RE:Posting by "Anonymous"
This meeting was never projected as a formal membership meeting but as a meeting for members and all concerned people as the last line indicates. I acknowledge that terming it a membership meeting is technically wrong according to the by-laws. However to claim the minimum donation for membership is #50 is not correct as this is a matter under dispute.
Catherine Holliday Date: 14 April 2009
INVITATION
We are pleased to invite you to a meeting/group-discussion on the current political situation in Pakistan
Addressed by:
ABID HASAN MINTO (President Pakistan National Workers Party, Convener Awami Jamhoori Tehreek Pakistan, Working Class, Human & democratic Rights Campaigner, Former President Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association, Lahore High Court Bar Association)
Presided by:
Prof. Mohammad Amin Mughal (Writer, Journalist, Critic & Human Rights Campaigner)
There will be time for questions & contribution from the floor
FRIDAY 17 APRIL 2009
5.00 pm to 9.00 pm
Venue: DELTA CLUB. 241 High Street Walthamstow London E17 7BH (Opposite Walthamstow Central Underground Station. Victoria Line.)
Contact: Munib Anwar at 07787 764 591. munibanwar@googlemail.com
Tanveer Khan at 07957 546 139 and Asim Shah at 07868 745 405
CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRATIC PAKISTAN
75 Hoe Street Walthamstow London E17 4SA
On Friday morning, members of Migrante Ontario were awakened to the arrest of one of their relatives in Simcoe County. They called a lawyer, word passed through the grape vine and phones started ringing in the pockets of No One Is Illegal-Toronto's Immigration and Legal Committee members. The evening before an organizer from Justicia for Migrant Workers, also a long time student leader, had a meeting with someone from NOII-Toronto. Though the Justicia organizer had heard startling news about arrests that day in Leamington and Windsor, neither of them knew about the Simcoe raid.
On Friday morning, members of Migrante Ontario were awakened to the arrest of one of their relatives in Simcoe County. They called a lawyer, word passed through the grape vine and phones started ringing in the pockets of No One Is Illegal-Toronto's Immigration and Legal Committee members. The evening before an organizer from Justicia for Migrant Workers, also a long time student leader, had a meeting with someone from NOII-Toronto. Though the Justicia organizer had heard startling news about arrests that day in Leamington and Windsor, neither of them knew about the Simcoe raid.
By Friday afternoon, word spread, links were made and people from the three organizations started calling everyone they knew. The largest US style raid in recent Canadian history had happened. Reports arrived that homes had also been raided. Where a worker wasn't found, all their belongings were confiscated. The first news story reported the South Simcoe Police Chief saying "There are many things that go on that would keep people up at night". The CBSA missive read "The Government of Canada continues to take these issues very seriously and remains committed to ensuring the safety and security of our communities." Many of us suddenly found ourselves outside the Government of Canada's communities. Or of at least its enforcement arm.
A day later 150 people held an emergency action at the Immigration Detention Center, a report of which can be found here: rabble.ca/news.
I am writing to bring you up to date on these events because they have not really been covered in the media. I am sure you take offense to the fact that a piece of paper can turn a father, a husband, a musician, a lawyer, a farmer or a worker in to a 'criminal'? I am sure you are upset about how a a piece of paper can determine that our communities very presence would, to quote the Police Chief, keep everyone else 'up at night'? I am sure you will agree that people who grow food, pack vegetables, catch chickens, live, play and shop in Ontario are newcomers and immigrants in every sense of the word.
Many of the temporary workers who were arrested had other work permits, other residency permits. In essence, they held some immigration documents. Thus, the CBSA missive does not read the details of the arrest. All this shady, unknown, little agency says is that anyone it defines in violation of its policies 'may be deemed inadmissible to Canada and may be deported from Canada.' It does these deportations by coercing the detained to sign waivers that will allow their removal instead of allowing them to appeal as is due process. Thus 40, a little under half of those brutally arrested in the raids are being quietly and illegally deported.
There is a community meeting planned in the coming week, details of which will be released shortly, that I'm hoping you and other colleagues can attend. It is essential that people working in our communities without full immigration documentation know that this is taking place and have access to the Know Your Rights document on the No One Is Illegal - Toronto website.
Feel free to share this information broadly.
Hussan, hussan@gmail.com
...
----
Your reference to the dances of Lanka as 'devil' in your April 11 article, is both quaint and quack, though as you say of things other on the island, perhaps due to forces foreign yet 'hegemonic.'
These are dances to ancestors and it is only the colonially nonplussed who refer to them as such. Though perhaps, out there in the Pacific, alienated from Hawaiian reality yourselves (the one that cooked Captain Cook), you may feel marooned from creative human concourse.
