The Daily GRRR! - December 12th, 2014 - Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio Edition

image is Solitary Confinement - from brokenchains.us

Welcome, I am your host Dan Kellar and you are listening to The Daily GRRR! Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio, on 100.3fm, CKMS in Waterloo, Ontario. Soundfm.ca on the web, today is Friday December 12th, 2014.

We are broadcasting from the centre of the Haldimand Tract, the occupied Grand River Territory of the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations).

The Daily GRRR! is a project of the Grand River Media Collective; and is supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada and CKMS.

The clip that kicked off the show is from Mumia Abu-Jamal with his piece entitled Beyond Rotten Apples and Broken Windows. Check prisonradio.org for more of Mumia’s podcasts.

Today’s feature is Coast Salish based social justice warrior Harsha Walia who adds a strong anti-colonial, anti-imperial, anti-capitalist voice to the December 2nd Capitalism vs. The Climate panel discussion at SFU where Naomi Klein's book of the same title was discussed.

Now we will start with today’s headlines:

The Daily GRRR!
HEADLINES for December 12th, 2014 
1. Canada’s “Addiction” to Torturous Segregation Will Continue
2. Defiant and Loving Noise Demo at Grand valley Institute
3. G20 Cop’s Story Shifts After Meeting With Accused Cop Lawyer
4. Montreal Cop Arrested For Assaulting Lover, Threatening Minister
5. Manitoba Cop Busted on Child Porn Creation Charges
6. Cops Are Not Afraid Of the Legal System
7. Youth Bring Tar Sands Warnings to COP20

1. Canada’s “Addiction” to Torturous Segregation Will Continue
Despite ongoing and widespread denunciation of isolating prisoners in segregation cells, including a recent lambasting by retired Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, Correctional Services Canada will not implement all the findings from the inquiry into the death of 19 year old Ashley Smith.

Arbour told the Globe and Mail that the CSC has an “addiction” to using segregation cells, which the former human rights and war crimes laywer calls “a further and extremely severe deprivation of liberty from people who are already at the mercy of the state for their well being. Particularly when there’s any kind of signal of mental health issues or mental distress.”

The comments were made a day before the government’s Thursday decision to
ignore key recommendations into the 2007 suicide at the Grand Valley Institute Prison in Kitchener of Ashley Smith, after more than 2000 days “in the hole”

Denying that Canada uses “solitary confinement”, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney added “This is a procedure that is applied with a lot of common sense by our correctional officers… We expect to have more development on our mental health strategy, an action we have taken to make sure those who have serious mental health issues are well taken care of.”

A recent editorial in the globe and mail discussing the suicide of Indigenous prisoner Edward Snowshoe after an extended confinement in isolation said “prisoners are suffering to a degree that should shame a civilized nation but which doesn’t seem to trouble the government much at all.”

The government cited guard and inmate safety for reasons they can not follow the recommendations of the inquest.

Referring to the Harper Government’s newly introduced Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, Justice Arbour says “In light of everything we know about segregation, the government may want to think about including it in its list of ‘barbaric cultural practices’ that it seems to be so concerned about.”

2. Defiant and Loving Noise Demo at Grand Valley Institute 
On the evening of December 3rd, fireworks, music and speeches flowed from a cloud of orange smoke outside the fences of the Grand Valley Institute for Women in Kitchener, sending love and solidarity that“was greeted with cheers from the inmates and the anger of screws that were pissed off.”

One report back of the action notes that this was “a targeted political protest aimed at an institution that killed Ashley Smith by isolation, is currently incarcerating Nikki Kish and is continuing the form of torture known as isolation. It was at this institution that the screws sat by and watched Ashley take her own life while they did nothing. It is this institution that participated and implemented the torture that led to her death.”

As usual for such demos, guards told demonstrators that they must punish the prisoners after such actions are taken, then police showed up trying to intimidate the crowd. Defiant and knowing the truth, demonstrators claim that the actions against the prison industrial complex will continue.

3. G20 Cop’s Story Shifts After Meeting With Accused Cops Lawyer
While the evidence of the meeting between a subordinate to the Toronto G20’s top cop, and that top cop’s lawyer soon before his testimony, was not allowed to be entered into evidence, the questioning of Gerald Cashman, led the inspector into contradicting early testimony he had given on the record.

While on the stand this week at the discreditable conduct and unlawful arrests hearing for Mark Fenton, the cop in charge of toronto’s police during the 2010 G20 summit, Cashman said there were no orders for a mass arrest and 24 hour detention of those trapped inside the police kettle. This testimony contradicted the report he gave in 2011 to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director which, as the Toronto Star reported, “stated that police at the scene had been ordered to arrest the entire crowd for breach of the peace and detain them for a period of 24 hours. In that interview, the hearing was also told that Cashman questioned the grounds for arresting the group.”

