Tung Chan: Recent increase in hate crimes toward Asian-Canadians is a shock and a shame

2020/05/12 Leave a comment

One of the better opinion pieces on anti-Asian-Canadian hate crimes:

Canada is a multicultural society. The majority of us are welcoming and accepting of new Canadians, no matter where they are from or what race they are. This positive attribute of Canadian society is universally appreciated by new arrivals and admired by people around the world. This is why the recent increase in hate crimes toward Asian-Canadians is a shock to all of us.

Some of my Chinese-Canadian friends are taking extra precautions when they are out in public, looking over their shoulders when they are walking alone on empty streets. Many Chinese-Canadian organizations are banding together to fight the rise in racism.

It is no wonder then that a national survey conducted for the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice found that as many as one in five respondents do not think it is safe to sit on the bus next to an Asian or Chinese person who isn’t wearing a face mask.

The same poll, conducted in the week of April 24 with a sample size of 1,130 adults randomly drawn from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, also found that nearly 13 per cent, or one in eight respondents, were aware of incidents of racial bias in their neighbourhoods since COVID-19.

One member of Parliament, Derek Sloan, took advantage of this latent hostility and questioned the loyalty of our chief medical officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, who, like me, is an immigrant from Hong Kong. To the political base where his dogwhistle was directed, a Chinese person is a Chinese person — chief medical officer or not, naturalized Canadian or not.

A television outlet went further with a story that painted a picture of the Chinese diaspora, including Canadian citizens, obeying orders from the People’s Republic of China and secretly buying up personal protection equipment and shipping it back to China.

The unfortunate perception left with viewers is that Chinese-Canadians cannot be trusted because they may be members of a fifth column, ready and willing to follow the People’s Republic of China’s orders against the interest of Canada.

The point is that the actions of a few should never be generalized to a group. Yes, there is an increase of assaults on Asian-Canadians, but the actions of those few should not generate fear of all.

Yes, some Asian-Canadians sent care packages to China to protect loved ones prior to COVID-19 reaching Canada. But it was also done in hopes of preventing the virus from spreading and reaching Canada.

Everyone is afraid of COVID-19, of losing family, of being without an income, of what tomorrow will bring. But we know the fabric of Canada is sewn with kindness and compassion.

Our civic leaders and elected politicians need to continue speaking up to condemn those who physically attack to cause bodily harm or those who verbally attack to create doubt about the loyalty of Chinese-Canadians. The perpetrators of these malicious acts must be made to understand that their actions and their words are not acceptable in our society.

For the sake of our country, let’s focus our energy on fighting the virus, not each other.

Source: Tung Chan: Recent increase in hate crimes toward Asian-Canadians is a shock and a shame

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Dual Canadian-U.S. citizens qualify for Trump’s COVID-19 emergency payments

2020/05/12 Leave a comment

And vice-versa (provided Canadians resident in Canada) but interesting analysis on how they could benefit more than American “mono-nationals”:

Millions of dollars in U.S. pandemic stimulus payments could find their way into Canada in the coming weeks and months.

Canadians with U.S. citizenship, who may not have paid taxes in the U.S. for decades, still qualify for the Trump administration’s one-time pandemic support payment.

In order to get the payment, Canadians with dual U.S. citizenship and U.S. citizens living and working in Canada must have filed a tax return with the Internal Revenue Service for 2018 or 2019 reporting their global income.

In some cases, people who qualify for the payment can also get the full U.S. COVID-19 benefit payment while earning substantially more per year than they would if they lived in the United States because of special tax exemptions only available to American ex-pats.

Democrats Abroad, a Canadian-based group that helps Americans vote, file taxes and stay informed while living abroad, held a seminar last month explaining how its members could apply for the payment.

“Most of them are surprised, really surprised about it, because … there are people who’ve been here 40 years and they’ve never gotten a cent from the U.S. government, except some who get U.S. social security cheques, and they aren’t many — and now all of a sudden they are getting $1,600,” said Ed Ungar, co-vice chair of Democrats Abroad.

“They are really happy to get it, but it wasn’t something they counted on.”

Ungar said he does not know of anyone who has received the payment but said most of the people he’s spoken to are convinced the payment will arrive within six months.

In the U.S., many Americans who have their banking details on file with the IRS already have received their payments. Many of those who don’t are still waiting for their cheques.

The problem for many dual citizens in Canada is that while many have been filing their taxes with the IRS for years, there is no bank account attached to their filings because they have not had to pay penalties or receive payments.

Without a U.S.-based bank account, Canadians with dual citizenship and Americans living and working here don’t have a way to receive an electronic payment. They have to wait for cheques to be sent out to the addresses on their last income tax filings.

Filing worldwide income to the IRS

U.S. citizens living abroad who wish to retain their American citizenship are required to file a U.S. tax return every year detailing their worldwide income.

If it’s determined that the U.S. citizen paid lower taxes abroad than they would have if they had earned the same income in the U.S., they are required to pay the difference to the IRS.

The IRS’s economic impact payment, EIP, is similar to the Canada emergency response benefit, CERB — a cash payment offered to citizens across the country who are struggling financially because of the pandemic.