I may refer you to Princeton's pensioned Professor of Anthro(a) pology, Gananath Obeysekera, who could perhaps enlighten you otherwise, or even your own (long departed) Mary Foster, who was intimate with the Buddhist revival in our country via the Anagarika Dharmapala.
Perhaps they may help you exorcise yoself of such hooey. The only devils on that island appeared after 1505, and more particularly, after 1795.
Yours truly, Yakkho (aka Devil, formerly 'Ancestor')
View the article published by Honolulu Weekly: honoluluweekly.com/hotpicks
...
April 13th, 1919 is considered and remembered as one of the most depressing and brutal event in the history of Indo-Pak subcontinent when the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) took place in a culturally rich, holy city of Amritsar, Indian Punjab. That brutal massacre involved the killing of hundreds of unarmed, defenseless Indians men, women and children by a senior British military officer, Brigadier-General Reginald E.H. Dyer.The troops commanded by him, immediately upon entering the Bagh (Garden) opened fire without the slightest warning to the crowd to disperse and concentrating especially on the areas where the crowd was thickest.
The firing started at 17:15 and lasted for about ten to fifteen minutes. The Bagh, or garden, was bounded on all sides by brick walls and buildings and had only five narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. Since there was only one exit except for the one already manned by the troops, people desperately tried to climb the walls of the park. Some also jumped into a well inside the compound to escape the bullets.
It was determined that 1,650 rounds had plowed into the crowd of about 10,000 people and later it was officially announced by British Govt. that The killing of 379 Indians including 337 men & women, 41 young boys and a six-week-old baby and wounding of 1,200 (although the actual figure was almost certainly much higher) The wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew had been declared. It was a Sunday, and many neighboring village peasants with others thousands of people arrived there from various corner of the country and gathered in Jallianwala Bagh (Garden) to raise voice against the injustice that was being poured on to the people of Indian Punjab by the British Government beside to celebrate the most significant cultural, sacred and secular festival of Vaisakhi.
Like many places where great injustice has taken place, Jallianwala Bagh became a place of pilgrimage, reflection, and a symbol of what the victims stood for (or against). On 13 April 1961, the 42nd anniversary of the massacre, it was inaugurated as a memorial with a 30 foot four-sided pylon called the "Flame of Liberty." Upon each face is inscribed " In memory of the martyrs, 13 April 1919" in four languages: Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi and English.
In remembrance of that great sacrifice and in memory of innocent victims, Fraser Valley Peace Council and Taraksheel society of Canada jointly arranged a candlelight Vigil in Surrey. This event was also endorsed by renowned broadcaster and columnist Gurpreet Singh and rest of the team and management of Radio India.
Shahzad Nazir Khan Fraser Valley Peace Council. 604-613-0735
For immediate release: April 9, 2009
CKLN 88.1 is a campus/community radio station broadcasting from Ryerson University and in operation since 1983. For 25 years this alternative media outlet has served as a key point for dissemination of independent and grassroots news, views, music and culture. It has provided a rare voice for marginalized communities in Canada and internationally.
It is now over a year that CKLN has been without a functioning Board of Directors or proper management. In February of 2008, due to oppressive behaviour of the Board and management at that time, which saw the beginning of unjust dismissals of volunteer programmers and technical staff, a Special Membership Meeting was held which elected the non-student members of a new board. That legitimate new board was never allowed to take over management of the station. The situation in the station deteriorated to the point where CKLN is now virtually dead after a year-long, bitter struggle by members and supporters against a corporate takeover which ran the station into the ground. Currently the station is sporadically broadcasting recorded programs or dead air. Only two people are authorized to enter to put old recorded material on the airwaves.
Within the past year organizational and structural changes have been initiated which have been non-inclusive, non-transparent and in violation of the governing by-laws and of the mandate of CKLN to provide “a forum for historical contextualization and development of musical, artistic and other cultural expressions, along with socially progressive ideas which arise from communities…which are politically and economically disadvantaged and whose access to public communications and media is thereby limited.”
Within the last year 67 staff and volunteers have been forced out of the station. Some programmers and volunteers had more than a decade of service at CKLN.
This is a crucial turning point in the fight to save CKLN so that we do not lose forever one of the unique voices for social justice in Canada.
There will be a CKLN Membership meeting to update on the current legal actions which are in progress and to decide on strategies to solve the crisis.
Tuesday April 14th 2009 from 6-8pm
519 Church St, Room 322
All concerned members (staff, volunteer, community, student) and supporters welcome.
From: Catherine Holliday catherine.holliday@utoronto.ca
Posts
All Comments
