Tune in tomorrow at 5pm for the last special broadcast on the federal elections. We will be joined live in studio by 2 candidates from the NPD and the Green party and on the phone with the Communist party. Don’t hesitate to call in if your want a specific question to be asked during the show from 5 to 6 ! Or Post your questions in the comments !
The Rad School presents: ‘City for Sale – Whose city? Whose development? Whose security?’ held Wed, Nov 10, 6:30pm, at Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs.
What’s happening to public space in Montreal? Rising land values and real estate are having an adverse impact on existing communities. Gentrification and mega-urban developments like the Quartier des Spectacles continue unchecked. People – especially the poor – are being displaced and bashed. Expensive condos replace affordable housing. There is more police profiling of street people, more ‘urban cleansing,’ and the security of those who work in the streets is jeopardized. Meanwhile, community concerns are being ignored. How can we stop this process and take back our city? How do we keep Montreal affordable, accessible and liveable? A panel presentation and roundtable discussion.
Facilitator Norman Nawrocki is a part-time faculty member in Concordia’s School of Community and Public Affairs and a longtime community organizer in Montreal, currently involved with saving Parc Oxygène.
Presenters: Velma Candyass is a teacher, choreographer and performer in the vanguard of bringing neo-burlesque and striptease classes to Montreal. Involved in street theatre and verbatim theatre activist projects, and currently active in the movement to save the Lower Main of Boulevard St Laurent, including Cafe Cleopatra.
Stella is the Montreal community group that was created in 1995 to provide support and info to sex-workers so that they can live in safety and with dignity. Stella also educates the public about sex work, fights discrimination against sex-workers, and promotes the decriminalisation of sex work. ‘Stella favours empowerment and solidarity by and amongst sex-workers.’ Stéphanie Lareau has been working at Stella for five years as an outreach worker downtown. Anita Schoepp is an intervention streetworker with Stella for the past 7 months and has been doing streetwork in Montreal for the past 5 years. She works mainly in the downtown area and does needle exchanges, crisis intervention, accompaniment and sex-worker rights advocacy.
John Bradley is a community organizer at the Pointe Saint-Charles Community Clinic, active in non-profit housing development and in questions of social justice in an urban setting for over thirty years (Milton–Parc, SHDM), with a particular interest in the connections between urban planning, public health, ecology and citizen empowerment.
The Rad School is a group of Montreal community organizers and activists who present public events about diverse social justice issues. Each event offers a place to think critically about theories and practices, about what works, what doesn’t, and to develop new perspectives for our activism so that we can organize more effectively. It’s also an opportunity to meet and learn from each other. More info:
http://radschool.blogspot.com/
Omar Khadr’s 40-year prison sentence was handed to him on Sunday, 31 October. In anticipation of our update on the story from Guantanamo Bay, which is set to air on Tuesday’s Off the Hour (2 November), please hav a listen to the second part of our documentary series (which aired on 29 September).
Produced by Sam Ormond and Sven Carlsson for CKUT.
——————
Guests
Tony Navaneelan, counsel at Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Toronto
Andrea Prasow, senior counsel at Human Rights Watch
Dr. Steven Reisner, adjunct professor in Clinical Psychology, Columbia University
David Glazier, associate professor of law, Loyola University
Synopsis:
Aside from the flawed legal system under which Omar Khadr has been charged, and the absurdity of the charges that he has now plead guilty to, there are two additional aspects to his case that are troubling.
Khadr was 15 or younger when the crimes he was tried for at Guantanamo were committed. Moreover, the prisoner Michelle Shepherd of the Toronto Star refers to as ‘Guantanamo’s child’ has been afforded no legal protection by two successive Canadian governments.
When Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) interrogators visited Khadr in 2003, their purpose was not to ensure that the conditions Khadr was held in were up to any particular standard, but rather to extract information from him that would be useful to US interrogators.
The second part of our documentary series explores the moral, legal and psychological implications of Khadr’s age at the time of his capture, and scrutinizes the response of two Canadian governments to his detainment.
This panel will present and assess the achievements and aims of the BDS movement internationally and in Palestine over the past 5 years, and speak to the challenges ahead for the BDS movement in Québec, Canada and around the world.
Featuring Omar Barghouti, Coordinator, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the Boycott National Committee (BNC), Palestine Areej Ja’fari, Coordinator of the Palestine Freedom Project, West Bank Stephen Faulkner, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).
