Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Vicissitude]

[igotthisguitar]

Supreme Court Rejects Refugee Appeals
From Two American Army Deserters

Thu Nov 15, 11:04 AM
By The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The Supreme Court Of Canada has refused to hear the cases of two U.S. army deserters who fled north of the border seeking refugee status on the grounds of their opposition to the war in Iraq.



The court refused Thursday to hear the appeals of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, who were rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board in 2005.

The board ruled they would not be at risk of their lives if they returned to the United States, nor were they at risk of "cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."


Both would face jail time if convicted of desertion.

Hinzman and Hughey deserted the army in 2004 after learning their units were to be deployed to Iraq. They say they refuse to participate in what they call an immoral and illegal war.

Both the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal refused to review their cases

As is usual in such cases, the Supreme Court gave no reasons for the decision.

Green party Leader Elizabeth May said Canada should not "facilitate the persecution of American war objectors by deporting them to the United States."

"Canada is a peaceful country and we have a proud tradition of welcoming conscientious objectors, most notably American soldiers who fled to Canada while the United States waged war in Vietnam," she said.

Canada should be a sanctuary for war resisters and their families, she said.

Hinzman flew to Canada in January 2004, along with his wife and son.

Hughey arrived in March 2004.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/071115/national/scoc_deserters

[Vicissitude]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Canada a refuge for American draft dodgers during the Vietnam war? I know that's where many of them fled. So how are these ojectors who fled any different?

[supernick]

[igotthisguitar]

Blackwater Protesters Given Secret Trial and Criminal Conviction
By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. Posted January 29, 2008.

Protesters who re-enacted one of Blackwater's worst civilian massacres in Iraq got jail time, while the real killers remain free.

Also in Top Stories
Dark Truths About the Israeli Occupation
Daniel Levy, Washington Monthly

$100 Billion and Counting: How Wall Street Blew Itself up
Pam Martens, CounterPunch

Last week in Currituck County, N.C., Superior Court Judge Russell Duke presided over the final step in securing the first criminal conviction stemming from the deadly actions of Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration's favorite mercenary company.

Lest you think you missed some earth-shifting, breaking news, hold on a moment. The "criminals" in question were not the armed thugs who gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others in Baghdad's Nisour Square last September. They were seven nonviolent activists who had the audacity to stage a demonstration at the gates of Blackwater's 7,000-acre private military base in North Carolina to protest the actions of mercenaries acting with impunity -- and apparent immunity -- in their names and those of every American.

The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spent locked up in jail is more punishment than any Blackwater mercenaries have received for their deadly actions against Iraqi civilians.

"The courts pretend that adherence to the law is what makes for an orderly and peaceable world," said Steve Baggarly, one of the protest organizers. "In fact, U.S. law and courts stand idly by while the U.S. military and private armies like Blackwater have killed, maimed, brutalized and destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."

A month after the Nisour Square massacre, on Oct. 20, a group of about 50 activists gathered outside Blackwater's gates in Moyock, N.C. There, they reenacted the Nisour Square shooting and staged a "die-in," involving a vehicle painted with bullet marks and blood. The activists stained their clothing with fake blood and dramatized the deadly shooting spree. Some of the demonstrators marked Blackwater's large welcome sign -- with the company's bear claw in a sniper scope logo -- with red hand prints. The demonstrators believed these "would be a much more appropriate logo for Blackwater," according to Baggarly. "We're all responsible for what is happening in Iraq. We all have bloody hands."

It took only moments for the local police to respond to the protest, the first ever at Blackwater's headquarters. In the end, seven were arrested.

The symbolism was stark: Re-enact a Blackwater massacre, go to jail. Commit a massacre, walk around freely and perhaps never go to jail.

All seven were charged with criminal trespassing, six of them with an additional charge of resisting arrest and one with another charge of injury to real property. "We feel like Blackwater is trespassing in Iraq," Baggarly later said. "And as for injuring property, they injure men, women and children every day." The activists were jailed for five days and eventually released ... pending trial.

When their day in court arrived, on Dec. 5, the activists intended to put Blackwater on trial, something the Justice Department, the military and the courts have systematically failed to do. Their action at Blackwater, the activists said, was in response to war crimes, the killing of civilians and the fact that no legal system -- civilian or military -- was holding Blackwater responsible. The Nisour Square massacre, they said, "is the Iraq war in microcosm."

But District Court Judge Edgar Barnes would have none of it.

So outraged was he at Baggarly, the first of the defendants to appear before him that day, that the judge cleared the court following his conviction. No spectators, no family members, no journalists, no defense witnesses remained. The other six activists were tried in total secrecy -- well, secret to everyone except the prosecutors, sheriffs, government witnesses and one Blackwater official. Judge Barnes swiftly tried the remaining six activists behind closed doors and convicted them all.

It was as though Currituck, N.C., became Gitmo for a day.

It's not unusual for a judge to clear a courtroom when there is a disruption by the public. Nor is it rare for judges to try to prevent activists from turning the tables and attempting to put the government -- or in this case a mercenary company -- on trial. But witnesses that day report that there was no disruption -- and the defendants say they were immediately cut off when they strayed from the narrow scope of the trespass charge to discuss Blackwater's actions or the war. So why clear the courtroom?

That may be a question for Judge Barnes in the end, but it's hard not to view his conduct through the same veil of secrecy that shrouds all of Blackwater's actions -- and the seemingly endless lengths to which the Bush administration will go to protect Blackwater.

MORE ...

http://www.alternet.org/story/75244/

[thepeel]

That is a very disgusting story IGTG.

I read Scahill's book on BlackWater after about 4 years of only really reading about religion and some economic stuff. It is a very sickening description of how down right evil the contractors have behaved. And now, for the state to charge people who protest them?