Monday, June 22, 2020

What is the "Black Lives Matter" movement of USA

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Article Contributor(s)

Kanika Bajaj

Article Title

What is the "Black Lives Matter" movement of USA

Publisher

Global Views 360

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

URL

Black Lives Matter Protest

Black Lives Matter Protest | Source:Lenny DeFranza via Wikimedia

Over 55 years have passed since the signing of civil right laws which were supposed to be the panacea for all the ills of raciest abuses faced by the Black-Americans. A lot has increased since for the Black Americans but much more is still to do. They still live in the fear of law enforcement officials who monitor their movement on the street and also in their homes. The blacks are killed  at the lightest alleged provocation by city police without any fear of serious repercussion. The Federals law enforcement agencies also have a history of racist behavior and brutality towards black Americans.

“Black Lives Matter” movement was started in 2013, after a white person named George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in February 2012. The movement got its name as the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was widely used on social media to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman.  This movement aims to highlight the injustices, brutality, oppression, gratuitous killings, systemic racism, ruthlessness, bad form, and unaccountably that American culture, particularly law implementation, harbours toward black individuals. Dissenters have pointed out the uncalled intensity of the police, military weaponry, and impulsive usage of the same. The problem of policing in America is more than just individual bad police officers, the culture protects wrongdoers and rewards blind loyalty and is impervious to change. American citizens have recognized these loopholes and will not tolerate these wrongdoings anymore

On 25th May 2020, a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd, died at the hand of a police officer after allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at the convenience store. The killing was extensively covered by the cross section of media across the USA and American public saw the horror of the painful death of an unarmed black person by the police. A national-wide protest erupted as millions of people, including whites came out in the streets,  demanding justice for George Floyd. Slogans such as “I can’t breathe”, “All lives will not matter unless black lives don’t”, “Stop police brutality” were raised on the streets across the cities of America. The “Black Lives Movement” which was hitherto mostly confined to a section of blacks youths, quickly expanded to include a wide section of American citizens. 

In his death George Floyd became the symbol of police brutality against the black community in the USA and brought the “Black Lives Matter” from the fringe to the center of American social and political discourse.

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February 4, 2021 4:49 PM

The case of Huawei: How that impacts Canada-China relations

In December 2018, Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer for Huawei, a China-based tech company which is dominating the telecom supplies, was arrested in Vancouver, Canada on her flight stop to Mexico. This was done on a request from the USA with whom Canada has an extradition treaty. She was sought by the USA for allegedly dealing with Iran using an American banking system in spite of the sanctions placed on Iran by the country, in 2013. In May, Wanzhou lost the legal challenge to the extradition process, meaning that they will go ahead with the extradition proceedings.

Within days of Wanzhou’s arrest, two Canadian citizens in China were arrested on alleged accounts of spying. This is seen as a retaliation for the Wangzhou arrest by the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who says that there is a direct link between Wanzhou’s arrest and those of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig,  the Canadians who are detained in China. Though China has been tight-lipped about the link between the two, these two incidents are often raised jointly by the Chinese spokesperson. David Mulroney, former ambassador for Canada to China, has said that the officials in Beijing are mirroring the ongoing extradition case to that of the detained Canadians.

Although Mr. Trudeau has in the past repeatedly emphasized the need for good relations with China, and has enthusiastically worked on them to the point of agreeing to discuss a Canada-China extradition treaty. But the China-Canada relations already started souring much before the arrest after a trade deal fell through in 2017. Many major carriers in the country, some of which have been outspoken in their support of Huawei, have decided to shun the company and opt for western alternatives instead. One of them, Bell Mobility, even announced that it will use equipment from its Finnish rival, Nokia.

Huawei is considered a symbol for China’s technological prowess, and the arrest is seen by the Chinese Communist Party as an attack on its symbol of technological achievement. The Chinese state-owned newspaper the Global Times calls the act a “political persecution launched by the US, with the intention to contain China’s high-tech development.” The China Daily also criticized the court ruling as unfair and potentially harmful in mending the Canada-China relations.

There has also been a backlash from legal experts and family members of the detained Canadians on the Canadian policy of letting the extradition charges proceed and not going with a prisoner swap. Mr. Mulroney, however, feels that it would legitimize “hostage diplomacy”, which would put at risk all traveling Canadians for arbitrary arrests to gain political leverage. There is a stark difference between the condition of the hostages and that of Meng Wanzhou, for while the two prisoners spend their days in small cells in isolation, interrupted by interrogation and bland meals, Wanzhou lives in her Vancouver mansion, being happy about the fact that she can spend more time reading and oil painting, now.

The Canadian government is also claiming that it has to let the extradition process go on without political interference as to not compromise the independent, legal decision of surrendering the Huawei CFO. Mr. Mulroney has said that “it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. It would compromise the integrity of both our democracy and our justice system,” and that their values need to count for something. Brian Greenspan, a Toronto lawyer with experience on extradition cases, has said that the government has the power to withdraw from the extradition case, and that the lessons from a previous case in which political pressure affected an international case, are being applied wrongly here.

There are many sides to this tension, complicated by previous feuds, economic decisions, the detentions of the Canadians and Wanzhou and the difference between the political and the legal, and the many opinions on whether it should be that way.

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