OUTLAW BLASPHEMY LAWS

Nigerian Christians demand justice for student killed over alleged blasphemy

By REUTERS - Yesterday
© (photo credit: REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE)


Nigeria's largest grouping of Christian churches on Friday condemned the killing of a female student who was beaten and burned by fellow students for alleged blasphemy and demanded the authorities bring the culprits to justice

Two suspects were arrested in connection with the murder of Deborah Samuel, who was accused by other students of posting blasphemous statements about the Prophet Mohammad in a Whatsapp group.

Nigeria is almost evenly divided between the largely Christian south and mainly Muslim north, where some states have adopted strict sharia laws, including death sentences for blasphemy.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), whose members include Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches as well as indigenous churches, said those responsible for killing Samuel in the northwestern state of Sokoto should be prosecuted.

"The unlawful and dastardly action of the perpetrators must not only be condemned by all right-thinking people but the security operatives must fish them out, prosecute them as it is expected of them," Joseph Daramola, CAN general secretary said.

Witnesses said school security and police attempted to rescue the victim but were overwhelmed by the students.

President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement there should be an impartial investigation and criticized those who took the law into their own hands.

"Violence has and never will solve any problem," he said.

Showing the religious and political sensitivities of the case, former vice president and presidential aspirant Atiku Abubakar, a Muslim, deleted his Twitter post condemning the incident.

Nigerians go to the polls next year to elect a new president, governors and parliamentarians. Abubakar is seeking the opposition ticket to run for president for the sixth time.

Reuters has not been able to reach Samuel's family for comment.

Journalist who kickstarted #MeToo, exposed Weinstein, honored by TAU
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - 6h ago
© (photo credit: CHEN GALILI)

Jewish-American journalist Jodi Kantor, famous for exposing the sexual abuse allegations against American film mogul Harvey Weinstein, was awarded an honorary degree by Tel Aviv University in a festive ceremony during the 2022 Board of Governors meeting.

Kantor, a journalist for The New York Times, was recognized for her pivotal contribution in her work, especially regarding the expose of Weinstein, which kickstarted the #MeToo movement calling for powerful figures, especially in Hollywood, to be held accountable for sexual abuse. The expose was widely lauded and is cited as a generation-defining moment in journalism, winning Kantor a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 in the process.

In total, TAU awarded 11 individuals and one organization with honorary degrees for making a positive impact on the world.

These recipients included Prof. Katalin Karikó, developer of the mRNA-based vaccine platform that proved instrumental in combating COVID-19; theoretical physicist Sir Michael Victor Berry; influential neurobiologist and geneticist Prof. Cornelia Bargmann; philanthropist and business sector leader James S. Gertler; Jewish history scholar Prof. Jehuda Reinharz; Prof. Bernd Huber, president of Munich's Ludwig Maximilian University; philanthropist and industry leader Solomon Lew; evolution expert Prof. Jurgen Renn; and former Banks of England and Canada governor Mark J. Carney, who was awarded the George S. Wise medal.


© Provided by The Jerusalem

 PostHonorary degree recipients

 (credit: ISRAEL HADARI)

Also recognized was the Iranian American Jewish Federation of New York, which was awarded an Honorary Fellowship.

All these honors were awarded by TAU Board of Governors chairwoman Dafna Meitar-Nechmad, president Prof. Ariel Porat and rector Prof. Mark Steif.

“The honorees of this event are all driven by a deep social consciousness, whether in the areas of academia, business, civic service or philanthropy, and their contribution is boundless,” Meitar-Nechmad said.

WOULDN'T HAPPEN WITH DEATH PENALTY 

Convicted killer turned tech whiz confronts his sordid past

REHOVOT, Israel (AP) — When he was 20 years old, Harel Hershtik planned and executed a murder, shooting his victim in the head and burying the body in a crime that a quarter of a century later is still widely remembered for its grisly details.

Today, he is the brains behind an Israeli health-tech startup, poised to make millions of dollars with the backing of prominent public figures and deep-pocket investors.

Neither his conviction for premeditated murder, his lengthy prison sentence nor his parole board-mandated nightly house arrest have obstructed his rise. His partners tout him as a successful case of rehabilitation and second chances.

But with his company set to go public, Hershtik’s past is coming under new scrutiny, raising questions about whether someone who took a person’s life deserves to rehabilitate his own to such an extent. It also tells an astounding tale of a life derailed and improbably set back on track through a combination of intellect, drive and guile.

“When I was young, I would say that I was stupid and arrogant,” said Hershtik, now 46, sitting in his office beside a futuristic-looking computer with colorful cooling mechanisms he built on his own. “You can be a genius and yet still be very stupid and the two don’t contradict each other.”

Today, Hershtik is the vice president of strategy and technology at Scentech Medical, a company he founded in 2018 while behind bars and which says its product can detect certain diseases through a breath test.

In a three-hour interview with The Associated Press, his first with an international news outlet, he repeatedly expressed remorse for his crime.

At 14, Hershtik met Yaakov Sela, a charismatic snake trapper with a coterie of young fans who gravitated toward his warm personality and kooky profession. Hershtik, who said he was physically and emotionally abused over his weight by peers at a kibbutz where he was raised, loved snakes and met Sela at a zootherapy program.

