Council of Canadians members from the Peterborough and Kawarthas Chapter joined three busloads of supporters from Toronto, Kitchener and Guelph (along with local supporters from the Peterborough and Lindsay areas, Food Not Bombs and Sustainable Trent) as they rallied at the provincial maximum security jail east of Lindsay in support of immigration detainees incarcerated there without charge. Braving a wind chill approaching -30, rabble reports, “Some of those riding on the buses will be on a 24 hour fast in solidarity with migrant detainees who will begin a 72 hour fast inside their cells today.”
“On any given day 600 or more people are trapped in immigration cells across Canada. Over 100 of those are being held on a long-term basis, some of whom have been jailed for more than five years. Unlike many other countries, Canada has no limit on how long a person can be held in order to remove them — a presumptive period. Detainees are demanding a 90 day limit on their detention, and an end to maximum-security incarceration.”
In September of this year, 191 migrant detainees refused to enter their cells starting the largest known migrant detainee strike in Canadian history. On November 4, John Greyson and Tarek Loubani, who spent 7 weeks in a prison in Egypt without charges, visited the detainees in Lindsay and were critical of the Canadian government. “These detentions are arbitrary, indefinite and that makes them unjust,” said Loubani.
At the rally, Council of Canadians members stated that, “approximately 150 demonstrators marched to the back of the jail, under close police supervision, and called out in support for the detainees confined behind the inhuman walls in front of the demonstrators. As the demonstration was ending, they were heartened by suddenly being able to hear action from inside the walls, in appreciation of the huge support inside.”
End Immigration detention reports that a full hour the demonstration outside the Central East Correctional Centre, “we received a call from a detainee, a man from Liberia who has lived in Canada for 20 years. The background noise was deafening, and when asked what was happening inside, he responded, “They’ve been yelling freedom in unison for hours.” It took a few more moments over the poor prison phone connection until we could hear the reverberation of “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom!”
The Council of Canadians, the Public Service Alliance of Canada – Ontario, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the CUPE Ontario International Solidarity Committee and more than 50 other leading labour, civil society, grassroots groups and individuals have joined with migrant detainees in Lindsay, Ontario to demand an end to the indefinite detention of migrants, a stop to their incarceration in a maximum security jail, and an overhaul to the adjudication process.
For more background on this situation please see: http://canadians.org/blog/council-joins-call-end-indefinite-detention-migrants-lindsay-jail