On October 23rd, demonstrators dressed in orange jumpsuits with black hoods over their faces sat in the green space in front of Schmon Tower with a sign reading: "Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture". Activists bearing a chilling likeness to Guantanamo Bay detainees knelt with their hands behind their backs, faces down. The Caravan Against Canadian Involvement in Torture came to Brock University to share their experiences traveling across the country, educating communities about processes of rendition, policy and lack of transparency when it comes to torture related issues.
Although Canada has traditionally been no wallflower when it comes to supporting regimes that engage in the most brutal of human rights violations (whether politically or economically), its complicity in the torture of human beings has come into sharper focus in the years following 9/11/2001. The Canadian government is openly flouting its international and domestic legal obligations NEVER to be involved directly or indirectly in acts of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Some of the world's most vulnerable people are being abandoned in the name of "national security." Canada has consistently been criticized by the likes of the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups for the government's refusal to respect international laws governing the absolute prohibition on complicity in torture. And yet whenever there are efforts to determine the full extent of Canada's involvement -- with the intent of ending such behaviour -- they are generally shut down or held in secret.
As Manfred Nowak says, torture is democracy's antithesis. Whether it is the federal government's refusal to release documents about the torture of Canadian-captured detainees in Afghanistan; the holding of completely unaccountable secret inquiries into the torture of Canadian citizens; or the use of secret hearings and the lowest available standards of justice to deport people to torture, we see that the government's efforts to protect institutions involved in such heinous practices are actually undermining the principles of openness, fairness, and equality that are supposed to be hallmarks of democracy.
The Caravan To End Canadian Involvement in Torture follows in the path of long-distance journeys throughout history have played a key role in social justice struggles. In Canada, there have been cross-country caravans in solidarity with First Nations struggles, long-distance walks for refugee rights, freedom rides, the 2006 Freedom Caravan to End Secret Trials, and treks by train, such as the 1930s "On to Ottawa" anti-poverty mobilization. Such journeys are both political and spiritual pilgrimages, opportunities to get beyond the world of sound-bite politics and engage in dialogue at a slower pace.