Canadians who qualify for the CERB can claim it for a maximum of four four-week periods. The EIP is a one-time payment.

To qualify for the full EIP of $1,200 US, ($1,687 Cdn), plus an additional $500 US ($702) for each qualifying child, U.S. citizens can earn a maximum of $75,000 US ($105,400) as an individual, or $112,500 US ($158,100) if they are the head of a single-income family.

Married couples with joint earnings of no more than $150,000 US ($210,800) qualify for a joint benefit of $2,400 UD ($3,374).

A major difference between the Canadian and American pandemic benefits is that in Canada, people must apply to receive it, but in the U.S. the payment is automatically dispersed, providing the person filed a tax return in 2018 or 2019.

The U.S. EIP maximum payment is gradually reduced after people reach their maximum amount of earned income until the benefit is cut off at $99,000 US ($139,200) for individuals, at $136,500 US ($192,000) for single-income families and $198,000 US ($278,300) for families with two incomes.

Earning more in Canada

The major difference when it comes to U.S. citizens living abroad is that they are allowed to exempt up to $103,900 US ($146,000) of income from their 2018 tax filing, or $105,900 US ($149,000) of income from their 2019 return.

“Somebody living outside the U.S. would actually … earn more income than somebody living in the U.S. and be eligible to receive that benefit because of this Foreign Earned Income Exclusion,” said Kevin Kirkpatrick, a U.S. tax lawyer with the international firm Moody’s.

In some cases, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion can effectively lower a person’s income to the level where they can still receive the benefit.

For example, in 2018 an individual U.S. citizen living in Canada could have earned $250,000 Cdn while still qualifying for the full EIP — but if they lived in the U.S. they could have earned a maximum of about $105,000 while getting the same benefit.

CBC has requested information from the IRS and the U.S. embassy in Ottawa on how many U.S. citizens live in Canada and file U.S. tax returns, but neither agency was able to provide that information.

Several follow up questions to both the embassy and the IRS were not returned by the time of publication.

According to the 2016 census, 377,410 people in Canada identified themselves as being either fully or partly of American origin.

Source: Dual Canadian-U.S. citizens qualify for Trump’s COVID-19 emergency payments

Filed under Multiculturalism

Germany: No let-up in anti-Jewish crimes

2020/05/12 Leave a comment

Official police-reported statistics:

Germany’s annual report on politically motivated crimes will detail more than 41,000 crimes last year attributed to far-right and far-left individuals, with anti-Semitic acts amounting to 2,000 offenses, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday.

Citing data to be published next week by the Federal Criminal Police Office, the paper said experts blamed the upward trend of politically motivated crime on an increasing belief by perpetrators that the behavior is socially acceptable..

The 41,000 cases overall represented a 14% increase on the level in 2018, with 22,000 crimes classed as extreme right and 10,000 crimes as extreme left — often so-called “propaganda” acts such as smearing graffiti, with some far more serious.

These categories had grown by 9 and 24% respectively, Welt am Sonntag reported.

Particularly alarming were politically motivated crimes in Germany’s eastern states of Thuringia and Brandenburg, where such cases had jumped by 40 and 52% respectively.

The data “unfortunately” shows a “massive problem” at both ends of the spectrum, said Thorsten Frei, deputy parliamentary leader of Chancellor Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU).

Politicians, journalists targeted

“Hate” tirades on the Internet were often aired “unrestrained” against communal politicians or journalists, said Frei, and some even included murder threats.

“Where ever the concept of “the enemy” [Feinbild] became entrenched in minds this sometimes quickly led to [threats] being acted out, said Frei while calling for the “swamp” of contemptuous language to be stamped out.

“People’s reticence to resort to violence has fallen,” Jörg Radek, deputy GdP police trade union leader told the paper. “People become violent more quickly because they are increasingly confident that their acts are socially accepted, said Radek.

“All violence from the right and left must be outlawed,” he said, “whether it’s directed at a camera crew, emergency workers, or the crew of a police patrol car.”

Hate-motivated sprees

In recent decades, Germany has witnessed a string of far-right racist crimes, including fatal shooting sprees in Halle in October and in Hanau in February.

Seehofer subsequently declared far-right extremism the “biggest security threat facing Germany,” promising a beefed-up security response.

Source: Germany: No let-up in anti-Jewish crimes

Filed under Antisemitism, Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with

Has Brexit affected the way Britons think about immigrants? The recent ‘national mood’ on immigration

2020/05/12 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis of immigration-related public opinion data and Brexit:

Back in 2018, I wrote a piece showing how British public opinion on immigration had changed since the 1980s by analysing responses across waves of repeated, high-quality research surveys carried out in Britain. Then, the research showed that British opinions toward immigrants and immigration had been softening dramatically over the last decade since a peak in public hostility around 2010.

Recently I was able to update this information with a plethora of new results from the British Election Study (BES), the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, and the European Social Survey (ESS) which were fielded over the past two years. Figure 1 below shows what has changed since then, and how the new information has impacted the model’s estimation of the ‘national mood’ about immigration.

