March 9, 2010
Prime Minister Harper and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon should intervene to ensure the reinstatement of the three employees of Rights and Democracy who were fired last week. It is a serious mistake to remove these three dedicated employees from their positions.
In my capacity as Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights at Wilfrid Laurier University, I have worked with Rights and Democracy in the last few years. I was part of a delegation to China that took part in a day-long seminar at the Communist Party School in Beijing in 2007: I also took part in seminars with representatives of the Communist Party School in Montreal in 2008 and Toronto in 2009. During these seminars I interacted both with the late M. Rémy Beauregard, and with Razmik Panossian, one of the three staff members fired. It is a great tragedy that M. Beauregard died after an acrimonious board meeting. As for Mr. Panossian, he struck me as a thoroughly admirable person, completely dedicated to human rights. I am appalled that he has been fired.
Aside from my professional interest in Rights and Democracy, I am also making this statement in my capacity as a Canadian Jew. I am concerned that the Board of Directors of Rights and Democracy may be advertently or inadvertently influenced by a particular perspective on the Israeli/Palestinian question that does not easily tolerate criticism of Israel. My own perspective is that Israel, like all other states, has both the right to exist and the obligation to obey international law. Neither the human rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories nor in Israel itself are properly protected. I am not familiar with the other two organizations whose funding was revoked by the Board, but I am very concerned that funding was cut for B'Tselem, a highly respected Israeli human rights organization. According to an article in the Encyclopedia of Human Rights (2009) by Jasmin Habib, B'Tselem reports impartially on violations of the law committed against both Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, and has been funded over the years by several Western governments and non-governmental organizations. I am an occasional donor to the New Israel Fund, one of B'Tselem's supporters.
Israel's best protection, in the long run, is to obey international human rights and humanitarian law. The Board of Directors of Rights and Democracy should be dedicated to ensuring that the rights of Palestinians are protected, just as it should be dedicated to ensuring the rights of all other people are protected.
I am also concerned by the appointment of M. Gérard Latulippe as the new President of Rights and Democracy, given reports in the Globe and Mail of his controversial remarks to the Bouchard-Taylor Commission about Muslim immigration to Quebec.
To reiterate, Mr. Razmik Panossian should be reinstated immediately, as should his two colleagues. Professor Payam Akhavan and his colleague from Afghanistan, who resigned in protest at the meeting that preceded Mr. Beauregard's death, should also be asked to rejoin the Board. It is scandalous that such a fine organization as Rights and Democracy should be embroiled in this controversy, to the detriment of its important work.
