CIC HAS MOVED to
877 Shefford Road.
Gloucester
Ottawa, Ontario
K1J 8H9

Tel: (613) 680-2867
Tel: (613) 680-2871
Fax: (613) 680-2902

Privacy statement

Is this mission worth it? More and more Canadians - I am among them -- are reflecting on the hard facts of loss and waste and maintaining that it is not

*** ***

We often hear that things are "improving" in Afghanistan and that having more soldiers on the ground will better the lives of Afghani civilians and that someday soon their ravaged country will be liberated. That’s what we hear!

But what is actually happening on the ground is quite the opposite. With every passing day, facts and statistics compiled by impartial sources tell us ever more urgently that military intervention is not the answer for what ails Afghanistan.

The harsh reality we must face is that Afghanistan’s "liberators" are not making much progress or change at all. Innocent civilians are still casualties in military operations by both Taliban and international troops (whether classed as "collateral damage" or not); the ranks of the Taliban are still expanding; the illegal drug trade flourishes as never before; corruption within president Hamid Karzai’s weak government is still rampant; and tribal warlords still benefit most from the absence of a strong central authority and weak law enforcement.

Not surprisingly, Afghans don’t trust the Karzai government, much less the "outsiders" controlling it; and a continuing decline in security, safety, food supplies, health care, social services, and overall infrastructure steadily erodes the ordinary Afghan citizen’s quality of life. In general, the West has not brought positive change to Afghanistan as once promised; in fact, one can strongly argue that things have gotten worse since the new regime was established in 2001.

Canadians, as a leading example, are not doing the mission that best fits our talents, abilities and resources. Our troops are not conducting a Canadian-style mission, but have instead been drawn into a prolonged American-led shooting war that has left no room to exercise our vast experience in diplomacy and development. Instead, we are barely able to bandage the physical, cultural and civic wounds on a battlefield that we did not create - a battlefield where we are often as vulnerable to insurgent attacks as any Afghan civilian.

Participation in aggressive and offensive missions like this one -- regardless of how well and courageously Canadian soldiers perform under gunfire - is simply not where Canada has earned its well-deserved respect in the eyes of the world. Until recently, Canada was seriously considered as THE No. 1 country in the world for its reputation as an honest broker of peace and justice. Our once-shining renown in this field has become sadly tarnished, especially with the change of mandate and character that have crept into our Afghanistan mission under current federal government policies.

This mission should not be about our historic commitment to NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization); nor is it about NATO's failure or success; or, especially, about America’s image. This mission is rightly about the Afghan people themselves - people who have suffered under the Russians, the Taliban, the Americans, the British ... and who knows what other oppressive "liberators" will be added to the list before this is all over? The core purpose should be about Afghanistan’s future; about finding lasting solutions to a conflict that cannot be resolved merely by staying there, losing lives, and pretending that one day we will accomplish what America wants of us.

Is this mission worth it? More and more Canadians - I am among them -- are reflecting on the hard facts of loss and waste and maintaining that it is not. In recent surveys (Angus Reid Polls in November and December 2009; the Ekos Poll of December 2009) Canadians are speaking out against the mission and are categorically not in favour of extending it beyond 2011. In Quebec, more than 70% oppose Canada’s Afghanistan role in its present mandate; and a Leger Marketing poll in November 2009 reported that the majority of Canadians feel it is not morally justifiable to keep sending our military troops to Afghanistan.

Why this is so? Let me cite some "facts" that Canadians should know. Billions of citizens’ tax-dollars sent to Afghanistan have gone mainly to finance military requirements, with only 3% to 5% spent on so-called "development." By 2011, the mission in Afghanistan could cost Canada a total of $18.1 billion or $1,500 per Canadian household, according to a government report. That same report also criticized how mission-related financial records are being kept.

Canada should not be spending millions of dollars on big guns. Rather, it should be spending that money for major social and infrastructural projects in Afghanistan, such as hospitals, schools, roads, agricultural reform, civil energy production, and any number of parallel initiatives that will provide lasting benefit and stability to all Afghans, right where they live. This is what Canadians should be leaving as their legacy "on the ground" -- not the bodies of good soldiers who die for the wrong reasons.