The line represents the proportion of survey respondents in each year answering negatively when faced with questions regarding their views on immigrants and immigration. The grey line running through the middle of the plot cuts the y-axis at 50% – half of the population having negative feelings toward immigration, with the other 50% holding a more positive perspective. The aggregation is carried out using Jim Stimson’s dyad-ratios calculator, which is able to standardise different survey measurements on the same topic. From this, individual survey items can be ‘blended together’ into a single series, such as above. (The code to run Stimson’s calculator in R can be found on my GitHub repository).

What the updated data shows is that the dramatic decline in anti-immigrant sentiments, which had reached a peak (in the study) around 2010, has continued up to the conclusion of the decade. According to the data analysed in this study, a majority of the British public now have positive views toward immigrants and immigration.

When I posted these results on Twitter, they became the subject of quite some discussion among various Brexit tribes (bot supporting and against), with much conversation surrounding the impact that Brexit (and specifically, the campaign) may or may not have had on feelings toward immigrants in this country. It is toward this debate that I wish to turn the rest of the article – namely, did Brexit cause an increase in anti-immigrant hostility in Britain?

Firstly, the evidence is quite clear that neither the Brexit campaign nor Brexit itself has caused any increase in negativity or hostility toward immigrants or immigration in the aggregate sense. There is nothing in the public opinion data, presented here or indeed elsewhere, that I have seen which would support the hypothesis that Brexit has unleashed some kind of wave of anti-immigrant hostility when we look at the nation as a whole.

However, the emphasis above is intended and important. There is nothing to say that just because aggregate levels of hostility toward immigration among the British public have declined, that there could not have been a simultaneous hardening or strengthening of negativity since Brexit among those with deep-rooted, very hostile opinions about foreigners in Britain. Both of these things could be true. Similarly, this measurement is not one of racism, or individual experiences/incidents of racism or indeed discrimination on the grounds of immigrant (origin) status.

Finally, Brexit might not have caused a rise in aggregate anti-immigrant hostility, but there is also little evidence to suggest that it caused this drop. For one, attitudes have been softening since 2010, and Brexit comes right in the middle of this near-linear decline. That said, the rate of decline has clearly accelerated since 2016, so perhaps there is some merit in the suggestion the Brexit vote may have ‘released some frustration’ regarding policy/control over matters of immigration among the population.

Inspecting the quarterly data also gives us some further, more nuanced insight into what the various narratives around Brexit might have done to attitudes surrounding immigrants and immigration. Figure 2 shows a more detailed snapshot of Figure 1, with 100 survey items analysed from 2009 to 2019.

Note: the mean level of sentiment here has shifted downward from in Figure 1, where the series included here and other series stretching back further into time anchor the overall trend line around 5-10% higher.

Here we see in greater detail the average decline in negativity from the turn of the last decade, with the peak around 2010 followed by something more resembling a jagged mountain face than a cliff edge. The sharp, short-term peaks in anti-immigrant mood as we travel down the ten-year slope are seemingly clustered around important electoral events surrounding Brexit: the 2014 European Elections won by UKIP, the build-up to the referendum itself in 2016, the General Election in 2017 where Theresa May sought a parliamentary majority for her Brexit plan, and then the 2019 election campaign featuring Boris Johnson’s pledge to “get Brexit done”.

Are these moments of intense scrutiny and pressure on Brexit producing these little sparks of negativity among the British public? It seems reasonable to think so – around these moments, media coverage and political commentary around immigration (specifically in relation to the EU) intensifies, parties actively campaign against the current immigration regime, and voters may be connecting immigration closer to their voting intention than they otherwise might, and respond to survey questions accordingly.

Whatever the case, what is certain is that these moments of upturn in the data do not last long. Once the moment passes, the decline in negativity continues – and even arguably picks up pace. Furthermore, given that margins of error apply to these aggregated figures just as much as they do to individual polls, the various quarterly spikes within the last ten years could just be statistical noise.

So, did Brexit cause an increase in anti-immigrant hostility in Britain? There is little evidence in the public opinion data analysed here to suggest that it did – particularly in the medium term. Did it, on the other hand, cause a big increase in positivity? Again, I would argue that it did not. Brexit has coincided with a plummet in British negativity about immigration, the start of which proceeded Boris Johnson’s successful attempt to pass a Brexit deal through the Commons, the referendum itself, and Nigel Farage’s electoral successes in the early 2010s.

In short, I would say that Brexit has not much at all to do with what Britons think about immigration.

Source: Has Brexit affected the way Britons think about immigrants? The recent ‘national mood’ on immigration

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Coronavirus takes a toll in Sweden’s immigrant community

2020/05/11 Leave a comment

Like elsewhere:

The flight from Italy was one of the last arrivals that day at the Stockholm airport. A Swedish couple in their 50s walked up and loaded their skis into Razzak Khalaf’s taxi.

It was early March and concerns over the coronavirus were already present, but the couple, both coughing for the entire 45-minute journey, assured Khalaf they were healthy and just suffering from a change in the weather. Four days later, the Iraqi immigrant got seriously ill with COVID-19.

