October 25, 2006
Michael Smyth of CKNQ News Talk 980 in Vancouver will speak to Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy about the Highway of Tears on Wednesday October 25th at 8:30 p.m. PST on Nightline BC.
October 13, 2006
The Frontline Club in London will screen “The New Apartheid” on Monday October 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
Immigrants are victims as ‘apartheid’ returns to South Africa
October 13, 2006
By Sharmeen Obaid Chinnoy in Diepsloot, South Africa
Published: 13 October 2006
As dawn breaks over Zimbabwe, Douglas Foster and five other men crouch behind a fence, waiting for a South African border police patrol to pass. Shivering in the cold September rain they wriggle their way through three sets of fences to enter South Africa illegally. Desperate to escape the spiralling poverty in Zimbabwe, they risk everything to join millions of other African immigrants in one of the continent’s most economically prosperous nations.
No one knows how many illegal immigrants there are in South Africa. A recent census suggested 1.1 million, but the real figure is almost certainly far higher. They come from all over the continent - Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo - but their growing numbers are causing a major backlash, leading to what some describe as a second apart-heid. Xenophobia is on the rise and in the past three months more than 32 Somalis have been killed.
Article Length: 516 words (approx.)
Television: Friday, Oct 13 -The Times
October 13, 2006
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SOUTH AFRICA: THE NEW APARTHEID
October 13, 2006
Friday 13 October 2006 7.35pm
Sunday 15 October 2006 4.35am (R)
The Zimbabweans say they are fleeing a collapsing state, where President Mugabe’s policies have driven the economy into crisis and where earning enough to feed their families is impossible. However, the South Africans blame them for a crime wave and accuse them of causing unemployment.
White farmers in the Limpopo border region tell Unreported World that the immigrants are perpetrating brutal farm murders and poaching their game. The team films several farmers taking the law into their own hands by rounding them up, tying them together and handing them over to the police.
It’s not just the farmers who believe these migrants are fuelling a crime wave. The team moves on to Johannesburg and films with police in one of the city’s most dangerous areas. They accompany officers who routinely use plastic bullets to round up suspected illegal immigrants.
Those they catch are sent to the Lindela detention centre. The team interview a group of Congolese men who accuse the guards of severely beating them. Another inmate laments that South Africans have forgotten the support that their “African brothers” gave them during the days of Apartheid and accuses black South Africans of being the “biggest racists in the world”.
The team then travel to the suburb of Diepsloot where the local South African business community has written an extraordinary letter to Somalian shopkeepers asking them to leave. The shopkeepers - who say they’re asylum seekers rather than illegal immigrants - fear they will suffer similar violent attacks to those suffered by other immigrant communities.
A group of protestors gathers, demanding that South Africa should be for South Africans only. One woman tells Unreported World that black South Africans fought long and hard to gain their freedom that these benefits are now being stolen by illegal immigrants.
The team are then allowed to film on board a train returning 400 Zimbabwean illegal immigrants back to the border. Some are so desperate to remain, that they throw themselves from the moving train during the night. Almost all say they will be back in the country within a few days. Given the ever-worsening economic environment in Zimbabwe they say they have no other choice.
October 13, 2006
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy will be speaking about the Highway of Tears story on co-op radio 102.7 fm in Vancouver on Oct 20 (Friday) between 8:20 and 8:28 am PDT.
October 13, 2006
On 13th October 2006, “The Independent” Newspaper (UK) published a story about illegal immigrants in South Africa by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy.
Immigrants are victims as ‘apartheid’ returns to South Africa
By Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy in Diepsloot, South Africa
Published: 13 October 2006
As dawn breaks over Zimbabwe, Douglas Foster and five other men crouch behind a fence, waiting for a South African border police patrol to pass. Shivering in the cold September wind they wriggle their way through three sets of fences to enter South Africa illegally. Desperate to escape the spiralling poverty in Zimbabwe, they risk everything to join millions of other African immigrants in one of the continent’s most economically prosperous nations.
No one knows how many illegal immigrants there are in South Africa. A recent census suggested 1.1 million, but the real figure is almost certainly far higher. They come from all over the continent - Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo - but their growing numbers are causing a major backlash, leading to what some describe as a second apart-heid. Xenophobia is on the rise and in the past three months more than 32 Somalis have been killed.
Poor South Africans say that they are competing for resources with illegal immigrants. In Diepsloot, a sprawling, densely populated township of 120,000 people north of Johannesburg, Somali-owned businesses have been torched and looted several times this year. Two months ago, Johannes Seloane of the South African Business Forum of Diepsloot wrote a letter to the Somali shopkeepers asking them to leave immediately or face consequences. For now, most of them have chosen to stay.
