This picture is taken towards the end of our demo outside of the Prime Minister's Office, but you can still see that there was a fair bit of coverage.
And yet, despite this media presence, there was ZERO television broadcasting of this important event. Three men, Canadian citizens, arrested mysteriously while in Syria, and asked by their torturers the same questions they had been asked by Canadian authorities, ... combined with documentation out of the Arar Inquiry wherein Canadian officials discuss wanting these men to stay in Syria, and wanting the Syrians to extract information out of them, ... but there's nothing on the news about this?
Despite the fact that they actually showed up and filmed our visit to the PMO demanding answers?
What Canadian news editor decided that this wasn't a story? What CBC executive decided that it was more important to discuss the story of the Tim Horton's employee fired for giving a customer's child a Timbit for the rotating news leaders the next day.
While there hasn't been near enough coverage of Omar Khadr, or while there hadn't been enough sustained attention on the Arar case while it was ongoing, eventually the Canadian media did get its act together.
Someone on the caravan pointed out that in the cases of Arar and Khadr, it was the US that was ulitmately responsible for the crimes committed against these individuals. In the cases of Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin, and Ahmad Abou El-Maati, it was the ... it IS the Canadian government that betrayed these Canadian citizens. Therefore, too many powerful domestic interests are opposed to this revelation.
Hopefully, this upcoming documentary will shed more light on it than Canada's fifth estate:
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing these photos, Thwap, and for keeping this important story alive in the blogosphere.
Thanks for noticing Brian. I think TASC [Toronto Action for Social Change] and Homes Not Bombs are going to do some more action on this issue come the fall.
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