NIAGARA FALLS - American peace activists Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright have had a tough time getting into Canada lately because their names send up red flags in border agents' computers.
Both women have been arrested in this country protesting the Iraq war, which has landed them in an international criminal database. When they visited Canada in August, they were told they would have to apply for “criminal rehabilitation” and pay $200 if they ever wanted to visit again. Neither applied.
On Wednesday, Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, and Wright, a retired Army colonel, walked into Canada at Niagara Falls to test whether they really would be denied entry over their anti-war-related arrests.
They were.
Now they're asking why the names of those arrested during peaceful protests would be included in an FBI-maintained database meant to track fugitives, potential terrorists, missing persons and violent felons.
“We are certainly no threat to the Canadian people,” Benjamin said.
The protesters believe the inclusion of activists' names in the National Crime Information Center database is a form of political intimidation of those opposed to Bush administration policies.
FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said that while the FBI maintains the database, the data is supplied by arresting agencies and others.
By relying on the database to screen visitors, Canada is participating in the administration's suppression of free speech, charged John Curr III, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union in Buffalo.
“The Canadians accepted wholesale once you're on the list, you don't get into Canada,” Wright said shortly before walking across the Rainbow Bridge into Ontario. She and Benjamin spent 2 1/2 hours in the customs inspection area before being sent back to the United States.
Derek Mellon, a spokesman with the Canada Border Services Agency, said he was unable to comment on Wright and Benjamin specifically, but said all foreign visitors must meet longstanding admissibility requirements, such as having valid travel documents and a clean criminal record.
“We welcome millions of American visitors every year,” he said.
Canada generally refuses entry to anyone who has been convicted of a criminal offense, regardless of the nature of it. Those with convictions, however, may apply to be rehabilitated, which involves filing paperwork and paying a processing fee ranging from $200 to $1,000.
Mellon said that is not new.
“The admissibility requirements have not changed,” he said.
Benjamin said she and Wright, who resigned as a senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in 2003, planned to protest at the Canadian embassy in Washington Thursday and to ask the FBI to remove the protest charges from the NCIC database.
On Wednesday, Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, and Wright, a retired Army colonel, walked into Canada at Niagara Falls to test whether they really would be denied entry over their anti-war-related arrests.
They were.
Now they're asking why the names of those arrested during peaceful protests would be included in an FBI-maintained database meant to track fugitives, potential terrorists, missing persons and violent felons.
“We are certainly no threat to the Canadian people,” Benjamin said.
The protesters believe the inclusion of activists' names in the National Crime Information Center database is a form of political intimidation of those opposed to Bush administration policies.
FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said that while the FBI maintains the database, the data is supplied by arresting agencies and others.
By relying on the database to screen visitors, Canada is participating in the administration's suppression of free speech, charged John Curr III, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union in Buffalo.
“The Canadians accepted wholesale once you're on the list, you don't get into Canada,” Wright said shortly before walking across the Rainbow Bridge into Ontario. She and Benjamin spent 2 1/2 hours in the customs inspection area before being sent back to the United States.
Derek Mellon, a spokesman with the Canada Border Services Agency, said he was unable to comment on Wright and Benjamin specifically, but said all foreign visitors must meet longstanding admissibility requirements, such as having valid travel documents and a clean criminal record.
“We welcome millions of American visitors every year,” he said.
Canada generally refuses entry to anyone who has been convicted of a criminal offense, regardless of the nature of it. Those with convictions, however, may apply to be rehabilitated, which involves filing paperwork and paying a processing fee ranging from $200 to $1,000.
Mellon said that is not new.
“The admissibility requirements have not changed,” he said.
Benjamin said she and Wright, who resigned as a senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in 2003, planned to protest at the Canadian embassy in Washington Thursday and to ask the FBI to remove the protest charges from the NCIC database.
The Citizens' Say
Post your comment - click hereThere are No comments posted.