From: "renee boje"
To: freerenee@...
Subject: RB: US/Canadian Pot Refugee Decision
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:55:55 +0000

Contact: Renee Boje 604-215-7973

Please spread far and wide...

September 23, 2004

For Immediate Release:

The Canadian Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler, is about to announce his
decision regarding an international precedent setting case concerning
cannabis refugee applicant Renee Boje. Renee is currently living in Canada
with her Canadian husband and Canadian born 2 year old son, where she is
fighting the US Government's efforts to extradite her to an American federal
prison where she faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to life for
her minor involvement with a state approved medical cannabis garden. This
was the first Federal raid on a California medical Garden after the State
voters passed proposition 215, the Federal Government does not recognize
this State law and all medical defense is not permitted in trial. (The
details of Renee's case can be found at: http://www.reneeboje.com ).

Renee's case is now on appeal to the Canadian Minister of Justice, where it
has sat undecided for over 4 years now. Several Justice Ministers have been
in office since the appeal was filed and none of them have opted to make a
decision about Renee's case, until now. The current Minister of Justice,
Irwin Cotler, has indicated that he will be deciding Renee's fate and her
extradition lawyer, John Conroy, feels that decision is going to come down
sometime in the next 4 months. Renee and her lawyer were sent the last
disclosure packet from the Minister's office which lists the final
submissions entered in by the US authorities concerning Renee and Renee's
own final submissions.

After reviewing the disclosure package, Renee and her lawyer are concerned
because Immigration Canada sent a letter to the Minister of Justice stating
that they do not feel Renee will receive cruel
and inhumane treatment if she is sent back to a US Federal Prison, despite
Amnesty International and the UN's current campaigns against the violence
that women face in US prisons today. (This report can be viewed at:
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/women/report0.html )

Renee has expressed her own opinion to the Minister of Justice on that
matter, in a letter, which is included along with this press release. In
this letter, Renee has also asked the Minister of
justice to consider the fact that she is a religious user of cannabis when
making a decision about her fate.

Renee and her family are asking the public to email the honorable Irwin
Cotler and express their support of Renee being allowed to remain in Canada
with her family, where she is safe and free. (Information regarding the
email campaign to the Minister can be found at http://www.reneeboje.com ).
*******************************************************************************
September 13, 2004

Dear Honorable Irwin Cotler,

I am writing to you in regards to my extradition case between myself and the
US government. As you are aware, I am hoping that you will allow me to
remain here in Canada where I am free and safe from the cruel and inhumane
treatment which I will face if I am sent back to the US Federal Prison for
Women in Los Angeles, California.

I would like to address two matters in this letter:

1. Before making your decision about my fate, I am hoping you will now also
consider the fact that I am a religious user of cannabis.

Before meeting my husband, Chris Bennett, in 1997, while I was reading his
first book, "Green Gold the Tree of Life; Marijuana in Magic and Religion" I
had a spiritual experience which I now consider to have been an epiphany
about the sacredness of the cannabis plant. At that point, I had been
smoking cannabis for 4 years and felt on a deep level that this herb was
helping me, not only on a physical level, but on a mental and spiritual
level as well. The moment that I first consumed cannabis, in Amsterdam at
the age of 23, I felt I connected with the spiritual essence of the plant
and was filled with an overwhelming sense that this herb was connecting me
with my own higher self or spirit.

Since I was a young girl I often contemplated what my higher divine purpose
here on earth was and, in particular, how I could contribute to the healing
of the earth. I felt that because cannabis was a
meditative aid in helping me to connect with my higher self that it would
also help me to find the answer as to what my higher path was here on Earth.
So I continued to use it as a meditative tool. After a while, I realized
that cannabis was healing the depression and anxiety I suffered from since I
was a young girl as well and that I had lost my desire to consume alcohol or
cigarettes, because I no
longer found them to be productive substances in my life. I realized that
this herb had a positive, healing effect in my life and began to view it
with great reverence.

When I read Chris's book it validated all of my own personal feelings toward
the plant and I felt strongly that cannabis was in fact "the tree of life",
a sacred herb grown here on the earth for
the "healing of the nations". I truly felt, in my heart, that I would one
day meet the author of this book, which touched me in such a profound
spiritual way and that this meeting would somehow be
significant for my spiritual path.

