If There Is a Free-Speech ‘Crisis’ on Campus, PEN America Says, Lawmakers Are Making It Worse

2019/04/05 Leave a comment

Good balanced commentary:

Free speech is being tested on college campuses by rising numbers of hate crimes and deepening racial tensions, according to a report released today by PEN America, a human-rights association of writers and editors. But the Trump administration’s warnings of a “crisis” overstate the problem, it says, and risk further polarizing colleges.

The 100-page report, “Chasm in the Classroom: Campus Free Speech in a Divided America,” finds that threats to speech are coming from both the right and the left. Lawmakers at state and federal levels are, in many cases, making the problem worse by raising “politicized and one-sided alarms over the state of free speech” on campuses, it says.

The association examined 100 speech-related controversies that have broken out in recent years. Often, the authors found, the battles reflected tensions between free speech and the goals of equality and inclusion.

The campus confrontations grabbed the biggest headlines in 2017, “but the intermittent earthquakes of the past few years have been replaced by a near constant — if less sensational — rumble” as colleges work to fend crises off before they erupt, the report says.

Its release comes less than two weeks after President Trump’s executive order threatening to cut off federal research money to colleges that fail to uphold free speech.

Over the weekend, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, speaking at a Harvard Law School symposium, doubled down on that threat.

Jesse Panuccio, principal deputy associate attorney general, warned of a “free-speech crisis” on college campuses, citing specific examples of speech codes, free-speech zones, and “heckler’s vetoes” that he considers First Amendment violations.

“The very core of university life — open debate among scholars and students — is under attack,” he concluded.

The Trump administration has filed statements of interest in five free-speech-related lawsuits, against the University of California at Berkeley, Los Angeles Pierce College, Georgia Gwinnett College, the University of Michigan, and the University of Iowa. Panuccio warned that more challenges would be coming.

Efforts to legislate free-speech protection represent to many an unwelcome intrusion into colleges’ affairs. But campuses aren’t the only places where these battles are being waged.

“Far from taking place in isolation behind ivy-covered walls, today’s campus free-speech controversies are inextricable from the social and political upheaval of this historical moment,” PEN America’s chief executive officer, Suzanne Nossel, said in a statement accompanying the report.

“While we have never thought that there was a crisis per se when it comes to campus speech, there are legitimate concerns about ideas and viewpoints that have become hard to voice amid a climate of intense ideological rancor,” she wrote. “While President Trump has spotlighted threats to speech emanating from the left, our analysis reveals that intolerance of opposing views cuts across the political spectrum.”

The national debate over free speech on campus has become, in the Trump era, “a deeply partisan feud, with each side trying to catch the other in transgressive acts that can be amplified to rile up the faithful,” the report says.

One such skirmish broke out last week, when safety concerns prompted Beloit College to cancel a lecture by Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, a private security company whose employees were implicated in the 2007 deaths of Iraqi civilians.

The event, hosted by the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative student group, was called off after protesters pounded on drums and piled chairs onto the stage where Prince was to speak.

Prince, who is the brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, suggested to the Beloit Daily News that a lawsuit may be coming. “It’s sad the president and the administration of this college lacked the moral courage to enforce free speech and to defend free speech,” he said. “Fortunately, President Trump will defend free speech, and I think the college will be hearing from the court soon on this, because enough is enough.”

Beloit released a statement saying that it had acted out of concern for student safety, and that the protesters’ actions jeopardized the college’s commitment to open dialogue. “Tonight’s events fell unacceptably short of this core principle, and we condemn the behavior of those who disrupted the event,” it said. “The college will begin an investigation immediately.”

The college also posted an explanation of why it had allowed Prince to speak but then canceled the lecture.

Nossel said it was unfortunate that Beloit couldn’t find a way to allow Prince to talk by changing the venue or finding some other nonviolent way to keep protesters from interfering. “While students were absolutely within their rights to object to Prince and his message, they should have done so without impairing his free-speech rights and those of those who chose to listen to him,” she wrote in an email to The Chronicle.

Free Speech as ‘the Bedrock’

PEN America expressed worry about a tendency among some students to view free-speech protections as a cover for bigotry. Given the natural outrage some feel when a white supremacist or someone they consider a war criminal is allowed to speak on campus, the group says, it is important to ensure that students appreciate the importance of free speech “as the bedrock of an open, democratic, and equitable society.”

Leading up to the report’s release, the researchers invited groups of students, faculty members, administrators, and others for face-to-face discussions on four campuses that have been flashpoints for free-speech controversies: the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Virginia, Middlebury College, and the University of Maryland at College Park.

Among the key conclusions they came away with:

Colleges are seeing more incidents of hateful expression and intimidation.

The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that the number of hate groups nationwide grew from 917 in 2016 to 1,020 in 2018, the report notes. College administrators are struggling to respond in ways that balance the goals of free speech and inclusion.

Faculty members are the targets of outrage campaigns from both left and right, causing serious threats to academic freedom.