Still not able to return to work, Khalaf is part of the growing evidence that those in immigrant communities in the Nordic nations are being hit harder by the pandemic than the general population.

Sweden took a relatively soft approach to fighting the coronavirus, one that attracted international attention. Large gatherings were banned but restaurants and schools for younger children have stayed open. The government has urged social distancing, and Swedes have largely complied.

The country has paid a heavy price, with 2,769 fatalities from COVID-19. That’s more than 26 deaths per 100,000 population, compared with about 8 per 100,000 in neighboring Denmark, which imposed a strict lockdown early on that is only now being slowly lifted.

Inside Sweden’s immigrant communities, anecdotal evidence emerged early in the outbreak that suggested that some — particularly those from Somalia and Iraq — were hit harder than others. Last month, data from Sweden’s Public Health Agency confirmed that Somali Swedes made up almost 5 percent of the country’s COVID-19 cases, yet represented less than 1 percent of its 10 million people.

Many in these communities are more likely to live in crowded, multigeneration households and are unable to work remotely.

“No one cares for taxi drivers in Sweden,” said Khalaf, who tested positive and was admitted to a hospital when his condition deteriorated. Despite difficulties breathing, the 49-year-old says he was sent home after six hours and told his body was strong enough to “fight it off.”

In Finland, Helsinki authorities warned of a similar over-representation among Somali immigrants in the capital — some 200 cases, or about 14%, of all confirmed infections. In Norway, where immigrants make up nearly 15% of the general population, they represent about 25% of confirmed coronavirus cases.

“I think a pandemic like this one, or any crisis will hit the most vulnerable people in society the most wherever in the world, and we see this in many many countries,” said Isabella Lovin, Sweden’s deputy prime minister, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Noting that the virus was spreading faster in some crowded Stockholm suburbs, Lovin said said the city is providing short-term accommodation to some people whose relatives are vulnerable.

Sweden, Norway and Finland recognized early failings in community outreach in minority languages and are seeking to fix this. The town of Jarfalla, outside Stockholm, has had high school students hand out leaflets in Somali, Persian, French and other languages, urging people to wash their hands and stay home if sick.

With Sweden’s relatively low-key approach to fighting the virus that relies mainly on voluntary social distancing, there are concerns the message has not reached everyone in immigrant neighborhoods.

“It’s important that everyone living here who has a different mother tongue gets the right information,” said Warda Addallah, a 17-year-old Somali Swede.

Anders Wallensten, Sweden’s deputy state epidemiologist, said officials have worked harder on communicating with such groups “to make sure they have the knowledge to protect themselves and avoid spreading the disease to others.”

But teacher and community activist Rashid Musa says the problem runs much deeper.

“I wish it were that easy — that you needed to just translate a few papers,” he said. “We need to look at the more fundamental issue, which is class, which is racism, which is social status, which is income.”

“The rich have the opportunity to put themselves into quarantine, they can go to their summer houses,” Musa said.

A key government recommendation for individuals to work from home if possible is harder in marginalized areas where many have jobs in the service sector.

“How can a bus driver or a taxi driver work from home?” Musa asked.

Evidence of this disparity can be found in anonymous data aggregated by mobile phone operator Telia, which has given the Swedish Health Authority information about population mobility. By comparing the number of people in an area early in the morning with those who traveled to another area for at least an hour later in the day, Telia estimates how many go to work and how many stay home.

“We do see certain areas that are maybe more affluent with a bigger number of people working from home,” said Kristofer Agren, the head of data insights for Telia. Data shows a 12 percentage point difference between Danderyd, one of Stockholm’s most affluent suburbs, and Botkryka, one with the highest percentage of first- and second-generation immigrants.

“Many of our members have contracted the coronavirus,” said Akil Zahiri, who helps administer the mosque on the outskirts of Stockholm. “But you do the best you can.”

Zahiri spoke to the AP as he sat alone in Sweden’s largest Shiite mosque coordinating a video call with the congregation to pray for a member who died of COVID-19. The sound of prayer crackled through the computer, breaking the silence in the empty hall.

During Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast during the day, the mosque canceled all public events. Zahiri reminded the congregation to take part in social distancing, urging them to stay home for the Iftar, the daily breaking of the fast after sunset, and to avoid sharing food with friends.

Source: Coronavirus takes a toll in Sweden’s immigrant community

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Police Data Reveals Stark Racial Discrepancies in Social Distancing Enforcement Across New York City

2020/05/11 Leave a comment

Of note:

On Friday, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) released six weeks worth of data related to social distancing enforcement, following New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s March order mandating people stay inside and avoid congregating in large groups. The release comes amid mounting criticism of racial disparities in police enforcement of Cuomo’s orders, and just a day after Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez released social distancing arrest data for his borough.

Both data sets reveal that minority communities have been impacted to a far greater extent by police enforcement during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the NYPD data, 374 summons “for violations of emergency procedures and acts liable to spread disease” were handed out by police between March 16 and May 5. A summons is a ticket that is usually issued to someone by a police officer for a court appearance after violating a law.