Areej:
Steve:
Omar:
This was the keynote presentation to the conference on Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid held in Montreal October 22 – 24, 2010. As part of Quebec and Canada’s contribution to the growing global movement to end Israeli apartheid, the conference aimed to move forward the campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.
When President George W. Bush declared war on Afghanistan in 2001, his military order stipulated that captives should “be detained, and, when tried, to be tried for violations of the laws of war and other applicable laws by military tribunals.” These tribunals would later come to be known as military commissions. Thus began the saga of Omar Khadr’s detention.
Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was severely wounded in a firefight in Afghanistan, on 27 July 2002 . Khadr, the only survivor of the raid, was captured and transferred to the US Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan, where he was held for three months. In October 2002, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where his trial by military commission is now about to begin after nearly eight years of indefinite detention.
Khadr was held incommunicado at Guantanamo Bay for two years. In 2004, he was defined as an “enemy combatant” by the Combatant Status Review Board. He was first charged in 2005, three years after his detention, in acordance with President Bush’s military order establishing military commissions. Khadr was accused of murdering Sgt.CHristopher Speer, a US soldier who died in the firefight, in violation of the law of war, and was also charged with attempted murder in violation of the law of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying.
This two-part series explores the judicial issues brought forth by the various forms of military commissions created by the Bush and Obama administration, contextualizes them within international law and discusses the legalities of the charges against Khar in part one.
Part two, set to air 29 September, deals with the moral, legal and psychological implications of Khadr’s age and scrutinizes the Canadian government’s involvement in his detention.
In this special edition of Friday Off the Hour, academics, watchdogs, and activists spoke on the recent controversy arising around Prime Minister Harpers attempts to create SunTV.
CKUT’s special emergency broadcast aired September 17th. The show featured guests Emma Ruby Saks, campaign coordinator with Avaaz.org, Professor Mark Raboy from McGill University, Professor Leslie Shade from Concordia University, Ian Morrison, spokesperson for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, Professor Donald Gutstein, co-director of NewsWatch Canada, and Steve Anderson, National Coordinator of OpenMedia.ca.
The show focused on the political and social implications of establishing a channel similar to Fox News in Canada.
To download the interview with Emma Ruby Saks, please click here, or if you would like to stream it, please press the arrow below.
If you are interested in listening to the interview with Professor Mark Roboy and Professor Leslie Shade, you can click on the arrow below, or if you would like to download it, please click here.
To download the interview with Ian Morrison, please click here. If you would like to stream the interview, please click below.
If you wish to download the interview with Professor Donald Gutstein, please click here. Otherwise, you can stream it below!
Finally, if you are keen on streaming an interview with Emma Ruby Saks and Steve Anderson, please click below. Otherwise, you can click here to download it.
In the special broadcast from September 6th to the 10th, CKUT’s news collective hour featured issues surrounding going back to school.
On September 7th, an interview with Joce Jessen and a queer walking tour around downtown Montreal. Click here to download the Joce Jessen interview. Click here to download part 1 of the Queer Walking Tour and here to download part 2.
Click below to stream the Joce Jessen interview.
Click below for part 1 of the queer walking tour, and below that for part 2.
On September 8th, CKUT celebrated international literacy day by broadcasting an interview with a representative of the Canadian Council on Learning. Click here to download Marc’s interview.
Click on the arrow below to stream the interview about literacy rates.
On September 10th, an interview with Ashley about QPIRG Concordia, an interview with Joel about issues facing the Quebec Student Movement, and finally an interview with Adrienne about rising tuition at McGill University. Click here to download the interview with Ashley, here for the interview with Joel, and finally here for the interview with Adrienne.
To stream Ashley’s interview, please click below.
If you want to stream Joel’s interview, please click on the arrow below.
Finally, if streaming Adrienne’s interview is what you really want to do, please click below.
Listen to an interview with Under the Olive Tree’s Laith Marouf and Ali Abunimah, co-founder of electric.intifada.net. Marouf and Abunimah discuss the “peace” negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in Washington D.C. that began today and the Palestinian community’s response to the negotiations.
Originally aired on CKUT 90.3FM & www.CKUT.ca on Under the Olive Tree, September 2nd at 11am.
Listen to a report from the recent performance by Public Enemy of Fear of a Black Planet, on the 20th anniversary of its release! We’ll hear sounds and interviews recorded at Club Soda, plus we’ll be joined by Chuck D to talk about Katrina, Prisoners’ Justice, Wyclef’s run for president in Haiti, and more!
Originally aired on CKUT 90.3FM & www.CKUT.ca on New Shit, August 23rd at 4pm.
