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BRINGING HARMONY TO ALL THE COMMUNITIES
Volume 12 Issue 312 Rajab 25, 1433 AH / June 15 2012 - $1
Bi-Weekly & Bilingual
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UN official calls Syria conflict ‘civil war’
Mayor Watts Opens new Water Playground at Unwin Park: On June 9, families with kids joined Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts in the opening of a new water playground at Unwin Park in Surrey. The Unwin Park Water Playground is designed with a rustic, country theme, harkening back to the “Surrey of yesterday”. See details at Page 11. Photo by: M. N. Pirzada
Controversial refugee bill clears Commons
The government’s controversial bill that further reforms Canada’s refugee system passed a third reading Monday night in the House of Commons. Bill C-31, which passed by 159 to 132, will now move to the Senate. Earlier in the day, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said C-31 is designed to combat human smuggling and to ensure the asylum system is “fast and fair.” He said the bill’s passage is a “long time coming” and that he hopes the Senate will pass it before Parliament breaks for the summer. The bill proposes changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, which made a series of reforms to the refugee system when it was passed in 2010. Kenney said Bill C-31 contains new tools to help “combat human smuggling criminals who want to treat Canada like a doormat.” The bill was given a rough ride by some refugee law experts and opposition MPs, who called for a number of amendments. The government did end up making some changes to the initial bill, but critics said they didn’t go far enough. “This is taking Canada in the wrong direction,” the NDP’s immigration and citizenship critic Jinny Sims said on Twitter after the vote. Earlier, Sims called the bill “draconian” and said her party had to vote against it. “There is nothing in this bill that will go after smugglers in a way that they’re going to catch those international smugglers. This is really about punishing the most vulnerable citizens when they arrive here, putting their lives at risk and when they get here, we’re going to throw them in prison,” she said. Sims said the bill will affect Canada’s international reputation and defies international agreements. “In the international community, I believe this is another black eye for Canada,” she said. The bill originally stipulated a judicial review would only be necessary after those refugee claimants designated as “mass arrivals” by the minister had been in detention for one year. The amendment introduced a
14-day and a six-month review of the detention of the “mass arrivals” refugees. Kenney also introduced another amendment to clarify that the government would not have the power to revoke the permanent residency of successful refugee claimants if conditions improve in their countries of origin, unless it was found they obtained their status through fraudulent means. Bill C-31 gives the immigration minister sole authority to decide which groups of refugee claimants are “mass arrivals” — a term which is not clearly defined in the bill. The measure was sparked by the arrival of two boatloads of Tamil migrants off the coast of Vancouver in recent years. The bill would allow for those cases to be designated retroactively as “mass arrivals.” Several legal experts have argued that provision would almost certainly generate costly court challenges because it is inconsistent with the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the Charter of Rights and Supreme court precedents. Source: CBC News
The head of the United Nations’ peacekeeping operations has said that the situation in Syria now amounts to a fullscale civil war as witnesses on the ground described fresh shelling on Homs and heavy fighting in other cities. “Yes, I think we can say that,” Herve Ladsous, the head of the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations, said in New York on Tuesday, when asked whether he believed Syria was now in a state of civil war. “Clearly what is happening is that the government of Syria lost some large chunks of territory, several cities to the opposition, and wants to retake control.” Earlier, angry crowds hurling stones stopped UN observers on Tuesday from reaching al-Haffa, the besieged coastal town where a violent crackdown is feared. UN observers were also in Homs, in central Syria, where heavy shelling continued. Observers filmed helicopters over an area where smoke was seen. The UN says its monitors saw fire coming from the helicopters although it was unable to distinguish whether machine guns were being used. The Associated Press news agency, meanwhile, reported heavy fighting in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, where activists said at least 10 people were killed by artillery fire from the Syrian army. Amateur video of the attack showed dead people in a street as survivors screamed in panic and tried to remove their bodies. The violence comes as President Bashar al-Assad’s government faces mounting international pressure over its tactics against the opposition. The US expressed worries on Tuesday that Russia may be sending Syria attack helicopters and rejected Russian claims that its arms transfers to Syria were unrelated to the conflict. Addressing a forum in Washington, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said: “We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria. They have, from time to time, said that we shouldn’t worry - everything they are shipping is unrelated to their [the Syrian government’s] actions internally. “That’s patently untrue.” The UN released a report on Monday citing witnesses describing the use of children as human shields. It also said children had been victims of detention, torture and sexual violence. “The [UN] secretary-general expresses his deep concern at the dangerous intensification of armed violence across Syria over the past several days, and the grave danger facing civilians in areas under fire,” Ban Ki-moon’s office said in a statement. “The bloodshed and fighting must stop at once.” Ban’s criticism is based partly on reporting
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