An interview with Mariana Payet of No One Is Illegal Vancouver on the recent actions to stop Laibar Singh's deportation to India.
Produced by Aaron Lakoff.
aaron (at) resist.ca
-Please email me if you use this, just so I can keep track.
On January 8, 2008, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) announced their intentions to deport Laibar Singh, a paralyzed Punjabi refugee from India, at 4:30am the following day.
With just a few hours, and using primarily radio announcements on sikh radio stations in Vancouver, the community managed to rally 300 people at the gudwara in Surrey, BC, where Mr Singh was being taken care of by community members. Protestors rallied peacefully, locked down the gudwara, and even drove a truck in front of the doors to prevent immigration agents from entering. CBSA officials never ended up coming to the gudwara, and Mr Singh's deportation was successfully stopped again.
I spoke with Mariana Payet of the group No One Is Illegal Vancouver, who has been organizing in support of Laibar Singh. Payet participated in the actions of January 9, and explains the updates in the case.
For background information on Laibar Singh, see: http://noii-van.resist.ca -Article: "Second Komagatamaru" by Harsha Walia http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=14553