A Heroine for Our Times

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a killer his soldiers are fascists, 352 children have been killed [in Ukraine]."

"How many more children should die for you to stop?"

"May the murdered kids haunt your dreams tonight." 

"I do not plan to stop, I am not afraid despite the constant intimidation from the authorities."

"The next 10 generations won't be able to clean themselves from the shame of this fratricidal war."

"I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies.We just silently watched this inhumane regime." 

"The [Mach] interrogation lasted for more than 14 hours, I wasn't allowed to get in touch with my family or friends, I was denied access to a lawyer."

"It was my anti-war decision. I made this decision by myself because I don't like Russia starting this invasion. It was really terrible." 

Marina Ovsyannikova, former state Russian TV journalist

Marina Ovsyannikova in a Moscow court room. AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

She is defiant and courageous.  She will not be intimidated, she speaks what she believes and feels. She is a Russian hero, a formerly admired state journalist whose presence on television was familiar to all Russians. When the Russian 'special military operation' was still in its infancy, not yet a month after the February 24 invasion, she staged an on-air protest against the war campaign that Moscow forced on Ukraine. Following her first March protest she was briefly placed under arrest and fined. 

 

 

She then left Russia given a short contract with the German newspaper Die Welt. When she returned to Russia it was with full knowledge that she could be re-arrested. Her return was occasioned in early July, drawn to fight for access to her two children following her ex-husband having filed a lawsuit for sole custody. And nor was she determined to keep a low profile even at that. This Russian daughter of a Ukrainian father continued to stage public protests against Russia's conflict in Ukraine.

On August 10 police raided her home to arrest her. A day later, she was charged with spreading fake news about the military, an offense that carries up to ten years in prison under a special Russian law enacted in the wake of the invasion. Any criticism, even referencing the 'special military operation' as a conflict, or the use of the word 'war' could have a protester arrested and face years of incarceration. Even while Ms.Ovsyannikova sat in the glassed-in courtroom cage, she lifted a hand-lettered sign reading: "May the murdered kids haunt your dreams tonight."

 

A resident stands next to a house destroyed by a Russian military strike in Marhanets, a town in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region on Aug. 10. (Press service of the National Police of Ukraine/Reuters)

She was ordered by the court to be placed under house arrest. To await a trial on charges of spreading false information about the Russian armed forces. Involved last month in a street protest where she held up a banner condemning Vladimir Putin as a killer, if convicted she could be penalized by ten years in prison. That being the case, the woman who is prepared to fight for the right to have access to her children may not see them again. In the mid-July protest there were two dolls lying at her feet, covered in red ink to simulate blood.

Her trial is set for October 9. A wide crackdown on anti-war protests across Russia to stamp out dissent has victimized many loyal Russians who just happen not to be loyal to Vladimir Putin. His violent incursion in Ukraine has appalled his critics, detractors and opponents. OVD-info, an independent Russian human rights watchdog, estimates that over 15,000 detentions have taken place since March, with up to 178 people facing court trials who could end up with lengthy prison sentences.

 

Former Russian state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova  Reuters

When There's a Will, There is the Jihad Way

"If you can’t make a bomb because family, friends or spies are watching or suspecting you, take a knife, molotov, sound bombs or a car at night and attack the tourists (crusaders), police and soldiers of taghut [tyranny], or western embassies in every country you are in this planet."
"[ISIS] can never die. [There is a] reward [awaiting those who wage jihad]."
"[I would] rather blow myself up [and would like to know] how to make bombs."
Sudesh Amman, 20, Convicted terrorist

"Much of his fascination with conducting an attack was focused on using a knife but reference was also made to committing acid attacks on mopeds."
“His fascination with dying in the name of terrorism was clear in a notepad we recovered from his home. Amman had scrawled his ‘life goals’ in the notepad and top of the list, above family activities, was dying a martyr and going to ‘Jannah’ — the afterlife."
Crown Prosecution Service 

"[I've come] to the end of patience [with the early release policy and lack of supervision of offenders like Amman]."
"I think the idea of automatic early release for people who obviously continue to pose a threat to the public has come to the end of its useful life."
"We do think it’s time to take action to ensure that people — irrespective of the law that we’re bringing in — people in the current stream do not qualify automatically for early release."
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson 