As of today, 140 sons and daughters of our homeland have been killed, with many more physically and mentally scarred for life.

Figures released by Canada’s Department of National Defense in December 2008 show that more than 360 soldiers were wounded in combat during the previous three years in Afghanistan; the DND figures did not distinguish the severity of wounds, nor does DND policy permit names of wounded soldiers to be released.

In March 2007, however, Maclean's Magazine reported that among more than 300 soldiers who had been wounded up to that point, 136 of their injuries were severe enough to require that those soldiers be transported back to Canada for treatment.

These brave soldiers and their traumatized families are not on the map at all. Canadians hear so little about them; it’s as if they just don’t count. Why is this form of casualty such a big secret?!?

In 2009, 32 Canadian soldiers and one civilian (a reporter with the Calgary Herald) were killed in Afghanistan, with dozens more wounded, making 2009 one of the deadliest years for Canadian soldiers. (Only 2006, when we lost 36 soldiers, was worse.) But for Afghanistan, United Nations figures show that 2009 was the worst year for civilian casualties since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, with a record 2,412 deaths reported; four of those deaths were at Canadian hands and international forces as a whole accounted for up to 30 per cent of the recorded civilian deaths.

It’s little wonder then, that civilian deaths have become a source of burning anger in Afghanistan, prompting recent demonstrations against Western forces, and a likely contributing factor to the recruitment of new Taliban insurgents. Once a civilian has been killed by NATO troops, bereaved family members have no trouble deciding which side to choose.

Canadians could still change the course of events in Afghanistan, if for just a moment we and our leaders would seriously re-think our national priorities and take a stand for what is right. If we do nothing as a nation; if we maintain the status quo of America's Us-against-Them agenda, what will our leaders soon be saying to the families, friends, colleagues, or fiancées of new soldiers whose chances of being killed increase with every additional deployment? Somehow, "Our thoughts and prayers are with you" no longer sounds the least bit reassuring - if it ever did.

Our government should know by now that trading trust for mistrust is a poor exchange. Our government should also know by now that exchanging Canada's time-honored role of peace-making for a brute force military campaign does us immeasurable disservice as a nation. All it can bring Canadians is more sorrow, fear, mistrust, confusion and a negative image.

Canada should NOT be in this war. It is not a question of Canada running from Afghanistan or abdicating our international responsibility. Far from it: we are faced with a question of much greater and nobler urgency - where is our INTEGRITY?

Afghanistan is about -- or COULD be about -- Canada’s true place in the eyes of the world as a leader in diplomacy and humanitarian achievement. We could once again be a model in modern history of how a democratic nation can help others to implement peaceful and just resolutions.

So far, Canada has managed not to lose the entire trust of the Afghan people, but it could happen all too soon. We have very little time - almost no time - left to turn this around.

If Canada does not try, who will?

(This article was edited for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine.)

The untimely death of a respected rights advocate casts harsh light on Ottawa's hardline support for Israel

*** ***

Stephen Harper is in trouble for being ham-fisted with Parliament and several public institutions. He has also caused a ruckus by penalizing those who dare criticize Israel.

Fused together, those two traits can be combustible enough. Adding a third element - that of catering to his party's conservative ideologues -- the Prime Minister has created a major crisis at Canada's leading international human rights agency.

The entire staff has rebelled at Rights and Democracy, the Montreal-based institution that backs Canada's foreign policy by supporting the rule of law in such troubled spots as Haiti and Afghanistan.

Forty-five of 47 staffers, both management and union, are demanding the firing of the Harper-appointed chair of the board, Aurel Braun, plus his vice-chair and another director.

The call comes after their boss Rémy Beauregard, the respected president of the agency, died of a heart attack the night after a vitriolic board meeting in Toronto. He was only 66.

His funeral at Notre Dame Cathedral in Ottawa drew most of the Montreal staff, and also several prominent Canadians.

Braun had been warring with Beauregard for months over several issues. But matters came to a head at the Jan. 7 meeting, the first since the Harper-appointed directors obtained a majority.

The board voted to "repudiate" three small grants approved by Beauregard to one Israeli and two Palestinian NGOs critical of human rights violations by both Israel and the Palestinians. The board also curtailed a grant of $380,000 to a women's centre in Congo.

