A group of SFU students put together this great documentary about Jose's case. The film is about 20 minutes long, and features interviews with Jose and Prof. Max Cameron from UBC. It nicely explains the history of the El Salvadorian civil conflict that saw about 70,000 people killed. It also sheds light on and how the FMLN came to be equated with 'terrorism' by ill-informed CBSA officers employing Canada's loose definition of the phenomena under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Legislation.
If you have a few spare minutes I strongly recommend that you watch it.
Here is the link:
This documentary is incredible! There is one point I'd like to clarify... the FMLN have been mistakenly referred to as a terrorist organization by the Canadian government long before 2001 -since prior to 1992. And in 1992 the government introduced a very broad definition of terrorism to the immigration and refugee protection act. From that time on any refugee or immigrant who was part of an armed opposition group against a state government could be referred as a terrorist The problem with that as we see with Jose's case is that here is someone who was standing up for human rights opposing a brutal dictatorship but according to the Canadian government he is mistakenly referred to as a terrorist.
ReplyDeletePrior to 1992 the US and El Salvador government tried to pretend that El Salvador had a healthy democratic government and that the FMLN was a terrorist group. However, in 1992 the Truth came out about the atrocities of the ruling dictatorship it was clear that ruling military was not a democracy and the FMLN was finally acknoledged as the legitimate opposition group it was. However since prior to 1992 the Canadian Government has been using innacurrate, biased and outdated information provided by supporters of the El Salvadoran military dictatorship and continues to use inaccurate biased information in immigration and refugee hearings --thereby putting all past members of the FMLN at risk of being referred mistakenly as terrorists. In Canada since the inception of the terrorism legislation persons who stood up for human rights can be referred to as terrorists! I just listened to the audio evidence the government used against Jose and it's shocking how innacurate and biased the info is....I just wrote an article about this issue... I'll pass it on to you Nick, take care, Sasha [sashabwood@yahoo.com].
I wonder if all those involved in defending Jose's case are aware of what his evidence was at the time of the hearing as well as what his actual story in his PIF was.
ReplyDeleteJamie,
ReplyDeleteYou seem to implying that the evidence presented was different. Could you elaborate on your comment please?
Also, if new evidence has since come to light which was not considered in the original hearing, does this not entitle Mr. Figueroa to another hearing, as it does in other court cases? I am admittedly not fully informed on the immigration/deportation process, but it seems to me that new evidence ought to warrant another hearing.
Hi Jaime, re your comment -yes we are aware of the evidence in his hearing and on his PIF form. that info is available to everyone too. all evidence is on jose's site and some is on my site. anything you need just email us...wearejose@gmail.com...and yes what you bring up brings up another issue -re that the cbsa made a mistake for sure in referring jose's case...we have reviewed the email re why they referred his case compared to his PIF which had no concern and yes we see they made an error definately. And regardless of errors in that they shouldnt have referred jose's case -the key issue for us is that the definition of terrorism and is so broad -that is inappropriate to categorize all members of FMLN a group that worked to bring peace and human rights to El Salvador as terrorists. so therefore in appropriate to refer jose.
ReplyDeletethis is the key issue above all else I/we believe. it is not only Jose that has been wronged -as we see with Jose's case -all refugees who came from El Salvador, who were part of the opposition movement -are at risk of being deported as long as the FMLN is incorrectly tagged as a terrorist organization.