Hershtik learned from Sela about the world of snake handling and the two set up snake exhibits together and partnered to crossbreed the reptiles. But despite their initial connection, the relationship morphed from a mentorship to one of “mutual hate and loathing,” according to court documents.

Sela was known for having numerous girlfriends at once, including Hershtik’s mother. Hershtik told the AP he felt uneasy with the way Sela treated some of those women and had “a problem seeing him talking to women in demeaning ways, especially toward someone that I cared about and loved.”

Tovia Bat-Leah was among Sela's admirers. She met him at a kibbutz in the late 80s and six months later was pregnant with his child. She called him a brilliant and warmhearted but troubled man who was traumatized by his upbringing by adoptive parents who were Holocaust survivors. She said Sela was always loving but could be unreliable.

“When you were with him, you were the only person who existed on the face of the earth and he was fully focused on you. And when you weren’t there, you didn’t exist,” she said.

In early 1996, Sela discovered that Hershtik had stolen 49,000 shekels (about $15,000 at the time) from him, and the two agreed that instead of involving the police, Hershtik would pay him back double that amount. Court documents say Hershtik concocted a plan to drive Sela to banks around the country, duping him into thinking he was gathering up the money to pay him back.

During the drive, Hershtik pretended he needed to throw up and Sela stopped the car. Once he pulled over, Hershtik’s accomplice fired three shots at Sela, using Hershtik’s mother’s pistol. He then handed Hershtik the gun, according to the documents, and Hershtik shot Sela in the head at close range.

The pair shoved Sela’s body into the trunk and buried it in a grove in the Golan Heights, according to the documents. Weeks later, hikers saw a hand poking up from the earth, and Sela’s body was found.

The sensational crime gripped the nation. Sela’s disappearance, murder and the trial — and the Shakespearean details of deceit, lust and tragedy that emerged from it — repeatedly splashed across newspaper front pages.

In court documents, prosecutors say Hershtik schemed and lied in his attempt to distance himself from the killing. Even his own mother, also convicted in the incident, called him a “pathological liar,” according to the court documents. Prosecutors said he lied repeatedly about his whereabouts the day Sela disappeared and claimed that Sela fled the country following a hit-and-run incident.

“I am telling you unequivocally that we didn’t use violent means as a solution to problems. I am a person who uses pens and pencils and computers to solve problems,” he told an interviewer at the time, according to the court documents, as police were working to crack the case.

Today, Hershtik said he was compelled to lie so that he could protect the others involved in the scheme, which included a friend eventually found to be mentally unstable as well as his mother. His mother was convicted of several crimes, including for having tried to thwart a police complaint by Sela's mother about his disappearance.

After Hershtik’s accomplice confessed to police, Hershtik was sentenced to life in prison for premeditated murder and obstructing justice, among other crimes.

In a sense, Hershtik flourished during his prison time. He earned two doctorates, in math and chemistry, and he got married three separate times. He said he established 31 companies, selling six of them.

Aside from the physical limits of life behind bars, Israeli law doesn’t bar prisoners from doing business, although Hershtik’s success is rare.

“You are limited by reality. You’re in jail,” Hershtik said. “You’re running a company. You can’t run it from jail yourself. You have to rely on other people to go talk, do contracts, deals.”

To circumvent that hurdle, Hershtik installed CEOs to run the day-to-day activities of his companies. He used whatever infrastructure was available to him in prison, being granted a computer in his cell at one point. With limited access to the internet, Hershtik said he had to get lengthy documents read to him over the phone.

His first company, which he launched in 1998, focused on video compression technology. He enlisted a tech columnist as CEO of the company, which was eventually sold, netting Hershtik an undisclosed amount.

Hershtik met his first wife through regular interpersonal contact while he was in remand. He met his second wife after he put a call out in a widely-read women’s magazine while he met the third in an online chat room, sparking a relationship that lasted 14 years. He is now divorced, with no children.

He said he hobnobbed with some of Israel's most famous prisoners while behind bars, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former President Moshe Katsav.

But prison was also a fraught time for Hershtik. He said he spent 11 years in quarantine because of health issues that led to a serious deterioration of his immune system. Contact with other inmates could imperil his condition. He was punished twice for setting up internet access to his cell, in one case building a modem out of two dismantled DVD players. He said he spent weeks in solitary confinement — in a “dungeon” as Hershtik describes it — for his violation.

He also said he was stabbed by two Arab inmates after being caught up in a plot to catapult a severed pig’s head with a Quran in its mouth into Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. Hershtik said he suggested the plot to two Jewish nationalists he met in prison, but said he was being hypothetical.

When the country’s domestic security agency Shin Bet caught wind of the plan, it enlisted Hershtik as an informant, he said. When the Arab inmates heard Hershtik assisted the Shin Bet, they stabbed him, Hershtik said.

Court documents related to the case say Hershtik “proved himself to be a very problematic witness and source of information,” saying he repeatedly changed his story regarding his involvement.

Last year, a parole board determined Hershtik had been rehabilitated and no longer posed a danger to society.

“Throughout the treatment, the inmate presented as a person with especially high intelligence, with no judgment or comprehension disorders,” the parole board wrote.

As part of his early release and until 2026, he is under nightly house arrest from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. He must wear a tracking device around his ankle at all times and he is barred from leaving the country.