Beauregard's widow, Suzanne Trépanier, had Braun's name removed from the centre’s website messages of condolences.

"You don't treat a person like you did with Rémyand then praise his qualities after he is dead. This is hypocrisy," she wrote.

Since then, four former chairmen of the board - Ed Broadbent, Warren Allmand, Jean-Louis Roy and Jean-Paul Hubert - have asked Harper to conduct "a full investigation of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Beauregard's death, with a focus on the role and conduct of the board, " and report to Parliament when it resumes.

A staff petition calling for the resignations of Braun and vice-chair Jacques Gauthier of Toronto and Elliot Tepper of Ottawa, accuses them of "a pattern of harassment" of Beauregard and others at the centre. "This, and your complete misunderstanding of your role as directors make you unfit to remain on the board."

The Jan. 7 meeting featured some other drama as well. The board tossed out a Beauregard ally, Guido Riveros Franck of Bolivia, one of three international directors. Against his wishes to stay on, he was denied a second term. Two other dissident directors, Sima Samar and Payam Akhavan, resigned on the spot and walked out.

Samar is the Afghan women's rights advocate who won world fame for standing up to Taliban rule in the 1990s and is now chair of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Akhavan is a professor of law at McGill University.

Along with interviewing both of them, I’ve spoken to three of the four former chairs and others. What emerges is a tale that's not all that difficult to untangle.

Rights and Democracy, a non-partisan agency, was set up, ironically, by Tory Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1988. It receives $11 million a year and reports directly to Parliament.

Its board consists of 10 government-appointed Canadians and three international members (from Asia, Africa and Latin America) elected by the board.

In yet another irony, it was the Harper government that appointed Franco-Ontarian Beauregard, who had been executive director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission under former premier Mike Harris. Beauregard was esteemed both for his managerial competence and commitment to civil liberties.

Braun, a University of Toronto professor of political science, was named chair of the board early last year. It was not long before he clashed with Beauregard, who had approved three Mideast grants of about $10,000 each to B'Tselem (Israel's leading human rights group) and its partner agency in the West Bank, Al Haq, as well as to Al Mezan in Gaza. All three agencies have repeatedly criticized both Israeli and Palestinian human rights violations, including the Israeli war on Gaza last year. Beauregard had also attended a 2008 Arab League meeting on freedom of association in Cairo - and Braun did not like any of that.

Beauregard had already been given a highly favorable evaluation by the board last March, so Braun initiated a new evaluation. However, he did not show it to the majority of the board, nor to Beauregard, who got a copy of it by filing a Freedom of Information request.

On June 1, 2009 four directors complained to the Privy Council about the secrecy. On Sept. 8, director and career diplomat Donica Pottie suddenly resigned; she was reportedly squeezed out by the Prime Minister's Office because she had supported Beauregard. With her d eparture, there were no Canadian women left on the board.

On Oct. 23, Samar and four others wrote to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, saying the board was "dysfunctional" and asking for Braun to be replaced. An October board meeting was cancelled because, Allmand says, Braun was waiting for a majority, with imminent appointments.

Those came in November. Harper appointed Winnipeg lawyer David Matas, who has served as counsel for B'nai Brith, and Michael Van Pelt, a Christian fundamentalist. They joined Conservative partisans Brad Farquhar and Marco Navarro-Génie, along with Braun, Gauthier and Tepper.

By the Jan. 7 meeting, Braun was fully in command.

In approving the three Middle East grants, Beauregard had the support of the Department of Foreign Affairs, according to both Allmand and Broadbent.

After Beauregard’s death, Braun told The Canadian Press the three groups his predecessor had supported and funded were "toxic" and linked to "extremists" and terrorists.

This follows the Harper government's cancellation last year of funding to the Canadian Arab Federation and the Christian cooperative group Kairos, both critical of Israel.

This month, Ottawa also cancelled funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees -- which Israel dislikes -- shifting the money to Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority, Israel's chosen interlocutor.

Former Rights and Democracy board chair Ed Broadbent called this latest display of partisanship "a big mistake," saying, "There has been a clear tipping of the balance away from Canada's tradition of viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a neutral and objective eye, and not taking sides. This government has really breached a Canadian tradition in a serious way."