The Justice Department is raising politicized alarms over the state of free speech. Similar one-sided attacks are happening at the state level as lawmakers seek to legislate free-speech protections.

Even Trump has acknowledged that statements by officials of his own administration about a free-speech crisis are “overblown.”

Professional provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer have faded from the scene, but they’ve left an impact on the campuses they visited. Along with more-robust security measures, colleges have had to overhaul how they communicate with students before, during, and after a free-speech controversy.

The PEN America report includes updated guidelines for students, faculty members, and administrators on how to navigate campus controversies in ways that protect free speech while making diverse students feel welcome and supported.

When someone has been offended by a racist remark or sign, the immediate aftermath might not be the best time for a lecture about free speech, the group says. Administrators should condemn hate speech and reach out to those who are hurt by it. They should also make sure that the rights of both speakers and protesters are protected.

The report mentions a bridge that crosses the Mississippi River to link two sides of the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus. Every fall, students paint the panels of the pedestrian walkway to showcase their clubs. When College Republicans in 2016 wrote “Build the Wall,” the message was soon graffitied over by “Stop White Supremacy.” Protests erupted over what should be allowed as free speech or condemned as hate speech.

“The controversy over one bridge is instructive,” the report says, “because it highlights how campuses have become a proxy for national political and social conflicts writ large in which speech has taken on great significance, and in which neither side is willing to cede an inch — or a mural — to the other.”

Source: https://www.chronicle.com/article/If-There-Is-a-Free-Speech/246031?cid=wcontentlist_hp_latest

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Daphne Bramham: Concerns raised about Chinese interference in Canada’s fall election

2019/04/05 Leave a comment

Of note:

Ivy Li worries that the Chinese Communist Party might be able to affect the outcome of Canada’s fall election using a campaign of disinformation and by silencing critics.

Li is not alone. Li helped organize a recent dialogue that featured Jonathan Manthorpe, author of the best-selling book, The Claws of the Panda: Beijing’s Campaign of Influence and Intimidation in Canada, where she and others talked about their fears and experiences.

Last week, Reporters Sans Frontieres noted its own concerns in a report titled China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order.

In his book, Manthorpe — the former Vancouver Sun Asia correspondent and foreign affairs columnist — writes that Canada has become “a battleground on which the Chinese Communist Party seeks to terrorize, humiliate and neuter its opponents.”

It is “a war of intimidation and harassment” that seeks to smother, silence or discredit dissenters, especially those from “the Five Poisonous Groups — advocates of independence for Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan, promoters of democracy in China, and adherents of Falun Gong.”

Manthorpe documents how Chinese-language publications in Canada have muzzled and fired journalists and how wealthy Chinese-Canadians with business ties to China and organizations linked to the Chinese government’s United Front have been involved with candidates from various parties in past elections.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a single journalist from the Chinese-language media at the speaking event organized by Friends of Hong Kong and the Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement.

Only one Chinese media representative responded to organizer Fenella Sung’s invitation. But that journalist declined to come. Why? The journalist was leaving soon for China.

Sung noted that the challenges faced by Chinese-Canadians are real because of family and business ties that they may have to China and the fact that the communist party and the Chinese government regard the overseas diaspora as a bloc.

But she said, “We are in Canada. We don’t have to abide by community norms. Here, it’s okay and normal to think differently. … We have to stick to our own values and principles.”

Yet, as both Manthorpe and Reporters Sans Frontieres note, the Chinese government has made substantial investments in international TV broadcasting, foreign media outlets, advertising, and junkets for foreign journalists and politicians. It has embedded the Confucius Institute in schools and universities.

As for social media, the Reporters Sans Frontieres report calls it the new battleground where disinformation is spread by an army of paid and unpaid trolls on the government-linked messaging service WeChat and on micro-blogging sites.

While disinformation campaigns have mainly been directed at Taiwan and Singapore, Reporters Sans Frontieres says WeChat is increasingly being used to spread fake news in Canada and the United States.

In Canada, WeChat initially censored news of the December arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver pending extradition to the United States on fraud charges.

The report says the Chinese government’s expansion into media “poses a direct threat not only to the media but also to democracies.” It goes on to say that unless democracies resist, Chinese citizens will lose all hope of ever seeing press freedom in their country.

And it warns, “Chinese-style propaganda will increasingly compete with journalism outside China, thereby threatening the ability of citizens everywhere to freely choose their destiny.”

Li echoed those fears.

“We can’t succumb to intimidation,” she said. “The more we do it — especially those who are in the Chinese-Canadian media — the more we play into the hands of the (Chinese Communist Party). If we toe the line, we become silent partners of the (party).”

Others spoke about being torn between the country they have chosen and the country where they were born. They talked about fearing reprisals against family they have left behind or the businesses they are running, if they are critical of the Chinese government.

As one of the organizers, Li spoke last. She urged Chinese-Canadians to speak up in support of non-Chinese critics when Chinese officials and their supporters try to silence them with accusations of racism.

