The continued erosion of International law and human rights under a global pandemic
Tibbo, Robert
A brief lecture on continued global erosion of civil rights, dismantling of international law, and escalation of human rights abuses under the Covid-19 pandemic, with particular case examples from the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong under the New National Security Law and the EU. There will also be an update on the circumstances of the Snowden Refugees, namely Vanessa Rodel and her daughter resettling into life in Montreal, Canada and a dramatic turn in Ajith’s (former Sri Lankan soldier) circumstances in Hong Kong as he is caught before a judiciary lacking independence as well as pending passage of new draconian Hong Kong immigration legislation putting him at risk while he awaits Canada’s decision on his refugee claims.
 We're very happy to have Robert Thibault with us on the channel for his fifth year in a row here speaking at the KS Communication Congress. His lecture, Robert Thibault, you probably know him as a lawyer involved in the Snowden case, his lecture today is called the Continued Erosion of International Law and Human Rights Under Global Pandemic. Good evening. I'd like to thank the Computer Chaos Congress again for having me speak at the convention this year, even though due to the global pandemic it's by remote. But as you may be aware, I'm the lawyer for the Snowden refugees. And also I'm introducing another one of my clients, Ibrahim Hussein, who is a refugee and journalist from Somalia. And just to inform anyone who's unaware at this stage, the Snowden refugees, or a group of refugees from South and Southeast Asia who provided shelter, food and compassionate humanity to Edward Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013, when Mr. Snowden made the disclosures on the NSA's electronic mass surveillance program. And also to provide an update on my role as a lawyer for the Snowden refugees, I continue to act for them as a barrister in their Hong Kong cases. And within Canada, I was granted special authorization to act for the Snowden refugees who still have refugee claims with the Canadian government. And just briefly, I have a slide up with the Snowden refugees sitting together in Hong Kong. On the left side is Vanessa. She's from the Philippines, her daughter's below her, that's Kiana, born in Hong Kong stateless, and is still stateless today. Beside Vanessa is Ajith, the former soldier from Sri Lanka. And beside him is the family of four, Nadeeka Sipunboth from Sri Lanka, and their two children, Satin D and Dinath, also born in Hong Kong stateless. And the seven Snowden refugees, two of them actually succeeded in their cases in 2019. And this is a photo, there's a photo I have up of myself meeting with Vanessa and Kiana at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on March 24th, 2019. A year ago I talked about the decline in human rights around the globe. Nothing has changed since a year ago. And with the COVID-19 global pandemic, things have just gotten a lot worse. Governments have been empowered and boldened to continue to attack those who dissent, who are critical of government around the world. And what has made matters worse are the people's inability to go out and exercise their rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly and protests because of COVID, and for public safety reasons. And the government has used that to their advantage to abuse civilians and society. The media as well has been consumed, in my view, by the global pandemic, as well as other significant global news stories such as the US elections and Donald Trump. What this has done is it's taken the media away, journalists away, from other important human rights stories around the world. So those whose cases or their circumstances are not high profile, a lot of these stories are not being reported anymore, they're not being investigated anymore, which is adding to governments being aware that they can continue to commit human rights violations around the world with impunity. Now I have a client from, originally from Somalia, he's a journalist, and I'm introducing him to the public in this presentation because he fled persecution as a journalist in Somalia and he found himself in Hong Kong for a period of time in an untenable situation and had later found his way to the European Union to seek refugee status there. And I'd like to go into that. And basically, Mr. Ibrahim had covered news stories in Mogadishu and across Somalia, and he was targeted by both the government and Al-Shabaab. It was a situation that Jiki has, and there's two quotes here which I'll read out, which really encapsulate the circumstances on the ground. Ibrahim has stated, in the morning we hugged our family like we might never see them again because every day in Mogadishu journalists may be killed in the crossfire or murdered by Al-Shabaab. And he also stated, for a big story we would bring two or three cameramen to record the scene together in case one was wounded or shot. As a lawyer for Ibrahim, I've actually seen footage that they've recorded of people on the front lines they were with being shot dead. And this is a horrific situation for any journalist to be in and to report in. The situation for Ibrahim came to a crossroads in 2009 when he was kidnapped by Al-Shabaab. He'd been targeted by the government as well, the police and also officers at the Ministry of Information and Culture. But it was Al-Shabaab who grabbed him, tortured him, threatened him, didn't kill him with a knife, gunned to his head and demanded ransom of 18,000 U.S. which fortunately his family was able to secure and after six days as a hostage he was released. Now Ibrahim had worked for University of television in Somalia during two periods and he had fled Somalia for a period of time to try to find refuge in another part of Africa which didn't work and then tried again where he found himself in South Sudan which was, there's no durable solution there for him. So in September 2013 he fled to Hong Kong and he saw it asylum there. His thinking was that Hong Kong had a reputation of civility and rule of law but upon his arrival he realized that he'd been seriously mistaken. Immediately he was arrested and detained at the Kalsupik Bay Immigration Center. For short we call that CIC and it's basically Hong Kong's version of a Gulag and there's an award winning human rights story by Olivia Chang from Hong Kong called The Invisible Wall. I've provided the link on the slides so you'd be able to read an English version of that story. Now after being locked up for three months he was released on Recognizance which is provided with a paper that typically foreign criminals are provided with and on the outside he faced destitution and racial discrimination. And he was constantly racially profiled by the police, stopped all the time, threatened and Hong Kong society itself just basically ignored him. It's like it's as if he didn't exist. He had no food or money for the five months after he had been released from detention and International Social Services, a Swiss organization with a branch in Hong Kong provides humanitarian assistance as a contractor for the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department but still for five months he was destitute, no food and no money. And in 2013, my slide there's an error it says 2014 but in late 2013, Ibrahim showed up at my office with another one of his colleagues who had worked for him in Somalia and they were wearing bedroom slippers and used clothing and they were starving and I immediately took up their cases with the UNHCR in Hong Kong and subsequent to that meeting in my office my wife took both of them down to out of her own pocket to purchase shoes for them running shoes and also to buy them some food. Now Jiki is what I would describe as a victim of constructive refalement and I'm going to go into the law in that in a few minutes but basically the Hong Kong government has a legal and policy framework that's designed to break down the mental health and physical health of asylum seekers basically through social isolation and deprivation of sufficient humanitarian assistance so that they don't starve. And Jiki described the situation a few days ago looking back after the asylum seeking community protested and occupied social welfare and international social services offices in 2014 protesting not having enough food or rent money to survive it felt like my mind was breaking I felt I would die in Hong Kong. Ibrahim's mental and physical health declined in Hong Kong to the point where it was a choice between not surviving in Hong Kong or trying to get to another country. The South China Morning Post reported his situation as a journalist and a reporter stated an experience of the worst in humanity was not what Ibrahim Muhammad Hussein expected when he touched down in Hong Kong eight months ago fresh from persecution in Africa. Now I mentioned constructive refalement and this is a framework and a strategy that's implemented by the Hong Kong government and professors at Chinese University have described it as follows given that a necessary consequence of the government's policies is social exclusion and destitution there are major concerns particularly for the mental health of refugees. This is especially the case because refugees stranded in the territory faced in definite periods while claims are processed all the while plagued by uncertainty. Such concerns not only raise the issues of compatibility with the ICER and ICPR but also place the individual concerned at risk of returning to the source of danger that's offending the doctrine of constructive refalement. So Hong Kong's prohibited from returning anybody who's seeking asylum in Hong Kong until after the cases are screened and rejected but the Hong Kong government in parallel with that policy that they have to follow the law they have to follow the screen refugees or asylum seekers is they make their lives so miserable so difficult that these asylum seekers mental health deteriorates to the point where they give up and they would rather return home to die there. Ibrahim left Hong Kong but under international law and Hong Kong's policies they sent him back to Somalia he was quickly targeted again and over a number of years he sought internal flight relocation alternatives within Somalia it didn't work and then he finally left Somalia and found his way to the European Union ending up in Greece. The first camp he was put in is the Maria Mariah refugee camp which Ibrahim describes as a place of violence there is violence on a daily basis there was a lack of resources, food, the conditions were inhuman and degrading and Ibrahim himself and the people in his makeshift structure where they stayed were attacked on seven occasions during that time and the other thing that Ibrahim has stated is that the police just stood by and watched they allowed that to happen they acquiesced to the violence against other refugees and the plus side of Ibrahim making it to the European Union was there is a screening process that proceeded quickly compared to Hong Kong and the second plus is that the screening system in the European Union countries actually grants refugees that status if they can make their case that they have a well-founded fear of persecution in Hong Kong the acceptance rate was zero and Hong Kong not being a signatory to the UN convention relating to the status of refugees even if you succeeded you could not obtain refugee status in Hong Kong and you could not resettle there and this is a picture of Ibrahim at the Mariah refugee camp there was a arson and a large fire at the camp which left him five days on the streets outside the camp and then he would be sent to the Lesbos refugee camp thereafter now with his acceptance as a refugee in June 2020 he was still stuck in the camp and here's another photo of Ibrahim when he went to the Lesbos camp there are no toilets no showers lack of resources and and in late 2020 the Greek government moved allowed Ibrahim to leave the camps and he's now living in a Greek community supported only for a limited period of time by the government in January 2021 there's a mistake on my slide 2020 should be 2021 he'll have to fend for himself and I I've brought up introduced Ibrahim here to everybody today because he's been in both Hong Kong and he's found his way to the European Union there are serious problems on both sides of the globe but he is grateful that the proper screening is apparently happening in the European Union and he's now safe in my view he's an extraordinary person extraordinary journalist and there are very few journalists like this on the planet with his commitment and willingness to have taken the risks risking his life to report do reporting in Somalia Ibrahim would like to continue working as a journalist again he's just landing on his feet in in Greece right now and waiting for his formal documents all those formal documents to be issued but he's looking to continue to work as a journalist now I'm going to go I'm going back to Hong Kong and and I'm going to be returning to the snow and refugees but I'd like to provide a quick update on what's happening in Hong Kong on the slide I have up here now basically shows from 2014 to 2019 the rapid decline in human rights in Hong Kong and in particular rendition enforced disappearances ill treatment torture and even attempted extra judicial killings and from 2004 to 2019 you know Hong Kong has become authoritarian and to review what happened last year Carrie Lam the chief executive of Hong Kong had wanted to bring in an act into a law next tradition bill which would allow rendition of individuals from Hong Kong into mainland China there would have been a formal legal mechanism to do that the Hong Kong people and lawyers in Hong Kong are very well aware that hot that mainland China's judiciary is not independent it's like any other government department of the executive it's policy and politically motivated in terms of how judges in mainland China try criminal cases due process rights are limited in in China in the Chinese criminal justice system and at times do not exist and I'm going to mention the case of Michael Spavor and Michael Colverig two Canadians who were detained into December 2018 innocent Canadians have done nothing wrong arbitrarily arrested detained and this year earlier this year charged with crimes in mainland China and the mainland Chinese government has effectively admitted that they've they're holding the two Canadians hostage as a bargaining chip to pressure the Canadian government to to bring an end to the extradition proceedings against the Meng Wanzhou of the Huawei Chinese telecom group. I was significant so I'm mentioning this because the the two Michael's cases in in China highlight you know the deficiencies the clear deficiencies and shortcomings of the criminal justice system in China and Hong Kong people you know were not prepared to accept that they would face justice or accused of a crime and have to go through a criminal justice system in China mainland China so protests broke out people in the millions went into the streets from June 19 2019 onward and it was in September 2019 that Carrie Lam the chief executive of Hong Kong announced that the extradition bill would be withdrawn so that was a great success. Now with COVID-19 human rights violations in Hong Kong have just continued on and they've become worse and the Hong Kong government recognizing that millions of people would not be going out in the streets to protest under COVID-19 because nobody you know everybody understood they is a public serious public health risk and people don't want to get sick so there were limited protests but Hong Kong and Beijing calculated that you wouldn't have the millions of people on the streets and they introduced a bill that Beijing actually did this through their own legislature enacting a constitutional provision under the new net under article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law which is Hong Kong's constitution basically bringing in new crimes against the state and I've put in the slide those crimes a secession subversion terrorism collusion with foreign forces that legislation is a constitutional provision it's ambiguous it's poorly written and it can be interpreted in a way because of its ambiguity interpreted and used in an arbitrary way and used to violate the rights of any any civilian in Hong Kong I'm going to go into the scope of this law if one is arrested for persons arrested under the new national security law there's no presumption of bail anymore the defendant actually has the burden of proof on them to seek bail definite detention if bail is not granted that person can be sitting in a remand in a jail for months or years before trial the trials are going to be held behind closed doors the judges are actually selected by the executive branch of government they select judges from the judiciary but it's not the chief justice of the Hong Kong court court final appeal that choose selects the judges to be on that list that the government chooses in this law anyone is accused of a national security fence under Hong Kong's basic law can be renditioned to mainland China to face justice there so what the Hong Kong authorities were not able to achieve in 2019 they've now Beijing has