A free man, Hershtik sat recently with the AP in his office in the central city of Rehovot, Israel. An electric toothbrush and an energy drink perched on his desk next to a long, curved computer screen. He wore a grey shirt with just a hint of wrinkles, but had two spare ironed shirts delivered just in case he had to make himself more presentable. He did not change during the interview.

He owns an Audi and without a driver's license, he is ferried around by two rotating drivers.

His start-up is waiting for regulatory approval to merge with a company called NextGen Biomed, which trades on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and would make Scentech public. Talks that brought about the merger also took place while Hershtik was in prison.

Hershtik said the company's product is being finalized for detecting COVID-19 through a patient's breath, and it is working to add other diseases such as certain cancers as well as depression. The product is meant to provide on-the-spot results in a non-invasive way.

The company has received a patent for its technology in Israel and said it is preparing to apply for FDA approval soon. Disease diagnosis by breath is a growing field and other companies say they do similar things, but Hershtik said his patented technology allows for unique chemical indicators in the breath to be identified and used to diagnose diseases.

Hershtik said he looks at his potentially life-saving invention as a way to give back to society.

“The remorse that I felt for what I did would become a beacon for my path forward,” Hershtik said. “This company was built because I wanted to do something better, to leave the world a better place.”

Hershtik said the merger values the company at around $250 million and that he has raised more than $25 million in funding over the last two years through private Israeli investors. A large part of the investment is from Hershtik’s own money, although he won’t say how much.

The company is backed by prominent Israeli names. Yaakov Amidror, who chairs NextGen, is a former chief of the country’s National Security Council. Zeev Rotstein, who leads the company’s scientific council, used to head one of the country’s largest hospitals. And Shmuel Shapira, the company’s chief technology officer, is the former director of the Israel Institute for Biological Research, a state-run scientific research body.

“According to the rules of the country, the man is allowed to rehabilitate. He paid his price and he rehabilitated. So there is no reason not to help him rehabilitate,” Amidror, who testified to the parole board on Hershtik’s behalf, told the AP.

But his past is already haunting him. Hershtik was demoted from CTO earlier this year to his current position, in part because he didn’t want his crime to scare away investors once the company goes public. In the About Us section of the company’s website, Hershtik is last on the list of team members even though Scentech is his brainchild. His bio does not mention the murder.

Drew Morris, a board member and investor, admits he was “freaked out” when he first heard of Hershtik’s story. But today, he believes his partner is trying to “do something good for the world.”

“Harel has always said if for some reason his presence is a problem and the company would be better off without him, that he’s willing to leave the company,” Morris added.

And as the company seeks to take its product to market, investors will need to decide whether Hershtik’s rap sheet influences where they put their money.

Ishak Saporta, a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University’s Coller School of Management, said he believed investors would be drawn to the company’s potential for profit rather than deterred by Hershtik’s history.

“What concerns me here is that he became a millionaire. He paid his debt to society in jail. But does he have a commitment to the victim’s family,” Saporta said.

Bat-Leah, the mother of Sela’s child, remains traumatized. While she was no longer in a romantic relationship with Sela when he was killed, his death was a painful loss that came on the heels of the killing of her brother in 1991 by the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

She believes Hershtik should do something for the family. While Saporta proposed that Hershtik give Sela’s survivors company stock, Bat-Leah suggested he help fund her daughter’s education or create a reptile museum in Sela’s name.

“He served his time but he should also make some kind of reparation,” she said. “Whatever that looks like I don’t know.”

Hershtik sees the good that could come about from the company as the ultimate form of repentance. He said he could have used his smarts to create any sort of company with no benefit to society but chose health-tech instead.

“Trust me, this is not for the money,” he said.

___

Associated Press reporter Ariel Schalit contributed to this report.

Tia Goldenberg, The Associated Press

K-9 featured in Netflix's 'Rescued by Ruby' euthanized


PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island dog whose inspiring story of going from shelter dog to lifesaving police K-9 became the subject of a recent Netflix movie has been euthanized.

State Police said Sunday K-9 Ruby was put down Friday following a “sudden, acute, and untreatable illness.” She was 11 years old.

Col. Darnell Weaver, superintendent of the state police, expressed gratitude for K-9 Ruby's years of service.

“K-9 Ruby dedicated her life to serve the citizens of Rhode Island and make a positive impact on every person she ever interacted with," he said in a statement. “She became a symbol of hope for all shelter dogs, showing the world what a shelter dog can do when just given love and the chance to shine.”

Ruby served with the Rhode Island State Police for 11 years and was handled by Corporal Daniel O’Neil, Weaver said.

Part Australian shepherd and part border collie, Ruby was one of the first shelter dogs trained to serve with the Rhode Island State Police. She participated in numerous search-and-rescue missions and made many public appearances during her career.

Ruby gained notoriety in 2017 when she located a teenage boy who was severely injured while hiking in the woods. The boy turned out to be the son of the animal shelter volunteer who had fought to keep her from being put down.

“She was a total knucklehead,” shelter volunteer and dog trainer Patricia Inman had told The Associated Press of Ruby, who had been returned by five families for being too rambunctious before O'Neil adopted the then-eight-month-old in 2011.

Ruby earned national recognition for the rescue — the American Humane Hero Dog organization named her the nation’s “Search and Rescue Dog of the Year” — and her story was made into the 2022 Netflix movie “Rescued by Ruby.”