In December, China’s ambassador in Ottawa, Lu Shaye, accused Canada and Canadians of “white supremacy” in response to Ottawa’s request for the release of two Canadians detained without charges and held in an unknown location in retaliation for Meng’s arrest.

It was intended as a slap in the face to all Canadians. Instead, it serves as an ironic reminder that everyone in this country has the right to speak openly and critically without fear of reprisal, even if they don’t have diplomatic immunity.

Freedom and democracy is why Li chose Canada and why she urged Chinese-Canadians to be “the leading force to counter (Chinese Communist Party) campaigns of influence and intimidation.”

“Are we protecting the things that we came here for? That’s our responsibility as immigrants,” she said. “Because if we endanger those things, it’s not fair to Canada. And it’s not fair to ourselves.”

Source: Daphne Bramham: Concerns raised about Chinese interference in Canada’s fall election

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New report suggests visas for skilled immigrants to struggling U.S. counties

2019/04/05 Leave a comment

Some similarities with Canada in terms of the Provincial Nominee Program, the Atlantic Immigration Pilot, and the recently announced Northern and Rural Immigration Pilot. Hard to see it going anywhere under the current anti-immigration environment:

The U.S. already has a special visa to attract foreign doctors to treat rural Americans — now a new report suggests expanding that to all skilled immigrants who’d be willing to settle in areas facing long-term demographic problems.

Why it matters: “Migration out of struggling areas has become skill-biased,” according to a new report released by the Economic Innovation Group.

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  • “Someone with a professional or graduate degree is twice as likely to move states as a high school graduate.”
  • “For every one college graduate that the fastest shrinking counties add, the fastest growing add two.”
  • “By 2037, 67% of U.S. counties will contain fewer prime working age adults than they did in 1997.”

The big picture: “At the national level, slower growth in America’s working-age population is a major reason that mainstream forecasters now expect the economy to expand around 2 percent each year rather than the 3 percent common in the second half of the 20th century,” the N.Y. Times’ Neil Irwin notes.

The EIG’s set of principles for a heartland visa:

  1. Communities must “opt in”: Towns or counties that don’t want to participate shouldn’t be forced to join.
  2. Distressed areas first: The program “should be targeted to places confronting chronic population stagnation or loss.”
  3. No work restrictions: Visa holders should be allowed to compete in the labor market, as long as they stay in a specific geographic area.
  4. This should be a path to a green card: “The prospect of permanent residency … should provide an extremely strong incentive for compliance.”
  5. Adding to, not replacing, existing skilled visas: “The scheme would therefore need to be accompanied by a commensurate increase to the green card cap.”

The bottom line: This is somewhat of a moot point during the Trump presidency, which has sought to curb immigration levels. But as the U.S. faces further demographic decline, this is one option for lawmakers trying to help the areas hurting the most.

Source: New report suggests visas for skilled immigrants to struggling U.S. counties

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Pope Francis: God merely ‘permits’ Islam

2019/04/05 Leave a comment

Hard to see the debate over “willed” or “permitted” having any material effect apart from theological debates:

Pope Francis has further clarified his controversial statement issued in Abu Dhabi, in which he appeared to state that God “wills” the existence of many religions.

This appears to contrast with the traditional doctrine of the Catholic Church, which teaches, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, that the “one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men.”

The informal clarification came at today’s general audience, as the Pope reflected on his recent trip to Muslim-majority Morocco. In unscripted remarks, he said to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square:

But some may wonder: but why does the Pope go visit the Muslims and not only the Catholics? Because there are so many religions, and why are there so many religions? With the Muslims we are descendants of the same Father, Abraham: why does God allow so many religions to exist? God wanted to allow this: the Scholastic theologians referred to the voluntas permissiva [permissive will] of God. He willed to permit this reality: there are many religions; some are born of culture, but they always look to heaven, they look to God. But what God does will is fraternity among us, and in a special way — hence the reason for this journey — with our brothers, who are sons of Abraham, like us, the Muslims. We must not be afraid of the difference: God has permitted this. We ought to be frightened if we do not work in fraternity, to walk together in life.

The Feb. 4 statement incited controversy among Christians for asserting that “the pluralism and the diversity of religions” — like the diversity of “color, sex, race and language” — are “willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings” — a claim many believe to be contrary to the Catholic faith.

Some critics argued the Pope’s statement seemed not only to “overturn the doctrine of the Gospel” but also to align with the ideas of Freemasonry.

Observers pointed out that the potential for confusion was compounded by the fact that both Al-Azhar and the Catholic Church asked in the document that it “become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities and institutes of formation.”

To remedy the confusion arising from the statement, four days later Bishop Athanasius Schneider issued a statement on uniqueness of faith in Jesus Christ. Three weeks after that, at a Mar. 1 ad limina meeting of the bishops of Kazakhstan and Central Asia with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Bishop Schneider privately obtained from Pope Francis a clarification that God only permits but does not positively will a “diversity of religions.”

The Pope explicitly stated that Schneider could share the contents of their exchange on this point. “You can say that the phrase in question on the diversity of religions means the permissive will of God,” he told the assembled bishops, who come from predominantly Muslim regions.