In the Summer of 1999, Chris and I spoke, for the first time, over the
telephone during a radio interview that we happened to be scheduled for on
the same radio show back to back. Chris and I were briefly on the air
together and I felt that this was a sign that I would meet him while I was
here in Canada.

One day, I showed up at the Pot TV studios where I worked regularly on a
show I hosted there called "The Healing Herb Hour" and while I was editing
my show, Chris walked into the studio. The manager of the studio introduced
us and said that Chris would now be working at Pot-TV. After working
together, Chris and I quickly became friends, a couple of months later we
began dating and in December of 2001 we were married. As you know we now
have a 2 & 1-2 year old son
together, named Shiva who we love more than life itself.

Not only did meeting Chris change my life, but as I predicted, meeting him
was also significant for my spiritual path. When he and I met, we began
using cannabis as a sacrament together and
practicing Gnostic religious ceremonies together. A few months later, I
became a convert in Gnosticism, which is the religion that Chris has been
practicing for many years now. I was officially sworn into a sect of
Gnosticism, known as the Church of the Universe by Chris who is a Minister
of the Church of the Universe. Both he and I view cannabis as a sacrament
and consider it to be a vehicle for connecting with the divine. We also feel
that the sacred cannabis plant brought us together and when we were married
we created a beautiful gnostic cannabis wedding ceremony together, done in
the style of the ancient Hieros Gamos fertility ceremonies.

I ask that you please consider the fact that I am a religious user of
cannabis before making a decision about whether or not to extradite me to
the US to serve the mandatory minimum of 10 years to life that I face there.
I believe it would be a violation of my rights as a human being to be sent
to prison for something that I use as a sacrament for my religion.

2. I would like to address the letter that was sent to you by the Canadian
Immigration Office, which I have included for you along with this letter for
your reference, in which they state that they do not feel I will receive
cruel and inhumane treatment if I am sent back to a US Federal Prison and
that Amnesty International and the UN's current campaigns against the
violence that women face in US prisons today are just based on a few
isolated incidents and not an overall view of the US prison system as a
whole.

First of all, it is shocking to me that the Immigration officers would even
make such a statement after reading what the Amnesty International ,the UN
and the Human Rights Watch reports reveal about the inhumane way that women
are treated in US prisons. To me, it is obvious that three highly respected
and well established organizations such as these would not condemn prisons
for women in the US if they did not feel there was a strong need to do so.
These organizations fight for the human rights of all people who live on
this planet and it is unlikely that they would condemn anything if there was
not sound reason to do so. If what Immigration Canada is saying is true,
that these reports are just based on a few isolated incidents, I don't feel
organizations like Amnesty, the UN and Human Rights Watch would waste their
valuable time, money and resources fighting an entity as large and as
powerful as the US prison system.

Second, after reading through the reports on the prison conditions that
women are enduring in US prisons today, it is my view that the opposite case
is true and that the reports are actually based on
an overall view of the US prison system and not just on a few isolated
incidents. I suspect that the Immigration officers who expressed this view
to you are doing so because they want to please
the US authorities by sending me back in order not to upset the political
relationship between Canada and the US.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, which I have included with this
letter for your reference, in US prisons, "male guards can take down or look
over a curtain, walk into a bathroom, or observe a women showering or
changing her clothes. Male guards are also allowed to do body shakedowns
where they run their hands all over the women's bodies."

The following are some excerpts from the Human Rights Watch reports which
show that sexual and physical abuse are rampant in US prisons for women:

"In Michigan, as in the other jurisdictions we investigated, the custodial
sexual abuses and misconduct reported in All Too Familiar took many forms.
Male corrections employees vaginally, anally, and orally raped female
prisoners and sexually assaulted and abused them. In the course of
committing such gross abuses, male officers not only used actual or
threatened physical force but also abused their near-total authority to
provide or deny goods and privileges to female prisoners to compel them to
have sex or to reward them for having submitted to sexual acts."

"...male officers used mandatory pat-frisks or room searches to grope
women's breasts, buttocks, and vaginal areas and to view them
inappropriately while in a state of undress in the housing or bathroom
areas. Male corrections officers and staff also engaged in regular verbal
degradation and harassment of female prisoners, thereby contributing to a
custodial environment that was-and as this report documents, continues to
be-highly sexualized and excessively hostile."