In an interview from Kabul, Sima Samar said she quit because of the board's secretive governance, its toxic atmosphere, its "disrespect for the three international members," and its "narrow political agenda," adding that "the mandate of the centre is to promote human rights and help the victims of human rights violations, not the violators of human rights."

(Retrieved from: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/755064--siddiqui-stephen -harper-s-homegrown-human-rights-problem This article was edited and slightly abridged for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine.)

"We were in shock," says his father. "My son had never held a gun in his life. He was peaceful and fun-loving, but all this killing ... it changed him."

*** ***

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Khairullah is a broken man. "He came to Peshawar to escape the war," says the 57-year-old's eldest son, Rahimullah. "But it's Peshawar that has driven him mad."

The father of six is from Pakistan's restive northwest and lies on a cot in the waiting room of the Shafique Psychiatric Clinic in Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province. His body sporadically erupts into convulsions and his eyes dart over the blank ceiling as if caught in a violent waking nightmare. He rarely speaks; his wife, hugging his knees, rocks back and forth to calm him.

Thousands of men, women and children like Khairullah wander Peshawar's anarchic streets. They are forgotten victims of the war between Pakistan's army and Islamic militants. Peshawar is where the mad come for solace, pouring in from war-torn regions of the Pakistani frontier and even farther afield, in search of a disturbingly scarce resource: psychiatric aid.

Most find little relief here, where the streets are lined with barbed wire and punctuated by checkpoints, and where bomb blasts are an almost weekly occurrence. According to Dr. Wajid Ali, resident psychiatrist at the Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar, up to 70 per cent of the population in the North-West Frontier Province is affected by acute psychiatric illnesses. "Those are the clinical cases," he says, flipping through a mound of patient files on his desk, "the ones that need medical intervention. But everyone is suffering from some degree of psychological trauma - depression, anxiety, agoraphobia. The entire society is feeling the pressure."

Incessant violence is the reason. In the NWFP alone, more than 400 people have been killed in terrorist attacks since October 2009, nearly matching the total number of civilian deaths in the province for all of 2004. A truck bomb killed nearly 100 people at a New Year's Day volleyball tournament in Lakki Marwat near the South Waziristan tribal agency, where the Pakistani Taliban have unleashed a wave of attacks. Innocent civilians have borne the brunt of the bombings. "We used to say bad things only happen to bad people," says Dr. Ali. "These days, bad things happen to good people."

Children are among the worst affected by the violence, says Dr. Sayed Mohammad Sultan, head of the psychiatry department at the Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar. "We are seeing a lot of children suffering from phobic anxiety disorders. They are in a constant state of fear," and the long-term effects could be devastating.

One particular case highlights what happens when young people are exposed to constant violence. Abdullah, a 17-year-old student from the Swat Valley, used to be a normal, outgoing teenager. But in early 2008, after months of violence and uncertainty, Abdullah began to show signs of psychological trauma. "We didn't realize what was happening at the time," says his father, requesting anonymity because the family is fearful of Taliban reprisals. "He became withdrawn and angry. He stopped listening to his mother and would even yell at her, something he never did before." In the spring of 2009, Abdullah disappeared and friends told the family he had joined the Taliban.

"We were in shock," says his father. "My son had never held a gun in his life. He was peaceful and fun-loving, but all this killing ... it changed him." Fortunately, Abdullah escaped the Taliban and returned home. The family then moved to Peshawar, where they've spent the last nine months rehabilitating their son.

"This is a common story," says psychiatrist Dr. Wajid Ali, who has authored two reports about the effects of continuing war on the psychological health of Pakistanis. "I can tell you hundreds more - like the one about the 12-year-old child who was confronted by the Taliban and told to take a bomb to his school. They said they would kill his family if he didn't listen to them. Can you imagine? Can a child forget such a thing?"

Yet as violence escalates in Pakistan, there has been scarcely any effort to confront its psychological effects. According to Ali, there are fewer than 30 qualified psychiatrists in the NWFP and a mere 250 psychiatric beds for a population of more than 25 million. "But we're also dealing with patients coming over from the border in Afghanistan. There are no facilities there for them, so they come here to Peshawar."