"We cannot have the situation, as we saw tragically in yesterday's case, where an offender - a known risk to innocent members of the public - is released early by automatic process of law without any oversight by the Parole Board."
"[New legislation would mean people convicted of terrorism offences will no longer be released automatically after they have served half of their sentence]."
"[Because we face] an unprecedented situation of severe gravity, [the legislation will also apply to serving prisoners],"
British Justice Secretary Robert Buckland

London’s Metropolitan Police said that the incident in the south London suburb of Streatham was terrorism-related. Photo: Hollie Adams/Getty Images

"He came out towards the end of January. He was under very strict licence terms. He was also under surveillance and that is what allowed the police to do their job so quickly. It meant that it could have been worse than it was had he not been under this surveillance."
"There were concerns about this individual when he was in prison - around things he was saying - but there were no powers available to any of the authorities to keep him behind bars."
"He had reached the automatic halfway point, halfway release point in his sentence and there was nothing that could be done to keep him locked behind bars.This is why there need to be changes brought forward because the public will look at this case and say: 'Why was this individual not kept not kept behind bars?' The PM shares that view."   Whitehall Sources

Yet another convicted terrorist out on early release, returning to what he knew best and longed to engage in, to hasten his martyrdom and ascent to Paradise as befits an Islamist jihadist. Britain prides itself on being a 'tolerant' society, and Britons pay the price for that 'tolerance'. Sudesh Amman, formerly convicted of terrorism, out on early release from prison, feeling free in that tolerant society to resume his dearly-held convictions and act on them. All of 20 years of age, deeply ensconced in the death-and-martyrdom syndrome of jihad.

Shot dead on Streatham High Road a day ago, but not before he stabbed two people, calling Allahu Akbar! as  he lunged. Wearing a pseudo suicide belt the while. All a week following release from prison after serving half of his three-year, four-month sentence for publishing graphic terrorist videos online and stockpiling bomb-making instructions and the current favourite of ISIL-approved tactics, knife attacks. . His early release did not go without concern on the part of Metropolitan Police which had placed him under direct police surveillance.


Followed by armed officers on foot reflecting a "proactive counter-terrorism surveillance operation" according to Scotland Yard, the response to the knife attacks on two people perpetrated by the man was close to instant. He was closely watched as he entered a shop on Streatham High Road around two in the afternoon, and there he stole a knife. Exiting the shop with his prize, he attacked two people. According to the Metropolitan Police, the officers' response was within 60 seconds of the attack, when he was fatally shot.

One of the stabbed people was immediately treated for life-threatening injuries, while a woman sustained less serious wounds than the man whose injuries were critically severe. A third person was injured by broken glass, following a weapon being fired by an officer.

Video footage following the stabbing showed two men in civilian clothing, one wearing a hoodie, the other with a police baseball cap, pointing their guns at a body on the nearby pavement.

"The incident was quickly declared as a terrorist incident, and we believe it to be Islamist-related", declared deputy assistance commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, Lucy D'Orsi. Hard to see how they could have concluded otherwise, given the classical jihadi shout-out to Allah.

Amman had admitted to 13 terror related offences, which included the dissemination of terrorist material, and collecting instructions meant to be of use in planning terrorist attacks. "People just came running in, screaming and upset, shouting about a gun. We ran to the back of the shop and were locked in", explained Chris Wells, shopping in Streatham with his daughter when gunshots were heard outside. "We tried to leave to get away and I saw a man in a hoodie with a gun, which I now know was a plainclothes officer. And another officer shouting at us to get back inside because there was a bomb threat."








As for Sudesh Amman, it's hard to say who will miss him. Of course, his exploit will resonate as a successful terrorist attack, not a complete failure, since at least two people were badly injured and he did his best to make it two deaths, not merely injuries. His action and following notoriety will instill admiration in some, and no doubt incite additional wannabe jihadis to action. At his family home in London, he had left a combat knife, air gun and black flag. No parental concern? His girlfriend had received videos of beheadings from him. He had advised her to kill her "kuffar" parents. Beyond grim.