"The issues in Michigan are in many ways representative of those facing
corrections departments throughout the U.S. One of the clear contributing
factors to sexual abuse in U.S. prisons for women is that the United States,
despite authoritative international rules to the contrary, allows male
corrections employees to hold contact positions over women prisoners, that
is, positions in which they serve in constant physical proximity to the
prisoners of the opposite sex.. male officers working in women's prisons now
outnumber their female counterparts by two, and in some facilities three, to
one."

I question whether or not the officers at Immigration Canada actually read
through all of the horrific findings from the Amnesty, UN and Human Rights
Watch reports, because why would anyone choose to send a woman to a prison
which treats women with such cruelty and disrespect, especially a woman who
is being persecuted for her involvement with a plant? We are not living in
the dark ages anymore, when women were imprisoned, tortured and raped for
their association with plants and herbs and often burned at the stake.

It is important to remember that many of the prison guards at the notorious
Abhu Gharib prison held similar positions as prison guards in civilian life.
There were also horrific abuses and torture acted out by US prison guards in
a Texas jail this year, with their baton beatings and use of attack dogs on
naked American prisoners, which were carried out because the guards claim to
have smelled marijuana smoke in the air. This incident directly mirrors the
abuses and torture meted out by sadistic “rent-a-soldier” prison guards at
the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. I have included a video for you, of the
abuses and tortures which took place in the Texas prison, to review, along
with this letter. (This Video footage can also be found on-line here:
http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-2680.html ).

I am also wondering if the officers at Immigration Canada have reviewed the
report which was included in my disclosure package, which I have also
included for your reference along with this letter, about the prison that I
would be sent to if I was extradited to the US. This report was written by a
prison researcher who has researched the prison that I would be sent to if I
am extradited back to the US. In this letter, the researcher points to an
example of a young woman who, in the middle of the night, was taken by force
by some male guards in the prison to the male section of the prison where
she was handcuffed to the bars and sodomized, beaten and raped by many of
the male prisoners there as well as the guards, who initiated this violent
act in the first place. According to Amnesty International & the UN,
violence and rape are common occurrences in US prisons for women.

When I was first arrested and spent some time in that prison myself, I was
shocked by the fact that there were male guards in a female prison. I had no
idea that this was even allowed before that. I
figured that would be against the rules in any humane prison system. I was
horrified by the way that these men treated me there. Not only did some of
these men watch me while I was being strip searched on two occasions that I
am aware of, but they repeatedly made rude sexual gestures toward me and
they also verbally harassed & threatened me by shouting out what sort of
sexual things they planned to do to me if I became a prisoner there for
good. I was terrified to be left under the care of these sinister men. It
was the scariest experience of my life and I felt as if my very life was in
danger. When I was finally released on bail the first thing I told my lawyer
was that I wanted to file a sexual harassment suit against the Prison. He
replied that the first thing we had to do was to fight the charges that were
being laid against me, to ensure that I would not have to spend another day
in that terrifying place.

In their letter to you, Immigration Canada also said that they felt if I was
abused while in prison in the US, I would be able to deal with that issue
there. But, Amnesty International, the UN and Human Rights Watch have
revealed that most women who complain of abuse while in prison in the US are
abused further in order to intimidate the women from speaking out again. I
have included two Human Rights Watch reports on this subject as well as a
newspaper articles on this subject for you to review.

The following are excerpts from the Human Rights Watch report which I found
to be particularly frightening:

"Virtually all of the women incarcerated in Michigan who were interviewed
for All Too Familiar and who had lodged complaints of sexual harassment or
abuse have suffered some form of retaliation by the accused officer, his
colleagues, or other inmates. In some cases, they have also faced punishment
by corrections officials."

"...loss of phone and visitation privileges, being locked up in one's own
cell, or being placed in punitive segregation. After an inmate accumulates
several violations, her security status may change with wide-ranging
implications, and she may face loss of "good time" accrued toward early
release."

"If a guard has been reported by an inmate for sexual abuse, he may turn to
his colleagues for assistance in retaliating against her...As long as the
accused guard does not issue the tickets himself, he can insulate himself
from any suspicion of retaliating against the inmate." The tickets they are
referring to here are given to prisoners as punishments and once a prisoner
gets a certain amount of them, they are given a corresponding punishment
which matches the amount of tickets they have.