now achieved so that anybody in Hong Kong who is accused of committing a national security crime can be brought into mainland China and face justice there extraterritorial criminality anybody who writes something says something does something that is critical of the Hong Kong government if the Hong Kong authorities feel that this is an act of secession or subversion they can seek the extradition of that person let's say in Canada or in Germany or another country so this new national security law has a global reach okay consequence of this is countries in Europe including Germany the United States Canada New Zealand the UK Australia have all either suspended or terminated the extradition agreements treaties that they have with Hong Kong the reason being is the new national security law is a de facto backdoor to for Beijing to extradite people from around the world very few countries have extradition treaties with mainland China because of the shortcomings in its criminal justice system and I've put up a slide just listening a few countries that have suspended treaties and now within the Hong Kong legal government itself three branches government the executive branch legislative and judiciary it's quite clear that Beijing now has firm control over the executive branch of government Carrie Lem you know loyal to Beijing you know following through on directions from Beijing also in 2020 we saw officers from mainland China now working in Hong Kong side by side with Hong Kong civil servants and basically advising and directing the legislature a number of pro-democracy legislators were removed actually by Beijing and new legislation was imposed by Beijing that anyone who is viewed as a risk to national security okay without trial can be removed from the legislature there are supposed to be elections for the legislature in earlier this year they were counseled because of COVID and with the new new law imposed by Beijing there was a mass resignation by the pro-democracy legislators in Hong Kong so effectively Beijing has taken control of Hong Kong's legislature the last or third branch of government the judiciary there's been a number of cases where judges have brought in their political opinions most significantly a non-permanent judge of the court of final appeal Australian Justice Spiegelman resigned in September this year from the court of final appeal citing the new national security law freedom of expression in Hong Kong is frozen freedom association assembly and mobility of severely diminished Hong Kong was ranked 18th in the world in terms of freedom of the press and journalism but in 2020 it's it fell down to 80th place in the news right now has been the arrest of Jimmy Lai the founder of apodilly under the national security law bail was denied but he secured bail last week from the high court the department of justice director of public prosecutions has filed an appeal to that to the court of final appeal to seek that the bail be revoked for Mr. Lai there's also other examples of journalists like Troy Eucling of RTHK what the Hong Kong authorities have been doing the last year is if they if they cannot find a basis to arrest an individual journalist or activist or politician on under the new national security law they use some draconian laws or try to find some technicality to you know arrest somebody first something that's not even related to their work simply trying to shut shut up or stop the media from speaking and writing their stories in 2017 there's been an exodus and on mass from Hong Kong it's been quiet it's been steady but that exodus accelerated in 2019 and and accelerated even more in 2020 with the new national security law and talking to clients and colleagues the the shipping and freight companies in Hong Kong are overbooked there that data indicates that there's large numbers of people leaving Hong Kong they do not see a future in Hong Kong now Canada started accepting refugees earlier this year and in September Canada started granting refugee status of Hong Kong people who have been politically persecuted because of their participation in protests or they voiced their opinion. Tsong Peiwu the Chinese ambassador to Canada and Ottawa spoke out and I'll quote what he said we strongly urge the Canadian side not to grant so-called political asylum to those violent criminals as refugees because it is interference in China's domestic affairs and certainly it will embolden those violent criminals. It was on 15th of October 2020 and what is interesting here is that China is actually a signatory to the UN convention relating to the status of refugees and the refugee convention forms part of China's constitution and part of that is to respect and recognize that other countries will screen asylum seekers and grant them refugee status if they show well-founded fair persecution whether it's religion, ethnicity, race, nationality, political opinion or other social group and what's also interesting is that in under the refugee convention under article 1f and 33.2 but 1f in particular that if anybody had committed a serious violent offense let's say in Hong Kong even if they were granted, recognized as a refugee they would not be granted refugee status because of that violence. So the Chinese ambassador to Hong Kong apparently doesn't understand the law and doesn't understand or respect that Canada will be looking at whether any asylum seekers have committed offenses that would exclude them from that protection. Over the last year we've seen legislators, former legislators, members of political opposing political parties flee the jurisdiction. What Hong Kong authorities in Beijing have been trying to do is to find bases or whether they're well-founded or not on evidence but to arrest them put them into the Hong Kong criminal justice system and in applying for bail typically a condition is they hand over their travel documents. So there are a lot of activists and politicians in Hong Kong who can't leave because they don't have travel documents. Beijing and Hong Kong clearly want to close the borders on anyone who expresses dissent against the Hong Kong or Beijing governments but there have been legislators and political activists who have fled and I've put on a slide Ray Wong and Alan Lee fled in 2017 about that time and were granted refugee status in Germany. Baguio Lung recently fled to the US. Simon Chang, Hongkong Lao, Sunny Chow, Ted Hoi, Nathan Law, Wayne Chan, Samuel Chu have all left Hong Kong and they're all seeking asylum, political asylum in Western Europe or North America. Now coming back to the Snowden refugees and what I'd like to do before going into the situation with one Snowden refugee in Hong Kong, I'm just going to give you a quick update on Vanessa and her daughter who are now resettled in Montreal. They've had a hard time of it during the pandemic in Montreal and I've put up a photo from September 2020 which really shows, you know, it really projects the feeling, you know, after almost a year of having to practice social distancing and other safe practices so they don't get infected or infect others. A non-profit, just to update everybody, a non-profit was set up in June 2020. The previous private sponsors in Montreal had stopped providing support to Vanessa and Kiana in April 2020 which put this single mom and her daughter in a terrible situation without any food or rent and the last of the money that was provided by the private sponsor was provided in early May. So as of June, this family had nothing to survive on. So I contacted people I know in the Montreal community and they stepped forward and they set up a non-profit organization called HelpVanessa.com. Oliver Stone, Academy Award winning director, Shalene Woodley, who starred in the Snowden film, also an Oliver Stone film, stepped forward and advocated in support and to ask for donations for Vanessa and her daughter and to date we've raised more than 50,000 Canadians which has now allows Vanessa and her daughter to remain safe and secure during the pandemic and also to continue their French language studies. And this is a photo of them in November 2020, just last month. And this was Christmas Eve. Kiana's on the left, Vanessa in the middle. And the third person is Mintum Tran who's the founder of the non-profit HelpVanessa and Kiana. I'd like to quickly mention him. He's the son of a refugee family originally from Vietnam after the war in 1975. The family resettled in Montreal and he was born in Montreal. He's a pharmacist and executive director of the association professionnel de pharmacien, salary de Québec. He founded the non-profit HelpVanessa and Kiana. And he's also founded a new non-profit called HelpAjith.com. I'm going to go into Ajith's situation. This was 2017. I've put up a photo of Ajith at the removal assessment section of the immigration department in Caldoun Bay. And this was a week before immigration rejected Ajith's asylum claims. And just briefly, Ajith was injured in the Civil War protecting his fellow soldiers. He was denied medical assistance under the Geneva Convention by the Sri Lankan army. And he was put in an untenable situation where he was looking at losing his life. So he fled. He was a military deserter. He was caught a few years later and tortured. There was an attempt to execute him, but he managed to flee the military camp and he fled to Hong Kong in 2003, leaving behind his wife and a newborn baby girl. This is a, I put up a photo of Ajith in 1993. So you can see the young man that he was. And in Hong Kong, similar to Ibrahim, the Somali journalist, from 2003 onward, Ajith has been subjected to systemic racism and discrimination by the Hong Kong government and its institutions. He's been denied sufficient humanitarian assistance. And I took on his case in 2012. And he's constantly been subjected to racial profiling, even not showing up to conferences, law conferences that I was holding, because the police had stopped him on the street as he was trying to get to my office. There's been discrimination by the, you know, by the police immigration against him. And also there's been attacks by the Hong Kong government against myself with the view of removing me as his lawyer. This is a photo of Ajith a couple years ago. And he's had a very difficult time in Hong Kong. For 17 years, you know, he was subjected, he's been subjected to discrimination as I've described. And all of this has had an enormously adverse impact on Ajith in that his mental condition has collapsed a number of times and he's just wanted to give up. And he's been what I would describe as a victim of constructive refaliment. But fortunately, we were able to convince him. And we have recently tried to get him some help. He's been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder since before he left Sri Lanka, untreated. And only recently we've been able to get him a little bit of help. According to his role with Mr. Snowden in 2013 when Mr. Snowden arrived, Ajith despite all the terrible things that have happened to him, the persecution he's in discrimination he suffered in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, Ajith stepped forward and, you know, was more than willing to help Mr. Snowden shelter in 2013. And in 2016, because of Ajith's story coming into the public domain, the Hong Kong government targeted him because of his assistance to Mr. Snowden and targeted myself. And in 2018 Ajith was left without the support of the Dudi Law Service, but myself and another lawyer found a solicitor willing to instruct us privately to continue his appeal. Now in parallel to all of this, I advised Ajith to apply to Canada for refugee status. Private sponsor was found in Quebec and Ajith's refugee claims were filed in January 2017. And while all of this was happening, the Sri Lankan police aware that Ajith is in Hong Kong sent police officers to Hong Kong in December 2016 looking for him. The Hong Kong police instead of investigating the Sri Lankan police made a decision to investigate myself and my clients. Now Ajith's case was rejected by immigration in May 2017 and I filed his appeal in the Torture Clinic Appeal Board. And this is a major update on Ajith's situation in Hong Kong in that his appeal was heard by an Australian adjudicator and barrister Adam Moore who was the adjudicator in his case in 2017. Heard his full appeal in June 2018 and no decision has been handed down in three and a half years. From 2018 to November this year Adam Moore had not handed down a decision and there is no explanation for that. And then suddenly in November 2020 the Torture Clinic Appeal Board announced that Mr. Moore was no longer the adjudicator without giving any reason. And now a panel of three adjudicators would hear Ajith's case and start that process all over again. This is a process that's been delayed and in my view abused by the security bureau and the Torture Clinic Appeal Board there is no rational basis why the Torture Clinic Appeal Board did not hand down a decision on Ajith's case years ago. And this is an example of how this part of the judiciary there is a lack of transparency and accountability. And the second significant event is that one of the three adjudicators is an Australian adjudicator named Fraser Syme and he's one of the three on the new panel of three for Ajith's appeal. Mr. Syme was also the same adjudicator in the appeal of the other Snowden refugee family of Sapun Nadeeka and the two children. And Mr. Syme rejected their appeals and now the Torture Clinic Appeal Board has found it proper to appoint Mr. Syme who's already predetermined decided refugee grounds for Sapun Nadeeka's family that are the same grounds for Ajith's case. So there's an adjudicator on the new TCAB panel that has already predetermined the appeal against Ajith at least on certain refugee grounds. So there's an appearance of bias. There's clearly a conflict of interest. Making matters worse is a judicial review leave application was filed in the high court in January 2019 challenging Fraser Syme's rejection of Sapun Nadeeka's family's refugee claims. So the Torture Claim Appeal Board has put in Mr. Syme's knowing full well that his decision on the exact refugee grounds for Sapun and also Ajith those common grounds may be overturned by the high court. So it's quite clear with years of delay inordinate delay and the removal or disappearance of Adam Moore's adjudicator and the constitution of a new tribunal after so many years. With Fraser Syme on there that he's not receiving a fair process here fair hearing. Now in terms of Ajith's mental health situation the 2019 pro-democracy protests and the police crackdowns Ajith saw firsthand how the police were acting arbitrarily and attacking innocent bystanders protesters and this re-traumatized Ajith. These are the same scenes in the same conduct of police in Hong Kong that he witnessed in Sri Lanka when he was in Sri Lanka. The new national security law similar to the prevention of terrorism act in Sri Lanka is another factor which has to re-traumatized Ajith and he's in fear for his life. Making matters worse there's an immigration amendment bill that's just been brought into the legislature and mind you the legislature has no opposition it's basically probaging controlled and then this new legislation immigration officers will now be able to carry guns and steal batons when dealing with refugees. This is simply going to re-traumatize my client and other refugees. There's now powers to detain asylum seekers effectively indefinitely when they're in Hong Kong. There's new provisions where the immigration officer will decide effectively if interpreters are needed and it'll be the immigration officers of you whether a person screening interviews or appeal should be conducted without an interpreter. The other issue that is shocking in my view is after the first stage of immigration screening if the cases are rejected there are now powers for immigration officers to go to foreign consulates to obtain to start the process of obtaining travel documents that should never happen until after all appeals are exhausted. So what's happening is that all these asylum seekers contrary to UN guidelines their identities are being exposed at the first stage to foreign governments that they fled from fled persecution from. Usually a hearing could not be held before 28 days in the torture clinic billboard now the limit is seven days which again now how do I view all of all of these changes to the immigration legislation. It's just a legislative and policy framework that is going to put more pressure on asylum seekers and it violates in my view the doctrine of constructive refalement. We've set up, Minton Tran and Montreal have set up the non-profit help at jeeth.com and we're asking for donations. Ajith needs support during this time he is waiting as with the other stone refugees the outcomes of their asylum cases in Canada but pending that time Ajith needs help and we'd ask that if you can go to the website and donate no matter how big or small the donations are Ajith needs help. Thank you. Hi everyone my name is Ibrahim Mohamed Hussein I'm a journalist from Somalia. Both the Somali government and Al-Shabaab targeted me I had been kidnapped and tortured the reason I was not killed is because my family and friend is paid ransom money to spare my life. I've lived to Hong Kong only to be treated like a criminal