Thus,
according to this definition, in order to qualify the facts as crimes
against humanity, there must not only be a serious violent action, but
also other circumstances. For example, an isolated action is not considered a crime against humanity. It must be part of a larger objective against a sector of the population. In addition, there must be intent on the part of the person committing it. Or what we legally call ‘intent’. And they are only considered crimes against humanity if they have been committed against the civilian population. According to this definition, attacks against soldiers in combat are excluded.
Crimes against humanity in the Rome Statute
Canada is a country of pain and mourning, a land of aberrant crimes, of human misery; without any hope! "An ocean whose fierce waves drag millions of lacerated lives." .- Nadir Siguencia
The definition of the Spanish Legal Dictionary is, in any case, a summary or interpretation of the original concept. Since
the end of the 19th century, and especially after the world wars,
International Law has been classifying the criminal conduct that it
considered most serious, those that attacked fundamental rights. And
it included some of these in the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court, of July 17, 1998. This is where the foundations of the
concept of crimes against humanity are laid.
They
are defined, specifically, in article 7. It cites, as in the previous
definition, murder, extermination, slavery, deportation, torture or
deprivation of physical liberty in violation of the rules of
International Law. But, in addition, other crimes are added. Among
them, the “persecution of a group or collectivity with its own identity
based on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious,
gender reasons…”. And apartheid or the forced disappearance of people are mentioned, among them.
In addition, sexual crimes are added. “Rape,
sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced
sterilization or other sexual abuses of comparable gravity.” Like
the rest, all of them will be considered crimes against humanity as
long as they are also committed “as part of a widespread or systematic
attack against a civilian population and with knowledge of said attack.”
Widespread or systematic attack on a population, whether by a third party or by some State authority. Example: “The persecution of people for their political ideas is a crime against humanity.”
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY ATROCITY AFTER ATROCITY: "Canadian Hospitals Chambers of Torture”
Dr. Hans J.Kreder – An Act of Sadism, Madness….
Art.
7 of the Rome Statute: “For the purposes of this Statute, “crime
against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part
of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian
population and with knowledge of such attack: a) Murder; b) Extermination; c) Enslavement; d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population; e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; f) Torture; g)
Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, enforced pregnancy,
enforced sterilization or any other form of sexual violence of
comparable gravity; (h)
Persecution of any identifiable group or collectivity on political,
racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender-based grounds as
defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds universally recognized as
impermissible under international law, in connection with any act
referred to in this paragraph or with any crime within the jurisdiction
of the Court; (i) Forced disappearance of persons; (j) The crime of apartheid; (k)
Other inhuman acts of a similar character intentionally causing great
suffering or serious harm to physical integrity or mental or physical
health.” https://www.oas.org/36ag/espanol/doc_referencia/Estatuto_Roma.pdf. G.O.E. No. 5,507 of December 13, 2000.
Crimes against humanity do not have a statute of limitations
There is no time limit for reporting or prosecuting a crime against humanity in order for the alleged perpetrators to be tried.
Furthermore, crimes against humanity can be reported and prosecuted in any country. In
theory, their seriousness allows any State, without the need for the
victims or perpetrators to be of its nationality, or for the crimes to
occur in its territory, to accuse and condemn these crimes under its
legal system. However, this is usually exceptional, given the complementary work of the ICC.
Photo of Jesse Strang the Attacker Attacker (Confusion - Doubt - Suicides)
What
happened in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, is an
unprecedented tragedy, but the truth is not what the police are telling
us about Jesse Strang, the attacker. What the public wants to know is
what happened in his short life, especially during his school years, and
what motivated him to choose this school to commit murder.
When Your Government Wants to Remove Sex From Sex-Ed
Doug Ford's fight against Ontario’s curriculum is an assault on reality
by Lauren McKeonDoug Ford’s first
five weeks since winning Ontario’s provincial election carry a clear
message: the undoing has begun. The new premier has restricted universal
pharmacare for those under twenty-five, cut the $377 million Green
Ontario Fund, cancelled school-infrastructure repairs, reversed a
decision to increase police oversight, and refused to help the federal
government shoulder the financial burden of housing asylum seekers in
the province.
Ford sold his decision as a temporary, back-to-basics fix to give his
government time to develop yet another new curriculum via a “fulsome
consultation respecting parents.” In truth, he gave many of his
right-wing supporters their most significant policy victory in years.