Of that 374 summons, 304 were handed out to black and Hispanic people.

Related information from the Brooklyn DA’s office confirmed that 40 people were arrested from March 17 to May 4 for not following social distancing measures. 35 of those people were black, four of them were Hispanic and one was white.

DA Gonzalez said that his office is reviewing allegations of excessive force in Brooklyn arrest incidents, adding that arrests should be a last resort.

“Simply stated, we cannot police ourselves out of this pandemic. Instead, we need to give people the knowledge and ability to keep safe,” Gonzalez said in a statement.

According to the New York Times, the NYPD has made at least 120 arrests for social distancing between March 16 and May 5 across New York City as a whole. Of these arrests, 68% of those detained were black and 24% of them were Hispanic.

These numbers have become a point of mounting criticism for the police department and the mayor’s office. Police reform activists, community advocates and even the New York City Police Benevolent Association (NYC PBA) have said that police officers should not be enforcing social distancing at all.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the NYPD’s role in social distancing enforcement during a Thursday press conference, after being questioned about whether it had become comparable to stop-and-frisk, the policing practice of stopping someone and searching them for weapons or other illegal items that disproportionately impacted black and Latino men during its height.

“What happened with stop and frisk was a systematic, oppressive, unconstitutional strategy that created a new problem much bigger than anything it purported to solve,” de Blasio said. “This is the farthest thing from that. This is addressing a pandemic.”

After the release of the arrest data from Brooklyn, he tweeted that the racial “disparity” apparent did not reflect the NYPD’s larger work. However, “We HAVE TO do better and WE WILL,” he wrote.

“That disparity, I don’t like, I don’t accept,” de Blasio continued during a Friday press conference. ” I want to see every community treated fairly, but I want a resolute approach where it’s really clear we got to follow these rules.”

De Blasio also announced Friday that, in response to “consistent overcrowding” in parks across the city, a cap would be placed on the number of people allowed, and that “extra enforcement” would be seen to that effect.

Source: Police Data Reveals Stark Racial Discrepancies in Social Distancing Enforcement Across New York City

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Call to Prayer controversy – Hassan: Why the mosque loudspeaker request makes little sense vs Farooq: The call to prayer is a prayer for the future, a call to those in times of despair

2020/05/09 Leave a comment

Further to After Arab countries, now Canada punishes Indian origin man for Islamophobia; terminated from job and removed from school body as probe continues and related protests against the sunset Azaan during Ramadan being sung with a microphone, two contrary perspectives. IMO, similar to church bells being played during religious events.

That being said, there might be legitimate to it being amplified five times a day all year:

Farzana Hassan on why it is not needed, arguing that it feeds into the Islamist agenda:

When Bilal ibn Ribah, the very first muezzin, or Islamic prayer caller, recited the now familiar lines of the azaan, early Muslims rushed to the mosque to offer supplication to Allah. Their homes were near enough for them to hear the call and respond accordingly. Bilal had a powerful and melodious voice that inspired the fledgling Muslim community to convey their devotion to Allah.

Muslims across Canada have always responded to the azaan, but inside mosques. Also, many Muslims now play the azaan in their homes on their phones or azaan clocks to remind themselves that the time for prayer is approaching, or they simply refer to printed prayer schedules. Anyway, the azaan itself has never been a prerequisite to prayer. The protocol for congregational prayers includes the azaan followed by the iqamah, the sequel to the azaan, calling worshippers to line up for prayer.

But the azaan now being broadcast in some cities of Canada serves no such purpose. The demand has come under the false pretext that Muslims will hear the azaan and be comforted during this time when COVID-19 has denied them access to mosques.

Assembly of more than five people during the COVID-19 crisis is still not permitted, and the call is not even reaching Muslim homes spread across the expanses of Canada. Also, it is only during the maghrib, or fourth prayer, that the azaan is being broadcast. That is the time most devout Muslims stay home with their families to break the fast. When there are no congregational prayers being held, who is listening to the azaan? Are some Muslims driving to the mosques just to hear it? What is the purpose of this futile exercise other than to score points under the flag of Islam as a political movement, known as Islamism?

It is obvious that for proponents of Islamism a political victory, however symbolic and however pointless, is what matters. In this case, they have obtained exemptions to noise by-laws in some cities. It is only votaries of Islamism who make such demands. This year Easter and Passover were also spent in isolation. No church bells were heard in Mississauga or Halifax because church services were denied. Most citizens, including moderate Muslims, have no wish to impose their rituals on others. Munir Pervaiz, former president of the Muslim Canadian Congress, deems the broadcast of the azaan unconstitutional.

Compliant and gullible city officials have answered a demand from provocative Muslim groups and permitted this broadcast of the azaan. The allowance was made under special circumstances and for the duration of the month of Ramadan. The feeble rationalization of Muslims not having access to mosques ignores the logical, cultural and geographical absurdities of allowing azaan as compensation.

It would be gratifying if the Islamists who constantly spew hatred of the “infidel” West at least have the decency to acknowledge this act of goodwill and bridge-building. They won’t, of course. We can only hope that the demands stay confined to just this one Ramadan spent under unprecedented circumstances occasioned by the pandemic.