Bishop Schneider in turn asked the Pope officially to clarify the statement in the Abu Dhabi document.

In light of the Abu Dhabi statement and today’s informal clarification from Pope Francis, LifeSite spoke with Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission and former chief of staff for the U.S. Bishops’ committee on doctrine, about the controversy.

In 2017, Fr. Weinandy wrote a letter to Pope Francis (which was subsequently made public) saying his pontificate is marked by “chronic confusion” and warning that teaching with a “seemingly intentional lack of clarity risks sinning against the Holy Spirit.”

In our interview with the Fr. Weinandy on the Abu Dhabi statement, he identifies what he believes is its most problematic element, and offers his perspective on both on the Pope’s private clarification to Bishop Schneider and his public remarks at this week’s general audience.

Fr. Weinandy says while he believes Pope Francis is motivated by a “noble desire” to “foster mutual understanding” and “undercut some Islamic factions that foster terrorism,” his signing the Abu Dhabi statement “has doctrinal consequences well beyond what he may have envisioned or desired.”

“What I find very sad and scandalously troubling” he added, “is that, in the midst of it all, Jesus is being insulted. He is reduced to the level of Buddha or Mohammed when in fact he is the Father’s beloved Messianic Son, the one in whom the Father is well pleased.”

…

Source: Pope Francis: God merely ‘permits’ Islam

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DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen to Tucker Carlson: Getting Rid of Birthright Citizenship Is ‘on the Table’

2019/04/05 Leave a comment

Reality will eventually catch up with virtue signalling given the 14th amendment:

Hours after President Trump declared he would “100 percent” close America’s southern border if he can’t make a deal with Congress on border security and immigration, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that eliminating birthright citizenship is “on the table” as a way to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants and asylum-seeking migrants.

Nielsen, who recently requested additional resources from Congress as border officials aim to quadruple the number of deportations of asylum seekers, appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Tuesday evening to discuss the influx of Central American migrants at the southern border, and Carlson immediately began grilling her about what the administration was doing to “fix this.”

At times, it even seemed as if the Fox News host might be gunning for Nielsen’s job as he bombarded her with his own proposed solutions to the border crisis.

What about punishing employers “who are setting the bait in this trap, who are encouraging illegal aliens to come into this country?” he asked. (Interestingly, the president’s own businesses allegedly employed numerous undocumented workers—until they were caught by the press.)

“That is part of the problem,” Nielsen said, adding that steps are already being taken to address just that issue. “We’re looking to do everything we can throughout the system to apply penalties where we can,” she said.

Carlson was not satisfied with that answer. “Well how bout this, why wouldn’t your agency write an executive order, present it to the president, have him sign it and do it tomorrow?”

Nielsen went on to argue that “there’s a debate in Congress” regarding the executive branch on implementing an order like that, prompting Carlson to blast Congress while advocating for more direct executive actions.

“It looks like Congress is not going to act because one party has a vested interest in changing the population and the other party is, in effect, controlled by people who want illegal immigration,” Carlson asserted. “So would there be a downside for the president to act unilaterally on that question or, for example, birthright citizenship? Would you be willing to draft an executive order eliminating birthright citizenship?”

The Homeland Security chief responded that Trump has been clear that it is “all on the table” and he’s serious about shutting down the border.

“Yes, everything is on the table,” she reiterated.

Carlson, after noting that “things seem less under control now” at the border than before Trump was elected, asked later in the interview if the administration would send the military to the border since “it’s really a crisis of that magnitude.”

Nielsen said they “are looking into that” and have sent a request to the Department of Defense, causing Carlson to ask who is in charge and if it would be possible for the commander-in-chief to move “troops to the border tomorrow.”

Source: DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen to Tucker Carlson: Getting Rid of Birthright Citizenship Is ‘on the Table’

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‘Birth tourism’ case presents quandary for parents after break-up: to settle their custody dispute in Canada or China?

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

Another wrinkle when families fall apart:

In 2015, a Chinese couple expecting a child wanted their son to have Canadian citizenship. They arranged to give birth in Richmond, B.C.

What they didn’t anticipate was the legal and jurisdictional quagmire this “birth tourism” arrangement would create when they broke up. At issue: where to settle their custody dispute? In a Canadian courtroom or a Chinese one?

Their years-long court battle — at a time when some critics are pushing the federal government to do away with birthright citizenship altogether — was only settled recently when B.C.’s highest court upheld a ruling that the parent’s custody battle should be dealt with in China even though the boy, now 3, was born in Canada.

Alina Chekh, a Vancouver family lawyer who has been monitoring the case, said while she sees a lot of jurisdictional questions arise in family disputes, it’s the first one she’s seen in the context of a birth tourism case. Parents, she said, should not interpret the outcome of this case as indicative of a trend of judges punting cases to other jurisdictions.

“If you look at the facts of the case, this case is very unique. This won’t apply to every baby in Canada,” she said.