Those who have criticized the 2015 curriculum often rail against its
“radical” agenda, one that “has nothing to do with science, health or
the wellbeing of children,” as the CLC
argues in an online post, “but rather, everything to do with a political
agenda by adults whose goal is sexual revolution.” These groups aren’t
entirely wrong: in addition to updating the document to include a focus
on navigating social media and the internet, the 2015 curriculum
prioritizes consent and is built on a LGBTQ-positive
framework. If that’s a radical revolution, however, it’s one that
coincides with Canada’s Human Rights Act and also its Criminal Code—the
former of which is often viewed by conservatives as an affront to
freedom of speech.
Of course, all this pearl clutching belies the anti-sex-education
advocates’ own agenda. That is, to send us all back to a past in which
masculinity and femininity fit into neat boxes and follow a Leave it to Beaver–style
moral code. In this world, the nuclear family rules, faith governs
sexual acts, and nobody ever has premarital sex. If you believe in this
world, then the former curriculum is a threat because it “detaches sex
from love, commitment, responsibility, marriage, faith, moral values and
social consequences”—that’s according to one of the main lobby groups,
the Parents Alliance of Ontario for Better Education (PAO). Or, you might believe, as a sex-ed opponent wrote to the Toronto Star
in 2015, that it would “teach Gay-Trans propaganda” and “[d]estroy the
idea of gender, natural law, heterosexual family normalcy.”
Complaints against the former curriculum, are, by now, both well worn
and, largely, debunked. Many of them—including that children would
learn “graphic” lessons on body parts in grade one and that by grade six
they’d be “encouraged” to masturbate—indicate a willful misreading of
the document. Others—such as what older children and teens would learn
about anal sex and gender identity—are steeped in homophobia and
transphobia.
Groups that attacked the 2015 curriculum frequently relied on the
argument that it is parents, not schools, who should be teaching
children about sex. Often, that was just code for: we want the absolute
power to protect our moral beliefs from outside challenges. One
high-school principal in BC, for instance, even wondered in 2015 whether
Ontario’s curriculum amounted to “cultural genocide” against
Christians. Sex-ed may be one of the religious right’s most high-profile
moral battles, but it’s also one front in a larger war for ideological
sovereignty.
The education minister has since announced that schools will continue
to teach things like consent and gender identity this fall, but
addressing such topics is not the same as building an educational
framework around them. Her statement also flatly contradicts the message
of the very groups Ford has sided with in his fight against the 2015
curriculum. Many of those who carried the “stop sex ed” call forward,
for example, are also the same people who fought Ontario’s Bill 89,
which essentially brings the province’s definition of child and youth
well-being in line with its Human Rights Code, as well as Canada’s
Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is, under the bill, a child’s right
to their own sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression
are protected within the home. During the provincial election, three
candidates even ran under the brand new Stop the New Sex Ed Agenda Party
and extended their target to the bill. Much like they did with the
sex-ed curriculum, far-right conservatives positioned the bill as a
totalitarian attempt by the Liberals to control them. “As a parent in
Ontario today, you have no say in the classroom, but you have a say in
your own home,” wrote Faith Goldy for Rebel Media, introducing a
petition against the bill.
Like Donald Trump has done in US with immigration and trade, Ontario
conservatives have used sex ed—and the surrounding issues of gender and LGBTQ
rights—to stoke a colossal fear that a certain way of life is under
attack. Viewed that way, Ford scrapping the province’s modernized sex ed
is only the latest sign of the growing political clout of a once-fringe
brand of social conservatism. It’s also a reminder that we may be
entering an era of regressive values, one that will be marked by a push
to reset everything from racial privilege to gender roles.
In so many
ways, Doug Ford’s decision isn’t about sex education at all; it’s about
a moral show of strength. By contesting the 2015 curriculum, Ford, and
others, are asserting who is—and who is not—entitled to a healthy sexual
life. Asserting that the document is dangerous because it “equalizes
homosexual and heterosexual acts in the young minds,” “confuses children
with six genders,” and “promotes sexual knowledge, sexual pleasure and
sexual freedom,” isn’t so much a way to keep sex ed in the home or to
protect children, as the PAO argues. It’s
a way to undermine modern, progressive views on sex and gender. If one
removes the positive references to consent and the LGBTQ
community, the 2015 update is strikingly similar to much of the
’90s-era curriculum. If Ontario does indeed revert to the old approach,
first graders will still learn how to properly identify their body
parts. By grade five, students will have lessons on puberty. Two years
later, the focus will be on sex and STIs.