But, as my colleague Tarek Fatah warned last week, “A spokesperson of one of the mosques revealed that this was merely a first step” and that Islamists across the Western world are seeking to make this change permanent.

The Islamists may have foisted this controversy upon us for the long haul.

Source: HASSAN: Why the mosque loudspeaker request makes little sense

And Mustafa Farooq providing some context  and rationale:

“Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar.”

The delivery room at the Grey Nuns Hospital in Edmonton is dark, but on May 5, 2015, at 6 a.m., I was jumping up and down as my newborn son came into the world.

The Muslim tradition is to whisper the call to prayer — the adhaan — in the ear of the newborn child after birth; but I was so filled with adrenalin in the moment, that I began to loudly chant the call to prayer even as I held him in my arms for the first time.

Five years on, almost to the day, we in the Canadian context are having a public discussion about the place of the adhaan — the call to prayer — as numerous municipalities, including Brampton, Missisauga, and Edmonton have amended their noise bylaws to permit Canadian Muslims to make the public call to prayer during the COVID-19 crisis.

I am a lawyer by training — so by nature I am inclined to want to draw out arguments before you about treating citizens equally (church bells are allowed, so why shouldn’t the Muslim call to prayer?) or around the need of citizens to adequately study the changes to the bylaws (many of the changes roll up in the next two weeks as Ramadan comes to an end), but in this case, I wish to tell you what the adhaan means to me, and what it means to me today, in the context of COVID-19 and in the context of life, birth, and death.

I cannot help — even as Nazis make bomb threats to mosques because they had the audacity to recite a five minute prayer at dusk — but think of the worshippers at the Quebec City Mosque, who reportedly heard Alexandre Bissonette state the opening words of the adhaan, “Allahu akbar” before opening fire in the bloodiest attack on a religious institution in Canadian history.

I cannot help but think of the adhaan as many traditional Muslims understand it as a matter of praxis. We are taught through the tradition that the Messenger Muhammad, peace be upon him, fled from his home to new land — Madinah — from those whose in the tribe of the Quraysh who were trying to assassinate him. Upon building the first mosque, the Medinian Muslims began to think of how to call people to prayer.

At first, the idea of blowing a shofar, as per the Judaic tradition, was considered. There was then the decision to utilize a wooden clapper, the naqus, which some of the Arabian Christians used in lieu of the bell. However, revelation came of a call to prayer, delivered without material instruments, but rather with the call of the human voice — a profound reflection on the absence of the need of the material to connect with the Divine.

Yet, there is a way in which the adhaan can be understood historically in the context of the neighbours of the Medinian Muslims, of different faith communities who lived together. It can be understood in the way that the first man who called the adhaan was Sayyidna Bilal — a freed Abyssinian slave who was tormented by his Qurayshi captor, and insulted for the colour of his skin — and who would look to the first faint light in the east on the Arabian Desert and say in supplication, “Oh God, I praise Thee, and I ask Thy Help for the Quraysh.”

I think of when Bilal, may God be pleased with him, returned to Makkah, and his voice filled the whole valley, much to the chagrin of the old chiefs of the Quraysh, who were furious at the sight of the former black slave on the roof of the Kaaba making the call to prayer — the call that equalized all human beings as being servants of the Divine, of being devoted to a call to ethics and justice.

I think of learning the adhaan in mosques across Canada from so many different folks. From a Sudanese neurologist, whose strong, bold voice made my hair stand on end, to the meliflous, lilt of a Bosnian refugee who had lost his bakery during the war, the call to prayer is a call to God, a prayer, a prayer for the future, a call to those in times of despair.

And I suppose that’s the key.

Source: ContributorsOpinionThe call to prayer is a prayer for the future, a call to those in times of despair

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‘Textbook’ Discrimination: Human Rights Report Accuses China Of Mistreating Africans

2020/05/08 Leave a comment

Yet another need for an independent examination of Chinese government human rights abuses:

Human Rights Watch is accusing China of discrimination against African communities during the coronavirus pandemic.

Authorities in China’s Guangdong province, home to China’s largest African population, have singled out people of African descent for testing, the rights group alleges. It characterizes the tests as forcible, and says that as many Africans were forced to quarantine, landlords evicted them.

Guangdong authorities said in April that all foreigners were required to submit to testing and quarantine. However, Human Rights Watch says that “in practice, the authorities just targeted Africans for forced testing and quarantine.”

Many of the incidents that Human Rights Watch discusses allegedly took place in Guangzhou, the capital and the largest city in Guangdong.

“Chinese authorities claim ‘zero tolerance’ for discrimination, but what they are doing to Africans in Guangzhou is a textbook case of just that,” Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang says in the release. “Beijing should immediately investigate and hold accountable all officials and others responsible for discriminatory treatment.”

In an apparent response to the complaints, Chinese state media reported earlier this week that Guangdong has “unveiled measures requiring sectors … to extend the same treatment to all from home and abroad.”