“She had a full, happy, and wonderful life, not only as a trooper, but as part of a loving family,” Weaver said. “She worked right until the end and never gave up doing what she loved most — making people smile.”

Ruby lived with O’Neil and his family and will be honored privately, police said.

“She was given a chance and she’s been doing everything she can to pay it back,” O’Neil said earlier this year. “You have this dog that was given up on, and she’s changed so many people’s lives.”

Despite her lauded search-and-rescue career, Ruby's mischievous spirit was irrepressible: Three years ago, she bolted near a state park, turning up safe and sound after a 19-hour search. More recently, she returned from a bathroom break with a live skunk writhing — and spraying — in her jaws.

The antics were part of what made Ruby, well, Ruby. Above all, she was a good dog.

“If you show them love and compassion and you give them a certain type of stability, they’ll show their true colors,” O'Neil had said.

The Associated Press

P3 INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Former IDF intelligence chief Tamir Hayman appointed INSS director

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - 
© (photo credit: INSS)

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman, formerly the head of the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate, was appointed on Wednesday managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

Hayman will replace retiring deputy director Brig.-Gen. (res.) Udi Dekel, who served as head of the IDF's Planning Directorate and as the institute's director for a decade.

Hayman's military experience, specifically in research and intelligence, will help increase the INSS' influence in shaping future Israeli security policy, the institute said.

Hayman was drafted to the Israeli military's Armored Corps in 1987. After becoming an officer, he led several units within the Armored Corps before becoming commander of the 36th Division, also known as the Ga'ash Formation. He became head of the Military Intelligence Directorate in 2018. During his tenure, he was involved in the raid in Khan Younis where Lt.-Col. Mahmoud Kheir El-Din was killed.

"I am delighted to welcome another senior figure to INSS," chairman of the board of directors Sir Frank Lowy said.

INSS is an Israeli think-tank and research institute which focuses on security and military and strategic affairs in the Middle East, as well as cyber warfare.


© Provided by The Jerusalem PostDefense Minister Naftali Bennett speaks at the INSS conference. (credit: CHEN GALILI)

"Hayman's extensive military and intelligence experience will prove to be a significant addition to INSS," he added. "He will lead its research activity with professionalism and excellence."

Hayman is "looking forward to being part of the revolution," the former IDF general said.

"I see great value in research aimed at influencing policy, and welcome that the multidisciplinary task-oriented research concept that we utilized in the Military Intelligence Directorate is also used at INSS."

Churches condemn Israeli police charge at Al Jazeera reporter's funeral
By REUTERS - 
© (photo credit: REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE)

An organization representing 12 Christian denominations on Monday condemned an Israeli riot police charge at the funeral of a Palestinian-Christian Al Jazeera journalist, describing the actions as a violation of freedom of religion.

Mourners, some carrying Palestinian flags, were escorting the coffin of Shireen Abu Akleh, a dual US citizen, from the convent-run Saint Joseph Hospital to the Greek-Melkite Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin when police charged.

Friday's incident, during which baton-wielding officers beat Abu Akleh's pallbearers, was broadcast live globally and renewed the anger at the reporter being shot dead during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.

The police actions constituted an "invasion and disproportionate use of force ... (and) a severe violation of international norms and regulations, including the fundamental right of freedom of religion," a hospital statement quoted the Christian Churches of the Holy Land group as saying.

While blaming violence by "hundreds of rioters" for the confrontation, police said they were investigating the incident.


© Provided by The Jerusalem PostSt. Andrew’s Church, Kyiv 

(credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Israel and the Palestinians remain at loggerheads over Abu Akleh's shooting in Jenin on Wednesday.

The Palestinians accuse Israel of assassinating her and have called for an international response. Israel has denied targeting her, saying she may have been shot accidentally by a soldier or a Palestinian gunman as they exchanged fire.

Now public, full report details anti-Black discrimination across City of Brampton departments

Now available on the City of Brampton’s website on an obscure page, the full independent report by Williams HR Consulting details specific concerns with anti-Black discrimination in City Hall including a lack of racial diversity in Fire & Emergency Services, and a fear of job security for racialized contract employees if they speak out about concerns.

The full report expands on the details discussed in the previously released summary version, which included a series of recommendations and discussed a “culture of fear” for Black employees.

Both reports detail Black and racialized staff being concentrated at lower levels of the organizational hierarchy and most Black and racialized participants sharing personal experiences of differential and discriminatory treatment.

According to the 2016 census, 73.3 percent of Brampton residents identified as visible minorities, and 13.9 percent identified as Black.

These numbers don’t translate to City Hall.

In 2019, a diversity and inclusion survey administered by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) found that the City’s workforce was predominantly White, with only 36.8 percent of respondent employees having identified as racialized, which dropped to less than 15 percent among the corporate leadership team.

It showed the vast majority of Brampton residents did not see themselves reflected inside City Hall, and among senior leadership roles the demographic disparity suggested willful intolerance to change.

According to the full Williams HR Consulting Inc. report, participant feedback indicated that diversity throughout the City’s departments and divisions was widely variable, with “pockets of diversity” present within the organization.

For the the Parks, Maintenance, and Forestry team within the Community Services department, the report noted that racialized staff, specifically Black staff, tend to be employed in temporary contract roles, with participants indicating that they were often afraid to speak up about discriminatory workplace experiences due to the precarious nature of their contracts.