and subjected to racism as I lived in a buffer to be greeted and treated in a humanly. My life in Hong Kong was like a slow death. I was sent back to Somalia and one is again had to run for my life and could not even see my family. I then found my way to Europe leading in Greece. I found myself in two refugee camps fighting again to survive the camps were in Hyuman and degrading many refugees were violently injured and killed inside the camp. What suffered me was the refugee screening which proceeded repeatedly. The human rights in Hong Kong do not exit for refugees but I was lucky to have a human rights lawyer Masarobi Thibault without his help I would not be here today. Thank you very much guys. I know about Ajit Tathar Kain appeared in Hong Kong hospital for three and a half years and I know that the educator for his appeal has disappeared and there is no decision in his appeal after three and a half years. I know that the appeal board is now starting his appeal start all over again. Now with the three judge hearings appeal I think this is so unfair to Ajit. He has waiting for 17 years for his case to be decided after almost four years the appeal board forces him to start all over again. It is the Hong Kong government causing me all this delay. From my own experience in the Hong Kong appeal board the judge was unfair and I cleared traumatize. For Ajit to again have to go through another appeal will be real trauma for him. He will be forced to tell his torture experience again and it will give him nightmares. This is WTF International you have just seen a recording by Robert Thibault. He is the lawyer of Edward Snowden and he is now connected. Mr Thibault. Welcome. Thank you for having me here. One thing I failed to mention in the pre-recorded video discussion is that two of my clients would have done short videos to introduce themselves to the public. One thing I would like to mention here as I mentioned at the end of the video is that Ajit is still in Hong Kong. One of the Snowden refugees who protected Mr Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013 and he does need help. One way he can help is by donations. All right thanks for the we are now taking questions for Mr Thibault. You have several Q&A during our live program. Some of you have asked us questions and if you go into the streaming window below that you have several tabs. One chat window and if you click on that you can see the hashtag which we monitor on mastodon and twitter and you can also join the backend on the IRC. So far there haven't been any questions in the channel. But Mr Thibault are there any other ways and watchers who have just seen what you have presented and you have personal messages by your clients. voices heard in order to foster the cases of those people you represent. Yes as I mentioned a primary way to support my clients in particular Ajit at this time is to make donations. There is a website at helpajit.com where you can make donations various ways from credit card to bitcoin. The other issue is awareness and discussion. There is a lot of talk about the role of whistleblowers particularly in today's world. But there has been less talk about the protection of whistleblowers. The Snowden refugees did the extraordinary by stepping forward making their decisions of conscience to provide shelter and food and compassion to Mr Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013. In all the Snowden refugees cases one of the grounds for refugee protection is the clients have a well-founded fear of persecution based on political opinion in that they made decisions to help Mr Snowden. So that forms a social group those who help or protect whistleblowers. I think that there needs to be more discussion about the importance of people in society. The courage it takes to step forward and help somebody particularly for high profile cases. It's easy to help somebody or a group of people when it's a popular person or a popular cause or if it's a low profile cause. But it's extremely difficult for individuals to step forward to help another. Even though the cause is the most just cause but it's unpopular. So there are legal and moral and ethical issues. I think that should be part of the discussion that everyone should be having. Thank you for that. There has been a question on the chat which I need to rephrase because the question is how to build a global consciousness against and to join forces both from a lawyerly and scholarly groups that believe more in direct action. You'll have to repeat that again. The signal came through a bit choppy. The question on the chat whether there's any efforts to build a global consciousness state of oppression more or less and coordinate between teams that take a more step, leave more in direct action. I think what's happening is you're seeing this kind of action with nonprofits, lawyers through protests and you're seeing it within communities, within cities, within whole jurisdictions. But I think what's happened with the COVID situation is that's basically compelled everybody because of the public health issues, self-isolating, social distancing, masks. We've had to take a step back to think, okay, how do we communicate now? How do we interact and exercise our fundamental rights and freedoms? I think we're in a dangerous period where we're still struggling how to connect globally to cooperate and bring this kind of awareness about. The second issue is to do that, you need to be able to get the message out through advocacy and activism. Right now, the COVID pandemic consumes the media reports. I've been told about 75 or 85% of news coverage in a given media organization, 75 to 85%. At the same time, governments are using the cover of COVID, the global pandemic, to suppress freedom of expression and to strip away fundamental rights and freedoms. So I think the question is a great question and I think it's a matter of, you know, when doing this through encrypted means, doing it where you have your privacy for global groups to consider how do we connect up together, what messages we want to get out, but then the real challenge will be getting the message out through to the public because of the current global pandemic. Are there already, to go ahead and prepare all the messaging to come out of the pandemic if and when it is together? As far, like, I'm not aware of any considered efforts globally. I mean, there are some nonprofits around the world who are trying to get, you know, messages out, trying to get stakeholders with those affected in different jurisdictions. But right now, I'm not aware of, you know, any organized, considered effort to try to have this sort of global connection and being able to speak globally, but also locally, you know, informing the global community what's going on. I think where it's just a difficult time. One of the best examples is Hong Kong with COVID, the COVID pandemic there, there's been four waves. And in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic in Hong Kong, Beijing imposed the new national security law, which basically has stripped away, you know, fundamental rights of freedom of expression. So I think we're just in a difficult time and it's going to be for different groups around the world to figure out how to communicate, you know, hopefully the pandemic will come to an end in the end of this year or next year. You know, see where we go from there. There's one more question from the chat and I think it's a softball pitch, more or less. Free autonomous press or free autonomous media as in decentralized probably on one of getting the message out. The signal is a bit choppy. I missed the middle of your question if you could repeat it. That would you say that a free and autonomous press, autonomous media as in decentralized probably uncensored would be a cornerstone of getting the message out? Absolutely. One thing that I've talked about in past talks is that two things have happened, are happening at this time and have been happening over the last decade. And that is journalism has, you know, mainstream journalism is being eroded. Investigative journalists are fewer and numbered today and journalism has become more centralized in major urban centers and in smaller cities, towns, rural areas, there is no more journalism there at all in a lot of regions around the world. And when those things happen, you have poor behavior of local government in terms of policies, public expenditure and also abuses of human rights. We are really in desperate need of having independent autonomous journalists and journalism at this time more than ever. But at the same time, you know, journalists who have the capacity and capability to do investigative journalism, you know, the problem with what's been happening the last five years, ten years is that the media that's centered in the major urban centers, they're not picking up stories and speaking for the more vulnerable or those who are geographically outside of main areas. And that's a very dangerous thing. So yes, I agree. There should be autonomous media and there should not be censoring on that media. So in fact, if you look at that, I mean, encrypted communication is well and everybody should use it especially to exchange information with journalists. But in the end, for the general public, independent media that is not centralized in some few conglomerates might even be more efficient to get the message out to the broader masses, right? Absolutely. And I think what needs to be done is you need more autonomous journalism and journalists in smaller cities, operating autonomously in the bigger cities to be able to pick up stories. What you're seeing right now with the mainstream media focusing on COVID stories, for example, the US elections and Donald Trump, are that they're not picking up smaller stories. They're not picking up low profile stories anymore. And governments are taking advantage of that. They know that they can act almost with impunity because they know that the smaller stories where somebody in your communities, you know, fundamental rights are being violated by the government or local authorities, it's not going to get reported at this time. When the pandemic is over, the situation will be the same. There's a lack of independent autonomous journalists. One of the big problems is money. You know, a lot of the money that used to go into advertising for mainstream media, even local newspapers, is now going online. People are spending their time looking at, you know, online media that has nothing to do with their local communities or even their countries. People are spending their time on YouTube and Facebook, TikToks and other example, where all the advertising is going. So we have a situation where enormous amounts of money are going to only certain media, some of the mainstream, a lot of it to, you know, social entertainment online and infotainment. And the money's disappearing from that money's disappearing and it's having an impact on two things. One is the funding of investigative journalism. Number two, being able to find and support autonomous local media in smaller cities, towns and rural areas. And I've seen that here in North America. And I know the same thing's been happening in Europe and also in Australia and New Zealand. Alrighty. So this means subscribing to your local small town newspaper might be even as well as a step in joining the revolution as using encrypted messaging. Absolutely. It's got to be a grassroots effort from the ground up. Everybody can take their part. We do not have a stage, so you have to imagine the applause that you're getting via IRC right now. Thank you again so much for being with us, Robert Tyvol. Thank you. Thank you.
 We're very happy to have Robert Thibault with us on the channel for his fifth year in a  row here speaking at the KS Communication Congress.  His lecture, Robert Thibault, you probably know him as a lawyer involved in the Snowden  case, his lecture today is called the Continued Erosion of International Law and Human Rights  Under Global Pandemic.  Good evening.  I'd like to thank the Computer Chaos Congress again for having me speak at the convention  this year, even though due to the global pandemic it's by remote.  But as you may be aware, I'm the lawyer for the Snowden refugees.  And also I'm introducing another one of my clients, Ibrahim Hussein, who is a refugee  and journalist from Somalia.  And just to inform anyone who's unaware at this stage, the Snowden refugees, or a group  of refugees from South and Southeast Asia who provided shelter, food and compassionate  humanity to Edward Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013, when Mr. Snowden made  the disclosures on the NSA's electronic mass surveillance program.  And also to provide an update on my role as a lawyer for the Snowden refugees, I continue  to act for them as a barrister in their Hong Kong cases.  And within Canada, I was granted special authorization to act for the Snowden refugees who still  have refugee claims with the Canadian government.  And just briefly, I have a slide up with the Snowden refugees sitting together in Hong  Kong.  On the left side is Vanessa.  She's from the Philippines, her daughter's below her, that's Kiana, born in Hong Kong  stateless, and is still stateless today.  Beside Vanessa is Ajith, the former soldier from Sri Lanka.  And beside him is the family of four, Nadeeka Sipunboth from Sri Lanka, and their two children,  Satin D and Dinath, also born in Hong Kong stateless.  And the seven Snowden refugees, two of them actually succeeded in their cases in 2019.  And this is a photo, there's a photo I have up of myself meeting with Vanessa and Kiana  at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on March 24th, 2019.  A year ago I talked about the decline in human rights around the globe.  Nothing has changed since a year ago.  And with the COVID-19 global pandemic, things have just gotten a lot worse.  Governments have been empowered and boldened to continue to attack those who dissent, who  are critical of government around the world.  And what has made matters worse are the people's inability to go out and exercise their rights  of freedom of expression, association and assembly and protests because of COVID, and  for public safety reasons.  And the government has used that to their advantage to abuse civilians and society.  The media as well has been consumed, in my view, by the global pandemic, as well as  other significant global news stories such as the US elections and Donald Trump.  What this has done is it's taken the media away, journalists away, from other important  human rights stories around the world.  So those whose cases or their circumstances are not high profile, a lot of these stories  are not being reported anymore, they're not being investigated anymore, which is adding  to governments being aware that they can continue to commit human rights violations  around the world with impunity.  Now I have a client from, originally from Somalia, he's a journalist, and I'm introducing  him to the public in this presentation because he fled persecution as a journalist in Somalia  and he found himself in Hong Kong for a period of time in an untenable situation and had  later found his way to the European Union to seek refugee status there.  And I'd like to go into that.  And basically, Mr. Ibrahim had covered news stories in Mogadishu and across Somalia,  and he was targeted by both the government and Al-Shabaab.  It was a situation that Jiki has, and there's two quotes here which I'll read out, which  really encapsulate the circumstances on the ground.  Ibrahim has stated, in the morning we hugged our family like we might never see them again  because every day in Mogadishu journalists may be killed in the crossfire or murdered  by Al-Shabaab.  And he also stated, for a big story we would bring two or three cameramen to record the  scene together in case one was wounded or shot.  As a lawyer for Ibrahim, I've actually seen footage that they've recorded of people on  the front lines they were with being shot dead.  And this is a horrific situation for any journalist to be in and to report in.  The situation for Ibrahim came to a crossroads in 2009 when he was kidnapped by Al-Shabaab.  He'd been targeted by the government as well, the police and also officers at the Ministry  of Information and Culture.  But it was Al-Shabaab who grabbed him, tortured him, threatened him, didn't kill him with  a knife, gunned to his head and demanded ransom of 18,000 U.S. which fortunately his family  was able to secure and after six days as a hostage he was released.  Now Ibrahim had worked for University of television in Somalia during two periods and he had fled  Somalia for a period of time to try to find refuge in another part of Africa which didn't  work and then tried again where he found himself in South Sudan which was, there's no durable  solution there for him.  So in September 2013 he fled to Hong Kong and he saw it asylum there.  His thinking was that Hong Kong had a reputation of civility and rule of law but upon his arrival  he realized that he'd been seriously mistaken.  Immediately he was arrested and detained at the Kalsupik Bay Immigration Center.  For short we call that CIC and it's basically Hong Kong's version of a Gulag and there's  an award winning human rights story by Olivia Chang from Hong Kong called The Invisible Wall.  