Consequently, the city's poorly funded psychiatric wards are stretched to the breaking point. Patients who require long-term care are being prescribed drugs and sent on their way, only to turn up later in worse condition. Dr. Sultan at the Khyber Teaching Hospital blames both the Pakistani government and the international community for failing to recognize the central role psychological health plays in confronting violent extremism. The U.S. consulate in Peshawar has promised millions to beautify the city, but Sultan scoffs, "we need programs, not parks."

What's missing, he adds, is long-term thinking. He suggests that the United States is only interested in stabilizing the country as quickly as possible, while the Pakistani government is just trying to survive. Neither government, let alone the Taliban, seems to care that a society's psychological ill-health can fuel an ongoing cycle of violence.

"This is the hidden enemy," says Ali. "And unless we confront it, Pakistan is destined to become another Afghanistan."

(Retrieved from: http://www.sphere.com/article/in-peshawar-violence-leaves-deep- psychological-scars/19309057 This article was edited and slightly abridged for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine.)

In December 2008, Israel began a 23-day bombardment of Gaza, killing around 1,400 people. One year on, a generation of children is growing up amid the wreckage of that attack - traumatized and radicalized by the experience

*** ***

Ghiada abu Elaish's fingers twist in her lap and the 13-year-old’s eyes cloud over as she recalls the day an Israeli shell killed four of her cousins and left her in a coma for more than three weeks. She has had almost 12 months to reflect on the tragedy, a time in which hatred and anger might have consumed her. Remarkably, she has not only survived shocking injuries and a dozen operations (with many more to come), but has retained both her sweet nature and faith in a bright future.

Which makes it all the harder for her to return each day after school, dressed in the Palestinian uniform of blue-and-white-striped smock over jeans and trainers, to the scene of the massacre - her own family home.

On Friday, January 16, 2009 Ghiada was studying for exams. Her father, a pharmacist, woke from a nap, demanding tea and shouting at the younger children to be quiet. "Suddenly I could hear my cousin downstairs, screaming 'Dead! Dead!'" A shell had hit the apartment building smashing windows and causing extensive damage to the flat below.

In the ensuing panic, Ghiada followed her father downstairs. "One room was completely black. I saw Aya [her cousin]; she was on the ground with wood on top of her. There was a big hole in the wall."

Ghiada tried pulling Aya out from under the furniture, but then a second shell struck. "There was a big light for a second," she says. "I saw some windows smash and I heard screaming all around. A piece of shrapnel hit me. I started to scream for help and then fell down unconscious."

Ghiada's father, Atta Mohammed abu Elaish, rushed into the room. "I saw bodies without heads and legs. I saw my daughter. I saw her mother screaming." He ran outside to call an ambulance. "The Israelis stopped the ambulances 250 metres from the house. Some boys from the street came to start ferrying the bodies and the injured out of the building."

This was one among numerous attacks during Israel’s 23-day war on Gaza - Operation Cast Lead - that began on December 27, 2008. But it was also one of the most notorious because Ghiada's uncle was a doctor who worked in Israeli hospitals and was well known for advocating peace and reconciliation. All through the conflict, Dr. Izzeldin abu Elaish gave regular eyewitness accounts by phone in fluent Hebrew to Israeli television. Within minutes of the attack on his own family, he was back on the phone to a journalist in a Tel Aviv studio, weeping and begging for help as Israeli viewers listened: "My daughters have been killed." In fact three were dead -- Bissan, 20; Miar, 15; and Aya, 14 (Ghiada’s cousin). Another cousin, 17-year-old Nour, was also killed. Ghiada was in a critical condition and another cousin was also wounded.

The injured girls - thanks to that live TV broadcast - were unusually and swiftly evacuated to a hospital in Tel Aviv, where Ghiada was found to be suffering from multiple trauma to her heart, kidneys, stomach and legs. She remained in hospital in Israel for four and a half months. Today Ghiada says she thinks about the horrific attack "always" but tries not to let others see her pain. "When I am crying, I go to my room and cry alone," she says. Does she feel angry? No, she says, just sad. And she plans to stay put in Gaza: "Maybe others would like to emigrate, but that's not for me."

But if Ghiada expresses no bitterness, her father asserts that life is "very hard for us ...That accident took Bissan, Nour, Miar, Aya - and my brother." (Dr. Abu Elaish left Gaza for Canada.) "He is the eldest brother, the father of the family, and now he's gone. How can we forgive?"

