Saudi bombing incident to usher a more bothersome airport frisking
Shashank Shekhar
If removing your shoes and the belt at security checkpoints bothered you, wait till the frisks become more intimate.
The attempt to murder Prince Mohamed bin Nayef in Saudi Arabia has left several questions unanswered besides opening a pandora box of security concerns. The incident showed that human bombs can evade airport frisking repeatedly and reach the most secured of establishments thus raising security questions which will sooner or later result into a tighter security at the airports especially in the Middle East.
The kingdom has been quiet on Abdullah al Asiri the Saudi bomber who “gave himself up”, and even the best known analysts on Middle East have not been able to sketch out the exact details of the incident.
Whatever information the world has about the incident has come from the Saudi press agencies. And several questions still remain unanswered. Theodore Karasik, the Director (Research) at Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) enumerated them down on being asked.
“How could Abdullah penetrate though so many layers of security? Was the device really hidden inside his body? Is Al Qaeda adopting drug smuggling techniques to deliver a bomb? How was it triggered?” Karasik asked almost in a breadth.
The second question among the ones enumerated is perhaps the most important considering that if the bomb could evade security checks because it was brought in inserted in a human body (as banned drugs are still sneeked in), it would make the entire security check procedure prevalent across the world a joke. “This incident may make travel even more miserable for people who were critical of being asked to remove their shoes during security checks,” Karasik said.
The incident was a brutal reminder of a similar incident in 1975 when King Faisal was killed by his own cousin during such a gathering.
Prince Nayef had been spearheading the efforts to win back Saudis who had strayed into extremist organisations particularly Al Qaeda. Nayef ensured individual attention to each of the returnee and had been recognised the world over for his job. Karasik says that this precisely was the reason for the Prince emerging as the target of the top Al Qaeda leadership. “They wanted to show that his programme for rehabilitation is a failure,” Karasik said. That the attacker had been flown in from Yemen also showed the deep roots that Al Qaeda has been able to establish in the war torn country.
The attack came after two important incidents. A fortnight earlier, on August 19, the Saudi authorities announced the arrest of 44 suspected militants with Al Qaeda ties following a year-long operation that also uncovered dozens of machine-guns and electronic circuits that could be used to trigger explosions.
In what was the country’s first trial for terrorists, in July a Saudi Court a Saudi court sentenced one militant to death and 329 to prison. Among other punishments, it also imposed fines and travel bans. Human rights groups have condemned the way the suspects were held for long periods without any serious charges leveled against them.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Middle East web-journalists battle oppression
Middle East web journalists battle oppression
Shashank Shekhar
Blogging has been termed the future of journalism in the western world. But it’s in the Middle East that it has become popular and as several incidents point out -- dangerous.
An attraction to online journalism comes primarily from the fact that it allows free flow of write-ups sans the much detestable directives, censorship and editing that the journalists from mainstream local media have to succumb to.
The internet has also enhanced the strength of the otherwise rudderless social groups in the region as the success of a strike called by Facebook bloggers in Egypt the last year showed.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in its recent report said that five Middle Eastern and North African countries are among the world's worst online oppressors. It accused the governments of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia of intimidating and imprisoning journalists and bloggers.
Toppers of the infamous list came from deep within Asia. Military Junta ruled Burma was called the worst oppressor in the world for its severe restrictions on the use of internet. CPJ accused Communist China of having the most elaborate online censorship policies.
Iran was listed as the Middle East's worst suppressor of freedom of expression. Omidreza Mirsayafi, an Iranian blogger, was cited by the CPJ report as having died in prison under mysterious circumstances.
What’s impressive is the pace at which online journalists are beginning to stand against subjugation. According to an earlier study by the CPJ, 45 per cent of all imprisoned media workers world wide are bloggers, web-based reporters, or online editors. Numerically, of the 125 journalists currently imprisoned around the world, some 56 are web-based journalists and writers. CPJ says 2009 marks the first time the number of jailed online writers surpasses the number of detained print journalists.