I've provided the link on the slides so you'd be able to read an English version of that  story.  Now after being locked up for three months he was released on Recognizance which is provided  with a paper that typically foreign criminals are provided with and on the outside he faced  destitution and racial discrimination.  And he was constantly racially profiled by the police, stopped all the time, threatened  and Hong Kong society itself just basically ignored him.  It's like it's as if he didn't exist.  He had no food or money for the five months after he had been released from detention  and International Social Services, a Swiss organization with a branch in Hong Kong provides  humanitarian assistance as a contractor for the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department but  still for five months he was destitute, no food and no money.  And in 2013, my slide there's an error it says 2014 but in late 2013, Ibrahim showed  up at my office with another one of his colleagues who had worked for him in Somalia and they  were wearing bedroom slippers and used clothing and they were starving and I immediately took  up their cases with the UNHCR in Hong Kong and subsequent to that meeting in my office  my wife took both of them down to out of her own pocket to purchase shoes for them running  shoes and also to buy them some food.  Now Jiki is what I would describe as a victim of constructive refalement and I'm going to  go into the law in that in a few minutes but basically the Hong Kong government has a legal  and policy framework that's designed to break down the mental health and physical health  of asylum seekers basically through social isolation and deprivation of sufficient humanitarian  assistance so that they don't starve.  And Jiki described the situation a few days ago looking back after the asylum seeking  community protested and occupied social welfare and international social services offices  in 2014 protesting not having enough food or rent money to survive it felt like my mind  was breaking I felt I would die in Hong Kong.  Ibrahim's mental and physical health declined in Hong Kong to the point where it was a choice  between not surviving in Hong Kong or trying to get to another country.  The South China Morning Post reported his situation as a journalist and a reporter stated an experience  of the worst in humanity was not what Ibrahim Muhammad Hussein expected when he touched  down in Hong Kong eight months ago fresh from persecution in Africa.  Now I mentioned constructive refalement and this is a framework and a strategy that's  implemented by the Hong Kong government and professors at Chinese University have described  it as follows given that a necessary consequence of the government's policies is social exclusion  and destitution there are major concerns particularly for the mental health of refugees.  This is especially the case because refugees stranded in the territory faced in definite  periods while claims are processed all the while plagued by uncertainty.  Such concerns not only raise the issues of compatibility with the ICER and ICPR but also  place the individual concerned at risk of returning to the source of danger that's  offending the doctrine of constructive refalement.  So Hong Kong's prohibited from returning anybody who's seeking asylum in Hong Kong until after  the cases are screened and rejected but the Hong Kong government in parallel with that  policy that they have to follow the law they have to follow the screen refugees or asylum  seekers is they make their lives so miserable so difficult that these asylum seekers mental  health deteriorates to the point where they give up and they would rather return home  to die there.  Ibrahim left Hong Kong but under international law and Hong Kong's policies they sent him  back to Somalia he was quickly targeted again and over a number of years he sought internal  flight relocation alternatives within Somalia it didn't work and then he finally left Somalia  and found his way to the European Union ending up in Greece.  The first camp he was put in is the Maria Mariah refugee camp which Ibrahim describes  as a place of violence there is violence on a daily basis there was a lack of resources,  food, the conditions were inhuman and degrading and Ibrahim himself and the people in his  makeshift structure where they stayed were attacked on seven occasions during that time  and the other thing that Ibrahim has stated is that the police just stood by and watched  they allowed that to happen they acquiesced to the violence against other refugees and  the plus side of Ibrahim making it to the European Union was there is a screening process  that proceeded quickly compared to Hong Kong and the second plus is that the screening  system in the European Union countries actually grants refugees that status if they can make  their case that they have a well-founded fear of persecution in Hong Kong the acceptance  rate was zero and Hong Kong not being a signatory to the UN convention relating to the status  of refugees even if you succeeded you could not obtain refugee status in Hong Kong and  you could not resettle there and this is a picture of Ibrahim at the Mariah refugee  camp there was a arson and a large fire at the camp which left him five days on the streets  outside the camp and then he would be sent to the Lesbos refugee camp thereafter now with  his acceptance as a refugee in June 2020 he was still stuck in the camp and here's another  photo of Ibrahim when he went to the Lesbos camp there are no toilets no showers lack  of resources and and in late 2020 the Greek government moved allowed Ibrahim to leave  the camps and he's now living in a Greek community supported only for a limited period of time  by the government in January 2021 there's a mistake on my slide 2020 should be 2021  he'll have to fend for himself and I I've brought up introduced Ibrahim here to everybody  today because he's been in both Hong Kong and he's found his way to the European Union  there are serious problems on both sides of the globe but he is grateful that the proper  screening is apparently happening in the European Union and he's now safe in my view he's an  extraordinary person extraordinary journalist and there are very few journalists like this  on the planet with his commitment and willingness to have taken the risks risking his life to  report do reporting in Somalia Ibrahim would like to continue working as a journalist again  he's just landing on his feet in in Greece right now and waiting for his formal documents  all those formal documents to be issued but he's looking to continue to work as a journalist  now I'm going to go I'm going back to Hong Kong and and I'm going to be returning to  the snow and refugees but I'd like to provide a quick update on what's happening in Hong  Kong on the slide I have up here now basically shows from 2014 to 2019 the rapid decline  in human rights in Hong Kong and in particular rendition enforced disappearances ill treatment  torture and even attempted extra judicial killings and from 2004 to 2019 you know Hong  Kong has become authoritarian and to review what happened last year Carrie Lam the chief  executive of Hong Kong had wanted to bring in an act into a law next tradition bill which  would allow rendition of individuals from Hong Kong into mainland China there would  have been a formal legal mechanism to do that the Hong Kong people and lawyers in Hong Kong  are very well aware that hot that mainland China's judiciary is not independent it's  like any other government department of the executive it's policy and politically motivated  in terms of how judges in mainland China try criminal cases due process rights are limited  in in China in the Chinese criminal justice system and at times do not exist and I'm going  to mention the case of Michael Spavor and Michael Colverig two Canadians who were detained  into December 2018 innocent Canadians have done nothing wrong arbitrarily arrested detained  and this year earlier this year charged with crimes in mainland China and the mainland Chinese  government has effectively admitted that they've they're holding the two Canadians hostage  as a bargaining chip to pressure the Canadian government to to bring an end to the extradition  proceedings against the Meng Wanzhou of the Huawei Chinese telecom group.  I was significant so I'm mentioning this because the the two Michael's cases in in China highlight  you know the deficiencies the clear deficiencies and shortcomings of the criminal justice system  in China and Hong Kong people you know were not prepared to accept that they would face  justice or accused of a crime and have to go through a criminal justice system in China  mainland China so protests broke out people in the millions went into the streets from  June 19 2019 onward and it was in September 2019 that Carrie Lam the chief executive of  Hong Kong announced that the extradition bill would be withdrawn so that was a great success.  Now with COVID-19 human rights violations in Hong Kong have just continued on and they've  become worse and the Hong Kong government recognizing that millions of people would not  be going out in the streets to protest under COVID-19 because nobody you know everybody  understood they is a public serious public health risk and people don't want to get sick  so there were limited protests but Hong Kong and Beijing calculated that you wouldn't have  the millions of people on the streets and they introduced a bill that Beijing actually  did this through their own legislature enacting a constitutional provision under the new net  under article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law which is Hong Kong's constitution basically  bringing in new crimes against the state and I've put in the slide those crimes a secession  subversion terrorism collusion with foreign forces that legislation is a constitutional  provision it's ambiguous it's poorly written and it can be interpreted in a way because  of its ambiguity interpreted and used in an arbitrary way and used to violate the rights  of any any civilian in Hong Kong I'm going to go into the scope of this law if one is  arrested for persons arrested under the new national security law there's no presumption  of bail anymore the defendant actually has the burden of proof on them to seek bail  definite detention if bail is not granted that person can be sitting in a remand in  a jail for months or years before trial the trials are going to be held behind closed  doors the judges are actually selected by the executive branch of government they select  judges from the judiciary but it's not the chief justice of the Hong Kong court court  final appeal that choose selects the judges to be on that list that the government chooses  in this law anyone is accused of a national security fence under Hong Kong's basic law  can be renditioned to mainland China to face justice there so what the Hong Kong authorities  were not able to achieve in 2019 they've now Beijing has now achieved so that anybody in  Hong Kong who is accused of committing a national security crime can be brought into  mainland China and face justice there extraterritorial criminality anybody who writes something  says something does something that is critical of the Hong Kong government if the Hong Kong  authorities feel that this is an act of secession or subversion they can seek the extradition  of that person let's say in Canada or in Germany or another country so this new national security  law has a global reach okay consequence of this is countries in Europe including Germany  the United States Canada New Zealand the UK Australia have all either suspended or terminated  the extradition agreements treaties that they have with Hong Kong the reason being is the  new national security law is a de facto backdoor to for Beijing to extradite people from around  the world very few countries have extradition treaties with mainland China because of the  shortcomings in its criminal justice system and I've put up a slide just listening a few  countries that have suspended treaties and now within the Hong Kong legal government  itself three branches government the executive branch legislative and judiciary it's quite  clear that Beijing now has firm control over the executive branch of government Carrie  Lem you know loyal to Beijing you know following through on directions from Beijing also in  2020 we saw officers from mainland China now working in Hong Kong side by side with Hong  Kong civil servants and basically advising and directing the legislature a number of  pro-democracy legislators were removed actually by Beijing and new legislation was imposed  by Beijing that anyone who is viewed as a risk to national security okay without trial  can be removed from the legislature there are supposed to be elections for the legislature  in earlier this year they were counseled because of COVID and with the new new law imposed  by Beijing there was a mass resignation by the pro-democracy legislators in Hong Kong  so effectively Beijing has taken control of Hong Kong's legislature the last or third  branch of government the judiciary there's been a number of cases where judges have  brought in their political opinions most significantly a non-permanent judge of the court of final  appeal Australian Justice Spiegelman resigned in September this year from the court of final  appeal citing the new national security law freedom of expression in Hong Kong is frozen  freedom association assembly and mobility of severely diminished Hong Kong was ranked  18th in the world in terms of freedom of the press and journalism but in 2020 it's it fell  down to 80th place in the news right now has been the arrest of Jimmy Lai the founder of  apodilly under the national security law bail was denied but he secured bail last week from  the high court the department of justice director of public prosecutions has filed an appeal  to that to the court of final appeal to seek that the bail be revoked for Mr. Lai there's  also other examples of journalists like Troy Eucling of RTHK what the Hong Kong authorities  have been doing the last year is if they if they cannot find a basis to arrest an individual  journalist or activist or politician on under the new national security law they use some  draconian laws or try to find some technicality to you know arrest somebody first something  that's not even related to their work simply trying to shut shut up or stop the media from  speaking and writing their stories in 2017 there's been an exodus and on mass from Hong  Kong it's been quiet it's been steady but that exodus accelerated in 2019 and and accelerated  even more in 2020 with the new national security law and talking to clients and colleagues  the the shipping and freight companies in Hong Kong are overbooked there that data indicates  that there's large numbers of people leaving Hong Kong they do not see a future in Hong  Kong now Canada started accepting refugees earlier this year and in September Canada  started granting refugee status of Hong Kong people who have been politically persecuted  because of their participation in protests or they voiced their opinion.  Tsong Peiwu the Chinese ambassador to Canada and Ottawa spoke out and I'll quote what he  said we strongly urge the Canadian side not to grant so-called political asylum to those  violent criminals as refugees because it is interference in China's domestic affairs and  certainly it will embolden those violent criminals.  It was on 15th of October 2020 and what is interesting here is that China is actually  a signatory to the UN convention relating to the status of refugees and the refugee  convention forms part of China's constitution and part of that is to respect and recognize  that other countries will screen asylum seekers and grant them refugee status if they show  well-founded fair persecution whether it's religion, ethnicity, race, nationality, political  opinion or other social group and what's also interesting is that in under the refugee  convention under article 1f and 33.2 but 1f in particular that if anybody had committed  a serious violent offense let's say in Hong Kong even if they were granted, recognized  as a refugee they would not be granted refugee status because of that violence.  So the Chinese ambassador to Hong Kong apparently doesn't understand the law and doesn't understand  or respect that Canada will be looking at whether any asylum seekers have committed  offenses that would exclude them from that protection.  Over the last year we've seen legislators, former legislators, members of political opposing  political parties flee the jurisdiction.  What Hong Kong authorities in Beijing have been trying to do is to find bases or whether  they're well-founded or not on evidence but to arrest them put them into the Hong Kong  criminal justice system and in applying for bail typically a condition is they hand over  their travel documents.  So there are a lot of activists and politicians in Hong Kong who can't leave because they  don't have travel documents.  Beijing and Hong Kong clearly want to close the borders on anyone who expresses dissent  against the Hong Kong or Beijing governments but there have been legislators and political  activists who have fled and I've put on a slide Ray Wong and Alan Lee fled in 2017  about that time and were granted refugee status in Germany.  