According to court records, the father, who has permanent resident status in Canada, was said to split his time between China and Canada. In September 2015, records show, the mother flew to Canada on a visitor’s visa a couple months before her due date. She and her partner acknowledged this was a “birth-tourism arrangement.”

(The National Post is withholding the names of the parents as the B.C. Provincial Court Act prohibits the identification of a child or party to a family matter before the court.)

Their son was born that November in Richmond, B.C., often dubbed the “epicentre” of Canada’s birth tourism industry. According to Vancouver Coastal Health, during the 2017-18 fiscal year 474 babies were born to non-residents in the Vancouver suburb, representing 22 per cent of all babies born there in that period.

After spending six months in Canada, the trio returned to China in May 2016. At some point, the relationship between the unmarried couple fell apart.

They agreed on a living arrangement: the boy would reside primarily in Beijing with his mother, a television host, and her parents, and spend the rest of the time in nearby Tianjin with his father, a bottled-water business owner, and his family.

Tensions flared in December 2017 when the father flew with his son to Vancouver son on one-way tickets, apparently without the mother’s consent. The mother flew to B.C. a few days later and spent a couple of weeks with her son before flying back to Beijing for work. She agreed to let her son stay in Canada until February 2018.

However, when February rolled around the father refused to hand over their son’s passport, prompting the mother to apply in B.C. Supreme Court for a declaration that the boy was a “habitual resident” of China who had been wrongfully removed from China, and that all matters concerning guardianship and parenting arrangements should be handled in China.

The father argued that matters involving the child should be decided in B.C. because his son was a Canadian citizen and had spent a good part of his life in B.C. He said it was always their intent for their son to return to B.C. for at least part of his education.

After reviewing the evidence, Justice Andrew Mayer said in an August 2018 ruling that it was clear the boy’s habitual residence was China, citing the fact that the mother never quit her job and never made an application for permanent resident status in Canada. Even though the boy was born in B.C., “place of citizenship and place of habitual residence are not the same thing,” Mayer said.

As for whether the parents had a “settled intention” of having their son stay for an extended period in B.C., the judge concluded they had not. He cited several text messages between the pair.

During one exchange on Sept. 24, 2017, the mother wrote: “In the future if you ever go over there alone and bring the child with you … I would not object to that so long as the child likes it and can adapt to it.”

The father replied: “I am just hoping that our son can stay a little longer. Our son should not be living like this.”

“But for our child the bulk of his education should still be received here in China. … The opportunities of the world exist in China,” she wrote back. “Therefore he must be familiar with China and understand everything about China. It is okay for him to live in Canada for a while when he is young in order to establish the framework for English thinking.”

Mayer ruled that the father did not have authorization from the mother to remove their son from China and concluded that B.C. was not the proper jurisdiction to settle questions about the boy’s guardianship and parenting arrangements given his “tenuous” connection to the province.

The father appealed the decision arguing that Mayer had committed a number of errors of law or fact.

But writing on behalf of a three-person panel, Justice Daphne Smith of the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on March 8.

The Post reached out to lawyers for both parents but they either did not return messages or were unavailable.

Canada is one of about 30 nations that confers automatic citizenship to those born on Canadian soil. A recent online survey by Research Co. of 800 B.C. residents found that 66 per cent of respondents said birth tourism degrades the value of Canadian citizenship and 73 per cent supported establishing new guidelines for birthright citizenship.

Critics have also complained that there is a flourishing underground industry of hotels and food providers catering to expectant birth tourists.

But some legal observers have said the issue is overblown and that any attempts to restrict birthright citizenship could lead to unnecessary bureaucracy and cause some newborns to become stateless.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen has said his department is studying the extent of the phenomenon. In a statement, a department spokeswoman said there is “no set date for reporting on any findings.” She noted, however, that available data show “only a small proportion of more than 380,000 annual births in Canada are by women who do not reside in Canada” and includes “Canadians living abroad who may have chosen to return to Canada to give birth.”

• Email: dquan@postmedia.com | Twitter:

Source: ‘Birth tourism’ case presents quandary for parents after break-up: to settle their custody dispute in Canada or China?

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Asylum seekers should make claims through ‘appropriate’ channels: Canadian envoy to U.S.

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

One further detail that I hadn’t noticed before – Canada has been pressing this for more than one year (so not just short-term pre-election positioning):

Canada’s ambassador to the United States says “legitimate refugee claimants” should make their claims through an “appropriate” process rather than crossing from the U.S. between official points of entry.

David MacNaughton said the U.S. moving to begin the process to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement is an encouraging sign. Ottawa wants the pact changed to close a loophole in order to allow Canada to quickly turn away most asylum seekers coming from the United States who enter from unauthorized points.

Asked to square this request with the federal government’s position that refugees are welcome in Canada, Mr. MacNaughton said asylum seekers should use an “established” process.

“We’re open to immigration. We’re also open to legitimate refugee claimants who go through the process that is established,” Mr. MacNaughton said Tuesday in the U.S. Capitol after a lunch meeting with legislators on trade. “What we’re trying to do is make sure that those who are wanting to claim refugee status do so in the way in which it’s appropriate.”

