December 2, 2009

November in Review, Part II

Kenney confronted, Goodman detained, Canada berated, women remembered

by Dominion Staff

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

People in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, show their ink-free fingers, indicating that they refused to vote in the November 29 elections organized by the coup regime. Photo: Jackie McVicar

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Mohammad Mahjoub was hospitalized in Kingston after 179 days on a liquids-only hunger strike. Mahjoub has lived under an unconstitutional security certificate for nine years. "We have serious reasons to believe that Mr. Mahjoub will die or, at minimum, be permanently impaired if he remains on hunger strike much longer," reads a letter sent by doctors to Minister of Public Safety Peter van Loan.

Sham elections took place in Honduras, in which coup supporter Porfirio Lobo was elected "president." The elections were boycotted by elected President Manuel Zelaya who is still trapped in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. There were reports of abuses by Honduran police and military officers on election day. "The streets were deserted. That is the reality. Those who went to vote were just a few..." said one man in Tegucigalpa. Canada quickly congratulated Hondurans on the election. Canada's junior foreign minister said the elections "appear to have been run freely and fairly," despite no independent election observers being present at the polls.

Activists from around the world prepared to travel to Copenhagen, Denmark, to participate in—or to protest against—United Nations Climate talks. The Danish government passed new laws allowing preventative arrest, and Danish cops warned activists against posting legal advice online.

Climate campaigners called for Canada to be excluded from the Commonwealth due to a lack of action on global warming. "If the Commonwealth is serious about holding its members to account, then threatening the lives of millions of people in developing countries should lead to the suspension of Canada's membership immediately," Saleemul Huq, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told The Guardian.

People throughout North America celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. "For now at least, it seems the anti-globalisers may have won," reads an opinion piece in UK newspaper The Observer.

A smashed window in Geneva, Switzerland, in the lead up to the WTO meetings. Photo: Juan Manuel Caicedo Carvajal

In Geneva, Switzerland, protesters marched against another round of WTO talks. Dozens of protesters were arrested.

A referendum in Switzerland banned the construction of minarets. "Regardless of the final results of the referendum, the fact that the issue was put to a popular vote in the first place indicates that there is an undeclared crisis in human relations with the other, the different and the immigrants," wrote Walid Nuwayhid in Bahrain's Al-Wasat.

French legislators signaled they would not pass a law enacting a ban on burkas, regardless of the statements of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mariana Abarco Roblero, a prominent activist in the struggle against Calgary-based mining company Blackfire, was assassinated in Chicomuselo, Chiapas.

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was detained and questioned about the 2010 Olympics on her way to speak in Vancouver. "To say the least I'm very taken aback by what I just went through, very shocked to be asked what I was going to talk about, and to see my colleagues' computers being gone through" at the border, she said. Organizers in Halifax protested the Olympic torch relay through their city.

The Supreme Court of Canada denied an appeal by fired Walmart workers from Jonquière, QC, in their case against the retail giant. Walmart closed the store after employees unionized as members of part of United Food and Commercial Workers. "[Walmart's] lawyers can celebrate winning on a technicality, but the rights of everyday working people are at risk when a giant company can hide behind its lawyers while terminating the future of hundreds of workers and their families," said Wayne Hanley, the National President of UFCW Canada.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was confronted in Toronto and Vancouver. "Over the past year, activists have been confronting and disrupting Kenney, ensuring that he knows that wherever he goes, resistance will follow!" reads a statement from No One Is Illegal Vancouver.

A man killed four police officers in front of a coffee shop in a Seattle suburb. Police later killed Maurice Clemmons, who was their prime suspect.

Anti-fascist organizer Ivan Khutorskoy was killed in Moscow in a targeted attack that his comrades believe was orchestrated by neo-Nazi groups. Khutorskoy's supporters were detained when they attempted to organize a rally to commemorate his death, as the city of Moscow would not sanction it. Moscow has sanctioned two neo-Nazi rallies over the past month.

Robert Erickson spoke at a Minnesota Tea Party against amnesty for non-status people, where he eventually called for all Europeans to go back to Europe and led the crowd in chants of "Columbus, go home."

People around the world marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25. In Canada, 146 women were murdered in 2008, 45 at the hands of a current or former spouse, according to Statistics Canada. "The vast majority of women killed with guns in Canada today are killed with a shotgun or rifle, not a handgun. Registering long guns is a public safety issue and a small price to pay for every life saved," said YWCA CEO Paulette Senior, advocating for the maintenance of the long-gun fire-arm registry.

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