A Free Woman Threatened With Death

"She is a free woman now. Her writ is being heard. When a decision is made, she will go wherever she wants to go. It is a free country; she is a free national."
"She can go wherever she wants to go. No one can object to that. If a free national of Pakistan wants to go somewhere, he/she has to get a visa and go."
"Nothing odd about that."
Mohammad Faisal, Pakistan Foreign Office

A Pakistani supporter of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a hardline religious party, holds an image of Asia Bibi during a protest following her acquittal over blasphemy Credit: AAMIR QURESHI/AFP

"The lives of Asia Bibi and her family are in danger as long as she remains in Pakistan, as the protests following the verdict have shown."

"We ask that Mrs May takes swift action to help secure the safe exit of Asia Bibi and her family from Pakistan, as the situation is becoming increasingly perilous."
Nasir Saeed, director, CLAAS UK - a charity supporting persecuted Christians in Pakistan

Ashiq Masih and Eisham Ashiq, husband and daughter of Asia Bibi. Bibi, Credit: Teri Pengilley

The arrest on charges of blasphemy against The Prophet that Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani woman was convicted of which led to eight years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, led to other victims in that fundamentalist Islamist society. Influential people in the governmental hierarchy came to her defense, one the Muslim governor of Punjab who petitioned for a pardon and campaigned for the blasphemy law to be discarded and for his efforts he was assassinated by his own bodyguard who riddled his body with 27 bullets from his assault rifle, in 2011.

Asia Bibi committed a dire offence against The Prophet which under Pakistani law merits the death penalty or life imprisonment. Her offence was to offer to her farm co-workers gathering berries on a hot summer day, water from a container she had slaked her thirst with, and which she had herself brought along on orders from their overseer. It is seen as an offence in Islam for non-Muslims to drink from a communal bowl meant for the use of Muslims. When her co-workers refused her offer, she lashed back at the insult, impugning the name of The Prophet.

A crowd was prepared to lynch her but police intervened and took her to prison where she was charged with blasphemy. The Pakistani Minister for Minority Affairs of the Pakistan national government, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, also came to her defence and he too was murdered by Islamist extremists. Although Salmaan Taseer, the Muslim governor of Punjab's assassin was brought to justice, not so with the murderers of Shahbaz Bhatti; he was a Christian, after all.

Asia Bibi's husband has pleaded for asylum from the West, for his wife and their family. He spoke directly of haven, mentioning Canada, the United States and Great Britain, imploring them to help move his wife out of Pakistan and to safety: "I am requesting the Prime Minister of the UK help us and as far as possible grant us freedom." Britain has a huge expatriate Pakistani population, but there is also a smaller Pakistani Christian demographic in Britain.

It doesn't appear likely at this point that Britain will respond affirmatively, obviously not wishing to roil the passions of its own Pakistani population to express their disfavour by riots similar to those that have broken out in Pakistan. Ashiq Masih then turned to the Netherlands, hoping for a visa and safety there, but the response was that Dutch law requires one to be present in the country to request a visa. The U.S. under President Trump is unlikely, given his [fairly accurate] resistance against the entrance to the U.S. of people from "shit countries", to offer haven.

Which leaves the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau which has unlimited patience for the unauthorized, illegal entry of economic migrants posing as refugees, from Africa, Haiti and the Middle East streaming across the border from the U.S. into Canada at illegal entry points, clearly posted as such. Asia Bibi has some strikes against her that would be attractive to the 'progressive' in Trudeau; she is a woman and a woman of colour, and she is persecuted. If only she was a member of the LGBTQ2 community he might be inspired to offer Canada's protection.

Pakistan has a population of 202-million, the vast majority of which are Muslim. A recent national poll revealed the presence of ten million Pakistanis willing to themselves kill Asia Bibi as a sacred Islamic duty in punishment for "blasphemy", or to do so because they are attracted to the reward that is offered. A large cash reward has been offered by one Pakistani mullah for anyone who kills the woman, whether while in detention or on the street.

On the street is sufficiently problematical for the government which winces at the reputation it has earned on the international stage for violent intolerance and national laws that victimize non-Muslims that she cannot be released, though freed by order of the Pakistani supreme court which acquitted her of the absurd charges. So there is no longer any fear the state will proceed with her execution, and no guarantees that vigilante mob action won't proceed to mete out their own version of justice to a blasphemer. It's the Pakistani way.

