight back, and hope the people within Iran would have the chance to take back their government and be good neighbours to the world in the future. So that's what I mean by being tough."

Democratic Senator Udall did not entirely disagree but remained hopeful that sanctions will work : "This may be Agenda Item #1 for every person in this room."

Later, Graham explained that NATO's place at the table is all about "values".
Unfortunately the panel ended before he could get around to discussing precious bodily fluids.

Good God, how low can the Con government go?

Seriously.

Blacklisting Sisters in Spirit, who made the rest of the country aware of hundreds of missing Aboriginal women? Giving the money to--the RCMP, who sat on their thumbs for years, when they weren't terrorizing Aboriginal communities?

What a miserable gang of racist goofs the Cons are. There really is no other way to put it.

NS cross-burning: the Right in disarray

Canadian conservatives don't quite know what to make of the hate-crime conviction of Justin Rehberg--if the thundering silence at Blogging Tories is any indication. Even the Speech Warriors™ appear to have been struck dumb by the case, whether out of sympathy for Rehberg or embarrassment at where their ideology insists on taking them. Or perhaps they're just out of breath from cheering Keith Olbermann's ouster. Yes, let's be generous--perhaps that's it.

But all this may change shortly. An intrepid reporter for DawgNews was recently privy to a wide-ranging conversation among anxious peons at Conservative Talking-Points Central who were discussing the appropriate spin. Here is the transcript of their off-the-record (hah!) discussion:

First voice: I think we need to come out swinging on this one. Branded a hate criminal for exercising freedom of expression? Come on.

Second voice: We can't be that obvious--people will call us racists.

Third voice: So what? They're even using the n-word over at Free Dominion now.

F&SV: Shhh!

SV: Let's try a different approach. These were just young kids, having some fun that might have gotten a little out of hand. It's not like anyone was physically injured. Just some hurt feelings and a lot of "what-ifs" from a liberal prosecutor.

FV: Yup. No one rounded up those Legionnaires.

TV: Frankly I found that one funny as hell.

FV: Me too. But back to business. We can't call what those kids did "fun" or we'll open a real can of worms. Thing is, they burned a cross on the lawn of a mixed-race couple. It's bad optics all round.

SV: Hey, that's it! We can strike a blow against property crime, with this as a prime example. They were trespassing. They lit a fire that could have spread. On somebody else's front lawn. Just another reason we need to build more prisons. Crime is rising!

TV: And another reason why we don't need hate legislation.

FV: Fine, so we have our points in order. If the base starts going on about free expression, we can always say there'd be no problemo if they'd burned the cross on their own lawn.

TV: OK, I'll send a note up to Dimitri.

Hassan Diab: next stop on the railroad?

Hassan Diab's formal extradition hearing begins on Monday.

I have blogged about this shameful case before. Diab, accused of bombing a synagogue in France three decades ago, is up against a prosecutor who has successfully entered suspect new handwriting "evidence" as his case fell apart, and who opposed Diab's right to defend himself against it. He also faces a clearly partial judge who allowed that evidence in, who has permitted delay after unreasonable delay in the process, and has refused to ease Diab's onerous and costly bail conditions.

Diab's lawyer is fed up with this unCanadian way of doing things, and has filed a lengthy factum alleging abuse of process. Highlights may be found here. Take the time to read the document.

We shall see what happens on Monday with this application to toss the case. I hope I shall be forgiven for being pessimistic as the mills of the state grind on, crushing ever more Canadians with funny names.

More right-wing stupidity

Check out the photo, and then the oh-so-manly commentary here. Dear readers, when you flinch, do you move towards whatever it is you are flinching from?

Spectator Obama is obviously "in the action." Only a brain-dead conservative blogger (apologies for the tautology) could imagine otherwise.

Needless to say, the Blogging Champion of Delisle and her scabrous commenters are all over this one.

Mirror of the future

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
--George Orwell

Take a good look at the picture above. It could be you.

Two BC police officers beat this man, Yao Wei Wu, bloody. The matter was "investigated," and police have now cleared the police of wrongdoing.

Wu was innocent of any crime--indeed, the case was one of "mistaken identity." No one seems to be asking the obvious follow-up question: would this have been acceptable if no mistaken identity issue had been involved?

The police officers were allowed nearly four months to get their stories straight. The "investigation" itself took nine months. Wu's lawyer, Cameron Ward, called the process a "farce."

I disagree. It was more like a tragedy without catharsis.

In other news, Chief William Blair, who oversaw (if that's the correct word) the G20 police riot in Toronto, is now planning to take stern and decisive action against 90 or so police officers who removed their nametags during their attacks on ordinary citizens. Looks like some of them might lose a day's pay over it.

Blair referred to the illegal mass arrests as "preventative detention" before the House of Commons public safety committee yesterday. By all accounts he was given a pleasant reception there by the Librocons.

This is what police unaccountability looks like.

Take another look at the picture.

[H/t pogge]

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit on the job

...turning a professional blind eye to flagrant police abuse. A few examples, courtesy of the Toronto Star:

• A grandmother is run over and killed by a recklessly-driving cop. Cleared by the SIU, no charges, but he's fined $500 under the Police Act. Another cop runs over two teenagers in a park. He, too, is exonerated by the SIU.
  
  
• Two cops shoot a camper preparing his supper. Synchronized notes + SIU incompetence = no charges.
  
  
• SIU clears a police officer of wrong-doing after he breaks a handcuffed suspect's jaw in two places. A judge expresses shock and throws out the case against the suspect.
  
  
• A slightly-built chartered accountant is pulled over for an expired licence sticker--and a cop breaks his arm. The officer leaves his victim by the road, saying he was lucky he didn't get worse. The SIU clears the officers involved.
  
  
• An officer shoots dead a man approaching her armed with a plastic lawnchair. She gets a pass from the SIU.
  

As I noted in an earlier post, police in Ontario have been free for some time to assault and even kill ordinary citizens with impunity. The SIU can be counted upon to sit on their thumbs. Could the G20 police rampage a few months ago be seen as the inevitable result, at least in part, of the unwillingness of this "watchdog" to make police officers accountable for their actions?

UPDATE: And the societal sickness of police impunity is not, by any means, confined to Ontario. Not by a long shot.