November 22, 2006

[NEW MEMBERS: Many new members have joined in the past couple of weeks - we are now over 800. Just a reminder to those who have just signed on that this project is aimed at writing letters-to-the-editor and not politicians. But that doesn’t mean you can’t also send your letters to your MP or the Prime Minister. In fact, I encourage you to do so. Click here to find your MP - highlight and copy and send to them all, if you wish. Harper’s email is: Harper.S@parl.gc.ca]

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Stephen Harper is taking a lot of flak over his ham-handed efforts at playing tough guy on the world stage by criticizing China over human rights. And well he should. Though China should be criticized severely for its appalling record of treating its own people like so many cattle (virtual slave labour in prisons, massive use of the death penalty, crushing dissent) Harper’s criticisms reek of hypocrisy and should be exposed on this basis.

Harper has been criticized by Bay Street for the obvious reasons: that they don’t want to halt their lucrative investment opportunities. We should reject this self-interested argument for it simply implies that business is happy hiring labour for pennies a day and wants to keep it that way.

But what about human rights in other places? What about the human rights of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza where murderous Israeli assaults continue to take place? What about human rights in Lebanon, and Burma, and the blatant disregard of human rights of prisoners in the US gulag of secret prisons in eastern Europe and in Guantanamo?

And what about the human rights of Canadians threatened by draconian new laws in the US that could see Canadians arrested and charged under the Military Commissions Act - without habeas corpus and based on exactly the same kind of evidence that sent Mahar Arrar to Syrian for torturing?

This is calculated and cynical exploitation of an issue designed to make Harper look tough against a powerful regime. But what makes it even more cynical is that Harper was so utterly incompetent in playing his tough guy card that he accomplished virtually nothing. He made no public criticism of China - and simply claims he did so privately (at a meeting virtually in the hallway for a few minutes with the Chinese president).

The question also to be asked is Harper doing the bidding of the US on this issue? The US is extremely worried about the rising power of China and would be perfectly happy to have Harper attack China

WRITE A LETTER EXPOSING STEPHEN HARPER’S BLATANT OPPORTUNISM AND CYNICISM IN HIS SHAM CRITICISM OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN CHINA.

FRAMING: Frame the issue as described above. Stephen Harper is not to be believed when it comes to defending human rights around the world as he rarely comments on such issues even when he has the opportunity. He is cynically calculating that Canadians will see him as a defender of human rights in a Communist country, hoping they will not notice his repeated contempt for human rights in many other contexts.

Some key arguments and quotes to use:

• Where is Stephen Harper when the rights of Palestinians are grossly violated by indiscriminate Israeli bombing and shelling os civilian area. UN Refugee Commissioner (and former Canadian Supreme Court justice) Louise Arbour stated (see Globe and Mail, Nov. 22, 2006) that:
  
  "The violation of human rights I think in this territory is massive," "I think the call for protection has to be answered. I think we cannot continue to see civilians who are not the authors of their own misfortune continue to suffer." She said that what she had seen in Beit Hanoun convinced her that Palestinians are suffering from "catastrophic human-rights violations."
  
  Not a word from Stephen Harper who is now in lock step with George Bush on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Virtually every government in the world except that of the US and Canada condemned Israel for its grossly disproportionate response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers - slaughtering over 1000 Lebanese and destroying hundreds of bridges, power plants and other infrastructure as well as thousands of homes and businesses.
  
  Harper refused to say a single critical word about Israel - even when it deliberately (according to many analysts) targeted a UN observer post killing a Canadian soldier.

• The US Bush administration has been condemned around the world and even criticized by its own courts for the totally illegal detention of hundreds of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and in secret prisons around the world (through equally illegal “extraordinary renditions”).
  
  Stephen Harper has never said a single word of criticism of George W. Bush for these terrible violations of human rights and by his silence lends legitimacy to them.

• Harper is playing to his favourite group of core supporters in the anti-abortion movement which often virulently criticizes China for its concerted efforts at birth control. Typical was Sharon Hayes, a former Reform/Alliance MP, and former board member of Focus on the Family, who once sent out a news letter alleging that the Chinese government permitted the “consumption of human fetuses as health food”, thereby implying that this practice existed in China. “Chinese doctors” eat them just "like vitamins." [see my old Reform Watch story]
  
  Is this why Harper focuses on human rights in China and no other country?

• Harper shows no concerns for the human rights of Canadians who are now vulnerable to the Military Commissions Act recently passed in the US. It allows foreigners -- Canadians included -- to be brought before military commissions on terrorism charges. Under the Act convictions can be based on hearsay evidence. Convictions carry the possibility of the death penalty. Hearsay evidence started Maher Arar's ordeal four years ago.
  The FBI now sits in on meeting of Canada’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams- where hearsay evidence is presented. (see transcript of CBC radio story by Evan Dyer, October 5, 2006 posted in list-serve message)

Harper has made no comment on this threat to Canadians.

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