Content Warning: This article contains descriptions of violence
In December 2016, Soleiman Faqiri died in segregation in a Lindsay, Ont. jail after being subdued by over 20 officers. Since then, both his family and members of the McMaster community have been waiting for answers surrounding the circumstances of his death and the punishments to follow.
Walid Abdulaziz, a student and member of McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice, is one of those people. Abdulaziz, who has been involved with the case since early 2017, has been helping both Faqiri’s family and the Justice for Soli movement, a movement created to seek out answers concerning the circumstances of Faqiri’s death.
Faqiri was a mentally ill man placed in segregation in a Lindsay, Ont. jail for a number of days who subsequently died under their care. He had been arrested about two weeks earlier on charges for aggravated assault and did not have a criminal record prior to this.
In the February 2018 report the Toronto Star obtained through a freedom of information access request, the Kawartha Lakes Police Services found that Faqiri had been pepper sprayed twice and held down by iron rods. As of now, Kawartha Lakes Police Service does not plan on charging any of the officers involved with the altercation.
Abdulaziz first heard of Faqiri’s case through a fellow member of MMPJ, who had learned about the case about a month after it occurred when it was mentioned by a speaker at a different university.
Faqiri was a mentally ill man placed in segregation in a Lindsay, Ont. jail for a number of days who subsequently died under their care.
“Obviously [MMPJ is] a social justice group so we wanted to get involved with as much as we could. Our first idea was to make an informative video that made its way around the internet to get publicity for the case. A lot of members have kept close ties to the movement,” Abdulaziz said.
Abdulaziz and other members of MMPJ helped the Faqiri family while they tried to find answers to why he died. They finally received a report of the exact nature of the attack sometime in February 2018.
Since then, Abdulaziz has been working with the Justice for Soli movement and the Faqiri family to inform people about Faqiri’s case.
Our immediate goal is to get answers and report on what happened, but our bigger picture is to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
Walid Abdulaziz
Justice for Soli executive
“Our immediate goal is to get answers and report on what happened, but our bigger picture is to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” said Abdulaziz.
As a part of their education process, the Justice for Soli movement has been coming to different university campuses and giving talks to inform the public about Faqiri’s case. Yusuf Faqiri, Soleiman Faqiri’s brother, is a common guest speaker, who talks about his brother and the difficulties surrounding his death.
The Justice for Soli movement had scheduled an event on March 1, but due to the weather conditions and Mohawk College’s shutdown of all their buildings, they had to cancel their event which was set to take place in the Institute of Applied Health Sciences, a Mohawk building on the McMaster campus.
Nonetheless, Abdulaziz urges students to learn about the Justice for Soli movement.
“This kind of topic has so many intersections. There’s so many problems with the justice system that we have people with mental health concerns being mistreated by those in authority and other really grave injustices that affect a lot of people,” said Abdulaziz. “It’s not unrealistic to expect things to be better or just different,” he added.
The Justice for Soli movement plans on rescheduling their event on campus in the coming weeks.
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By: Jenan Nasser
On Nov. 22, 2014, a devastating incident occurred in the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre on Barton Street. An inmate, Rocky Ganesh, was brutally attacked by his cellmate. Rocky was beaten so viciously he slipped into a coma which lasted for weeks and resulted in severe brain trauma. His doctors are not predicting a full recovery.
Ganesh now lives at the Regional Rehabilitation Centre in the Hamilton General Hospital, unable to cognitively cope with the traumatic experiences he has been through. The mother of the assaulted victim, Sharda Ganesh, is seeking redress for the assault, claiming that there is not enough protection for inmates. Sharda suggests a provincial-wide revamping of cellmate provisions, which would segregate those who are known to be aggressive or have had past aggressive episodes with their cellmates, from those who have no such prior episodes.
The Hamilton-Wentworth Detention centre has had previous incidents in which prison security has proven to be insufficient, and the treatment of inmates has been inhumane. Due to the lack of security personnel, the prisoners have become aggressive towards authority on more than one occasion.
A convicted rapist was transferred from the detention centre for gassing a security guard after being confined in his cell for an extended duration because of the lack of staff on duty that day. A correctional officer at Wentworth explains that if Canadian prisons had more funding and greater attention was paid to the living conditions, they wouldn’t have to worry as much about the safety of their officers or the inmates themselves.
Due to the lack of resources, prisons are becoming more dangerous and less humane. Although prisons exist to confine criminals and law offenders, they should not be subjecting them to cruel conditions similar to those Rocky Ganesh endured. Sharda Ganesh told reporters that she wonders why the jail has enough resources to send two officers to guard Rocky by his bedside, now that he can’t move, but they weren’t there when he actually needed them.
This problem is a common one in Canada. With growing numbers of prisoners and the lack of government funding to accommodate them, a tragic incident like this could occur again. Whether people believe these inmates have a right to security is an old argument, however I believe that these inmates’ rights to life are being infringed upon. Although prisons are in place to restrict convicted felons, they are also in place to protect our rights as free abiders of the law. If living conditions worsen, not only have the constitutional rights of inmates been infringed upon but the safety and privileged freedom that we currently enjoy will also be compromised.
The money being spent on extra staff for hospital security and other fees for assault victims within the jail could be better put to use for greater staffing and larger facilities. There is no question that the prison system is flawed and can be a dangerous place, but fearing for your life or an unexpected ambush attack in the middle of the night should not be the reality of the lives of prisoners.
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HAMILTON (CUP) — After being held captive for seven weeks in Egypt under no formal charges, Canadians Tarek Loubani and John Greyson were released on Saturday, Oct. 5. However, when they tried to board a plane to Frankfurt, Germany on Sunday, Oct. 6, the two were told they could not fly out because they were on a “stop-list” issued by Egyptian prosecutors.
The stop-list is yet another roadblock in the Canadians’ two-month struggle to get home safely.
Loubani is an emergency doctor at Western University in London, Ont. and Greyson is a filmmaker and professor at York University in Toronto. Both were on their way to a Gaza hospital in mid-August when they were detained by Cairo officials. Egyptian officials arrested them, along with other perceived protestors at the site, for threatening national security. No charges were ever laid.
In Canada, news of their captivity prompted nearly 150,000 people to sign a petition for their release. Their plight was also a popular topic at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Canadian filmmakers held a press conference. Friends and family told the media the men were simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
After 31 days in detention, Loubani and Greyson resolved to go on a hunger strike. On Sept. 28, their twelfth day on hunger strike, the two released a statement confirming that they had been living in dire conditions: “no phone calls, little to no exercise, sharing a 3m x 10m cell with 36 other political prisoners, sleeping like sardines on concrete with the cockroaches; sharing a single tap of earthy Nile water.”
Despite the public outcry against their detainment, the Canadians were told by Egyptian officials on Sept. 29 that their detainment would be extended by 45 days.
On Sept. 29, Prime Minister Harper issued a statement calling for their immediate release. The two men were officially released on Oct. 5. Three days prior to their release, Loubani and Greyson had begun eating again and saw a doctor.
Canadian Minister of State Lynne Yelich released a statement on Oct. 5 saying, “We are facilitating Dr. Loubani and Mr. Greyson’s departure from Egypt, and Canadian officials will continue to offer consular services to them and their families as needed.”