The Star also notes that there has been no response into the naming of controversial, pro-cop, retired justice John Hamilton as the new judge on the hearing.

………

Now for a couple “If it was just a coincidence, it would not happen daily” ACAB reports:

4.Montreal Cop Arrested For Assaulting Lover, Threatening Minister
After being arrested for assaulting, harassing, and threatening his lover, and assaulting one and threatening two youth, a still unidentified Montreal cop is also being charged with threatening to kill a member of the provincial assembly.

The sergeant-detective was arrested after a womin reported the assault, and it has become known that the MLA he threatened was Municipal Affairs Minister Pierre Moreau. The cop is likely to be paid while on suspension.

5. Manitoba Cop Busted on Child Porn Creation Charges
A cop in Altona Manitoba has been arrested and charged with making and possessing child pornography. The 33 year old cop, whose name has not been released is suspended with pay.

Little other information is available about the arrest last week, but with the cop’s name being kept secret to “protect the identity of a victim” may indicate that the cop preyed on a family member.

6. Cops Are Not Afraid Of the Legal System
In an interview with a canadian law blog, progressive lawyer Clayton Ruby says cops know they will be dealt with leniently if they break the law and that the system meant to hold the police to account does not “charge the police and they acquit them when they are charged,” Ruby added “It’s a sham.”

The Canadian criminal code allows all those authorised by the law to use “as much force as is necessary” in enforcing the law. Ruby says “The terms are extremely general so they tend to bear whatever meaning the individual police officer wants to assign to it… And in Canada, as in the U.S., judges and juries and police chiefs refuse to use these phrases to put a limit on police activity.”

Noting the recent non-indictments of the cops who killed unarmed black youth Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and black father of 5 Eric Garner, on Staten Island, the article also brought up last years murder of 18 year old Sammy Yatim by the Toronto police, the murder of Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski by the RCMP in Vancouver, and the 2012 police killing of Michael Eligon, a man experiencing mental health distress in Toronto.

The lawyer representing Eligon`s family, Peter Rosenthal agreed, saying: “ exaggerate the danger and they don’t recognize that the best way of dealing with the danger would be talking to the person.” Rosenthal noted that police are trained with a “backward way of thinking” when it comes to dealing with potentially aggressive suspects.

The articles concludes with a quote from Clayton Ruby, “Courts are afraid to seriously punish police. They know they are going to be dealt with extremely leniently and they won’t suffer any consequences for it.”

7. Youth Bring Tar Sands Warnings to COP20
With banner in hand, the canadian youth delegation at the COP 20 meetings in Lima, Peru have highlighted the ongoing climate denial of the Harper government and demanded that the tar sands be included in the climate calculations from the science hating conservatives.

The press release from the CYD notes:
“Media reported on Prime Minister Harper's comments earlier this week in the House of Commons, which sent shockwaves through the negotiations in Lima. PM Harper said, "under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy-- it would be crazy economic policy-- to do unilateral penalties on that sector. We're clearly not going to do it." Today, the CYD intends to make it very clear that a meaningful climate policy from Canada *must* include the tar sands and its related industry emissions. Canada's double standard has hit a peak.”

The release notes that between 2000 and 2013, Canada’s oil production has grown 53%

That is all for the headlines, You are listening to Waves Through Walls edition of The Daily GRRR! Today is December 12th, 2014, my name is Dan Kellar and we are now moving into the feature portion of our broadcast.

Today’s feature is Coast Salish based social justice warrior Harsha Walia adding a strong anti-colonial, anti-imperial, anti-capitalist voice to the December 2nd Capitalism vs. The Climate panel discussion at SFU where Naomi Klein's book of the same title was discussed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0I7GlkVEh4&list=UUXVvxLkc_m7IzXoDn8tl8z...

That was Harsha Walia’s critical contribution to the December 2nd Capitalism vs. The Climate panel discussion at SFU - you can listen to the other three presentations by following the link on our webpage.

This has been the The Daily GRRR! for December 12th, 2014. We are on weekdays from 9-10am on 100.3fm CKMS in Waterloo region, and http://soundfm.ca on the web. Check out all our past shows and other Grand River Media Collective work on our webpage http://grandrivermc.ca

The Daily GRRR! is supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada and CKMS.

Stay tuned in for more Grand River Radical Radio after we close the podcast.

Thanks for Listening.