Canada’s Conservative government will go to court to contest a decision by the country’s independent refugee tribunal to grant political asylum to a white South African who claimed racial persecution.
Brandon Huntley claimed to have been the victim of several robberies and muggings by blacks who singled him out because he is white.
Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, said over the last several days that government lawyers had been reviewing the ruling by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).
“The government felt that because this is a fairly unique claim, it’s something we felt would be wise to put before a higher authority, in this case the Federal Court,” Velshi said.
The decision by the quasi-judicial refugee tribunal to grant asylum to Huntley sparked outrage in South Africa, which has a well-documented violent crime problem — around 50 people are murdered in the country every day and another 50 are the victims of a murder attempt. Most of the victims of violent crime, however, are not whites, but poor, black South Africans.
Huntley, 31, went to Canada in 2006 and stayed illegally before filing his refugee claim.
In his decision, made public earlier this week, IRB member William Davis accepted the refugee claim on grounds that Huntley would “stand out like a sore thumb” because of his color.
Davis found “clear and convincing proof” that Huntley was a victim for his race rather than a victim of criminality. Davis cited an “inability or unwillingness by the government and security forces to protect white South Africans from persecution by African South Africans.”
In Canada, too, the decision to grant asylum to Huntley came under fire from many quarters. In a harshly worded editorial, daily the Globe and Mail called it “another product of a dysfunctional system” that “mocks the need for genuine refugee protection.”
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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