Though deplorable, the arrests highlight one important fact -- that online journalists, with no direct links to state controlled and state scared media houses are being taken seriously. Web journalism has particularly spread its roots in Arab countries that are not oil and gas rich. Bloggers in countries like Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia are increasingly becoming assertive in exposing human rights issues like police brutality, torture, and sexual harassment. This has made the autocratic regional governments undertake increasingly aggressive means to curb their growth.
Punishments handed out to bloggers have been severe. In 2007, Kareem Amer was given a four-year sentence for 'insulting' Egypt's president. Thirty-two-year-old Saudi national Fouad al Farhan was arrested in December 2007 and his computers seized for criticising the pace of reforms in the kingdom. He was held in solitary confinement at Dahban prison in Jeddah until his release in late April 2008.
In Syria, blogger Tariq Baissi was sentenced to three years in prison under ridiculous charges of "weakening the national feeling and the national ethos". Biassi had posted a six word long comment in a web forum in which he criticised the Syrian security services. Numerous other cyber dissidents remain behind bars in Syria.
In Tunis, Nazira Rijba, a Tunisian writer and activist, was in late 2008 charged over an article she wrote in support of the Tunisian news website Kalima. The website has been subject to censorship by the Tunisian authorities.
Nevertheless, bloggers in the Middle East are making their voices heard. In Egypt, they took an active part in organising protests against the government and in launching an anti-corruption campaigns in Libya.
They have exposed the grim realities of everyday life in war-torn Iraq. In the Gulf, female bloggers are increasingly going online calling for change in a display of growing gender equality. Arab bloggers continue to break cultural and religious taboos. They now discuss the social and political malaise plaguing the Arab world. The most important change that the internet has been able to inculcate is perhaps the spirit of inquisitiveness. Blogging has allowed people to ask questions on a range of issues from sex, religion and technology to the particularly stingy questions on government reforms.
Shashank Shekhar
Blogging has been termed the future of journalism in the western world. But it’s in the Middle East that it has become popular and as several incidents point out -- dangerous.
An attraction to online journalism comes primarily from the fact that it allows free flow of write-ups sans the much detestable directives, censorship and editing that the journalists from mainstream local media have to succumb to.
The internet has also enhanced the strength of the otherwise rudderless social groups in the region as the success of a strike called by Facebook bloggers in Egypt the last year showed.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in its recent report said that five Middle Eastern and North African countries are among the world's worst online oppressors. It accused the governments of Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia of intimidating and imprisoning journalists and bloggers.
Toppers of the infamous list came from deep within Asia. Military Junta ruled Burma was called the worst oppressor in the world for its severe restrictions on the use of internet. CPJ accused Communist China of having the most elaborate online censorship policies.
Iran was listed as the Middle East's worst suppressor of freedom of expression. Omidreza Mirsayafi, an Iranian blogger, was cited by the CPJ report as having died in prison under mysterious circumstances.
What’s impressive is the pace at which online journalists are beginning to stand against subjugation. According to an earlier study by the CPJ, 45 per cent of all imprisoned media workers world wide are bloggers, web-based reporters, or online editors. Numerically, of the 125 journalists currently imprisoned around the world, some 56 are web-based journalists and writers. CPJ says 2009 marks the first time the number of jailed online writers surpasses the number of detained print journalists.
Though deplorable, the arrests highlight one important fact -- that online journalists, with no direct links to state controlled and state scared media houses are being taken seriously. Web journalism has particularly spread its roots in Arab countries that are not oil and gas rich. Bloggers in countries like Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia are increasingly becoming assertive in exposing human rights issues like police brutality, torture, and sexual harassment. This has made the autocratic regional governments undertake increasingly aggressive means to curb their growth.
Punishments handed out to bloggers have been severe. In 2007, Kareem Amer was given a four-year sentence for 'insulting' Egypt's president. Thirty-two-year-old Saudi national Fouad al Farhan was arrested in December 2007 and his computers seized for criticising the pace of reforms in the kingdom. He was held in solitary confinement at Dahban prison in Jeddah until his release in late April 2008.
In Syria, blogger Tariq Baissi was sentenced to three years in prison under ridiculous charges of "weakening the national feeling and the national ethos". Biassi had posted a six word long comment in a web forum in which he criticised the Syrian security services. Numerous other cyber dissidents remain behind bars in Syria.
