[LINK] "9,000 'ordinary people' flee Mexican drug war"

The article "9,000 'ordinary people' flee Mexican drug war" by Marina Jiménez alarmed me.

A record number of Mexicans are fleeing to Canada, claiming their own country cannot keep them safe as it struggles to contain a grisly narcotics war that is spilling into nightclubs and restaurants.

There are currently 9,070 Mexican refugee claimants waiting to have their cases heard, the largest number yet from one country since the Immigration and Refugee Board was established in 1989.

[. . .]

In several rulings perused by The Globe and Mail, the IRB believes the claimants' horrifying tales of violence, but rejects their claims on the grounds they must turn to their own country for protection.

Recently, though, the Federal Court of Canada has overturned a half-dozen decisions, questioning how ordinary Mexicans can seek protection from the state when police officers are corrupt, or under fire themselves.

Gadiel Flores Angeles, a taxi driver from Mexico City whom police kidnapped, beat and extorted money from, won a new hearing last month.

Judge Douglas R. Campbell pointed out the impossibility of Mr. Angeles and his wife turning to the Mexican police or state for protection "when the agents of persecution are the ... police."

[. . .]

Mexico has been Canada's top source country for refugees for the past four years, with Mexicans now making up one-third of all refugee claimants. However, the acceptance rate for Mexicans is just 11 per cent, compared with an overall acceptance rate of 34 per cent.

I'm surprised that there are only nine thousand applicants. Canada's Mexican-Canadian of some twenty thousand may well be poised for massive growth.

[LINK] Toronto Zombie Walk 2008

blogTO (1, 2) and Torontoist (1) both offer retrospectives of Toronto's 2008 zombie walk.

The photos are great, aren't they?

[FORUM] What do you think about criminalizing some types of HIV transmission?

This Canadian Press article provides information on the latest stage in the sad story of Johnson Aziga and his criminal transmission of HIV to his sexual partners.

The unprecedented murder trial of a man accused of having unprotected sex with numerous women despite knowing he carried the virus that can lead to AIDS began Monday with the prosecution saying he lied to his partners about his health status.

Johnson Aziga, 52, of Hamilton, faces two counts of first-degree murder because two of his girlfriends died of what the Crown says were HIV-related cancers, along with 11 counts of aggravated sexual assault.

"One may immediately think of a violent rape scenario," prosecutor Tim Power told the three-woman, nine-man jury.

"That is not what this case is all about."

Rather, Power said in his opening statement, Aziga put his partners at risk of serious bodily harm without their knowing, even having sex with one woman on the morning of his arrest in August 2003.

Seven of his 11 partners tested positive for HIV, including the two who died.

[. . .]

Power told court that evidence will show Aziga, an immigrant from Uganda, knew in January 1997 he had tested positive for a strain of HIV rarely found in North America, but failed to tell his partners.

Despite several counselling sessions on the risks of transmission and two public health orders that he inform partners about his status and use condoms during sex, he did not do so, Power said.

In addition, when some of the women asked him directly - including one who initially used condoms with him - if he had the human immunodeficiency virus, he said no.

I blogged about this back in 2005. I still feel that if Aziga did know that he was infected with HIV, and if despite repeated warnings he not only chose to engage in unprotected sex but he chose to lie about his HIV status to his partners, he should certainly be sent to jail. Precedent already exists, in the 1998 R vs. Cuerrier, that the non-disclosure of HIV status in the context of unprotected sex automatically makes said sex act a prosecutable offense, sexual assault or somesuch thing.

What do you think?