Peace Activists Denied Access Into Canada Because Of Arrest Record In FBI-Run Database

[bigtree]

Travel By Iraq War Protestors Restricted

NIAGRA FALLS, N.Y.
Oct. 4, 2007

AP -- Peace activists Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright have been arrested in the U.S. while protesting the Iraq war, but they never dreamed that would prevent them from entering Canada.

The arrests landed Benjamin's and Wright's names in an FBI-run database, the National Crime Information Center, which Canada also relies on to screen visitors. When the two women visited the country in August, they were told they would have to apply for "criminal rehabilitation" and pay $200 if they wanted to visit again. Neither did.

On Wednesday, Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, and Wright, a retired Army colonel, walked into Canada at Niagara Falls to test whether they really would be denied entry because of their anti-war-related arrests.

They were.

Now, Benjamin and Wright are asking why the names of people arrested during peaceful protests would be included in an FBI-maintained database meant to track fugitives, potential terrorists, missing persons and violent felons.

"We are certainly no threat to the Canadian people," Benjamin said.

Benjamin said she and Wright, who resigned as a senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in 2003, planned to protest at the Canadian embassy in Washington on Thursday and to ask the FBI to remove the protest charges from the NCIC database.

The protesters believe the inclusion of activists' names in the database is a form of political intimidation of people opposed to Bush administration policies . . .

report: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/04/national/main3328846.shtml?source=RSSattr=U.S._3328846

[BridgeTheGap]

1. Squelching of dissent? Absolutely!

Part of the core foundation of fascism. Welcome to the "New World Order!"

[babylonsister]

2. Beyond our ken, or at least mine. Peace sucks-arrest them! nt