Medieval prisons are usually depicted as cold, dirty, and grim places in which to be incarcerated and subsequently, tortured. Professor Guy Geltner of the University of Amsterdam has recently published a book that contradicts this long-held belief. Furthermore, Professor Geltner argues that punitive incarceration originated from the 14th century. By taking a closer look into the Italian city-state prisons, one can see the true likeness between our current system and the one long ago.
This documentary will focus on the Italian prisons as a whole, looking at who was in prison, how they passed their time, where these prisons came from, and much more.
…August 10, the day prisoners have set aside as a day to fast and refuseto work in a show of solidarity to remember those who have died unnecessarily — victims of murder, suicide and neglect.
…the day when organizations and individuals in the community hold demonstrations, vigils, worship services and other events in common resistance with prisoners.
…the day to raise issue with the fact that a very high rate of women are in prison for protecting themselves against their abusers. This makes it obvious that the legal system does not protect women who suffer violence at the hands of their partners.
…is the day to remember that there are a disproportionate number of Natives, African-Canadians and other minorities and marginalized people in prisons. Prisons are the ultimate form of oppression against struggles of recognition and self-determination.
…the day to raise public awareness of the demands made by prisoners to change the criminal justice system and the brutal and inhumane conditions that lead to so many prison deaths.
…the day to oppose prison violence, police violence, and violence against women and children.
…the day to publicize that, in their fight for freedom and equality, the actions of many political prisoners have been criminalized by government. As a result, there are false claims that there are no political prisoners
in north american prisons.
…the day to raise public awareness of the economic and social costs of a system of criminal justice which punishes for revenge. If there is ever to be social justice, it will only come about using a model of healing justice, connecting people to the crimes and helping offenders take responsibility for their actions.
…the day to renew the struggle for HIV/AIDS education, prevention and treatment in prison.
…the day to remind people that the criminal justice system and the psychiatric system are mutually reinforcing methods that the state uses to control human beings. There is a lot of brutality by staff committed in the name of treatment. Moreover, many deaths in the psych-prisons remain uninvestigated.
This is the theme that members of the CKUT news collective have prepared in solidarity with Prisoners’ Justice Day. Click here to download the .mp3 file.
Peter Collins is an inmate at Bath Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario. He is involved in prisoner’s issues such as the war on drugs, harm reduction (education, needle exchange, safe tattooing, methadone) and the promotion of Prisoner’s Justice Day (PJD). Below, are his commentaries on PJD and on prison issues.
Click here for his introduction, here for his commentary on PJD memorial, and here for his commentary on the Conservative Party.
Click here for his commentary on censorship at Bath Prison, here for his commentary on image censorship, and here for his commentary on justice.
Click here for his commentary on his Old Age Pension and here for more of his commentary on PJD.
Click here for more of his commentary on August 10th and finally, here for his commentary on who is in prison.
The Angola Three are political prisoners who were framed for crimes they did not commit and were sentenced to life in jail. Robert King, a member of the Angola Three, spent 29 years in solitary confinement. He was released February 8, 2001.
Here, he speaks about his tireless effort to free his friends and to defend the rights of political prisoners.
Sara Falconer is a member of 4StruggleMag, a zine which publishes work written by political prisoners, social prisoners, their relatives, and many others. It has existed since 2002.
Kiilu Nyasha, the radio host of Freedom Is a Constant Struggle on a San Francisco radio station, is an accomplished radio programmer. The following interview focuses on her good friend, Hugo Pinell. The media labeled him as part of the San Quentin 6. He endured the longest trial of history of California, lasting over 500 days. Hugo has been in prison for 40 years, and he is the only person of the San Quentin 6 to remain behind bars.
Having spent 30 years in prison, Ken Hartman wrote Mother California: A Story of Redemption Behind Bars, a personal reflection of his experiences in various penitentiaries in California. This interview includes several exerpts from his book and Ken Hartman’s opinions on the “other death penalty” (or “death by incarceration”) and the honor yard program.
Recently, thousands of police have started evacuating an ancient Bedouin village, designating the land for Israeli use. Doctor Yeela Raanan, an activist in Israel, speaks about her experience with the Palestinians and Israelis.
Graham Usher, a former Palestine correspondent for the Economist, is now based in Islamabad. He is the author of Dispatches from Palestine: The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Peace Process.
He discusses the Pakistani’s army’s unwillingness to help the American efforts in Afghanistan among other points of interest as well.