Videos have surfaced of black people being denied entry into a McDonald’sand a shopping center, as well as forced tests and evictions. A black Canadian man told the rights group about his experience being denied entry to the subway.

“The metro station worker told us, ‘As of this morning, we’ve been told not to let any black people onto the subway,'” the unnamed man is quoted as saying by Human Rights Watch. “Then four or five security guards showed up and questioned me. The subway refused me just because of the color of my skin. They don’t care about any documents, or what my health app said.”

Human Rights Watch says the city of Guangzhou is home to more than 14,000 Africans. It has had a large African community for years.

Hundreds of African human rights groups submitted an open letter to the African Union Commission in late April denouncing the “xenophobic, racist and inhuman treatment” of African people in China. They called for an independent investigation into the situation in Guangdong province and throughout China. Kenya said last month that it will help its nationals stranded in China return home starting in May.

In recent years, China has spent hundreds of billions of dollars in development projects throughout the African continent. Human Rights Watch notes that the investments have “boosted Africa’s economy,” but that governments are often hesitant to criticize China as a result.

Source: ‘Textbook’ Discrimination: Human Rights Report Accuses China Of Mistreating Africans

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Welcome to the tent clinic where Toronto’s undocumented immigrants get medical care

2020/05/08 Leave a comment

Of note:

Alma Tacuboy and her ailing father were signalled to a grey vinyl tent on the lawn as soon as she pulled her car into the driveway of the Canadian Centre for Refugee and Immigrant Health Care.

The Toronto clinic, at Sheppard and Midland Avenues, serves the city’s uninsured and undocumented migrants, but had been shut down since mid-March due to COVID-19. Patients could only call in over the phone or be seen virtually on a video app.

However, with a pent-up demand for basic health-care needs in the midst of the pandemic, volunteers and staff have erected the tent to make sure primary care remains accessible to the most vulnerable population.

“We had to stop seeing patients and started doing things virtually. There are clearly patients to be seen and their conditions are deteriorating in isolation,” said Dr. Paul Caulford, a co-founder of the clinic, which opened the 10-by-20-foot field tent to patients last week.

“With primary care backing up, things still need to be done for newborns who are not immunized and patients who have chronic health problems.”

From behind a glass panel, a masked Caulford conducted a thorough medical assessment of Hilario Tacuboy, who woke up feeling light-headed and with blurred vision in his right eye.

Wearing a face shield, an N95 mask and isolation suit coveralls, Caulford came out from behind the glass divider and gingerly examined the 60-year-old man’s eye. He was looking for symptoms of a stroke — something that couldn’t be done through the glass, let alone over the phone.

Alma Tacuboy said her father had come to visit from the Philippines, but couldn’t return home because the country is locked down and all flights have been cancelled. His travel health insurance expired and friends referred them to the clinic.

She said she decided against taking her father to the emergency room after her father-in-law died alone at North York General Hospital two weeks ago of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The family couldn’t visit.

“We’re afraid to go to a hospital with my dad because of COVID. We’re scared we couldn’t see him, hear him or just give him food if he’s hungry,” she said. “We feel safe in this tent. We have our masks and gloves. And there is fresh air.”

Even though the Ontario government has relaxed the access to health care and expanded medical coverage to the uninsured and undocumented patients in the wake of the pandemic, Caulford said many patients still fear seeking help and going to the hospital.

In mid-April, Caulford reached out to Global Medics, a Canadian humanitarian group, for a tent that is usually used for disaster relief. A contractor donated the labour to build the wooden deck and interior of the makeshift outdoor clinic.

The staff and volunteers were then faced with the challenge of finding personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect themselves and patients. When their own clinic shuttered, they donated what they had to their front-line colleagues fighting the pandemic in hospitals.

An effort led by the local Chinese Canadian community came to the rescue with boxes and boxes of PPE, which made the opening of the field clinic possible.

“I was in tears watching the community effort,” said Caulford, adding that the clinic also got support from local MP Jean Yip (Scarborough-Agincourt), the Canadian Medical Protective Association and the Ontario Medical Association, as well as local health authorities.

The outdoor clinic is open from noon to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Before they can be seen in person, patients must call for virtual care and triaging. The virtual appointments are mandatory and must be completed before a patient can see a doctor at the clinic.

Source: Welcome to the tent clinic where Toronto’s undocumented immigrants get medical care

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COVID-19 Strikes South Asia’s Minorities Whose Rights Are Already Threatened

2020/05/07 Leave a comment

Good overview of the effects on minorities:

A new report warns that the minorities and other marginalised communities are even more exposed to the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is hitting South Asia. It has come at a time when governments are inflicting sustained assaults on their rights. Minorities face severe obstacles in accessing their right to nationality amidst rising majoritarian nationalism across many parts of the South Asia, says the South Asia Collective (SAC) in its annual flagship report, South Asia State of Minorities Report.

The report, which focuses on migrants, refugees and the stateless, is the outcome of a collaborative initiative of researchers and activists from across South Asia, highlights how numerous communities, including religious minorities, are denied official refugee or minority status by politicised and discriminatory citizenship laws, leaving them deprived of essential rights and services. This means that they are even more exposed to the worst impacts of the pandemic.