Baguio Lung recently fled to the US.  Simon Chang, Hongkong Lao, Sunny Chow, Ted Hoi, Nathan Law, Wayne Chan, Samuel Chu have  all left Hong Kong and they're all seeking asylum, political asylum in Western Europe  or North America.  Now coming back to the Snowden refugees and what I'd like to do before going into the  situation with one Snowden refugee in Hong Kong, I'm just going to give you a quick update  on Vanessa and her daughter who are now resettled in Montreal.  They've had a hard time of it during the pandemic in Montreal and I've put up a photo from September  2020 which really shows, you know, it really projects the feeling, you know, after almost  a year of having to practice social distancing and other safe practices so they don't get  infected or infect others.  A non-profit, just to update everybody, a non-profit was set up in June 2020.  The previous private sponsors in Montreal had stopped providing support to Vanessa and  Kiana in April 2020 which put this single mom and her daughter in a terrible situation  without any food or rent and the last of the money that was provided by the private sponsor  was provided in early May.  So as of June, this family had nothing to survive on.  So I contacted people I know in the Montreal community and they stepped forward and they  set up a non-profit organization called HelpVanessa.com.  Oliver Stone, Academy Award winning director, Shalene Woodley, who starred in the Snowden  film, also an Oliver Stone film, stepped forward and advocated in support and to ask for donations  for Vanessa and her daughter and to date we've raised more than 50,000 Canadians which  has now allows Vanessa and her daughter to remain safe and secure during the pandemic  and also to continue their French language studies.  And this is a photo of them in November 2020, just last month.  And this was Christmas Eve.  Kiana's on the left, Vanessa in the middle.  And the third person is Mintum Tran who's the founder of the non-profit HelpVanessa  and Kiana.  I'd like to quickly mention him.  He's the son of a refugee family originally from Vietnam after the war in 1975.  The family resettled in Montreal and he was born in Montreal.  He's a pharmacist and executive director of the association professionnel de pharmacien,  salary de Québec.  He founded the non-profit HelpVanessa and Kiana.  And he's also founded a new non-profit called HelpAjith.com.  I'm going to go into Ajith's situation.  This was 2017.  I've put up a photo of Ajith at the removal assessment section of the immigration department  in Caldoun Bay.  And this was a week before immigration rejected Ajith's asylum claims.  And just briefly, Ajith was injured in the Civil War protecting his fellow soldiers.  He was denied medical assistance under the Geneva Convention by the Sri Lankan army.  And he was put in an untenable situation where he was looking at losing his life.  So he fled.  He was a military deserter.  He was caught a few years later and tortured.  There was an attempt to execute him, but he managed to flee the military camp and he  fled to Hong Kong in 2003, leaving behind his wife and a newborn baby girl.  This is a, I put up a photo of Ajith in 1993.  So you can see the young man that he was.  And in Hong Kong, similar to Ibrahim, the Somali journalist, from 2003 onward, Ajith  has been subjected to systemic racism and discrimination by the Hong Kong government  and its institutions.  He's been denied sufficient humanitarian assistance.  And I took on his case in 2012.  And he's constantly been subjected to racial profiling, even not showing up to conferences,  law conferences that I was holding, because the police had stopped him on the street as  he was trying to get to my office.  There's been discrimination by the, you know, by the police immigration against him.  And also there's been attacks by the Hong Kong government against myself with the view of  removing me as his lawyer.  This is a photo of Ajith a couple years ago.  And he's had a very difficult time in Hong Kong.  For 17 years, you know, he was subjected, he's been subjected to discrimination as I've  described.  And all of this has had an enormously adverse impact on Ajith in that his mental condition  has collapsed a number of times and he's just wanted to give up.  And he's been what I would describe as a victim of constructive refaliment.  But fortunately, we were able to convince him.  And we have recently tried to get him some help.  He's been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder since before he left Sri Lanka, untreated.  And only recently we've been able to get him a little bit of help.  According to his role with Mr. Snowden in 2013 when Mr. Snowden arrived, Ajith despite  all the terrible things that have happened to him, the persecution he's in discrimination  he suffered in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, Ajith stepped forward and, you know, was more than  willing to help Mr. Snowden shelter in 2013.  And in 2016, because of Ajith's story coming into the public domain, the Hong Kong government  targeted him because of his assistance to Mr. Snowden and targeted myself.  And in 2018 Ajith was left without the support of the Dudi Law Service, but myself and another  lawyer found a solicitor willing to instruct us privately to continue his appeal.  Now in parallel to all of this, I advised Ajith to apply to Canada for refugee status.  Private sponsor was found in Quebec and Ajith's refugee claims were filed in January 2017.  And while all of this was happening, the Sri Lankan police aware that Ajith is in Hong  Kong sent police officers to Hong Kong in December 2016 looking for him.  The Hong Kong police instead of investigating the Sri Lankan police made a decision to investigate  myself and my clients.  Now Ajith's case was rejected by immigration in May 2017 and I filed his appeal in the Torture  Clinic Appeal Board.  And this is a major update on Ajith's situation in Hong Kong in that his appeal was heard  by an Australian adjudicator and barrister Adam Moore who was the adjudicator in his  case in 2017.  Heard his full appeal in June 2018 and no decision has been handed down in three and  a half years.  From 2018 to November this year Adam Moore had not handed down a decision and there is  no explanation for that.  And then suddenly in November 2020 the Torture Clinic Appeal Board announced that Mr. Moore  was no longer the adjudicator without giving any reason.  And now a panel of three adjudicators would hear Ajith's case and start that process all  over again.  This is a process that's been delayed and in my view abused by the security bureau and  the Torture Clinic Appeal Board there is no rational basis why the Torture Clinic Appeal  Board did not hand down a decision on Ajith's case years ago.  And this is an example of how this part of the judiciary there is a lack of transparency  and accountability.  And the second significant event is that one of the three adjudicators is an Australian  adjudicator named Fraser Syme and he's one of the three on the new panel of three for  Ajith's appeal.  Mr. Syme was also the same adjudicator in the appeal of the other Snowden refugee family  of Sapun Nadeeka and the two children.  And Mr. Syme rejected their appeals and now the Torture Clinic Appeal Board has found it  proper to appoint Mr. Syme who's already predetermined decided refugee grounds for Sapun Nadeeka's  family that are the same grounds for Ajith's case.  So there's an adjudicator on the new TCAB panel that has already predetermined the appeal  against Ajith at least on certain refugee grounds.  So there's an appearance of bias.  There's clearly a conflict of interest.  Making matters worse is a judicial review leave application was filed in the high court  in January 2019 challenging Fraser Syme's rejection of Sapun Nadeeka's family's refugee  claims.  So the Torture Claim Appeal Board has put in Mr. Syme's knowing full well that his decision  on the exact refugee grounds for Sapun and also Ajith those common grounds may be overturned  by the high court.  So it's quite clear with years of delay inordinate delay and the removal or disappearance of  Adam Moore's adjudicator and the constitution of a new tribunal after so many years.  With Fraser Syme on there that he's not receiving a fair process here fair hearing.  Now in terms of Ajith's mental health situation the 2019 pro-democracy protests and the police  crackdowns Ajith saw firsthand how the police were acting arbitrarily and attacking innocent  bystanders protesters and this re-traumatized Ajith.  These are the same scenes in the same conduct of police in Hong Kong that he witnessed in  Sri Lanka when he was in Sri Lanka.  The new national security law similar to the prevention of terrorism act in Sri Lanka is  another factor which has to re-traumatized Ajith and he's in fear for his life.  Making matters worse there's an immigration amendment bill that's just been brought into  the legislature and mind you the legislature has no opposition it's basically probaging  controlled and then this new legislation immigration officers will now be able to carry guns and  steal batons when dealing with refugees.  This is simply going to re-traumatize my client and other refugees.  There's now powers to detain asylum seekers effectively indefinitely when they're in Hong  Kong.  There's new provisions where the immigration officer will decide effectively if interpreters  are needed and it'll be the immigration officers of you whether a person screening interviews  or appeal should be conducted without an interpreter.  The other issue that is shocking in my view is after the first stage of immigration screening  if the cases are rejected there are now powers for immigration officers to go to foreign consulates  to obtain to start the process of obtaining travel documents that should never happen  until after all appeals are exhausted.  So what's happening is that all these asylum seekers contrary to UN guidelines their identities  are being exposed at the first stage to foreign governments that they fled from fled persecution  from.  Usually a hearing could not be held before 28 days in the torture clinic billboard now  the limit is seven days which again now how do I view all of all of these changes to the  immigration legislation.  It's just a legislative and policy framework that is going to put more pressure on asylum  seekers and it violates in my view the doctrine of constructive refalement.  We've set up, Minton Tran and Montreal have set up the non-profit help at jeeth.com and  we're asking for donations.  Ajith needs support during this time he is waiting as with the other stone refugees the  outcomes of their asylum cases in Canada but pending that time Ajith needs help and we'd  ask that if you can go to the website and donate no matter how big or small the donations  are Ajith needs help.  Thank you.  Hi everyone my name is Ibrahim Mohamed Hussein I'm a journalist from Somalia.  Both the Somali government and Al-Shabaab targeted me I had been kidnapped and tortured  the reason I was not killed is because my family and friend is paid ransom money to spare  my life.  I've lived to Hong Kong only to be treated like a criminal and subjected to racism as  I lived in a buffer to be greeted and treated in a humanly.  My life in Hong Kong was like a slow death.  I was sent back to Somalia and one is again had to run for my life and could not even  see my family.  I then found my way to Europe leading in Greece.  I found myself in two refugee camps fighting again to survive the camps were in Hyuman  and degrading many refugees were violently injured and killed inside the camp.  What suffered me was the refugee screening which proceeded repeatedly.  The human rights in Hong Kong do not exit for refugees but I was lucky to have a human  rights lawyer Masarobi Thibault without his help I would not be here today.  Thank you very much guys.  I know about Ajit Tathar Kain appeared in Hong Kong hospital for three and a half years  and I know that the educator for his appeal has disappeared and there is no decision in  his appeal after three and a half years.  I know that the appeal board is now starting his appeal start all over again.  Now with the three judge hearings appeal I think this is so unfair to Ajit.  He has waiting for 17 years for his case to be decided after almost four years the appeal  board forces him to start all over again.  It is the Hong Kong government causing me all this delay.  From my own experience in the Hong Kong appeal board the judge was unfair and I cleared traumatize.  For Ajit to again have to go through another appeal will be real trauma for him.  He will be forced to tell his torture experience again and it will give him nightmares.  This is WTF International you have just seen a recording by Robert Thibault.  He is the lawyer of Edward Snowden and he is now connected.  Mr Thibault.  Welcome.  Thank you for having me here.  One thing I failed to mention in the pre-recorded video discussion is that two of my clients  would have done short videos to introduce themselves to the public.  One thing I would like to mention here as I mentioned at the end of the video is that  Ajit is still in Hong Kong.  One of the Snowden refugees who protected Mr Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013  and he does need help.  One way he can help is by donations.  All right thanks for the we are now taking questions for Mr Thibault.  You have several Q&A during our live program.  Some of you have asked us questions and if you go into the streaming window below that  you have several tabs.  One chat window and if you click on that you can see the hashtag which we monitor on mastodon  and twitter and you can also join the backend on the IRC.  So far there haven't been any questions in the channel.  But Mr Thibault are there any other ways and watchers who have just seen what you have presented  and you have personal messages by your clients.  voices heard in order to foster the cases of those people you represent.  Yes as I mentioned a primary way to support my clients in particular Ajit at this time  is to make donations.  There is a website at helpajit.com where you can make donations various ways from credit  card to bitcoin.  The other issue is awareness and discussion.  There is a lot of talk about the role of whistleblowers particularly in today's world.  But there has been less talk about the protection of whistleblowers.  The Snowden refugees did the extraordinary by stepping forward making their decisions  of conscience to provide shelter and food and compassion to Mr Snowden when he was in Hong  Kong in 2013.  In all the Snowden refugees cases one of the grounds for refugee protection is the clients  have a well-founded fear of persecution based on political opinion in that they made decisions  to help Mr Snowden.  So that forms a social group those who help or protect whistleblowers.  I think that there needs to be more discussion about the importance of people in society.  The courage it takes to step forward and help somebody particularly for high profile cases.  It's easy to help somebody or a group of people when it's a popular person or a popular cause  or if it's a low profile cause.  But it's extremely difficult for individuals to step forward to help another.  Even though the cause is the most just cause but it's unpopular.  So there are legal and moral and ethical issues.  I think that should be part of the discussion that everyone should be having.  Thank you for that.  There has been a question on the chat which I need to rephrase because the question is  how to build a global consciousness against and to join forces both from a lawyerly and  scholarly groups that believe more in direct action.  You'll have to repeat that again.  The signal came through a bit choppy.  The question on the chat whether there's any efforts to build a global consciousness  state of oppression more or less and coordinate between teams that take a more step, leave  more in direct action.  I think what's happening is you're seeing this kind of action with nonprofits, lawyers  through protests and you're seeing it within communities, within cities, within whole jurisdictions.  But I think what's happened with the COVID situation is that's basically compelled everybody  because of the public health issues, self-isolating, social distancing, masks.  We've had to take a step back to think, okay, how do we communicate now?  How do we interact and exercise our fundamental rights and freedoms?  I think we're in a dangerous period where we're still struggling how to connect globally  to cooperate and bring this kind of awareness about.  The second issue is to do that, you need to be able to get the message out through advocacy  and activism.  Right now, the COVID pandemic consumes the media reports.  I've been told about 75 or 85% of news coverage in a given media organization, 75 to 85%.  At the same time, governments are using the cover of COVID, the global pandemic, to suppress  freedom of expression and to strip away fundamental rights and freedoms.  So I think the question is a great question and I think it's a matter of, you know, when  doing this through encrypted means, doing it where you have your privacy for global groups  to consider how do we connect up together, what messages we want to get out, but then  the real challenge will be getting the message out through to the public because of the current  global pandemic.  