The Daily GRRR! - February 27th, 2015 - Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio

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 February 27th, 2015.

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 Huey Newton: A Profile in Excellence. This is a piece from Mumia’s Black History Month Series . Check prisonradio.orgfor more of Mumia’s podcasts.

Today’s feature is a discussion from redeye radio in Vancouver with the BC Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society speaking on their constitutional challenge on the gratuitous use of solitary confinement in Canadian federal prisons.

Now we will start with today’s headlines:

The Daily GRRR!
HEADLINES for February 27th, 2015 
1. Charges Dropped Against Indigenous Man Shot by Manitoba RCMP
2. Hacktivist Matt DeHart Ordered Deported from Canada
3. SIU Keeping Police Shooting Victim’s Identity Secret
4. Conservatives’ Anti-Terror Bill #C51 Aims for “Total information Awareness”
5. Chicago Cops Operating Unofficial “Black Site”
6. Students Launch A Strike Debt Campaign Against Everest College in US
7. Nyki Kish Case Featured by Injustice Anywhere

1. Charges Dropped Against Indigenous Man Shot by Manitoba RCMP
We start today by checking in on the case of Evan Cromarty, a 21 year old Indigenous man who was shot in the shoulder last summer by Manitoba RCMP as he fled arrest. Cromarty has had the charges that led the police chasing him from his home and into a baseball field were an active game was in play, dropped.

While still facing the cyclical-violence of “breach charges” - the assault, B and E and uttering threats charges were dropped by prosecutors who lacked any evidence.

Cromarty’s Lawyer, Jody Ostapiw, told the Winnipeg Free Press "The shooting of an unarmed man is extremely troubling. I am grateful that my client was not more seriously injured and that he has not been convicted of any crime arising out of that incident."

Investigators from the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team are still probing the shooting, 8 months on...

2. Hacktivist Matt DeHart Ordered Deported from Canada
On February 11th, former American soldier-turned hacktivist Matt DeHart was told by a canadian immigration and refugee review board that he will be deported “in short order”.

DeHart, who reports being tortured by the FBI after he refused to cooperate in a whistleblower investigation, is wanted by american authorities on trumped up child porn charges. While the review board was not at all impressed with the evidence against Dehart on those charges, saying there was no “credible or trustworthy evidence”, and despite the torture allegations, they decided that the american judiciary would afford DeHart a fair trial and ordered him out of the country, along with his parents who have been supporting him.

FBI Whistleblower and lawyer Jesselyn Radack said “Three judges have now openly expressed skepticism about the government’s case against Matt DeHart. I have represented other Espionage Act targets and defendants where the government initially tried to go after them on trumped-up child pornography charges, which are so incendiary that, even if untrue, they permanently taint the reputation of the accused.”

Matt’s deportation papers show a March 1st effective date and his support committee plans to fight the decision what ever way it can saying “ we desperately need funds for his defense.” You can donate to the support campaign by clicking the link on our grandrivermc.ca.

3. SIU Keeping Police Shooting Victim’s Identity Secret
The SIU and the Toronto police are keeping the identity of the man shot by cops last week a secret. The SIU points to a new policy in seeking consent from next of kin to release the name of anyone shot dead by cops, keeping it secret if consent is not given. This anonymity brings up issues of transparency, and is not an issue in other homicide cases, where victims names are released. This policy could of course lead to the family being pressured to keep the name private so less media attention will be brought to the case. If we can’t name the person we are demanding justice for, will the demands have any effect?

We do know that the man who was shot dead by the police was 49 years old and had been at the scene where another man was found with a non-fatal knife wound in his neck.

lawyer Julian Falconer told the toronto star: “In the long term, once the families have been notified, I think the name of the officer who used lethal force should be released, and I think the name of the victim should be released. I do not think this should be a private exercise. I think what the Supreme Court is telling us, in most eloquent terms, is: transparency, transparency, transparency.”

4.Conservatives’ Anti-Terror Bill #C51 Aims for “Total information Awareness”
A former CSIS agent, and a member of the RCMP’s infamous clandestine “barn burners’ unit, has said Harper’s tactics leading up to debate around bill C51 “are taken right out of the facist playbook”. Retired spy francois Lavigne continues, the government creates “an enemy that is hard to identify. Make it an enemy that is nebulous and seems to be able to do things that nobody else can. Don’t define the enemy. Just identify. Generate fear around that enemy, Then send out the message that the only people who can deal with this enemy are us.”

