Emergency Community Meeting & Open Letter from the Faith Community

EMERGENCY COMMUNITY MEETING:

Wednesday March 25, 7 pm

United Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street, Toronto, Canada

(1 block south of College, between Huron and Beverly)

Kimberly Rivera, originally from Texas, is a former US soldier who sought asylum in Canada after refusing to re-deploy to Iraq.

Kim, her husband and three children – including a newborn Canadian daughter – face deportation from Canada on March 26th.

This is happening despite Parliament voting to stop the deportations, and to let these conscientious objectors stay in Canada.

During the last federal election campaign Prime Minister Stephen Harper acknowledged that the Iraq War was "absolutely an error". Yet he and his government are sending soldiers back to face punishment – including court-martial, prison time, and felony convictions – for having refused to participate in the war.

PLEASE JOIN US for this community meeting to discuss what can be done to ensure that Canada does not deport US Iraq war resisters. Canadians have spoken, the Canadian Parliament has spoken. The time is now to stand up in support of Iraq war resisters and to stop these deportations.

Open Letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper from the Faith Community
March 19: The United Church of Canada, Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers) and Mennonite Central Committee Canada issued an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper calling on him to allow war resister Kimberly Rivera and her family to stay in Canada.

The letter states that "We are deeply disturbed that the Government has refused to provide a process for permanent residency for resisters and their families as requested by the June 2008 Parliamentary Resolution," the letter states. "We are further concerned that efforts to deport resisters have escalated over the past few months. Likewise we are very troubled that the Minister of Immigration [Jason Kenney], who is to remain impartial and arms-length from the refugee determination process, has publicly called the U.S. war resisters "bogus refugee claimants".

See the full text of the letter.

-thanks to the War Resisters Support Campaign