In Tunis, Nazira Rijba, a Tunisian writer and activist, was in late 2008 charged over an article she wrote in support of the Tunisian news website Kalima. The website has been subject to censorship by the Tunisian authorities.
Nevertheless, bloggers in the Middle East are making their voices heard. In Egypt, they took an active part in organising protests against the government and in launching an anti-corruption campaigns in Libya.
They have exposed the grim realities of everyday life in war-torn Iraq. In the Gulf, female bloggers are increasingly going online calling for change in a display of growing gender equality. Arab bloggers continue to break cultural and religious taboos. They now discuss the social and political malaise plaguing the Arab world. The most important change that the internet has been able to inculcate is perhaps the spirit of inquisitiveness. Blogging has allowed people to ask questions on a range of issues from sex, religion and technology to the particularly stingy questions on government reforms.
A pronounced criminal Al Bashir looks set to evade justice
A pronounced criminal Al Bashir looks set to evade justuce
Shashank Shekhar
It’s hard to analyse whether any punishment will be enough for the heinous crimes that Sudan’s president Omar Al Bashir has been a party to. But then, the International Criminal Court (ICC) verdict delivered months ago has at least, made the stand of a rational legal system clear. Al Bashir is now a criminal unacceptable on much of the soil outside Sudan. The trouble is that as months pass by, the opinion that had once built up against him is getting gradually diluted.
Amidst the numerous calls for replacing Al Bashir, one very important fact is being missed. That hypothetically, if Al Bashir indeed does get arrested on one of his trips abroad, the ethnic tribes who have suffered so far, will be tortured even more. And then, his likely replacement, the former Vice President Hassan Al Turabi who is accused of having once invited Osama bin Laden to Sudan, may turn the beautiful country into a terrorist’s paradise.
In what sets a precedent for future attempts to bring powerful oppressors to justice, prosecutors did not mince words when they spoke about Al Bashir’s horrendous crimes. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told reporters at that Sudan’s president had stooped to the lowest levels of humanity while perpetrating ethnic cleansing. Forced starvation and soul-destroying gang rapes are a part of Al Bashir’s horrendous strategy in Darfur's genocide Ocampo said.
Al Bashir’s policies of hate are admonished by Muslims within the Arab world. In a debate organised in Doha by journalist Tim Sebastian on whether the Arab world was doing enough to contain the Darfur crisis, the lone Sudanese participant, Sirajuddin Hamid Yousuf, the director of crisis management department at the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was cornered off and almost asked to shut-up by a predominantly Arab crowd. Even Ahmed Ibrahim Diraige the former governor of Darfur had strongly castigated the Sudanese government. Nadim Hasbani a Lebanese Muslim and an Africa specialist at International Crisis Group who turned emotional in describing the magnitude of the events in Darfur, emerged the hero of an hour long session which was later broadcasted on the BBC.
Curious as it may seem, none of the Arab states have denounced Al Bashir. Equally intricate has been the role of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia in fermenting the crisis. Janjaweed the government backed militia needs funds to operate. Accusations have been leveled in the past that funds from the oil rich nations has flowed to the Janjaweed coffers.
Moreno Ocampo filed 10 charges against Al Bashir related to a campaign of rapes and murders that allegedly has claimed 300,000 lives and driven 2.5 million people from their homes. Those who have survived the vicious campaign are in danger from Janjaweed and the Sudanese Army personnel. Three ethnic groups of Sudan -- Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa-- have lost all their belonging due to vicious campaign and are surviving on handouts from the government.
A three-judge panel was expected to take two to three months to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.
Sudan denounced the indictment as a political stunt, saying it would ignore any arrest order and was considering a military response to the verdict. While it was not announced against whom will such a response be directed, going by the Sudan’s history, it’s apparent that UN forces and foreign aid agencies will be at the receiving end.
In fact, a Sudanese parliamentarian has already said that his government could no longer guarantee the safety of U.N. staff in the troubled region. All the more, it ordered Doctors Without Borders a Noble Prize winning group out of its frontiers. Oxfam and Mercy Corps are the other two groups that have been recently expelled.