This expanded on the previous summary report, which noted that “within certain departments,” Black and racialized employees are most often employed in precarious employment roles.

The report had positive notes, detailing that leaders in Transit made preliminary inquiries into removing potential barriers to increased diversity within their standard recruitment practices.

Participants described the general composition of certain departments, including Transit, as racially and ethnically diverse, although the number of Black employees in those departments was reportedly much smaller in comparison to that of other non-Black racialized groups.

In contrast, certain departments, such as Fire and Emergency Services, employed very few racialized employees.

Across different departments, participants had emphasized the need to focus equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training efforts on different groups.

Participants in Transit felt that more training should be provided to part-time and front-line staff, while participants in Planning, Building, and Economic Development stressed the need to provide more training to members of middle management.

One tactic endorsed across multiple departments was a “top-down” approach and suggested that members of senior leadership and management generally required EDI upskilling and should take more comprehensive and extensive training.

Participant feedback indicated that there are considerable inconsistencies among different departments regarding the extent to which the contents of the policies are socialized to employees.

In Transit, one employee described how senior leadership regularly sent out bulletins on the policies. Another in Fire and Emergency Services stated that the Respectful Workplace Policy may have been mentioned during their onboarding, but has not been talked about since then.

The summary report showed that some Black participants expressed their distrust of diversification efforts, which they perceived to be flawed, done for optics, and ultimately ineffective at yielding more Black hires.

In the full report, certain participants made reference to the results of the Fire and Emergency Services department’s 2020 firefighter recruitment.

At present, efforts to diversify through improved recruitment processes have been decentralized and limited to certain departments, most notably Fire and Emergency Services, the report states.

In 2020, the department had undertaken a systematic reformulation of its hiring policies and practices with the goal of reducing potential bias in decision-making and increasing the diversity of new hires by implementing standardized assessment tools, scoring systems, and metrics.

It was a complete failure, with the reformulation leading to the hiring of one successful Black candidate out of 800 applications.

Concerns were raised in the report that the new process was overly clinical, stripped away too much subjectivity, placed an outsized focus on credentials, and ultimately hindered its goal of yielding more racial diversity in new hires.

“Its focus on credentials was hypothesized by participants to have led to a net negative outcome for Black and racialized recruits, who often do not envision certain careers in public service, such as firefighting, as legitimate and/or realistic career paths and so may lack the necessary credentials to enter these fields,” Williams HR Consulting Inc. wrote.

Equity advocate David Bosveld previously raised the issue of discriminatory hiring practices at City Hall.

“It starts with barriers to education, it starts with barriers within education, resources when you know Black community members are starting behind their counterparts from other races,” Bosveld said. “When you post the job, at that point there’s a pool of people deemed qualified or eligible. If you include community members who are underrepresented in creating that job posting and going through the applications we can eliminate some barriers.”

When a posting has strict background requirements, such as “five years management experience, (or) master’s degree” Bosveld said potential applicants likely wouldn’t apply, even though the person may be completely qualified.

“They self-eliminate because the posting hasn’t been created to be inclusive of lived experience,” Bosveld said.

“For example there’s a guy that I know that built a youth football team from scratch… On his resume he won’t be able to fit the traditional criteria of five years of leadership experience, but we know in the community he has five years of leadership experience in spades. He’s actually built it, he’s done exactly what they’re asking for but they’re not asking for it in the application.”

The report noted a positive thing about Fire and Emergency Services' updated recruitment process in the review, which was that it included the option for applicants to self-disclose identity-based data. This was something that Williams HR Consulting Inc. recommended the rest of the City’s departments should collect moving forward.

“Having accurate data is fundamental to any EDI effort and, in particular, to the ability to measure and monitor progress towards established goals,” Williams HR Consulting Inc. wrote. “The compilation and communication of identity based data is critical to gain a more fulsome understanding of Black and racialized employees’ workplace experiences and enable leaders to establish objectives and address barriers to EDI goals more effectively.”

Williams HR Consulting Inc. recommended that the City should leverage the learning outcomes of the past efforts to level-up its recruitment and hiring practices to revamp, and ideally standardize, existing processes across all departments.

The consultant recommends the City adopt an equity-focused approach to diversity in recruitment efforts, which recognizes sociohistorical differences between Black communities and racialized groups that have resulted in material gaps in opportunity, advancement, and professional experience, rather than a strictly equality-focused approach.

Bosveld said that often having a community member or a panel of community members sit in on the hiring process can avoid these terrible outcomes.

“If you don’t have that in-house, build your hiring process and just have a community advisory panel,” he said. “Build your job posting, send it to them to have a look at, take some feedback, do some edits and create a posting that people generally feel is a bit more inclusive, a bit more open and a bit less restrictive.”

After the resumes are received, Bosveld said the community panel could help go through them and participate in the interviews themselves.

“The traditional HR person who doesn’t have this lens is going to skip over some because of bias or perception of lack of credentials or qualifications, when the community person might say, ‘Hey, let’s take a second look at this one’ or ‘Hey let’s bring this person in for an interview.’”

The review also recommended the City create pathways of career advancement and progression for Black employees, many of whom reported feeling “stuck” in their jobs.

One way mentioned is to develop formal training and mentoring programs to support professional development opportunities, noting a particular benefit in involving Black leaders, supervisors and managers as it would give value to Black participants who will have shared life experiences.