More than 40,000 asylum seekers have entered Canada through unofficial points of entry since U.S. President Donald Trump launched his crackdown on illegal immigration two years ago. The flood of claimants is bogging down the refugee protection system in Canada.

Under the current pact, most refugee claimants who come to Canada from the United States through official points of entry – such as border stations – are immediately sent back to the United States, as it is considered a safe country for refugees under the treaty. But the agreement does not apply between such points of entry, so those who cross between border stations have the right to make a refugee claim.

Mr. MacNaughton said he is encouraged that the United States is starting to move on renegotiation. But he said he did not know whether the United States would agree to the rewrite Canada wants.

“We have had no firm indication as to what they’re prepared to do or not do,” he said. “It’s a positive thing that it’s gone to State [Department] to give a negotiating mandate because that hasn’t been the case for the last however long we’ve been asking for this to happen.”

Canada has been pressing the United States to renegotiate for more than a year. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now working with State Department officials on a formal request to reopen the deal, The Globe and Mail reported on Monday. An assistant secretary would have to authorize the request for talks to start.

Border Security Minister Bill Blair has proposed a change to the agreement that would see Canadian border officials take such asylum seekers to an official crossing, where they would be denied immediate entry. But that plan would have to clear legal hurdles articulated by the Supreme Court that guarantee a hearing to any refugee claimant setting foot in Canada.

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said a renegotiation could backfire on Canada. She said Canada risks drawing Mr. Trump’s attention to the 2004 border agreement, which could lead the United States to propose changes to the agreement that Ottawa doesn’t want.

“This agreement was negotiated to favour Canadian interests and at Canadian request,” Ms. Dench said. “And so in asking to renegotiate the agreement, the Canadian government must be aware that the U.S. government may … actually want to negotiate it so that fewer refugees are sent back to the U.S. or that the U.S. would think maybe we should actually withdraw ourselves from this agreement.”

The CCR, along with Amnesty International and the Canadian Council of Churches, launched a Federal Court challenge to the agreement in 2017, arguing against Canada’s position that the United States is a safe country for refugees under the Trump administration. A decision has not yet been issued by the court.

The NDP has called on the Liberals to suspend the pact so asylum seekers in the United States can claim refugee status at official Canadian land border posts.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel urged the Liberal government to act immediately to stop the flow of asylum seekers between official points of entry along the border, saying she doesn’t buy its assertion that Canada can’t make the appropriate changes without agreement from the United States. She accused the Liberals of putting forward ideas without a plan to practically implement them.

“We’re six months out to an election and after trying to make electoral hay out of calling Canadians who raise questions about this fear mongerers and un-Canadian and thinly veiled accusations of racism, I think that this is now about electoral calculus rather than action,” Ms. Rempel said.

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Laïcité: les libéraux fédéraux reçoivent un guide pour répliquer à Québec

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

Prudent to have consistent media lines. The actual lines makes the necessary points:

Les libéraux de Justin Trudeau ne veulent pas entendre de voix discordante dans leurs rangs dans le débat sur la laïcité qui fait rage au Québec.

Des notes ont ainsi été préparées à l’intention des ministres, des députés, des adjoints de la colline et dans les bureaux de circonscription, de même que pour les proches collaborateurs du premier ministre afin de les guider dans la réplique fédérale aux mesures contenues dans projet de loi du gouvernement Legault sur la laïcité, déposé la semaine dernière à l’Assemblée nationale.

Le ton ferme de ces notes pourrait laisser entendre que le gouvernement Trudeau prépare soigneusement le terrain à une forme de contestation judiciaire de certains pans du projet de loi sur la laïcité. Certains experts juridiques estiment qu’Ottawa pourrait contester la constitutionnalité du projet de loi, une fois qu’il aura été adopté, en plaidant qu’il est discriminatoire envers les femmes.

Mais une source gouvernementale a insisté pour dire mardi soir que le gouvernement écarte l’idée d’une bataille juridique sur cette question, même si le ministre de la Justice David Lametti a affirmé encore plus tôt en journée que son ministère est toujours en train d’étudier le projet de loi de Québec.

« Le Canada est un pays laïque et cela se reflète dans toutes ses institutions. Les employés de l’État ont le droit d’afficher leurs croyances et personne ne devrait à choisir entre un emploi et son droit de porter un signe religieux », peut-on lire dans les notes de réplique obtenues par La Presse mardi.

« La Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protège les droits de tous les citoyens, et on ne peut pas choisir ceux que l’on protège et ceux que l’on restreint. Notre position est claire : ce n’est pas à l’État de dicter aux gens ce qu’ils peuvent ou ne peuvent pas porter, peu importe leurs croyances », peut-on aussi lire dans ces notes.

« Notre parti a toujours défendu et continuera de défendre les droits fondamentaux de chaque Canadien », ajoute-t-on aussi, prenant soin de souligner qu’il incombe à « tous » de protéger les droits fondamentaux « et toute tentative de les éroder est inacceptable. Le Canada est ouvert, inclusif, et riche de sa diversité ».