Bibi's lawyer, a man of exceptional courage, saw the expedience of making himself scarce. Saiful Malook fled the country in the wake of the acquittal of his client, because death threats were extended to him and to his family for his part in support of his client and subsequent outrage at the outcome of the supreme court's ruling, dismissing her previous conviction as "nothing short of concoction incarnate".

The streets of the capital and other cities have been rife with protests, screeching accusations against the supreme court, and insistent demands that Asia Bibi be executed. She must be allowed to leave the country and to live elsewhere, in peace and security. What better place than Canada? In 2011, Shahbaz Bhatti visited Canada and met with then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who offered him refuge in Canada, aware his life was in danger. The Pakistani Minister for Minority Affairs thanked the prime minister, but returned to Pakistan where several weeks later he was murdered.

A Christian woman in Pakistan is persecuted and threatened with death as punishment for uttering unguarded sentiments born of a lifetime of persecution. A Pakistani woman living in Canada insists she must insult Canadian mores and values by taking her oath of citizenship while wearing a niqab so no one officiating nor anyone else becoming a citizen of Canada is able to see her face; a clear rejection of the Canadian social contract and an expression of contempt for fellow Canadians. She is given legal clearance to do just that.

Security in Canadian Prisons

"They [incarcerated rioting convicts] ripped beds off walls, heavy steel beds. Desks were thrown into a pile. They used them to block doors. Windows were smashed out, they were setting fires to mattresses, smashed the fridges and microwaves."
"It was confined to one portion of the medium security area -- an area that housed approximately 185 inmates. It was in the living unit."
"At the point when this happened -- everybody -- 185 inmates -- refused to go to their programs, their work, their school. At that point, normally, we lock up. But when they went to close the area, the inmates refused to go into their cells."
"In the rioting area, every window is smashed out and all the heat registers are pulled off the walls and smashed. So the place is completely destroyed."
"From my members, they said [the trouble] had been bubbling for a few days for sure. There are a few different stories right now about what could have been the actual trigger, I guess."
James Bloomfield, Union of Canadian Correctional Officers

"Firearms use is very strictly regulated and controlled [by prison guards] and it's used as a means of last resort to make sure the incident is brought back under control."
"[Corrections staff discharged firearms] to bring the situation under control."
Jeff Campbell, Correctional Service Canada spokesman

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Thomas Porter/File   A section of the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in Prince Albert.

 

Some of the inmates in the medium-security wing of the prison barricaded themselves on ranges while others caused the violent damage. Three inmates "were discovered with injuries that appeared to result from assaults by other inmates", according to a Corrections Service news release. They were taken to hospital in serious condition, where one of the assaulted inmates died from the stab wounds he had suffered.

The 43-year-old, serving a 31-month sentence for breaking and entering, was pronounced dead 40 minutes after arriving at hospital.

Another six inmates after the massive riot that took place at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary for a 24-hour period, were left with non-life-threatening injuries caused by guards firing shutgun pellets in an effort to return order to the prison. It was after negotiations with prison staff broke down after inmates refused to return to their lock-ups that the riot began.

A lockdown was soon instituted and then expanded to include the maximum-security wing of the prison. It was after the unit was secured that the injured inmates were discovered by prison staff. A guard was also taken to hospital when he was exposed to blood after dealing with one of the stabbed inmates.  The Saskatchewan Penitentiary is geared to accommodate the housing of 900 to 1,000 prisoners.

Some 400 correctional officers are on staff at the prison. Inmates in the medium-security area serve sentences reflecting a full range of crimes, including that of murder, a charge that seems far more fitting to have anyone convicted of murder serving out their time in the maximum security wing, if common sense is applied.

The dead man's murderer appears not yet to be known to authorities, since no arrests followed the riot. According to the RCMP, an autopsy has been scheduled for the coming week. Increasingly in Canadian prisons, vicious assaults by some inmates against others take place. This has become so commonplace that prisoners witnessing such assaults go about their business seemingly unconcerned, and guards appear in no great hurry to respond.

This riot situation appears to have been used as a handy screen for someone wanting to kill someone else. Human nature at its most base. And perhaps reflective of the general state of psychosocial debasement of many locked up in such institutions, though by no means all. It's hard to imagine that a prisoner could be serving time for a non-violent crime only to become victimized by another inmate with no compunction about visiting lethal violence on others when opportunity arises.