While the fire department made the effort to push for the reformulation in an attempt to tackle its noticeable lack of racial diversity, the report also noted concerns about hiring do not appear to reach the upper echelons of certain departments– although the names of specific departments weren’t listed.

Multiple senior leaders said they had not received or heard of complaints or concerns from employees within their departments about a lack of EDI in hiring processes, while participants belonging to their departments expressed such concerns to the review team.

Yet all senior leaders and Human Resource (HR) professionals who participated in the review recognized the need to diversify the workforce and have more equitable recruitment practices in place.

While leaders in certain departments, such as Transit, have made preliminary inquiries into removing potential barriers to increased diversity within their standard recruitment practices, the majority of departments have yet to undertake a thorough assessment.

Additionally, the extent to which hiring managers and other recruitment decision-makers receive training regarding fair recruitment processes and EDI considerations is unclear.

In HR, one participant told the reviewer that they did not receive training regarding hiring prior to acting as a hiring manager for a recruitment.

The participant assumed that this lack of training was due to assumptions made about their prior experience in recruitment, but questioned whether training would have been provided if they had not been an HR professional.

Participant feedback, including from members of senior leadership and management, made clear that there is a perception of significant nepotism throughout the City. Black participants cited experiences in which friends, family members, and personal contacts of existing employees—and particularly more senior members of management, who tended to be White—were hired over potentially more qualified candidates.

While not mentioned explicitly in the report, David Barrick, Brampton’s former CAO, who was fired in February was recruited through a process led by Mayor Patrick Brown. The pair had prior connections through PC politics before Barrick’s hiring. Barrick would then go on to hire a number of staffers he’d previously worked with in Niagara Region.

A participant raised that there have been attempts to curb nepotist practices, including through the use of a disclosure form, though feedback suggests that these attempts have not been widely socialized, consistent, or made clear to employees.

Many participants described an overarching culture of fear, oppression, and reprisal at the City with respect to bringing forward complaints in general, and specifically complaints regarding discriminatory conduct.

All participants agreed that employees do not trust HR or the investigation process, and believe their complaints will not be treated confidentially, and truly believe they will have reprisal brought against them for making complaints.

Suspicions of information leaks have arisen because of instances when confidential information has been shared with City employees in violation of confidentiality obligations, and are noted to be the primary cause of employees’ lack of trust in HR.

Most Black and racialized participants spoken to for the review were able to provide examples of racially discriminatory conduct or comments by colleagues that they recalled being personally witness to or hearing about.

The report noted a marked difference in perception between Black employees and senior members of leadership and management regarding the state of the workplace for Black and racialized staff.

Senior members of leadership and management who participated in the review process—all of whom were non-Black—spoke about the workplace environment and culture in far more positive terms, and were consistent in their belief that the departments they oversaw were supportive of Black and racialized staff.

Black and racialized participants didn’t agree.

This is in line with the previously released Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) 2019 survey which found that Black employees reported notably lower feelings of inclusion compared to non-Black employees.

Specifically, the CCDI found only 32 per cent of Black respondents agreed that all employees have equal opportunity to advance at the City, whereas 58.7 per cent of White respondents agreed. A similar finding was noted in the CCDI audit conducted for the Peel Regional Police.

Bosveld said that it’s clear current leadership in the City doesn’t grasp the issue that anti-Black community members have been excluded.

“This is the same argument we’re having at the school board, this is the same argument that we’re having with the police, this is the same argument that we’re having at the municipality,” Bosveld said.

“We’re not represented in positions of power as Black community members so our lens is missing largely from hiring positions, from leadership direction, we are excluded and as a result that exclusion is perpetuated ongoing and we don’t get the transformative change we’re fighting for and it’s exhausting, it’s frustrating.”

Bosveld said that with leaders being unable to acknowledge the issues, they can’t be the one to fix them.

“They need to go back, have another kick at the can, and… say, ‘Look, we don’t know how to do a good job at this, we don’t know how to get it done, we need Black folks in these conversations and in these reflections so that we can talk about this lens and where the community members are coming from and eliminating these barriers.’ Because this is not good enough.”

Participants in the review reported that they do not believe the City’s internal investigators understand or have any substantive knowledge about anti-Black racism, and that they fail to recognize discriminatory behaviours directed at Black employees as such.

Many participants expressed that the complaints they raised about potentially discriminatory conduct were not sufficiently addressed or investigated by their supervisors or HR.

In addition, union staff expressed frustrations related to not being adequately represented by their unions when they have brought forward allegations of anti-Black racism and discriminatory practices.

While there is a “Human Rights Advisor”, a new position created in 2021, which sits as part of the Employee and Labour Relations team within the Human Resources division of the Corporate Support Services department, accessing– or even trusting them– is another issue.

The review notes that there is no clear direction or understanding regarding how work should be delineated between HR professionals and the Human Rights Advisor.

There is currently no clear or written process in place that sets out how employees can access the Human Rights Advisor’s services. Additionally, to make a complaint or raise a concern with the Advisor, they will have to submit complaints to HR, at which point the HR Business Partner may exercise their discretion to refer a complaint.

The Human Rights Advisor has typically only investigated complaints that involve potential corporate liability, such as complaints that address the policies and the Code of Conduct.