Are there already, to go ahead and prepare all the messaging to come out of the pandemic  if and when it is together?  As far, like, I'm not aware of any considered efforts globally.  I mean, there are some nonprofits around the world who are trying to get, you know, messages  out, trying to get stakeholders with those affected in different jurisdictions.  But right now, I'm not aware of, you know, any organized, considered effort to try to  have this sort of global connection and being able to speak globally, but also locally,  you know, informing the global community what's going on.  I think where it's just a difficult time.  One of the best examples is Hong Kong with COVID, the COVID pandemic there, there's been  four waves.  And in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic in Hong Kong, Beijing imposed the  new national security law, which basically has stripped away, you know, fundamental rights  of freedom of expression.  So I think we're just in a difficult time and it's going to be for different groups  around the world to figure out how to communicate, you know, hopefully the pandemic will come  to an end in the end of this year or next year.  You know, see where we go from there.  There's one more question from the chat and I think it's a softball pitch, more or less.  Free autonomous press or free autonomous media as in decentralized probably on one of getting  the message out.  The signal is a bit choppy.  I missed the middle of your question if you could repeat it.  That would you say that a free and autonomous press, autonomous media as in decentralized  probably uncensored would be a cornerstone of getting the message out?  Absolutely.  One thing that I've talked about in past talks is that two things have happened, are  happening at this time and have been happening over the last decade.  And that is journalism has, you know, mainstream journalism is being eroded.  Investigative journalists are fewer and numbered today and journalism has become more centralized  in major urban centers and in smaller cities, towns, rural areas, there is no more journalism  there at all in a lot of regions around the world.  And when those things happen, you have poor behavior of local government in terms of policies,  public expenditure and also abuses of human rights.  We are really in desperate need of having independent autonomous journalists and journalism  at this time more than ever.  But at the same time, you know, journalists who have the capacity and capability to do  investigative journalism, you know, the problem with what's been happening the last five years,  ten years is that the media that's centered in the major urban centers, they're not picking  up stories and speaking for the more vulnerable or those who are geographically outside of  main areas.  And that's a very dangerous thing.  So yes, I agree.  There should be autonomous media and there should not be censoring on that media.  So in fact, if you look at that, I mean, encrypted communication is well and everybody  should use it especially to exchange information with journalists.  But in the end, for the general public, independent media that is not centralized in some few  conglomerates might even be more efficient to get the message out to the broader masses,  right?  Absolutely.  And I think what needs to be done is you need more autonomous journalism and journalists  in smaller cities, operating autonomously in the bigger cities to be able to pick up  stories.  What you're seeing right now with the mainstream media focusing on COVID stories, for example,  the US elections and Donald Trump, are that they're not picking up smaller stories.  They're not picking up low profile stories anymore.  And governments are taking advantage of that.  They know that they can act almost with impunity because they know that the smaller stories  where somebody in your communities, you know, fundamental rights are being violated by the  government or local authorities, it's not going to get reported at this time.  When the pandemic is over, the situation will be the same.  There's a lack of independent autonomous journalists.  One of the big problems is money.  You know, a lot of the money that used to go into advertising for mainstream media,  even local newspapers, is now going online.  People are spending their time looking at, you know, online media that has nothing to  do with their local communities or even their countries.  People are spending their time on YouTube and Facebook, TikToks and other example, where  all the advertising is going.  So we have a situation where enormous amounts of money are going to only certain media,  some of the mainstream, a lot of it to, you know, social entertainment online and infotainment.  And the money's disappearing from that money's disappearing and it's having an impact on two  things.  One is the funding of investigative journalism.  Number two, being able to find and support autonomous local media in smaller cities,  towns and rural areas.  And I've seen that here in North America.  And I know the same thing's been happening in Europe and also in Australia and New Zealand.  Alrighty.  So this means subscribing to your local small town newspaper might be even as well as a  step in joining the revolution as using encrypted messaging.  Absolutely.  It's got to be a grassroots effort from the ground up.  Everybody can take their part.  We do not have a stage, so you have to imagine the applause that you're getting via IRC right  now.  Thank you again so much for being with us, Robert Tyvol.  Thank you.  Thank you.
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We're very happy to have Robert Thibault with us on the channel for his fifth year in a row here speaking at the KS Communication Congress. His lecture, Robert Thibault, you probably know him as a lawyer involved in the Snowden case, his lecture today is called the Continued Erosion of International Law and Human Rights Under Global Pandemic. Good evening. I'd like to thank the Computer Chaos Congress again for having me speak at the convention this year, even though due to the global pandemic it's by remote. But as you may be aware, I'm the lawyer for the Snowden refugees. And also I'm introducing another one of my clients, Ibrahim Hussein, who is a refugee and journalist from Somalia. And just to inform anyone who's unaware at this stage, the Snowden refugees, or a group of refugees from South and Southeast Asia who provided shelter, food and compassionate humanity to Edward Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013, when Mr. Snowden made the disclosures on the NSA's electronic mass surveillance program. And also to provide an update on my role as a lawyer for the Snowden refugees, I continue to act for them as a barrister in their Hong Kong cases. And within Canada, I was granted special authorization to act for the Snowden refugees who still have refugee claims with the Canadian government. And just briefly, I have a slide up with the Snowden refugees sitting together in Hong Kong. On the left side is Vanessa. She's from the Philippines, her daughter's below her, that's Kiana, born in Hong Kong stateless, and is still stateless today. Beside Vanessa is Ajith, the former soldier from Sri Lanka. And beside him is the family of four, Nadeeka Sipunboth from Sri Lanka, and their two children, Satin D and Dinath, also born in Hong Kong stateless. And the seven Snowden refugees, two of them actually succeeded in their cases in 2019. And this is a photo, there's a photo I have up of myself meeting with Vanessa and Kiana at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on March 24th, 2019. A year ago I talked about the decline in human rights around the globe. Nothing has changed since a year ago. And with the COVID-19 global pandemic, things have just gotten a lot worse. Governments have been empowered and boldened to continue to attack those who dissent, who are critical of government around the world. And what has made matters worse are the people's inability to go out and exercise their rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly and protests because of COVID, and for public safety reasons. And the government has used that to their advantage to abuse civilians and society. The media as well has been consumed, in my view, by the global pandemic, as well as other significant global news stories such as the US elections and Donald Trump. What this has done is it's taken the media away, journalists away, from other important human rights stories around the world. So those whose cases or their circumstances are not high profile, a lot of these stories are not being reported anymore, they're not being investigated anymore, which is adding to governments being aware that they can continue to commit human rights violations around the world with impunity. Now I have a client from, originally from Somalia, he's a journalist, and I'm introducing him to the public in this presentation because he fled persecution as a journalist in Somalia and he found himself in Hong Kong for a period of time in an untenable situation and had later found his way to the European Union to seek refugee status there. And I'd like to go into that. And basically, Mr. Ibrahim had covered news stories in Mogadishu and across Somalia, and he was targeted by both the government and Al-Shabaab. It was a situation that Jiki has, and there's two quotes here which I'll read out, which really encapsulate the circumstances on the ground. Ibrahim has stated, in the morning we hugged our family like we might never see them again because every day in Mogadishu journalists may be killed in the crossfire or murdered by Al-Shabaab. And he also stated, for a big story we would bring two or three cameramen to record the scene together in case one was wounded or shot. As a lawyer for Ibrahim, I've actually seen footage that they've recorded of people on the front lines they were with being shot dead. And this is a horrific situation for any journalist to be in and to report in. The situation for Ibrahim came to a crossroads in 2009 when he was kidnapped by Al-Shabaab. He'd been targeted by the government as well, the police and also officers at the Ministry of Information and Culture. But it was Al-Shabaab who grabbed him, tortured him, threatened him, didn't kill him with a knife, gunned to his head and demanded ransom of 18,000 U.S. which fortunately his family was able to secure and after six days as a hostage he was released. Now Ibrahim had worked for University of television in Somalia during two periods and he had fled Somalia for a period of time to try to find refuge in another part of Africa which didn't work and then tried again where he found himself in South Sudan which was, there's no durable solution there for him. So in September 2013 he fled to Hong Kong and he saw it asylum there. His thinking was that Hong Kong had a reputation of civility and rule of law but upon his arrival he realized that he'd been seriously mistaken. Immediately he was arrested and detained at the Kalsupik Bay Immigration Center. For short we call that CIC and it's basically Hong Kong's version of a Gulag and there's an award winning human rights story by Olivia Chang from Hong Kong called The Invisible Wall. I've provided the link on the slides so you'd be able to read an English version of that story. Now after being locked up for three months he was released on Recognizance which is provided with a paper that typically foreign criminals are provided with and on the outside he faced destitution and racial discrimination. And he was constantly racially profiled by the police, stopped all the time, threatened and Hong Kong society itself just basically ignored him. It's like it's as if he didn't exist. He had no food or money for the five months after he had been released from detention and International Social Services, a Swiss organization with a branch in Hong Kong provides humanitarian assistance as a contractor for the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department but still for five months he was destitute, no food and no money. And in 2013, my slide there's an error it says 2014 but in late 2013, Ibrahim showed up at my office with another one of his colleagues who had worked for him in Somalia and they were wearing bedroom slippers and used clothing and they were starving and I immediately took up their cases with the UNHCR in Hong Kong and subsequent to that meeting in my office my wife took both of them down to out of her own pocket to purchase shoes for them running shoes and also to buy them some food. Now Jiki is what I would describe as a victim of constructive refalement and I'm going to go into the law in that in a few minutes but basically the Hong Kong government has a legal and policy framework that's designed to break down the mental health and physical health of asylum seekers basically through social isolation and deprivation of sufficient humanitarian assistance so that they don't starve. And Jiki described the situation a few days ago looking back after the asylum seeking community protested and occupied social welfare and international social services offices in 2014 protesting not having enough food or rent money to survive it felt like my mind was breaking I felt I would die in Hong Kong. Ibrahim's mental and physical health declined in Hong Kong to the point where it was a choice between not surviving in Hong Kong or trying to get to another country. The South China Morning Post reported his situation as a journalist and a reporter stated an experience of the worst in humanity was not what Ibrahim Muhammad Hussein expected when he touched down in Hong Kong eight months ago fresh from persecution in Africa. Now I mentioned constructive refalement and this is a framework and a strategy that's implemented by the Hong Kong government and professors at Chinese University have described it as follows given that a necessary consequence of the government's policies is social exclusion and destitution there are major concerns particularly for the mental health of refugees. This is especially the case because refugees stranded in the territory faced in definite periods while claims are processed all the while plagued by uncertainty. Such concerns not only raise the issues of compatibility with the ICER and ICPR but also place the individual concerned at risk of returning to the source of danger that's offending the doctrine of constructive refalement. So Hong Kong's prohibited from returning anybody who's seeking asylum in Hong Kong until after the cases are screened and rejected but the Hong Kong government in parallel with that policy that they have to follow the law they have to follow the screen refugees or asylum seekers is they make their lives so miserable so difficult that these asylum seekers mental health deteriorates to the point where they give up and they would rather return home to die there. Ibrahim left Hong Kong but under international law and Hong Kong's policies they sent him back to Somalia he was quickly targeted again and over a number of years he sought internal flight relocation alternatives within Somalia it didn't work and then he finally left Somalia and found his way to the European Union ending up in Greece. The first camp he was put in is the Maria Mariah refugee camp which Ibrahim describes as a place of violence there is violence on a daily basis there was a lack of resources, food, the conditions were inhuman and degrading and Ibrahim himself and the people in his makeshift structure where they stayed were attacked on seven occasions during that time and the other thing that Ibrahim has stated is that the police just stood by and watched they allowed that to happen they acquiesced to the violence against other refugees and the plus side of Ibrahim making it to the European Union was there is a screening process that proceeded quickly compared to Hong Kong and the second plus is that the screening system in the European Union countries actually grants refugees that status if they can make their case that they have a well-founded fear of persecution in Hong Kong the acceptance rate was zero and Hong Kong not being a signatory to the UN convention relating to the status of refugees even if you succeeded you could not obtain refugee status in Hong Kong and you could not resettle there and this is a picture of Ibrahim at the Mariah refugee camp there was a arson and a large fire at the camp which left him five days on the streets outside the camp and then he would be sent to the Lesbos refugee camp thereafter now with his acceptance as a refugee in June 2020 he was still stuck in the camp and here's another photo of Ibrahim when he went to the Lesbos camp there are no toilets no showers lack of resources and and in late 2020 the Greek government moved allowed Ibrahim to leave the camps and he's now living in a Greek community supported only for a limited period of time by the government in January 2021 there's a mistake on my slide 2020 should be 2021 he'll have to fend for himself and I I've brought up introduced Ibrahim here to everybody today because he's been in both Hong Kong and he's found his way to the