The shelling of the Abu Elaish family was unusual in that it caught the attention of the Israeli public, but what Ghiada continues to endure 12 months later is shared by many of Gaza's 750,000 children, which comprise fully half its population.

More than 1,400 Gazans were killed in the 23 days of the Israeli assault, including hundreds of children. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) documented 313 deaths, almost 40% of them to children under 10 years old. Other Palestinian groups say the toll was much higher. More than 1,600 children were injured.

But the long history of Israeli assaults on Gaza, and the two-and-a-half-year blockade of the territory after Hamas took power, has exacted a toll on almost every aspect of children's lives: schooling, housing, leisure time, what they eat, what they wear, how they see the future.

A Gaza Community Mental Health Program survey earlier this year found that about 75% of children over the age of six were suffering from one or more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The majority of children suffer many psychological and social consequences," says Dr. Hasan Zeyada, a psychologist. "Insecurity and feelings of helplessness and powerlessness are overwhelming. We observed children becoming more anxious - sleep disturbances, nightmares, night terror, regressive behaviour such as clinging to parents, bed wetting, becoming more restless and hyperactive, refusal to sleep alone, all the time wanting to be with their parents, overwhelmed by fears and worries. Some start to be more aggressive."

Dr. Abdel Aziz Mousa Thabet, professor of psychiatry at al-Quds University in Gaza, says the conflict has a different impact on boys and girls. "Girls have more anxiety and depression, boys are more hyperactive."

Some children no longer look on their homes as places of safety, security and comfort. Others don't even have a home to go to. The Israeli bombardment damaged or destroyed more than 20,000 houses, forcing some families into tents and others to crowd in with relatives. Hamas distributed money to displaced families to rebuild their homes but the Israeli blockade has created a desperate shortage of materials. Almost one year later, some children still have no roof over their head.

Hanan Attar, a slight 10-year-old wearing flip-flops several sizes too big for her small feet, is wistful as she recalls the house destroyed by an Israeli tank shell. "We had land, my father is a farmer," she says. "We used to grow watermelons, but the land was too close to the border and we can't get there now."

Home is now a tent on a patch of scrubby sand, shared by 10 members of her family, including a two-month-old baby Haneen, who is seriously underweight at only 3 kg. Her mother, Arfa cannot breastfeed because she is taking medication for back problems. The father is disabled and unemployed; his leg was broken badly in the conflict and the bones are pinned together with metal.

"We are civilians, we don't belong to any faction," he says. "What are we guilty of so that we have to live like this? I spent my entire life building up my home. In one hour everything was gone."

Hanan doesn't complain about the tent, but says "the house was better". She adds: "A snake came one night and bit my mother. I can't sleep at night; I'm scared of the snakes and the dogs."

Meals are cooked on a portable gas stove; the few toilets are shared by all families in the tent compound. Winter is coming and the tents are getting cold.

But in this community of tent families, circled round the shared lavatories, children play as all children do, kicking a football, wrestling, dragging sticks through the sand. Their families are doing the best they can in near-impossible circumstances. Some have even planted small gardens.

But Hanan - who wants to be a doctor so she can treat the sick - says she spends most of her time in the tent with her seven brothers and sisters. Do they think they will ever go back to a proper home? "God knows," says Arfa.

Overcrowding, lack of privacy and poverty are contributing to what some in Gaza call the "mental siege." Tensions within families are increasing, say Gaza's mental health experts. "Some parents themselves have depression and anxiety. Some become more aggressive towards their children," says Zeyada.

John Ging, director of UN operations in Gaza, puts it this way: "Parents are sitting there in their homes, very upset and very frustrated at their situation, and that is of course having ramifications for the home environment," with a resultant increase in domestic violence. Children are losing respect because their role models are failing. "They see their parents as incapable of providing for them," he said.

[Part 2 of this article will appear in next week’s Friday Magazine...]

(Retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/gaza-israel-invasion -children-traumatised This article was edited and slightly abridged for the Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Magazine.)

This week CIC presents the following link to our readership:

Gaza’s Stranded Students Losing Hope:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aq06zfnWZQ&feature=youtube_gdata