Juno News - November 23, 2018


Asia Bibi is a REAL refugee that needs Canada's help.

Mentioned
Bibi Mariam Monsef Justin Trudeau Jesus Christ Pope
The UK's Bungling of Brexit - Lawton with Lilico People wanting a government solution to plant closures just don't get it

Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

138.88

Word count

1,030

Sentence count

60

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

What exactly is a refugee? The term gets thrown around so much, and if you were to get your information strictly from the mainstream media, you could be forgiven for believing a refugee is any migrant who arrives in a Western country hoping to stay. The media in Canada, following cues from Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party, erroneously conflate the concept of an asylum seeker with a bona fide refugee. It happens every day on the CBC and in pages of newspapers like the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. But not all asylum seekers are refugees. Many migrants explicitly break the rules laid out for becoming a refugee, for instance by crossing through other safe countries before submitting their refugee application.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.560 What exactly is a refugee?
00:00:03.180 The term gets thrown around so much, and if you were to get your information strictly
00:00:07.000 from the mainstream media, you could be forgiven for believing a refugee is any migrant who 1.00
00:00:12.500 arrives in a Western country hoping to stay.
00:00:15.600 The media in Canada, following cues from Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party, erroneously
00:00:21.080 conflate the concept of an asylum seeker with a bona fide refugee.
00:00:25.760 It happens every day on the CBC and in pages of newspapers like the Toronto Star on the
00:00:31.200 Globe and Mail.
00:00:32.820 The images are chilling, thousands of refugees slipping across the border this winter in
00:00:42.760 darkness and bitter cold, fleeing the U.S. where they fear they're not safe, hoping they'll
00:00:49.960 be welcomed in Canada if they can make it alive.
00:00:53.380 But not all asylum seekers are refugees.
00:00:56.440 Many migrants explicitly break the rules laid out for becoming a refugee, for instance by
00:01:01.680 crossing through other safe countries before submitting their refugee application.
00:01:07.760 Take the recent migrant caravan that marched through Mexico hoping to find asylum in the
00:01:12.500 United States.
00:01:13.500 Some of the migrants were waving the flags of the countries of origin like Guatemala and
00:01:19.180 Honduras while also claiming to be refugees from those countries.
00:01:24.240 Now tell me, if you were persecuted by your government or if your government failed to keep
00:01:29.480 you safe, would you really wave that flag proudly and defiantly while marching through another
00:01:35.300 country heading to a third where you hope to become a refugee?
00:01:38.860 It doesn't make sense.
00:01:40.920 Or look at Canadian Liberal Cabinet Minister Mariam Monsef.
00:01:43.920 It's time for integrity, time for results, it's our time.
00:02:11.980 Her family was granted asylum and they became refugees in Canada, claiming to have been
00:02:17.260 persecuted in Afghanistan.
00:02:19.880 We later learned that Monsef was born and raised in Iran, not Afghanistan.
00:02:25.200 And we learned that she frequently returned back to the region, back to Iran and Afghanistan,
00:02:31.200 after being granted refugee status in Canada and being given Canadian citizenship.
00:02:36.700 When I asked her office how she was able to travel to Iran, given that Canada and Iran don't
00:02:41.760 have a diplomatic relationship, well they told me that she used an Afghan passport to travel.
00:02:48.760 Now again, if you were persecuted, chased out of a country, and then by the grace of God
00:02:54.420 saved and granted refugee status in the West, would you really use the passport of the country
00:03:00.300 that you fled while traveling abroad?
00:03:03.360 Would you return to the country that you fled?
00:03:06.140 All these stories don't lend much credibility to the claim that the people were ever really
00:03:10.360 persecuted.
