|
Advocacy Blog
Friday, October 12, 2007
Activists Denied Entry into Canada
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, and Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel, have been arrested in the U.S. while protesting the Iraq war which placed their names in an FBI-run database, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Canada relies on the database to screen visitors and when the two women visited the country in August, they were told they would have to apply for "criminal rehabilitation" and pay $200 if they wanted to visit again. Neither did, and when Benjamin and Wright walked into Canada at Niagara Falls, they were denied entry because of their anti-war-related arrests. Read the Associated Press article here. "Now, Benjamin and Wright are asking why the names of people arrested during peaceful protests would be included in an FBI-maintained database meant to track fugitives, potential terrorists, missing persons and violent felons." For more information, see the Code Pink website.
Code Pink now has a petition running calling "on the FBI to stop including minor non-violent offenses on a database meant for serious crimes. We call on the Canadian government to reverse its policy and extend a warm welcome to U.S. peacemakers and other social activists who use the time-honored tradition of engaging in civil disobedience as a way to change unjust policies."
Posted by Amanda Adams
|