European Union there are serious problems on both sides of the globe but he is grateful that the proper screening is apparently happening in the European Union and he's now safe in my view he's an extraordinary person extraordinary journalist and there are very few journalists like this on the planet with his commitment and willingness to have taken the risks risking his life to report do reporting in Somalia Ibrahim would like to continue working as a journalist again he's just landing on his feet in in Greece right now and waiting for his formal documents all those formal documents to be issued but he's looking to continue to work as a journalist now I'm going to go I'm going back to Hong Kong and and I'm going to be returning to the snow and refugees but I'd like to provide a quick update on what's happening in Hong Kong on the slide I have up here now basically shows from 2014 to 2019 the rapid decline in human rights in Hong Kong and in particular rendition enforced disappearances ill treatment torture and even attempted extra judicial killings and from 2004 to 2019 you know Hong Kong has become authoritarian and to review what happened last year Carrie Lam the chief executive of Hong Kong had wanted to bring in an act into a law next tradition bill which would allow rendition of individuals from Hong Kong into mainland China there would have been a formal legal mechanism to do that the Hong Kong people and lawyers in Hong Kong are very well aware that hot that mainland China's judiciary is not independent it's like any other government department of the executive it's policy and politically motivated in terms of how judges in mainland China try criminal cases due process rights are limited in in China in the Chinese criminal justice system and at times do not exist and I'm going to mention the case of Michael Spavor and Michael Colverig two Canadians who were detained into December 2018 innocent Canadians have done nothing wrong arbitrarily arrested detained and this year earlier this year charged with crimes in mainland China and the mainland Chinese government has effectively admitted that they've they're holding the two Canadians hostage as a bargaining chip to pressure the Canadian government to to bring an end to the extradition proceedings against the Meng Wanzhou of the Huawei Chinese telecom group. I was significant so I'm mentioning this because the the two Michael's cases in in China highlight you know the deficiencies the clear deficiencies and shortcomings of the criminal justice system in China and Hong Kong people you know were not prepared to accept that they would face justice or accused of a crime and have to go through a criminal justice system in China mainland China so protests broke out people in the millions went into the streets from June 19 2019 onward and it was in September 2019 that Carrie Lam the chief executive of Hong Kong announced that the extradition bill would be withdrawn so that was a great success. Now with COVID-19 human rights violations in Hong Kong have just continued on and they've become worse and the Hong Kong government recognizing that millions of people would not be going out in the streets to protest under COVID-19 because nobody you know everybody understood they is a public serious public health risk and people don't want to get sick so there were limited protests but Hong Kong and Beijing calculated that you wouldn't have the millions of people on the streets and they introduced a bill that Beijing actually did this through their own legislature enacting a constitutional provision under the new net under article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law which is Hong Kong's constitution basically bringing in new crimes against the state and I've put in the slide those crimes a secession subversion terrorism collusion with foreign forces that legislation is a constitutional provision it's ambiguous it's poorly written and it can be interpreted in a way because of its ambiguity interpreted and used in an arbitrary way and used to violate the rights of any any civilian in Hong Kong I'm going to go into the scope of this law if one is arrested for persons arrested under the new national security law there's no presumption of bail anymore the defendant actually has the burden of proof on them to seek bail definite detention if bail is not granted that person can be sitting in a remand in a jail for months or years before trial the trials are going to be held behind closed doors the judges are actually selected by the executive branch of government they select judges from the judiciary but it's not the chief justice of the Hong Kong court court final appeal that choose selects the judges to be on that list that the government chooses in this law anyone is accused of a national security fence under Hong Kong's basic law can be renditioned to mainland China to face justice there so what the Hong Kong authorities were not able to achieve in 2019 they've now Beijing has now achieved so that anybody in Hong Kong who is accused of committing a national security crime can be brought into mainland China and face justice there extraterritorial criminality anybody who writes something says something does something that is critical of the Hong Kong government if the Hong Kong authorities feel that this is an act of secession or subversion they can seek the extradition of that person let's say in Canada or in Germany or another country so this new national security law has a global reach okay consequence of this is countries in Europe including Germany the United States Canada New Zealand the UK Australia have all either suspended or terminated the extradition agreements treaties that they have with Hong Kong the reason being is the new national security law is a de facto backdoor to for Beijing to extradite people from around the world very few countries have extradition treaties with mainland China because of the shortcomings in its criminal justice system and I've put up a slide just listening a few countries that have suspended treaties and now within the Hong Kong legal government itself three branches government the executive branch legislative and judiciary it's quite clear that Beijing now has firm control over the executive branch of government Carrie Lem you know loyal to Beijing you know following through on directions from Beijing also in 2020 we saw officers from mainland China now working in Hong Kong side by side with Hong Kong civil servants and basically advising and directing the legislature a number of pro-democracy legislators were removed actually by Beijing and new legislation was imposed by Beijing that anyone who is viewed as a risk to national security okay without trial can be removed from the legislature there are supposed to be elections for the legislature in earlier this year they were counseled because of COVID and with the new new law imposed by Beijing there was a mass resignation by the pro-democracy legislators in Hong Kong so effectively Beijing has taken control of Hong Kong's legislature the last or third branch of government the judiciary there's been a number of cases where judges have brought in their political opinions most significantly a non-permanent judge of the court of final appeal Australian Justice Spiegelman resigned in September this year from the court of final appeal citing the new national security law freedom of expression in Hong Kong is frozen freedom association assembly and mobility of severely diminished Hong Kong was ranked 18th in the world in terms of freedom of the press and journalism but in 2020 it's it fell down to 80th place in the news right now has been the arrest of Jimmy Lai the founder of apodilly under the national security law bail was denied but he secured bail last week from the high court the department of justice director of public prosecutions has filed an appeal to that to the court of final appeal to seek that the bail be revoked for Mr. Lai there's also other examples of journalists like Troy Eucling of RTHK what the Hong Kong authorities have been doing the last year is if they if they cannot find a basis to arrest an individual journalist or activist or politician on under the new national security law they use some draconian laws or try to find some technicality to you know arrest somebody first something that's not even related to their work simply trying to shut shut up or stop the media from speaking and writing their stories in 2017 there's been an exodus and on mass from Hong Kong it's been quiet it's been steady but that exodus accelerated in 2019 and and accelerated even more in 2020 with the new national security law and talking to clients and colleagues the the shipping and freight companies in Hong Kong are overbooked there that data indicates that there's large numbers of people leaving Hong Kong they do not see a future in Hong Kong now Canada started accepting refugees earlier this year and in September Canada started granting refugee status of Hong Kong people who have been politically persecuted because of their participation in protests or they voiced their opinion. Tsong Peiwu the Chinese ambassador to Canada and Ottawa spoke out and I'll quote what he said we strongly urge the Canadian side not to grant so-called political asylum to those violent criminals as refugees because it is interference in China's domestic affairs and certainly it will embolden those violent criminals. It was on 15th of October 2020 and what is interesting here is that China is actually a signatory to the UN convention relating to the status of refugees and the refugee convention forms part of China's constitution and part of that is to respect and recognize that other countries will screen asylum seekers and grant them refugee status if they show well-founded fair persecution whether it's religion, ethnicity, race, nationality, political opinion or other social group and what's also interesting is that in under the refugee convention under article 1f and 33.2 but 1f in particular that if anybody had committed a serious violent offense let's say in Hong Kong even if they were granted, recognized as a refugee they would not be granted refugee status because of that violence. So the Chinese ambassador to Hong Kong apparently doesn't understand the law and doesn't understand or respect that Canada will be looking at whether any asylum seekers have committed offenses that would exclude them from that protection. Over the last year we've seen legislators, former legislators, members of political opposing political parties flee the jurisdiction. What Hong Kong authorities in Beijing have been trying to do is to find bases or whether they're well-founded or not on evidence but to arrest them put them into the Hong Kong criminal justice system and in applying for bail typically a condition is they hand over their travel documents. So there are a lot of activists and politicians in Hong Kong who can't leave because they don't have travel documents. Beijing and Hong Kong clearly want to close the borders on anyone who expresses dissent against the Hong Kong or Beijing governments but there have been legislators and political activists who have fled and I've put on a slide Ray Wong and Alan Lee fled in 2017 about that time and were granted refugee status in Germany. Baguio Lung recently fled to the US. Simon Chang, Hongkong Lao, Sunny Chow, Ted Hoi, Nathan Law, Wayne Chan, Samuel Chu have all left Hong Kong and they're all seeking asylum, political asylum in Western Europe or North America. Now coming back to the Snowden refugees and what I'd like to do before going into the situation with one Snowden refugee in Hong Kong, I'm just going to give you a quick update on Vanessa and her daughter who are now resettled in Montreal. They've had a hard time of it during the pandemic in Montreal and I've put up a photo from September 2020 which really shows, you know, it really projects the feeling, you know, after almost a year of having to practice social distancing and other safe practices so they don't get infected or infect others. A non-profit, just to update everybody, a non-profit was set up in June 2020. The previous private sponsors in Montreal had stopped providing support to Vanessa and Kiana in April 2020 which put this single mom and her daughter in a terrible situation without any food or rent and the last of the money that was provided by the private sponsor was provided in early May. So as of June, this family had nothing to survive on. So I contacted people I know in the Montreal community and they stepped forward and they set up a non-profit organization called HelpVanessa.com. Oliver Stone, Academy Award winning director, Shalene Woodley, who starred in the Snowden film, also an Oliver Stone film, stepped forward and advocated in support and to ask for donations for Vanessa and her daughter and to date we've raised more than 50,000 Canadians which has now allows Vanessa and her daughter to remain safe and secure during the pandemic and also to continue their French language studies. And this is a photo of them in November 2020, just last month. And this was Christmas Eve. Kiana's on the left, Vanessa in the middle. And the third person is Mintum Tran who's the founder of the non-profit HelpVanessa and Kiana. I'd like to quickly mention him. He's the son of a refugee family originally from Vietnam after the war in 1975. The family resettled in Montreal and he was born in Montreal. He's a pharmacist and executive director of the association professionnel de pharmacien, salary de Québec. He founded the non-profit HelpVanessa and Kiana. And he's also founded a new non-profit called HelpAjith.com. I'm going to go into Ajith's situation. This was 2017. I've put up a photo of Ajith at the removal assessment section of the immigration department in Caldoun Bay. And this was a week before immigration rejected Ajith's asylum claims. And just briefly, Ajith was injured in the Civil War protecting his fellow soldiers. He was denied medical assistance under the Geneva Convention by the Sri Lankan army. And he was put in an untenable situation where he was looking at losing his life. So he fled. He was a military deserter. He was caught a few years later and tortured. There was an attempt to execute him, but he managed to flee the military camp and he fled to Hong Kong in 2003, leaving behind his wife and a newborn baby girl. This is a, I put up a photo of Ajith in 1993. So you can see the young man that he was. And in Hong Kong, similar to Ibrahim, the Somali journalist, from 2003 onward, Ajith has been subjected to systemic racism and discrimination by the Hong Kong government and its institutions. He's been denied sufficient humanitarian assistance. And I took on his case in 2012. And he's constantly been subjected to racial profiling, even not showing up to conferences, law conferences that I was holding, because the police had stopped him on the street as he was trying to get to my office. There's been discrimination by the, you know, by the police immigration against him. And also there's been attacks by the Hong Kong government against myself with the view of removing me as his lawyer. This is a photo of Ajith a couple years ago. And he's had a very difficult time in Hong Kong. For 17 years, you know, he was subjected, he's been subjected to discrimination as I've described. And all of this has had an enormously adverse impact on Ajith in that his mental condition has collapsed a number of times and he's just wanted to give up. And he's been what I would describe as a victim of constructive refaliment. But fortunately, we were able to convince him. And we have recently tried to get him some help. He's been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder since before he left Sri Lanka, untreated. And only recently we've been able to get him a little bit of help. According to his role with Mr. Snowden in 2013 when Mr. Snowden arrived, Ajith despite all the terrible things that have happened to him, the persecution he's in discrimination he suffered in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, Ajith stepped forward and, you know, was more than willing to help Mr. Snowden shelter in 2013. And in 2016, because of Ajith's story coming into the public domain, the Hong Kong government targeted him because of his assistance to Mr. Snowden and targeted myself. And in 2018 Ajith was left without the support of the Dudi Law Service, but myself and another lawyer found a solicitor willing to instruct us privately to continue his appeal. Now in parallel to all of this, I advised Ajith to apply to Canada for refugee status. Private sponsor was found in Quebec and Ajith's refugee claims were filed in January 2017. And while all of this was happening, the Sri Lankan police aware that Ajith is in Hong Kong sent police officers to Hong Kong in December 2016 looking for him. The Hong Kong police instead of investigating the Sri Lankan police made a decision to investigate myself and my clients. Now Ajith's case was rejected by immigration in May 2017 and I filed his appeal in the Torture Clinic Appeal Board. And this is a major update on Ajith's situation in Hong Kong in that his appeal was heard by an Australian adjudicator and barrister Adam Moore who was the adjudicator in his case in 2017. Heard his full appeal in June 2018 and no decision has been handed down in three and a half