Al Bashir, who has ruled Sudan for 19 years, appears invulnerable in his capital, though an international warrant would leave him open to arrest outside Sudan, restricting his travel and putting him in a category of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who faces a U.N. travel ban.
Al Bashir came to power through a coup in 1989. Since then he has introduced elements of Sharia law which are opposed by the mainly Christian and animist rebels in the south.
His career has been marked as much by the civil war with the forces of rebel leader John Garang, as by his power struggle with Hassan Al Turabi, an erstwhile ally.
While Al Bashir faces admonition the world over, there are two issues that reflect a conflicting view of his persona. One: He has opposed Al Qaeda in Sudan and two he has been able to bring economic growth in his country. Opposition to Al Qaeda, in fact, put him at loggerheads with Al Turabi. Therefore, it remains difficult for the international community to make out whether Bashir’s removal from the post (which may never happen!) will improve or worsen things for Sudan.
Shashank Shekhar
It’s hard to analyse whether any punishment will be enough for the heinous crimes that Sudan’s president Omar Al Bashir has been a party to. But then, the International Criminal Court (ICC) verdict delivered months ago has at least, made the stand of a rational legal system clear. Al Bashir is now a criminal unacceptable on much of the soil outside Sudan. The trouble is that as months pass by, the opinion that had once built up against him is getting gradually diluted.
Amidst the numerous calls for replacing Al Bashir, one very important fact is being missed. That hypothetically, if Al Bashir indeed does get arrested on one of his trips abroad, the ethnic tribes who have suffered so far, will be tortured even more. And then, his likely replacement, the former Vice President Hassan Al Turabi who is accused of having once invited Osama bin Laden to Sudan, may turn the beautiful country into a terrorist’s paradise.
In what sets a precedent for future attempts to bring powerful oppressors to justice, prosecutors did not mince words when they spoke about Al Bashir’s horrendous crimes. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told reporters at that Sudan’s president had stooped to the lowest levels of humanity while perpetrating ethnic cleansing. Forced starvation and soul-destroying gang rapes are a part of Al Bashir’s horrendous strategy in Darfur's genocide Ocampo said.
Al Bashir’s policies of hate are admonished by Muslims within the Arab world. In a debate organised in Doha by journalist Tim Sebastian on whether the Arab world was doing enough to contain the Darfur crisis, the lone Sudanese participant, Sirajuddin Hamid Yousuf, the director of crisis management department at the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was cornered off and almost asked to shut-up by a predominantly Arab crowd. Even Ahmed Ibrahim Diraige the former governor of Darfur had strongly castigated the Sudanese government. Nadim Hasbani a Lebanese Muslim and an Africa specialist at International Crisis Group who turned emotional in describing the magnitude of the events in Darfur, emerged the hero of an hour long session which was later broadcasted on the BBC.
Curious as it may seem, none of the Arab states have denounced Al Bashir. Equally intricate has been the role of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia in fermenting the crisis. Janjaweed the government backed militia needs funds to operate. Accusations have been leveled in the past that funds from the oil rich nations has flowed to the Janjaweed coffers.
Moreno Ocampo filed 10 charges against Al Bashir related to a campaign of rapes and murders that allegedly has claimed 300,000 lives and driven 2.5 million people from their homes. Those who have survived the vicious campaign are in danger from Janjaweed and the Sudanese Army personnel. Three ethnic groups of Sudan -- Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa-- have lost all their belonging due to vicious campaign and are surviving on handouts from the government.
A three-judge panel was expected to take two to three months to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.
Sudan denounced the indictment as a political stunt, saying it would ignore any arrest order and was considering a military response to the verdict. While it was not announced against whom will such a response be directed, going by the Sudan’s history, it’s apparent that UN forces and foreign aid agencies will be at the receiving end.
In fact, a Sudanese parliamentarian has already said that his government could no longer guarantee the safety of U.N. staff in the troubled region. All the more, it ordered Doctors Without Borders a Noble Prize winning group out of its frontiers. Oxfam and Mercy Corps are the other two groups that have been recently expelled.
