Rights Back At You Amnesty International Canada

Borders have long been sites of colonial enforcement about who can come and go and how Indigenous peoples are treated. Canada is no exception. Increasingly, governments look to technology to make potentially life-or-death decisions about whether a person fleeing danger should be allowed to cross a border. What happens when that technology reinforces bias and makes unreliable choices?

Gyasi Symonds filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission after being street checked by Halifax Police. He won. Despite his victory, street-level surveillance and carding are still widespread across Canada. A movement to defund the police and invest in the community has erupted from coast to coast. We pass the mic to grassroots groups to hear about where they want funding to go, and what new worlds we can imagine.

Rowa Mohamed showed up to support her neighbours at an encampment eviction and was injured by police during the protest. Her experience of violence is not unusual - Black Muslim women are often treated with suspicion, like they don’t belong. What happens when people “fight crime” with home surveillance technology and treat their own neighbours as suspects?

What does the future of harm reduction look like for communities that are already overpoliced and surveilled? In Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, we connect with harm reduction activist Hugh Lampkin who saves lives with naloxone and community building. We investigate how drug criminalization impacts Black people in Canada, and visit the MySafe machine, a palm-scanning smart dispensing machine for drugs.

After posting a photo on the internet from a Black Lives Matter protest, Derrick Ingram’s apartment was surrounded by the New York Police Department. It seemed like they had tracked him down using facial recognition. If police can use surveillance technology to target activists like Derrick, will people think twice about speaking out?

Amnesty International Canada examines anti-Black racism, policing, and surveillance in a brand new podcast, Rights Back At You, hosted by Daniella Barreto. We delve into stories of resistance and meet the people making change unstoppable. From facial recognition and the right to protest to the war on drugs and defunding the police, this series connects the dots and passes the mic to people building a better future now. Together, we unravel the Canada you think you know and challenge the systems that hold back human rights.