Since there is a significant lack of confidence in HR among employees, the affiliation has led to some employees becoming similarly distrustful of the Human Rights Advisor’s ability to carry out fair and fulsome investigations.

Still, many employees expressed that they remain hopeful that the Human Rights Advisor can act as an avenue to direct complaints that were “sidelined” by HR and management.

The report said that investigations training was provided to HR Business Partners, HR Associates, Labour Relations Associates, and Senior Labour Relations Advisors over the course of only four days in 2020.

This was the first time training on conduct of investigations was provided, and participants responded to the training with some resistance because they felt “burdened by having to follow the processes covered in the training.”

It is unclear whether similar investigations training has been provided to supervisors and members of management, who may also act as investigators under the policies.

The training did not address how to triage complaints and investigate with an anti-oppressive approach.

Some HR professionals have been reported to prejudge allegations or hold adversarial attitudes towards complainants, to the extent that they may steer a complaint resolution process or investigation towards a particular conclusion. In one example given in the review, a participant in HR recalled HR Business Partners referring to certain employees as “problem employees” and saying things such as, “We can get them on X.”

Participants reported that HR professionals may have breached their confidentiality obligations regarding complaints, which may lead to reprisal against the staff who made them.

Williams HR Consulting Inc. stated that failure by the City to consistently prevent and address breaches of confidentiality and reprisal seriously undermines procedural fairness.

Participants reported that racialized employees are also more often subjected to excessive discipline where allegations against them have been substantiated, relative to non-racialized employees, suggesting that corrective action is not imposed in a fair and impartial manner.

The Pointer reached out to City Hall communications for interviews with Transit, Community Services, Fire and Emergency Services and the Equity Office, but did not receive a response.

Email: jessica.durling@thepointer.com

Twitter: @JessicaRDurling

COVID-19 is impacting all Canadians. At a time when vital public information is needed by everyone, The Pointer has taken down our paywall on all stories relating to the pandemic and those of public interest to ensure every resident of Brampton and Mississauga has access to the facts. For those who are able, we encourage you to consider a subscription. This will help us report on important public interest issues the community needs to know about now more than ever. You can register for a 30-day free trial HERE. Thereafter, The Pointer will charge $10 a month and you can cancel any time right on the website. Thank you

Jessica Durling, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

UN humanitarian official urges attention to drought in Kenya


TURKANA, Kenya (AP) — A top United Nations humanitarian official has raised concern about people going hungry in a remote part of northern Kenya, joining calls for the international community to commit more resources to address the wider region's drought crisis.

Martin Griffiths, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said he saw families in Kenya’s Turkana region that have nothing left after their animals starved to death. Turkana is an epicenter of the drought affecting parts of the East African country.

“The world's attention is elsewhere, and we know that,” Griffiths said during a visit to the region Thursday. “And the world's misery has not left Turkana, and the world's rains have not come to Turkana, and we've seen four successive failures of the rains.”

Griffiths and other humanitarian representatives visited a pastoralist community in Turkana’s Lomuputh area as part of efforts to draw attention to the humanitarian challenge stemming from the drought.

“Lomoputh deserves our attention," Griffiths said, noting that children scavenging for fruit to eat need help “to have the slightest possibility to survive to the next day.”

Related video: Horn of Africa drought drives 20 million towards hunger 


Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the drought conditions a national disaster in September 2021.

Some residents of Lomoputh spoke to The Associated Press of their desperate need for food aid.

“I have not received any help, and this child has not eaten anything since yesterday," Jecinta Maluk, a mother of five children, said. “This is the main problem.”

The extreme drought in Kenya, where 3.5 million people are affected by severe food insecurity and acute malnutrition, has excacerbated the factors causing people to go hungry.

The U.N. warned earlier this year that an estimated 13 million people are facing severe hunger in the wider Horn of Africa region as a result of persistent drought conditions. Malnutrition rates are high in the region, and drought conditions are affecting pastoral and farming communities.

Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya face the driest conditions recorded since 1981, the U.N. World Food Program reported in February.

Somalia is seen as particularly vulnerable. About 250,000 people there died from hunger in 2011, when the U.N. declared a famine in some parts of the country. Half of them were children.

Associated Press, The Associated Press

Electricians give Ford PCs full endorsement for re-election

 In this election, while public sector unions are backing the NDP and Liberals, building trades unions are moving to the PC Party.

Brian Lilley - 
© Provided by Toronto Sun

A major construction union that once fought the Progressive Conservative Party in multiple elections is now offering their full endorsement for the June 2 vote.

The IBEW Construction Council of Ontario, representing electricians across the province, has issued a statement saying Doug Ford and his team deserve to be re-elected.

It’s the third major construction union to endorse the PCs since the election began.

“Premier Ford has proven over the last four years that he not only supports and understands the needs of the electrical trades but has backed it up with positive and meaningful action that is unprecedented in our union’s history,” union executive James Barry said.

The union represents approximately 18,000 members in various locals across Ontario.

Barry cited the hard work of Labour Minister Monte McNaughton in the decision to endorse the PC Party. He said the government has put a tremendous emphasis on safety and training including for apprentices.

“The Ontario PC government not only gave us a voice, they also gave us a seat at the table and they actually listened,” Barry said.