00:03:11.360 Sadly, all this does is undermine the plight of real refugees around the world.
00:03:17.360 Now, I want to talk to you about one such real refugee.
00:03:22.440 Her name is Asia Bibi.
00:03:24.780 Bibi is a poor Pakistani farm worker who also happens to be a Catholic. 0.99
00:03:29.860 She was born and raised in a small rural village near Lahore, Pakistan, where Christians are
00:03:35.000 targeted, routinely persecuted, and they're relegated to low-status and low-wage jobs.
00:03:40.920 Bibi and her family, she has five children, well they're often pressured to convert to Islam
00:03:47.480 by members of their community.
00:03:49.340 One day, Bibi was sent to fetch water from a nearby well.
00:03:53.240 Now while she was walking over to the well, she was thirsty, so she wanted to drink water.
00:03:57.840 She found a cup on the ground and she used it to have a sip of water.
00:04:02.840 Another villager saw her do this and insisted that it was forbidden for Christians to drink
00:04:08.900 from the same cup as Muslims. 0.99
00:04:11.500 The villagers claimed that the cup belonged to Muslims.
00:04:13.980 Bibi was confronted by an angry crowd who again demanded that she convert to Islam.
00:04:20.980 Bibi refused. 0.92
00:04:21.980 She defended her belief in Christianity, her belief in Jesus Christ as the savior of mankind.
00:04:27.980 Now, a bigger mob later showed up at Bibi's house and began to physically attack her and
00:04:34.040 her family.
00:04:35.040 They accused her of making derogatory statements about Islam and its prophet.
00:04:39.980 The police, local police, showed up.
00:04:41.980 They arrested Bibi.
00:04:42.980 They charged her under Pakistan's perverse blasphemy laws that punish anyone who criticizes
00:04:49.980 Islam.
00:04:50.980 Bibi was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and she was sentenced to death by hanging.
00:04:56.980 The ruling was upheld again by a Lahore High Court and she remained on death row.
00:05:02.980 Following international pressure from human rights organizations and the Pope himself, the
00:05:06.980 case was sent to the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
00:05:10.980 Finally, Bibi caught a break and the highest court ruled that she was innocent, citing insufficient
00:05:15.980 evidence and inconsistent witness accounts. 0.85
00:05:19.980 The acquittal prompted mass protests from hardline Islamists demanding that she be killed.
00:05:25.980 Thousands of angry men took to the streets in mass demonstrations in Pakistan.
00:05:30.980 The court ruled that she cannot leave the country, that she must remain there because her case remains
00:05:43.980 in appeals process.
00:05:45.980 The British government, meanwhile, confirmed that they would not help Bibi.
00:06:03.980 They would not offer her asylum in the UK.
00:06:06.980 They said it was out of fear for the safety of their British diplomats in Pakistan.
00:06:11.980 There are also other statements that were made over concerns about internal riots in the UK from
00:06:16.980 the large Pakistan community, many of whom have hardline Islamist views.
00:06:22.980 Canada has stepped up.
00:06:24.980 Our officials are reportedly in discussion with Pakistani officials about trying to bring Bibi
00:06:29.980 to Canada.
00:06:31.980 Bibi is an example of a real refugee. 1.00
00:06:34.980 A person with a well-founded fear of persecution based solely on her religious beliefs. 0.82
00:06:40.980 If she was forced to remain in Pakistan, there is no doubt that she'll be killed. 0.99
00:06:45.980 Her case highlights the very reason why countries like Canada have an asylum program.
00:06:50.980 It's designed to protect vulnerable individuals from the cruel and unjust treatment while upholding
00:06:56.980 our own core values like freedom of speech, religious freedom, and the rule of law.
00:07:03.980 Asia Bibi deserves asylum. 0.99
00:07:05.980 And if the UK insists on cowering to a mob of Pakistani Islamists, then Canada needs to 1.00
00:07:12.980 be there to offer Bibi and her family immediate asylum.
00:07:17.980 She is a real refugee. 0.79
00:07:18.980 She meets the real definition of the term.
00:07:22.980 For the True North Initiative, I'm Candace Malcolm.