As some of the only people to provide an in-depth public review of the proposed legislation, Professors Kent Roach and Craig Forcese, say “the bill effectively creates a “total information awareness” approach that represents a radical shift away from our traditional understanding of public sector privacy protection.”

Meanwhile,in a well written article of his own, political analyst and commentator Michael Geist notes “Much of the focus to date has been on the lack of oversight and the expansive new powers granted to CSIS. However, the privacy implications of Bill C-51′s information sharing provisions also cry out for study and reform.”

With only the NDP, Greens, and Cowboy Libertarians working to oppose the bill in parliament as the liberals accept the conservatives push for limited debate, it is increasingly looking like civil liberties in canada are going to take another hit.

5. Chicago Cops Operating Unofficial “Black Site”
Saying “Homan Square is definitely an unusual place,” former NATO 3 political dissident Brian Jacob Church, ,a href=”” thttp://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-ame...”_blank”>also told the Guardian “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”

Church was speaking about the off-the-books interrogation compound run in a warehouse by the Chicago police that has recently come to light following an investigation that alleged police practices included:

Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
Shackling for prolonged periods.
Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

It was noted as well that “At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.”

Church was arrested ahead of the 2012 NATO summits in Chicago after violence promoting state agent-provocateurs had infiltrated the group Church was working with. At the time of his arrest and internal rendition, Church “had essentially figured, ‘All right, well, they disappeared us and so we’re probably never going to see the light of day again’” .

The Guardian reports that “Homan Square is hardly concerned exclusively with terrorism. Several special units operate outside of it, including the anti-gang and anti-drug forces.” With Criminal defense Lawyer saying If police “want money, guns, drugs”, or information on the flow of any of them onto Chicago’s streets, “they bring them there and use it as a place of interrogation off the books.”

Indeed troubling news.

6. Students Launch A Strike Debt Campaign Against Everest College in US
Dubbing themselves “The Corinthian 15” a coalition of students at the Everest owned college have launched a strike debt campaign in response the schools financial meltdown and the worthlessness of diplomas earned by the for profit institution- many of which employers do not even recognise.

The “Debt Colelctive” notes that this “strike is the first time a group has come together to collectively refuse to pay federal student loans. The goal is to get the Department of Education to cancel their debt, along with that of all other current and former Corinthian students, under the assertion that Corinthian defrauded them.”

Here in Ontario everest college students have been on the streets all week in protest over the school’s closure by the province and filing for bankruptcy by the owner.

One of the 15, Nathan Hornes from LA asks: “Why is the Department of Education supporting a scam for-profit school instead of students?” In closing Hornes reminds us that “If we all join together, imagine how much power we would have to end student debt for good.”

7. Nyki Kish Case Featured by Injustice Anywhere 
Just prior to the week-long lockdown at Kitchener’s Grand Valley prison, Injustice Anywhere, “an organization working to correct wrongful convictions”, featured prisoner Nyki Kish, who was imprisoned for the 2007 death of a drunken businessbro who attacked Kish and her friends in downtown Toronto.

Check http://injustice-anywhere.org for more on the “epidemic of wrongful convictions” and check http://www.freenyki.org for more info on Nyki and how you can support her in the struggle for justice.

Thats all for the headlines, now for some
Spoken Word here is political prisonerSafir Chuma Asafo with the piece I Can’t Breath

And we are back, you just heard political prisonerSafir Chuma Asafo with the piece I Can’t Breath

You are listening to Waves Through Walls edition of The Daily GRRR! Today is February 27th, 2015, my name is Dan Kellar and we are now moving into the feature portion of our broadcast.

Today’s feature is a discussion from redeye radio in Vancouver with the BC Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society speaking on their constitutional challenge on the gratuitous use of solitary confinement in Canadian federal prisons.

That was a discussion from redeye radio in Vancouver with the BC Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society speaking on their constitutional challenge on the gratuitous use of solitary confinement in Canadian federal prisons. The piece was published on the rabble.ca podcast network.

This has been the The Daily GRRR! for February 27th, 2015. 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.

Thanks for Listening.