The government has put a strong emphasis on getting more people into the skilled trade in Ontario including adding curriculum measures in high schools, bringing recruiters into schools for career day and helping people transition from social assistance with second career opportunities. The change in tone and attitude has led to a cooperative rather than confrontational relationship between the government and the building trades sector which is now bringing political rewards for McNaughton and Ford.

IBEW were once major funders of the Working Families Coalition, a collection of unions in Ontario that ran successful campaigns against the PCs in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2014. In the last election after backing the Liberals for so many years, the coalition stayed silent. In this election, while public sector unions are backing the NDP and Liberals, building trades unions are moving to the PC Party.

LiUNA, the labourers union, was the first to endorse and encourage their more than 80,000 members to help re-elect Ford. Last week, the Boilermakers, also former backers of Working Families, gave their support to a second Ford mandate.

HASSLE STUDENTS BUT NOT TRUCKERS

‘Aggressive’ Ottawa police response to high school dress code protest draws criticism

MY FIRST HS STRIKE  WAS OVER DRESS CODE
Sean Boynton - Friday

© Michaela Thivierge/Facebook

A still from social media video shows police at the site of a student protest outside Béatrice-Desloges Catholic High School in Ottawa on May 13, 2022.

Ottawa police are being criticized for their response to a student protest outside a Catholic high school over a dress code "blitz," particularly in contrast to how they responded to the "Freedom Convoy" blockade earlier this year.

Students held a large protest outside Béatrice-Desloges Catholic High School in Orléans during lunch break Friday, a day after students say teachers called several female students out of class for alleged violations of the school dress code.

Protesters said Thursday's "blitz" explicitly targeted females, who were taken to the principal's office to have their shorts and skirts measured by -- and in front of -- male and female staff members.

"They were getting us to bend over and touch our toes to prove our underwear wasn't showing, and were touching the inside of our thighs to measure us -- which is sexual assault, because we did not consent," said Cloé Dumoulin, a student at the school.


Dumoulin and another student, Cheyenne Lehouillier, said up to 60 students were told to change clothes or to go home and come back with a different outfit. None of the students targeted were male, they said, who were also wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts due to the 30-degree weather.

The pair were among more than 100 students who mounted a demonstration in front of the school Friday against staff's treatment of the students. Many wore shorts in protest.

Read more:

Ottawa police have not charged woman who danced on Tomb of Unknown Soldier

Police said in a statement they responded to what they called a "disturbance" at the school around 11:30 a.m. in order to assist staff. They said one person was arrested "for causing a disturbance and trespassing," but was later released without charges, adding that person was not a student at the school.

However, videos posted to social media showed police putting hands on more than one person as they responded to a group of students who were protesting across the street in solidarity, according to Dumoulin and Lehouillier.

Those students were seen in the videos yelling loudly at police, including one person who was seen being taken by officers to a police car where he was pushed up against the side of the vehicle and later handcuffed and placed inside the cruiser.

"He didn't even touch (the officer)," Dumoulin said. "(The officers) were being so aggressive, telling everyone if they crossed the street they would get a fine. It was way over the line."

The French Catholic school board, the Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est, said they could not verify who called police.

A spokesperson confirmed none of the students who had altercations with police were from Béatrice-Desloges.

The police response quickly prompted outcry from social media users, as well as concern from elected officials in the city.

City Coun. Catherine Kitts, whose ward includes Béatrice-Desloges, questioned the police handling of the students and youth attending the protest in light of how police responded to the convoy that blockaded city streets for three weeks in January and February.

"After everything that our city has been through recently and to see a pretty hands-off approach to those protests, and then to see this happen, I absolutely think there should have been greater de-escalation," she told Global News.

"I think as long as there wasn't a threat to the safety of other students, it was not dealt with appropriately."

City councillors and residents admonished police during the "Freedom Convoy" protests for not doing enough to quell noise, including incessant horn blasts that lasted throughout the night and disturbed downtown residents.

Reports also emerged from local residents soon after the convoy's arrival on Jan. 28 describing encounters with participants that they said constituted abuse, harassment, intimidation and hateful conduct.

It took police an additional week after the federal government invoked the never-before-used Emergencies Act until the blockade was finally cleared in late February.

When pressed by Global News as to what necessitated their response to Friday's student protest, Ottawa police sent along the definition of a "disturbance" as outlined in the Criminal Code.

The Code defines a disturbance in part as "fighting, screaming, shouting, swearing, singing or using insulting or obscene language" -- a definition Kitts agrees applies as much to the convoy protests as it did to the student demonstration.

"If they were there (on Friday) to just control the crowd, then I don't understand why hands were placed on any individual," Kitts said.

Kitts said she has spoken with interim Chief Steve Bell and plans to raise the issue further with police and the school board.

The Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est said in a statement in French that it "takes very seriously" the allegations against teachers enforcing the dress code blitz, and has sent two officials to the school to meet with students and staff.

The spokesperson said the board and the school will "continue to dialogue" about the dress code to "ensure that a positive, healthy and safe learning environment is provided for all students."

Dumoulin and Lehouillier said while superintendent of education Jason Dupuis apologized to students for the way the blitz was conducted, school staff have yet to apologize.

The students say until an apology is made and meaningful changes to the dress code and its enforcement are announced, they and other schools are planning a walkout next Tuesday.

"We just want to know that our voices were heard, and that they're going to do something about it," said Lehouillier. "Because this was not OK."

-- with files from Global News' Amanda Connolly