A white man from South Africa has been given refugee status in Canada after claiming persecution, his lawyer said, angering many in his home country, where race remains a highly sensitive issue.
A Canadian immigration board panel issued its ruling late last week in the case involving Brandon Carl Huntley, lawyer Russell Kaplan said.
Kaplan said on Tuesday this was likely the first time a white South African had been granted refugee status in Canada, claiming persecution from black South Africans.
The Immigration and Refugee Board refused to comment on the case or to release the decision. Board spokesman Stephane Malepart said he was barred from commenting on any individual case by privacy provisions.
Malepart said the board is an independent tribunal that operates at arm’s length from the Canadian government.
Huntley argued that whites are targeted by black criminals in South Africa and that the government does nothing to protect them.
He said he had been attacked seven times during attempted robberies and muggings.
Kaplan, a South African native who moved to Canada 20 years, said tribunal panel chair William Davis ruled that Huntley would stand out like a “sore thumb” because of his color in any part of South Africa and that Kaplan’s fears of persecution were justified based on the evidence he submitted.
In his its written decision, Davis said “I find that the claimant was a victim because of his race (white South African) rather than a victim of criminality.”
It also said that Huntley “has presented clear and convincing proof of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect him.”
The news of the Canadian panel’s ruling made headlines and was a topic for call-in radio programs in South Africa on Tuesday.
Ronnie Mamoepa, spokesman for South Africa’s immigration ministry, said Huntley’s “claims were aimed at tarnishing the good name of black and white South Africans ... and were racially motivated.”
He also said that “it would have been courteous for the Canadian government to allow the South African government to respond to these claims.”
The governing African National Congress (ANC) said the government was working hard to curb crime.
ANC spokesman Brian Sokutu said: “We find the claim by Huntley to have been attacked seven times by Africans due his skin color without any police intervention sensational and alarming.”
“Canada’s reasoning for granting Huntley a refugee status can only serve to perpetuate racism,” he said.
In an editorial on Tuesday, the Johannesburg daily the Times said: “News that Canada has granted a white South African refugee status because his life is in danger at the hands of his black countrymen is shocking and saddening. It says more about Canadian perceptions than South African reality.”
But AfriForum, a white lobby, has asked Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the South African immigration minister, to look into the cause of white emigration and to take seriously the claim by Huntley’s lawyer that he “presented a clear and convincing proof of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect him.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not