Al Bashir, who has ruled Sudan for 19 years, appears invulnerable in his capital, though an international warrant would leave him open to arrest outside Sudan, restricting his travel and putting him in a category of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who faces a U.N. travel ban.
Al Bashir came to power through a coup in 1989. Since then he has introduced elements of Sharia law which are opposed by the mainly Christian and animist rebels in the south.
His career has been marked as much by the civil war with the forces of rebel leader John Garang, as by his power struggle with Hassan Al Turabi, an erstwhile ally.
While Al Bashir faces admonition the world over, there are two issues that reflect a conflicting view of his persona. One: He has opposed Al Qaeda in Sudan and two he has been able to bring economic growth in his country. Opposition to Al Qaeda, in fact, put him at loggerheads with Al Turabi. Therefore, it remains difficult for the international community to make out whether Bashir’s removal from the post (which may never happen!) will improve or worsen things for Sudan.
Menard’s exit from DCMF raises questions on Doha’s ‘Free press’ stand
Menard’s exit from DCMF raises questions on Doha’s ‘Free press’ stand
Shashank Shekhar
It’s not often that a media institution in the Arab world, particularly the Gulf takes a stand against the government of the soil it operates on. Not even Al Jazeera, the fancy symbol of the Middle East’s ‘free the press’ revolution.
So when the Director of Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF) Robert Menard spoke against the Qatar government it came as a surprise. The DCMF, after all, was established and funded by the Qatar government.
The result of Menard’s statement, that came summarily, was not surprising. Out of frustration, Menard left the Centre along with his mostly French team. The Centre aspired to help journalists with serious threat to their lives. In its year long operation it rescued journalists from Iran and Sudan. It funded an independent news agency for Somali journalists, provided bulletproof jackets in Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan, opened a press centre in Gaza and supplied newsprint to newspapers in Guinea-Bissau. The centre was established on the initiative of Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, the wife of the Emir of Qatar. In line with the Gulf’s tendency of hiring the most suitable, Menard, the founder of Paris based Reporters Without Borders was appointed its first Director.
Much in line with how staunchly independent media organisations operate, the DCMF began expressing its views freely. It spoke when a delay in official formalities led to a delay in rescuing an Afghan journalist whose life was under threat. When the news of the journalist being killed came, Menard lost his mercurial journalistic temper. He cried foul and sent out releases criticizing Qatari authorities responsible for the delay.
A few months later, the DCMF said that it was shocked that the Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir was allowed to take part in the Arab League meeting in Doha (held in March this year).
There is a warrant of arrest pending against Al Bashir from the International Criminal Court. Al Bashir, a former military official is accused of being legally responsible for murdering, raping and torturing civilians in Darfur, driving them from their homes and pillaging their property.
"Although Qatar has not ratified the International Criminal Court's Statute, and despite its vital role in mediation between Darfur and the Sudanese government, welcoming President Al Bashir to the Arab League summit is a blow to international justice", the Doha Centre said in a communique. The release was perhaps the first ever document issued from the within Qatar that was critical of the Qatari government.
"We cannot approve of the ICC Prosecutor's intervention over crimes committed by Israel in Gaza and complain about it when a friendly country is involved. By doing so, the Arab countries are themselves applying the double standards they have complained about so often in Palestine," the release that surprised journalists (it was not used in the local newspapers) in Qatar said.
The Centre opposed vehemently when one of its officials was detained at the Doha airport and cried foul whenever authorities in Doha delayed the very task it was created for – helping provide a safe exit to journalists under threat from their regime.
Ultimately, on June 23, Menard and his team left Doha. "The Centre has been suffocated. We no longer have either the freedom or the resources to do our work," Menard said in a statement that was issued from Paris by the Centre’s former Chief of Communications Sara Kianpour. That the statement was released from Paris affirms that even Menard was apprehensive whether he would face problems leaving Qatar incase he spoke against the government from within its frontiers.
Surprising as it may seem, he blamed Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, the President of the Board of Al Jazeera for blocking flow of funds to his organization. Apparently, the Qatar government routed its funds to DCMF through Al Jazeera, its symbol for promoting free press. The angst-ridden missive that Menard had sent to all the journalists who had in the past come in contact with the centre spoke volumes on double standards that prevail in a country that has fared well on several other counts like education and distribution of wealth to its citizens.
