By Project Fly Home, March 23, 2010
This is the March Call to Action in Project Fly Home’s six-month campaign leading up to the first anniversary of Abdelrazik’s return to Canada. Video and audio from February events are included below.
This six-month campaign demands that Canada:
– immediately free Abdelrazik from the sanctions imposed on him under the 1267 regime;
– put pressure on members of the 1267 committee to delist Abdelrazik; and
– pull out of the 1267 regime.
THIS MONTH, PROJECT FLY HOME ASKS ALL SUPPORTERS TO:
1. Join the postcard campaign: send a postcard yourself and distribute postcards to others in your networks.
-> To order postcards, email us at projectflyhome@gmail.com
-> Download postcards and flyers for the campaign here: www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik
2. Publish articles related to the campaign in local, campus and alternative media.
-> Backgrounder on 1267 list: www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik/1267.php
-> Get in touch with us for ideas for articles and information on how to get published: projectflyhome@gmail.com
Please don’t forget to send us your published articles.
CHECK OUT AUDIO AND VIDEO FROM FEBRUARY EVENTS:
1. BLACKlisted Then and Now: Linking Histories of Racism and National Security in Montreal (Montreal, 24 February 2010):
Project Fly Home and the Alfie Roberts Institute organized an excellent panel discussion for Black History Month featuring David Austin of the Alfie Roberts Institute, Khalid Elgazzar (legal counsel for Abousfian Abdelrazik) and Maria Forti of Project Fly Home. Austin described how black organisers working in Montreal in the 1970s had been put under surveillance for political reasons and later infiltrated by an RCMP officer who incited violence. When this and other RCMP abuses became public, it sparked a public outcry which lead to the creation of CSIS.
-> Listen to audio: www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/40800
2. Special session of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs (Ottawa, 3 February 2010)
Abdelrazik was invited to testify before the Foreign Affairs Standing Committee in Federal Parliament about life under the 1267 list. Abdelrazik explained that the listing had been used to delay his return to Canada for four years and described how it had affected his daily life since he returned to Canada; for example the Royal Bank of Canada refused to open a bank account for him on the grounds that he is on the 1267 list. Amir Attaran, a law professor at Ottawa University, also testified as an expert on the 1267 regime. He argued that describing it as an unjust legal regime is to give it undue legitimacy – it is best understood as a diplomatic regime which serves political purposes. Attaran called on the government to immediately repeal domestic regulations implementing 1267 in Canada.
-> Watch video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxZTmzrJlM
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik
TO GET INVOLVED WITH PROJECT FLY HOME IN MONTREAL:
projectflyhome@gmail.com
—————–
Project Fly Home
(an initiative of the People’s Commission Network)
projectflyhome@gmail.com
www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik
To add your organization to the list of groups endorsing Project Fly Home’s six demands, please read the sign-on statement
www.peoplescommission.org/files/abousfianMedia/ProjectFlyHomeSignOn.pdf and email your organization’s name in English and French to projectflyhome@gmail.com.