Dans les rangs libéraux, on a tenu à minimiser mardi la teneur des notes envoyées aux troupes libérales, affirmant que de tels messages sont envoyés quotidiennement pour les aider à expliquer les positions du gouvernement Trudeau.

Le projet de loi déposé jeudi dernier à l’Assemblée nationale par le ministre de l’Immigration, Simon Jolin-Barrette, interdira aux  employés de l’État ayant un pouvoir coercitif (policiers, gardiens de prison, notamment) de porter des signes religieux. La même interdiction s’appliquera aussi aux enseignants du primaire et du secondaire du secteur public et toute personne souhaitant offrir ou recevoir un service de l’État devra se présenter à visage découvert.

Le projet de loi contient une clause de droits acquis qui permettra aux personnes déjà l’emploi de l’État de conserver leurs signes religieux. Mais pour éviter toute contestation judiciaire, le gouvernement Legault entend invoquer la clause dérogatoire.

À cet égard, les stratèges libéraux à Ottawa font un parallèle entre cette décision du gouvernement Legault d’invoquer la clause dérogatoire et celle du gouvernement conservateur de Doug Ford pour réduire la taille du conseil municipal en Ontario.

« La clause dérogatoire porte entrave aux droits des Canadiens. C’est un élément de notre Constitution auquel on devrait avoir recours uniquement dans les situations les plus exceptionnelles. C’était le cas il y a quelques mois avec Doug Ford, ça demeure le cas maintenant », peut-on lire dans les notes.

Le ministre fédéral de la Justice, David Lametti, a d’ailleurs repris à son compte lundi certaines de ces répliques à la Chambre des communes en réponse aux questions du Bloc québécois sur les intentions du gouvernement fédéral

« Notre gouvernement a toujours défendu les droits fondamentaux de chaque Canadien et Canadienne, et il continuera de le faire. La Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protège les droits de tous les citoyens. On ne peut pas choisir ce que l’on protège et ce que l’on restreint.  Notre position est claire : ce n’est pas à l’État de dicter aux gens ce qu’ils peuvent ou ne peuvent pas porter, peu importe leur croyance », a-t-il déclaré en réponse à une question de la députée bloquiste Monique Pauzé.

La ministre du Patrimoine, Mélanie Joly, a toutefois tenu un discours plus nuancé dans les rangs libéraux, se disant certes très « préoccupée » par les intentions du gouvernement Legault, « mais on pense aussi que c’est aux Québécois d’avoir cette conversation-là et on respecte le fait que l’arène de discussion pour ce sujet est au Québec ».

Dimanche, le premier ministre François Legault a choisi de s’adresser directement aux Québécois  dans l’espoir de les rassurer sur la portée réelle du projet de loi 21 encadrant les signes religieux.

Il a notamment affirmé que le projet de loi est « modéré », en conformité avec les valeurs et l’histoire du Québec, dans son court message de deux minutes et demie diffusé sur son site web et sa page Facebook. Avant même de connaître les grandes lignes du projet de loi sur la laïcité, le premier ministre Justin Trudeau avait affirmé qu’il serait « impensable qu’une société libre légitime la discrimination contre quiconque, basée sur la religion ».

« Le Canada est un pays laïque, un pays qui respecte profondément les libertés individuelles, y compris la liberté d’expression, de conscience et de religion. Le Québec l’est aussi », a alors déclaré le premier ministre, qui était de passage en Nouvelle-Écosse. « Je vais toujours défendre les libertés individuelles. C’est un élément qui fait de nous une société juste, ouverte, libre. »

Source: Laïcité: les libéraux fédéraux reçoivent un guide pour répliquer à Québec

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

A New Law Finally Passed on Foreign Women’s Lebanese Citizenship

2019/04/04 Leave a comment

Partial progress:

It is no secret that women in Lebanon have to deal still with archaic gender-bias laws that require urgent changes, adjustments, or even the total eradication of some. Reconciling their reality with the Lebanese progressive mentality and our women’s high level of education and career success has been a painful hardship for our society.

Among these laws, the rights of Lebanese women to nationalize their children when born to foreign fathers, and the rights of foreign spouses to the nationality.

The struggles have been more relevant these past two decades, naturally, considering the ongoing evolution of our women and their awakening to what’s right and fair and what isn’t in our laws. Hence, in recent years, their efforts and endeavors have been many, even countless, to bring balance and harmony to our human society with judicial fairness and rights.

So, no wonder we get to heartily welcome now the memorandum of the Director-General for Personal Status, Mr. Elias Khoury. He demands from the Head of Departments and Registry Officers the application of Article 5 of the Lebanese Nationality Law.

The Article 5 declares, “The foreign woman married to a Lebanese shall, upon her request, become Lebanese after one year from the date of registration of the marriage in the Civil Status Office.”