Teens, however, will no longer learn—as a matter of policy—to combat
discrimination and to embrace different sexual orientations and gender
identities as normal. Without such frank, supportive conversations in
the classroom, students will have one less forum to confront the
prejudices that cause LGBTQ youth to
struggle with much higher rates of substance use, self-harm,
homelessness, and abuse. That’s scary enough. But the rewind will also
introduce daunting knowledge gaps on the changes that technology has
brought to the sexual landscape, including cyberbullying, sexting, and
increased access to online porn.
Teachers will no longer have a curricular space to teach teens to
navigate demands for “nudes” on Snapchat and Instagram or what to do if a
peer starts sharing such photos. There will be no pressure to confront
and dismantle harmful messages about gender and sexuality found in a lot
of online porn. Many of these realities didn’t exist when the last
curriculum was written. They are inescapable now. As a recent New York Times Magazine feature showed,
teenagers are watching a lot more pornography than their parents think,
with half of parents wrongly guessing their teen’s exposure. What’s
more, there are hints that teenagers’ sexual habits are shifting as
their porn consumption increases. In one survey, sixteen-year-old girls
exposed to pornography were twice as likely to have anal sex than
non-exposed girls. In another, roughly one-sixth of teen boys reported
having ejaculated on a partner’s face or choked them. Approximately one
in three Canadians will have intercourse before the age of seventeen.
Should teens not be learning how to hook up safely and with clear
consent?
For many conservatives who are against sex ed, the answer seems to be
no. In their minds, teaching consent seems to give students carte
blanche to have as much sex as they want—an apparently inevitable, and
terrifying, side effect of learning sexual agency. “This curriculum
leaves young children with the perception that it is acceptable to have
sex with any ‘partner’ of any kind as long as they get ‘sexual consent’
and they can just ‘do it,’” admonishes the PAO on the group’s website. “Consensual sex doesn’t make sex safe!”
Other groups argued that teaching young children the proper names for
their body parts and about consensual touching—like hugging—would groom
them for pedophiles. Never mind that such lessons are meant to protect
children and teens by giving them the language to identify abuse. But
facts don’t seem to matter here—not when fear is a far more influential
political tool.
Sex-ed curricula
in other parts of Canada have not faced the same level of backlash from
conservatives as in Ontario, but it isn’t inconceivable that it may
happen—and soon. In May, Alberta’s premier, Rachel Notley, indicated
she’d like to introduce consent into the province’s sex ed, starting in
kindergarten. And, late last year, British Columbia’s move to expand its
schools’ anti-bullying policies to include sexual orientation and
gender identity triggered the ire of parent groups who complained that
the move “abused” children.
There’s also the real potential for harm to children if other
jurisdictions use Ontario’s sex-ed reversal as momentum to stop, or
undo, similar efforts at progress. Shortly after Ford announced his
decision, Rehtaeh Parsons’s father, Glen Canning, responded. Canning’s
daughter experienced months of bullying and harassment after a photo of
her circulated, in 2011, that was taken the night she said she was
assaulted. In 2013, at the age of seventeen, she killed herself. No
sexual-assault charges were ever laid, but two boys were convicted of
child pornography. In his comments to Toronto Star,
Canning praised the 2015 curriculum. “I really wished there was
something like that in Nova Scotia 10 years ago,” he said. “Because if
there was—and if consent and empathy and respect were being taught in
schools in Nova Scotia—I honestly believe that I would still have my
daughter with me today.”
I do not have children, but I do have a stake in how sex education is
presented in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. I have a stake in a
future that promotes progress and equality. I have a stake in equipping
the next generation with more information, not less. The old curriculum
did not protect me—and many other teens—in high school. It did not
protect me from being exposed to certain sex acts before I was ready,
and it did not protect me from experiencing sexual violence. It did not
protect me from forming disastrous, dangerous ideas of what my sex life
or my worth as a person should look like. It never addressed the idea of
sexual consent at all. Of course, I don’t know if the lessons in the
2015 curriculum would have protected me either. But I do know it would
have given me the tools to understand what happened was wrong and that I
did not have to be silent about it.
I don’t want us to go back to a time where anyone thinks they have to be silent either.
Lauren McKeon is deputy editor of Reader's Digest Canada and the author of two books, F-Bomb and No More Nice Girls.
Canada is a country of heinous crimes, of pain, and mourning, a land of human misery without any hope. An ocean of human tragedy, whose furious waves sweep away millions of shattered lives. - Nadir Siguencia