“Some Qatari officials never wanted an independent Centre, free to speak out without concern for politics or diplomacy, free to criticise even Qatar. How can we have any credibility if we keep quiet about problems in the country that is our host?” Menard asked questions that he knew will never be answered.
“I was willing to make any necessary compromises as long as the foundations of our work – assistance grants, statements of opinion - were safeguarded. But that is no longer the case.”
Shashank Shekhar
It’s not often that a media institution in the Arab world, particularly the Gulf takes a stand against the government of the soil it operates on. Not even Al Jazeera, the fancy symbol of the Middle East’s ‘free the press’ revolution.
So when the Director of Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF) Robert Menard spoke against the Qatar government it came as a surprise. The DCMF, after all, was established and funded by the Qatar government.
The result of Menard’s statement, that came summarily, was not surprising. Out of frustration, Menard left the Centre along with his mostly French team. The Centre aspired to help journalists with serious threat to their lives. In its year long operation it rescued journalists from Iran and Sudan. It funded an independent news agency for Somali journalists, provided bulletproof jackets in Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan, opened a press centre in Gaza and supplied newsprint to newspapers in Guinea-Bissau. The centre was established on the initiative of Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned, the wife of the Emir of Qatar. In line with the Gulf’s tendency of hiring the most suitable, Menard, the founder of Paris based Reporters Without Borders was appointed its first Director.
Much in line with how staunchly independent media organisations operate, the DCMF began expressing its views freely. It spoke when a delay in official formalities led to a delay in rescuing an Afghan journalist whose life was under threat. When the news of the journalist being killed came, Menard lost his mercurial journalistic temper. He cried foul and sent out releases criticizing Qatari authorities responsible for the delay.
A few months later, the DCMF said that it was shocked that the Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir was allowed to take part in the Arab League meeting in Doha (held in March this year).
There is a warrant of arrest pending against Al Bashir from the International Criminal Court. Al Bashir, a former military official is accused of being legally responsible for murdering, raping and torturing civilians in Darfur, driving them from their homes and pillaging their property.
"Although Qatar has not ratified the International Criminal Court's Statute, and despite its vital role in mediation between Darfur and the Sudanese government, welcoming President Al Bashir to the Arab League summit is a blow to international justice", the Doha Centre said in a communique. The release was perhaps the first ever document issued from the within Qatar that was critical of the Qatari government.
"We cannot approve of the ICC Prosecutor's intervention over crimes committed by Israel in Gaza and complain about it when a friendly country is involved. By doing so, the Arab countries are themselves applying the double standards they have complained about so often in Palestine," the release that surprised journalists (it was not used in the local newspapers) in Qatar said.
The Centre opposed vehemently when one of its officials was detained at the Doha airport and cried foul whenever authorities in Doha delayed the very task it was created for – helping provide a safe exit to journalists under threat from their regime.
Ultimately, on June 23, Menard and his team left Doha. "The Centre has been suffocated. We no longer have either the freedom or the resources to do our work," Menard said in a statement that was issued from Paris by the Centre’s former Chief of Communications Sara Kianpour. That the statement was released from Paris affirms that even Menard was apprehensive whether he would face problems leaving Qatar incase he spoke against the government from within its frontiers.
Surprising as it may seem, he blamed Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, the President of the Board of Al Jazeera for blocking flow of funds to his organization. Apparently, the Qatar government routed its funds to DCMF through Al Jazeera, its symbol for promoting free press. The angst-ridden missive that Menard had sent to all the journalists who had in the past come in contact with the centre spoke volumes on double standards that prevail in a country that has fared well on several other counts like education and distribution of wealth to its citizens.
“Some Qatari officials never wanted an independent Centre, free to speak out without concern for politics or diplomacy, free to criticise even Qatar. How can we have any credibility if we keep quiet about problems in the country that is our host?” Menard asked questions that he knew will never be answered.
“I was willing to make any necessary compromises as long as the foundations of our work – assistance grants, statements of opinion - were safeguarded. But that is no longer the case.”
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