years. From 2018 to November this year Adam Moore had not handed down a decision and there is no explanation for that. And then suddenly in November 2020 the Torture Clinic Appeal Board announced that Mr. Moore was no longer the adjudicator without giving any reason. And now a panel of three adjudicators would hear Ajith's case and start that process all over again. This is a process that's been delayed and in my view abused by the security bureau and the Torture Clinic Appeal Board there is no rational basis why the Torture Clinic Appeal Board did not hand down a decision on Ajith's case years ago. And this is an example of how this part of the judiciary there is a lack of transparency and accountability. And the second significant event is that one of the three adjudicators is an Australian adjudicator named Fraser Syme and he's one of the three on the new panel of three for Ajith's appeal. Mr. Syme was also the same adjudicator in the appeal of the other Snowden refugee family of Sapun Nadeeka and the two children. And Mr. Syme rejected their appeals and now the Torture Clinic Appeal Board has found it proper to appoint Mr. Syme who's already predetermined decided refugee grounds for Sapun Nadeeka's family that are the same grounds for Ajith's case. So there's an adjudicator on the new TCAB panel that has already predetermined the appeal against Ajith at least on certain refugee grounds. So there's an appearance of bias. There's clearly a conflict of interest. Making matters worse is a judicial review leave application was filed in the high court in January 2019 challenging Fraser Syme's rejection of Sapun Nadeeka's family's refugee claims. So the Torture Claim Appeal Board has put in Mr. Syme's knowing full well that his decision on the exact refugee grounds for Sapun and also Ajith those common grounds may be overturned by the high court. So it's quite clear with years of delay inordinate delay and the removal or disappearance of Adam Moore's adjudicator and the constitution of a new tribunal after so many years. With Fraser Syme on there that he's not receiving a fair process here fair hearing. Now in terms of Ajith's mental health situation the 2019 pro-democracy protests and the police crackdowns Ajith saw firsthand how the police were acting arbitrarily and attacking innocent bystanders protesters and this re-traumatized Ajith. These are the same scenes in the same conduct of police in Hong Kong that he witnessed in Sri Lanka when he was in Sri Lanka. The new national security law similar to the prevention of terrorism act in Sri Lanka is another factor which has to re-traumatized Ajith and he's in fear for his life. Making matters worse there's an immigration amendment bill that's just been brought into the legislature and mind you the legislature has no opposition it's basically probaging controlled and then this new legislation immigration officers will now be able to carry guns and steal batons when dealing with refugees. This is simply going to re-traumatize my client and other refugees. There's now powers to detain asylum seekers effectively indefinitely when they're in Hong Kong. There's new provisions where the immigration officer will decide effectively if interpreters are needed and it'll be the immigration officers of you whether a person screening interviews or appeal should be conducted without an interpreter. The other issue that is shocking in my view is after the first stage of immigration screening if the cases are rejected there are now powers for immigration officers to go to foreign consulates to obtain to start the process of obtaining travel documents that should never happen until after all appeals are exhausted. So what's happening is that all these asylum seekers contrary to UN guidelines their identities are being exposed at the first stage to foreign governments that they fled from fled persecution from. Usually a hearing could not be held before 28 days in the torture clinic billboard now the limit is seven days which again now how do I view all of all of these changes to the immigration legislation. It's just a legislative and policy framework that is going to put more pressure on asylum seekers and it violates in my view the doctrine of constructive refalement. We've set up, Minton Tran and Montreal have set up the non-profit help at jeeth.com and we're asking for donations. Ajith needs support during this time he is waiting as with the other stone refugees the outcomes of their asylum cases in Canada but pending that time Ajith needs help and we'd ask that if you can go to the website and donate no matter how big or small the donations are Ajith needs help. Thank you. Hi everyone my name is Ibrahim Mohamed Hussein I'm a journalist from Somalia. Both the Somali government and Al-Shabaab targeted me I had been kidnapped and tortured the reason I was not killed is because my family and friend is paid ransom money to spare my life. I've lived to Hong Kong only to be treated like a criminal and subjected to racism as I lived in a buffer to be greeted and treated in a humanly. My life in Hong Kong was like a slow death. I was sent back to Somalia and one is again had to run for my life and could not even see my family. I then found my way to Europe leading in Greece. I found myself in two refugee camps fighting again to survive the camps were in Hyuman and degrading many refugees were violently injured and killed inside the camp. What suffered me was the refugee screening which proceeded repeatedly. The human rights in Hong Kong do not exit for refugees but I was lucky to have a human rights lawyer Masarobi Thibault without his help I would not be here today. Thank you very much guys. I know about Ajit Tathar Kain appeared in Hong Kong hospital for three and a half years and I know that the educator for his appeal has disappeared and there is no decision in his appeal after three and a half years. I know that the appeal board is now starting his appeal start all over again. Now with the three judge hearings appeal I think this is so unfair to Ajit. He has waiting for 17 years for his case to be decided after almost four years the appeal board forces him to start all over again. It is the Hong Kong government causing me all this delay. From my own experience in the Hong Kong appeal board the judge was unfair and I cleared traumatize. For Ajit to again have to go through another appeal will be real trauma for him. He will be forced to tell his torture experience again and it will give him nightmares. This is WTF International you have just seen a recording by Robert Thibault. He is the lawyer of Edward Snowden and he is now connected. Mr Thibault. Welcome. Thank you for having me here. One thing I failed to mention in the pre-recorded video discussion is that two of my clients would have done short videos to introduce themselves to the public. One thing I would like to mention here as I mentioned at the end of the video is that Ajit is still in Hong Kong. One of the Snowden refugees who protected Mr Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013 and he does need help. One way he can help is by donations. All right thanks for the we are now taking questions for Mr Thibault. You have several Q&A during our live program. Some of you have asked us questions and if you go into the streaming window below that you have several tabs. One chat window and if you click on that you can see the hashtag which we monitor on mastodon and twitter and you can also join the backend on the IRC. So far there haven't been any questions in the channel. But Mr Thibault are there any other ways and watchers who have just seen what you have presented and you have personal messages by your clients. voices heard in order to foster the cases of those people you represent. Yes as I mentioned a primary way to support my clients in particular Ajit at this time is to make donations. There is a website at helpajit.com where you can make donations various ways from credit card to bitcoin. The other issue is awareness and discussion. There is a lot of talk about the role of whistleblowers particularly in today's world. But there has been less talk about the protection of whistleblowers. The Snowden refugees did the extraordinary by stepping forward making their decisions of conscience to provide shelter and food and compassion to Mr Snowden when he was in Hong Kong in 2013. In all the Snowden refugees cases one of the grounds for refugee protection is the clients have a well-founded fear of persecution based on political opinion in that they made decisions to help Mr Snowden. So that forms a social group those who help or protect whistleblowers. I think that there needs to be more discussion about the importance of people in society. The courage it takes to step forward and help somebody particularly for high profile cases. It's easy to help somebody or a group of people when it's a popular person or a popular cause or if it's a low profile cause. But it's extremely difficult for individuals to step forward to help another. Even though the cause is the most just cause but it's unpopular. So there are legal and moral and ethical issues. I think that should be part of the discussion that everyone should be having. Thank you for that. There has been a question on the chat which I need to rephrase because the question is how to build a global consciousness against and to join forces both from a lawyerly and scholarly groups that believe more in direct action. You'll have to repeat that again. The signal came through a bit choppy. The question on the chat whether there's any efforts to build a global consciousness state of oppression more or less and coordinate between teams that take a more step, leave more in direct action. I think what's happening is you're seeing this kind of action with nonprofits, lawyers through protests and you're seeing it within communities, within cities, within whole jurisdictions. But I think what's happened with the COVID situation is that's basically compelled everybody because of the public health issues, self-isolating, social distancing, masks. We've had to take a step back to think, okay, how do we communicate now? How do we interact and exercise our fundamental rights and freedoms? I think we're in a dangerous period where we're still struggling how to connect globally to cooperate and bring this kind of awareness about. The second issue is to do that, you need to be able to get the message out through advocacy and activism. Right now, the COVID pandemic consumes the media reports. I've been told about 75 or 85% of news coverage in a given media organization, 75 to 85%. At the same time, governments are using the cover of COVID, the global pandemic, to suppress freedom of expression and to strip away fundamental rights and freedoms. So I think the question is a great question and I think it's a matter of, you know, when doing this through encrypted means, doing it where you have your privacy for global groups to consider how do we connect up together, what messages we want to get out, but then the real challenge will be getting the message out through to the public because of the current global pandemic. Are there already, to go ahead and prepare all the messaging to come out of the pandemic if and when it is together? As far, like, I'm not aware of any considered efforts globally. I mean, there are some nonprofits around the world who are trying to get, you know, messages out, trying to get stakeholders with those affected in different jurisdictions. But right now, I'm not aware of, you know, any organized, considered effort to try to have this sort of global connection and being able to speak globally, but also locally, you know, informing the global community what's going on. I think where it's just a difficult time. One of the best examples is Hong Kong with COVID, the COVID pandemic there, there's been four waves. And in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic in Hong Kong, Beijing imposed the new national security law, which basically has stripped away, you know, fundamental rights of freedom of expression. So I think we're just in a difficult time and it's going to be for different groups around the world to figure out how to communicate, you know, hopefully the pandemic will come to an end in the end of this year or next year. You know, see where we go from there. There's one more question from the chat and I think it's a softball pitch, more or less. Free autonomous press or free autonomous media as in decentralized probably on one of getting the message out. The signal is a bit choppy. I missed the middle of your question if you could repeat it. That would you say that a free and autonomous press, autonomous media as in decentralized probably uncensored would be a cornerstone of getting the message out? Absolutely. One thing that I've talked about in past talks is that two things have happened, are happening at this time and have been happening over the last decade. And that is journalism has, you know, mainstream journalism is being eroded. Investigative journalists are fewer and numbered today and journalism has become more centralized in major urban centers and in smaller cities, towns, rural areas, there is no more journalism there at all in a lot of regions around the world. And when those things happen, you have poor behavior of local government in terms of policies, public expenditure and also abuses of human rights. We are really in desperate need of having independent autonomous journalists and journalism at this time more than ever. But at the same time, you know, journalists who have the capacity and capability to do investigative journalism, you know, the problem with what's been happening the last five years, ten years is that the media that's centered in the major urban centers, they're not picking up stories and speaking for the more vulnerable or those who are geographically outside of main areas. And that's a very dangerous thing. So yes, I agree. There should be autonomous media and there should not be censoring on that media. So in fact, if you look at that, I mean, encrypted communication is well and everybody should use it especially to exchange information with journalists. But in the end, for the general public, independent media that is not centralized in some few conglomerates might even be more efficient to get the message out to the broader masses, right? Absolutely. And I think what needs to be done is you need more autonomous journalism and journalists in smaller cities, operating autonomously in the bigger cities to be able to pick up stories. What you're seeing right now with the mainstream media focusing on COVID stories, for example, the US elections and Donald Trump, are that they're not picking up smaller stories. They're not picking up low profile stories anymore. And governments are taking advantage of that. They know that they can act almost with impunity because they know that the smaller stories where somebody in your communities, you know, fundamental rights are being violated by the government or local authorities, it's not going to get reported at this time. When the pandemic is over, the situation will be the same. There's a lack of independent autonomous journalists. One of the big problems is money. You know, a lot of the money that used to go into advertising for mainstream media, even local newspapers, is now going online. People are spending their time looking at, you know, online media that has nothing to do with their local communities or even their countries. People are spending their time on YouTube and Facebook, TikToks and other example, where all the advertising is going. So we have a situation where enormous amounts of money are going to only certain media, some of the mainstream, a lot of it to, you know, social entertainment online and infotainment. And the money's disappearing from that money's disappearing and it's having an impact on two things. One is the funding of investigative journalism. Number two, being able to find and support autonomous local media in smaller cities, towns and rural areas. And I've seen that here in North America. And I know the same thing's been happening in Europe and also in Australia and New Zealand. Alrighty. So this means subscribing to your local small town newspaper might be even as well as a step in joining the revolution as using encrypted messaging. Absolutely. It's got to be a grassroots effort from the ground up. Everybody can take their part. We do not have a stage, so you have to imagine the applause that you're getting via IRC right now. Thank you again so much for being with us, Robert Tyvol. Thank you. Thank you.
as a lawyer involved in the Snowden case, his soldier from Sri Lanka. And beside him is the the global pandemic, as well as other significant charged with crimes in mainland China and the in Hong Kong side by side with Hong Kong civil politician on under the new national security law in 2020 with the new national security law and respect that Canada will be looking at whether update on Vanessa and her daughter who are now resettled in Montreal and he was born in the Sri Lankan army. And he was put in an found in Quebec and Ajith's refugee claims were Syme's knowing full well that his decision on the the immigration legislation. It's just a examples is Hong Kong with COVID, the COVID expenditure and also abuses of human rights. We