“I cannot stop my people from resorting to violence,” he said. “It’s been two months now and they haven’t left. My people are getting tired of them.”
Hajir Omar, a Somali who came to Johannesburg in 1994 and now owns a grocery store in Diepsloot is scared of what may happen. He said: “I left the fighting in Somalia but now I’m facing the same thing here in South Africa. What do I do? I have nowhere to go.”
Not far from his shop a crowd gathered to sing protest songs. Neda Jiyane, a 30-year-old mother of two children, said: “South Africa is for South Africans only. We fought for this South Africa, now it is for us, the freedom is for us and not for illegals.” Another woman used a loudspeaker to urge the crowd to go from shack to shack. “Demand to see their passports and identification documents, if they don’t have them, destroy their shacks,” she said.
As Channel 4’s Unreported World reveals in “South Africa: The New Apartheid”, illegal immigrants are being increasingly blamed for everything, from the high crime rates to soaring unemployment. In Hillbrow in Johannesburg, one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in South Africa, Senior Superintendent Koos Van Rhyn said: “Zimbabweans deal in stolen goods and they are very much involved in street robberies.” Twice a week, his team rounds up suspected drug dealers and robbers, almost all of them illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe or Nigeria. “It’s easy for them to hide,” says Mr Van Rhyn. “We don’t have their names, finger prints or photographs.”
Five hours north of Johannesburg near the border with Zimbabwe, white farmers have taken things into their own hands. They believe the local police are corrupt and incapable of arresting the hundreds of Zimbabweans who cross into the country illegally every day, so they do it themselves. Annette Kennealy, an artist and farmer’s wife, said Zimbabweans are responsible for a rise in crime. “Farm murders are probably the biggest thing and I think because they have nothing to lose they’ve become easy to co-opt into doing these things.”
Unreported World - South Africa: The New Apartheid, Channel 4, 7.35pm tonight
October 13, 2006
On Tuesday October 24th, 7 p.m. Amnesty International will screen Highway of Tears at the Pacific Cinematheque, (1131 Howe Street)in Vancouver.
Road to racism - Prince George Citizen
October 11, 2006
Northern B.C. has a long way to go before it can call itself squeaky clean when it comes to racism.
That revelation might not surprise many people, particularly those belonging to visible minorities, but the evidence put forth by a documentary filmmaker visiting the region is startling and paints a less-than-flattering portrait.
Filmmaker/reporter Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy of Toronto has completed a documentary on the murders and disappearances of mostly aboriginal women along Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert — the so-called Highway of Tears. Chinoy has borrowed the name for the title of her 21-minute film, which is scheduled for broadcast on TV in Europe and on the Qatar-based al-Jazeera International TV service. Screenings are also scheduled in Vancouver, Toronto and Smithers, but not yet in Prince George.
Discussing the production of the film with reporter Frank Peebles in Tuesday’s Citizen, Chinoy was struck by the overt bigotry she encountered in the region.
Chinoy said she was asked more than once why she would bother to film a documentary on the murdered and missing women when most of them were native prostitutes or drug addicts out hitchhiking, as if they were asking to die a violent death.
“Would they say the same thing if 10 or 12 local white girls were raped or murdered or disappeared on the same road?” asked Chinoy
The question hangs heavy, and the answer is obvious.
Chinoy enjoys a detachment from “white” Canada. She is Pakistani-Canadian and only moved to Toronto from New York last year. She was also surprised no other documentary on the Highway 16 murders was in the works.
The sad fact is, the prejudice Chinoy encountered along Highway 16 is no different than what she would have found almost anywhere in Canada.
Chinoy’s film will, it is hoped, change the narrow, callous mindset of those who questioned her reasons for creating it and the relevance it would have.
To that end, Chinoy focused not on the murders and disappearances and who is responsible, but on the women and their families left behind.
Her aim is to present people who laugh, who cry, who ache and who love their children as much as anyone loves theirs.
“I wanted to bring these girls back to life, to some extent, and portray the feelings of the families who have to wonder every day, ‘Is my child right there in that ditch?’ and everyone they pass on the street: ‘Is this the person who murdered my little girl?’” said Chinoy, whose reporting has earned her awards around the world.
The filmmaker attempts to show us that these women were not disposable objects.
We can only hope the film is screened throughout northern B.C. and wipes out destructive, preconceived ideas. One problem, however, is that those who cultivate those notions may be the least likely to see it.
But if it leads to a better understanding and greater empathy in this region for the plight of those left behind, it will have achieved more than perhaps even the filmmaker imagined.
– Editor Dave Paulson
©Copyright 2006 Prince George Citizen
October 11, 2006
On Saturday October 28th 2006, Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival will screen Highway of Tears at the NFB Cinema at 6 p.m in Toronto.