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Results: 16 - 30 of 55
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Ms. Kikoler, for coming in and presenting to us.
I'd like to go back to one of the things you said at the very beginning. I may have ascribed more weight to it than you intended, but you said you had found a number of groups guilty of crimes against humanity or genocide. That's one of the distinctions we've been trying to focus on in the House, and indeed we've recognized unanimously the Yazidi genocide. I'd like you to expand on how you came to the conclusions with respect to which groups had suffered crimes against humanity vis-à-vis genocide.
Some of the words that get lost in the definition of “genocide”, particularly in the political field, are the words “intent”, “to destroy”, and “as such”. The knee-jerk reaction, when something horrible has occurred—indeed, a crime against humanity—is to assume immediately that it's genocide, and it gets lost, particularly in the political narrative or even sometimes in the legal narrative. Can you just develop on what you've seen and what your study focused on?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thanks.
Again, in the last part of your address you mentioned doing a better job of early detection, but indeed, if you look back at the genocide convention, the two stated purposes are to punish, but obviously even more importantly to prevent. Obviously someone has done a bad job of detecting in this case. We all probably share responsibility.
I'd like you to develop the elements that you see as important in early detection.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
David, since you are a student of political Islam in the area, I'm curious about your thoughts about religion generally and the role it's playing in this conflict. I guess that's a broad brush stroke. If you look at the history of Iraq and Syria, particularly with the reign of the Baathist parties in both those countries, relative to the rest of the area, it's generally seen as a secular society, and now there's a tendency to divide ethnic groups neatly and tidily along religious lines, which, as you will agree, is perhaps not the case.
Let's hope we get to a post-conflict governance model, but as we look toward governance generally in both those areas in the next few years, I'm curious as to your views on how neatly things can be divided into religious buckets as opposed to simple power grabs and other interests, ethnocultural divides.
Certainly in the case of the Yazidis, the religious narrative of the Daesh's attempt to exterminate them was there, and there has been some suggestion by a number of panellists who have appeared before us that the religious or ethnocultural differences will be greater as there is a power void.
I'm curious to hear your views on this.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I just wanted to hear your thoughts, because I don't think there's much of an answer to that type of question. I'm just curious to hear your general views on it, since you're on the ground and a student of political Islam.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Finally, is it your sense that some of these differences, whether they're ethnoculturally based or religiously based, will get worse if there is a power void, or do you see things differently?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony.
I'm interested in the numbers in and of themselves, and far be it from me to question them. It's just the multipliers that you apply can at times appear to be random, and it isn't just a question as to whether a donation is voluntary or not. Obviously involuntary donation, whether it's one or a million, is unacceptable and should be called out.
I'm simply interested in trying to figure out how you can assess the progression, or at least if there is any improvement in the way the Chinese state is behaving. How can you document that if arbitrary numbers and multipliers are applied? Certainly when you see the numbers, you start to scratch your head as to whether they can be accurate. One would indicate a much higher execution rate, for example, if this were the case, than is publicized, and then in other cases there's the cause. As well, David, you mentioned that it didn't have so much to do with the black market, but attributed it to Falun Gong, house Christians, and so forth.
I'm just trying to get to the bottom of all this and figure out how you address some of the criticisms of the numbers and the black market implementation capacity issues that are often thrown back at you.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
The next question is about the black market and implementation issues that may be thrown back as a counterweight to say that it doesn't exclusively address the Falun Gong and other religious minorities or practitioners.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I have a final small question. What is your capacity to verify whether there has been any incremental change since December 2014 and the beginning of 2015?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
I represent part of a city that has the most Syrians in Canada. They contact me and my fellow members of Parliament almost daily to express their concern. I want to underscore the fact that they obviously took politics here as well as from their home country, and they don't necessarily support one side over another. There are strong sympathies for various factions, including the government. However, not one of them has said that there is any justification for what's going on in Aleppo. They raise the concern of the humanitarian situation and the violation, especially by the Syrian government but on all sides, in what's going on in Aleppo. It's indeed a tragedy.
We rarely get the chance to hear someone on the ground speak about this. I'd like to give more opportunity to Mr. Al Saleh to speak specifically of the humanitarian challenges he's seeing in east Aleppo. Those would obviously be focused on the targeting of civilians and on the restriction of aid, food, and medical access, in his eyes and in the actions his group are facing on a daily basis.
Could you expand on that a little more, Mr. Al Saleh?
Thank you.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you both for your testimony.
We have just started a vast study that could be even more vast. Unfortunately, in a humanitarian situation, the right to life is the basic right at stake.
I would like to focus the discussion on the right to practice one’s religion and religious freedom. Groups like the Yezidis are more specifically affected by Daesh’s genocidal discourse.
To what extent will that discourse influence what is going to happen later, after Daesh is eliminated? Will the situation get worse because of religion and distinctions based on religious practices or because of the fact that people are simply united against Daesh?
I know that that question could take half an hour to answer. Perhaps you could answer concisely by focusing specifically on religious freedom.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Van Der Klaauw, one of the accusations you hear as a recurring theme from the Burundi government is that the UN agency's foreign powers are just perpetuating foreign interests, supporting an insurgency movement. It seems to be a repeated theme throughout and it falls quickly into a colonialist discourse, probably too quickly but for opportunistic reasons. How do you respond to that on the ground and what is your relationship with the Burundian government, if any?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
We often get caught in a bit of a circle when we talk too quickly about prosecuting people, bringing people to justice, and often then neglect something that is almost equally, if not more important, which is preventing the degeneration of hostilities, preventing these situations in the first place, which is a much more difficult issue to address. What do you recommend to a country like Canada that has very little involvement with Burundi economically, politically? I think our representation is run out of Kenya.
What do you recommend to countries in our situation that are willing and wanting to act as to how we would work in a multilateral situation, whether it's more money, aid? Really, the question is yours.
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