Therefore, as of this month, foreign women spouses of Lebanese citizens are entitled to apply for the Lebanese citizenship at the registry offices without the signature of their husbands.

The memorandum stressed that “A new form must be adapted to fill the application for citizenship, which preserves the law of nationality from one side and is less complicated than the previous model, in both practical and administrative terms, while adhering to the same mechanism in order to ensure all information contained in the application and the right of women to obtain Nationality.”

In force as of April 1st, both the memorandum and the new form state: “Memorandum No. 35 concerning the mechanism and conditions of reception and completion of transactions of acquisition of nationality by marriage.”

These Mechanisms and conditions can be reviewed on the website of the Directorate General for Civil Status www.dgcs.gov.lb

It remains that foreign women working or residing in Lebanon cannot, by law, apply for citizenship if they are not married to a Lebanese man. That privilege is granted only by ‘male priority placed on women’ and not by their own rights.

Nonetheless, we maintain hope that this is only the beginning for more and more improvements and changes towards a more consciously evolved human society. After all, the reason of existence of any and all laws is, by principle and ethics, to serve the well-being of all citizens equally. Failure to do so, their reason to exist is no longer.

Source: A New Law Finally Passed on Foreign Women’s Lebanese Citizenship

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

The unlikely similarities between the far right and IS

2019/04/03 Leave a comment

Another article comparing extremists:

Far-right extremists in Britain have been accessing terrorism material published online by the Islamic State group, counter-terrorism experts have told the BBC.

They say neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists have been studying methods of attack shared by jihadists with their followers on the internet.

But we should not be surprised that they do share some similarities.

‘All-consuming hatred’

Since the middle of last year, MI5, the security service, has been tasked with helping the police tackle the growing threat from British far-right extremists.

Counter-terrorism officers have been using a range of methods, including phone taps, to gather intelligence on what the most violent individuals have been planning or aspiring to do.

In some cases, arrests have been made after suspects have been caught downloading child pornography. But officials say that neo-Nazis and other extremists have also been accessing material to plan attacks published by their ideological enemies, Islamic State.

This may seem strange, but it should not come as a surprise.

Their ideologies may be diametrically opposed to each other but there are some disturbing similarities between them, some of which are obvious, others less so.

Many white supremacists and violent Islamist extremists tend to inhabit a narrow-based world dominated by an all-consuming hatred and a total intolerance of anyone’s views but their own.

For the jihadists of IS, for example, this means treating not only non-Muslims as enemies but also Shia Muslims and anyone they see as co-operating with “the non-believers”.

Using the concept of “Takfir”, jihadists will declare even their co-religionists as “unbelievers” and “apostates” and therefore in their eyes a legitimate target.

This narrow-based intolerance, coupled with gratuitous violence, has been a major factor contributing to the inability of al-Qaeda, IS and other groups to appeal to a wider swathe of Muslim populations around the world.

Likewise in the UK and the rest of Europe, far-right extremists see as enemies all those who – in their eyes – have helped enable changes that they dislike, such as allowing inward migration from Asia and Africa.

In 2011, the Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik carried out his murderous attack in Oslo, not on Muslims or immigrants, but on youth members of a party he blamed for changing the racial mix of Norway.

‘Vile material’

White supremacists rail against a multicultural society.

So too do jihadists. They refer to Muslims living in the West as being “in the grey zone” and constantly urge them not to mix with the predominant non-Muslim populations in Europe.

Both far-right extremists and jihadists see themselves as righteous purists, yet they want very different societies.

What they do share in common is an often obsessive interest in extremely graphic imagery online, much of it encrypted but some of it circulated more widely for recruitment purposes.

Counter-terrorism officers have described some of this material as so vile that staff monitoring it have had to be given counselling.

In the years immediately after the 9/11 attacks of 2001, al-Qaeda made constant use of the imagery of planes going into the Twin Towers.

IS took this a stage further, shocking the world with its gruesome videos of hostages appearing to be beheaded on camera, as well as other atrocities such as men being thrown off high buildings after being “convicted” of homosexuality.

While these had the effect of alienating mainstream Muslim populations, they simultaneously attracted to the cause young men from around the world who often had criminal, psychopathic or sadistic dispositions.

During the IS self-declared caliphate between 2014 and 2019, its practice of enslaving Yazidi girls as young as nine for sex is known to have attracted paedophilic recruits from European countries.

Whitehall officials say far-right extremists have been sharing violent, satanic and occult images and videos, sometimes using gaming and music forums to recruit new members.

The aim, they say, is partly to desensitise people for the violence they believe is inevitable in a coming clash of civilisations.

Lack of cohesion

However, one area where the two groups do differ widely is in co-ordination and cohesion.

Broadly speaking, jihadists are united in wanting to see their ultra-strict version of Sharia Islamic law forcibly imposed on everyone under their rule.

But in Britain, far-right groups that have mostly splintered off from the now-banned National Action show little sign of working together.

Some aspire to what they see as racial purity, others want their own territory where only their own laws apply, while others are simply anarchists, bent on destroying “the system”.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

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