“While the virus has the potency to kill, poor governance choices can weaponize this potency,” says Joshua Castellino, Executive Director of Minority Rights Group International (MRG). “Stirring hate and attributing blame underscores two things: an inability of effective governance in solving a grave problem without playing blame games; and the real possibility that the life of the virus will be prolonged if left lurking amidst the most vulnerable communities.”

With more than 75 per cent of the world’s known stateless populations belonging to minority groups, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), this disproportionate impact on minority communities is also an issue of concern in South Asia.

“Minorities in the region face a range of discriminatory exclusions and restrictions in relationship to citizenship, in breach of their international human rights, which also leaves them vulnerable to denial of other rights and access to basic services, including unfortunately access to health care and information in their own languages during the pandemic crisis,” says Dr Fernand de Varennes, UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues.

Longstanding challenges facing minorities such as the Rohingya of Myanmar, the Urdu-speaking minority of Bangladesh, as well as the emerging situation in Assam in north-eastern Indian where almost 2 million people are at risk of losing their citizenship, highlight that statelessness is a minority issue and a human rights issue in South Asia, as it is globally’.

The report also provides an overview of the overall state of minorities in countries across South Asia, covering events of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. Across many parts of the region, majoritarian nationalism and divisive rhetoric are on the march, animating hate speech and targeted violence against minorities, as well as ongoing socio-economic exclusion, likely to be further exacerbated amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As some governments in the region draw on divisive rhetoric and escalate measures curtailing civil liberties, there are concerns that the already challenging conditions for minorities in South Asia outlined in this report may further deteriorate in light of COVID-19,” says Deepak Thapa of Social Science Baha in Nepal, a member of the South Asia Collective (SAC) which produced the report.

The report presents chapters on six countries:

In India, 1.9 million were rendered de facto stateless in Assam by the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) concurrently weaponised the discourse of minority rights against Muslims, protecting every other relevant religious group. Meanwhile, the Rohingya report food scarcity and child labour, while Kashmiris suffered a lockdown, communications blackout, and detention, including torture. Deprived of refugee status, numerous vulnerable refugee communities cannot access essential protections.

In Bangladesh, the report finds so called ‘untouchability’ to be a major barrier to accessing their fundamental rights as citizens for Dalits, causing regular displacement and eviction. Violence has been perpetrated against indigenous communities, including communal attacks, land-grabbing, rape, killing, and abduction. Developments in the citizenship law have left Bangladesh’s Urdu-speaking minority, often referred to as “Biharis” precarious, and could have far-reaching consequences. On top of restricted movement and poor living conditions, the Rohingya report extrajudicial killings.

In Afghanistan, peace talks with the Taliban and a dispute over September’s presidential election represent severe concern for women and minorities. 72,000 refugees from North Waziristan live in limbo without refugee status or access to vital services. Meanwhile, the Hindu, Sikh and Shi’a Hazara populations face ongoing discrimination. The minority Ismaili community suffers double discrimination, facing severely limited access to essential services and marginalisation by Sunnis and Shi’as alike.

In Pakistan, Afghan refugees and Bangladeshi migrants seeking citizenship face legal dead-ends that deprive them of vital rights, limit economic opportunities, and leave them facing disciplinary interventions and police hostility. The Rohingya, who cannot even theoretically qualify for citizenship, are at risk of arbitrary detention and harassment and are often denied access to healthcare and education.

Aid is drying up for Nepal’s Bhutanese refugees; essentials are being withdrawn and UNHCR schools and clinics are to be shut down by the end of 2020. Dalits report physical and structural violence. The report highlights how Nepal’s increasingly close ties with China endanger its Tibetan refugee community, already at constant risk of deportation and exploitation; Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Kathmandu in 2019 was met with strict surveillance and the reported detention of activists.

In Sri Lanka, Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism and the spectres of extremism and forced conversion are major drivers of religious discrimination. Christians have suffered intimidation and the attack or closure of places of worship. The 2019 Easter Sunday attacks precipitated a violent backlash against local Muslim and Muslim refugee communities alike. Long classed as foreigners, and despite the recent grant of citizenship, hill country Tamils are left ‘neither here nor there’ and face barriers to essential rights.

The SAC report, published on April 29, advises all South Asian nations to accede to UN conventions on refugees and statelessness, to protect and support refugee populations. It asks them to enact comprehensive anti-discrimination laws, repealing those laws which discriminate, and introducing legislation that protects refugee populations. It urges civil society to advance dialogue and initiatives across the region, to understand and address the issues facing all minorities.

“This report emphasizes the importance of good governance in showing how we can collectively pass this test of humanity,” says MRG Executive Director Castellino. “Written by researchers steeped in the long term future and stability of their countries, they emphasize how putting vulnerable groups at the forefront of all prevention, mitigation and eradication efforts, irrespective of their identity, is key to realising the incredible human vibrancy that exists in every country in the region.” [IDN-InDepthNews – 30 April 2020]

Source: COVID-19 Strikes South Asia’s Minorities Whose Rights Are Already Threatened

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