"we found that women believed they were being sent a clear message by the
guards and the corrections department: any attempt to protect themselves
from sexual abuse by reporting it would result in punitive actions by
guards. As these guards wield near-absolute power over the women,
retaliation can be devastating to the women's security, health, and
psychological well-being. We documented threats of physical harm, abusive
pat-frisks, verbal harassment, and trumped-up misconduct tickets that
resulted in women being denied visitation rights with their families and
losing the chance of early release from prison. By failing to monitor
vigorously for retaliatory behavior and to discipline guards and employees
who participate in retaliatory behavior, the corrections department sends a
message to both the women and the guards that corrections employees may
abuse, harass, threaten, and harm women with impunity."

"Incarcerated women are not the only people suffering the consequences of
the Michigan Department of Corrections' failure to stop sexual abuse and
retaliation. Their families and, in particular, their children are
victimized. A direct or indirect result of many of the forms of retaliation
is that the women's visitation privileges are curtailed or, in some cases,
completely cut off. This not only has a devastating impact on the women, who
subsequently suffer social isolation and depression, but also on their
children who suffer the adverse consequences of being deprived of the
opportunity to build an ongoing relationship with their mothers and on
family members who may be struggling to maintain family unity."

"Even as the number of incarcerated persons rises, remedies for human rights
and civil rights violations are being legislatively and judicially
curtailed."

"In December 1996 Human Rights Watch released All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse
of Women in U.S. State Prisons, a report documenting pervasive sexual
harassment, sexual abuse and privacy violations by guards and other
corrections department employees in state prisons in California, the
District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, and New York.1 The report
also exposed the failure of states to respond to women's reports of sexual
abuse and harassment. The failure was twofold: states failed to conduct
impartial investigations of allegations of sexual abuse, and they further
failed to protect women who reported these abuses to prison authorities,
leaving them vulnerable to retaliation by guards."

"Since the publication of All Too Familiar, Human Rights Watch has continued
to receive reports of sexual abuse of and retaliation against women
incarcerated in jails, state prisons, and federal prisons. We have been
particularly disturbed by reports of an apparent campaign by some
corrections officers of retaliation against several of the women in Michigan
prisons who are active in the ongoing civil litigation against the
Department of Corrections alleging widespread sexual abuse by guards and
staff."

"In South Dakota, a class action suit was brought challenging widespread
physical abuses against girls detained at the State Training School. The
suit charged that guards routinely shackled youths in spread-eagled fashion
after cutting off their clothes, sprayed them with pepper spray while naked,
and routinely placed them in isolation for twenty-three hours each day for
extended periods. Although the state government conducted an investigation
of juvenile detention facilities in 1999, it did not implement any reforms
to end abusive policies and practices."

"Sexual abuse against women by correctional officers remained widespread
despite new laws prohibiting it and greater public awareness of the problem.
A U.S. government study in December 1999 found pervasive allegations of
sexual abuse and misconduct by corrections officers. Criminal prosecutions
of abusive staff appeared to increase."

"In Michigan, however, legislators passed a law that took effect in March
that exempted prisoners from the protection of the state civil rights act,
which prohibits discrimination based on race and gender. Through this
legislation, Michigan suppressed prisoners' efforts to seek redress for
sexual abuse through lawsuits against the Corrections Department"

"In California, although a law went into effect in January that increased
the criminal penalties for sexual misconduct, the state failed to ensure
that women could safely report abuse. Women prisoners in one California
prison, for example, claimed that their cells were ransacked and personal
items damaged or taken after they reported abuse. Others reported being held
in "protective" custody pending investigation of their "allegation."

"...the Prison Litigation Reform Act, that bars lawsuits by inmates seeking
damages for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody where there
is no proof of significant physical injury."

"Under the court's ruling, inmates cannot sue for humiliation, mental
torture or non-physical sadistic treatment by guards unless, in effect, they
have broken bones or blood to show for it."

I have also included along with this letter, for your review, a copy of a
short article which appeared in the newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle,
in August of 2002 and which focuses on how the media and legal workers are
now barred from California prisons. I found the following excerpts to be
particularly revealing:

"Now, the California Department of Corrections is proposing to place another
brick in the wall surrounding our 33 state prisons -- this time barring
certain legal workers and advocates from meeting with their clients behind
bars. If the goals are to shield prisons from public oversight and limit the
poor's access to the courts, the state is right on track with regulations
that would ban most nonprofit advocacy groups from working inside state
prisons."

"The proposed regulations go on to compromise attorney-client
confidentiality, permitting the state to visually monitor meetings between
prisoners and non-lawyer legal representatives."

"These organizations provide important tools and assistance to prisoners and
are often the only link a prisoner has to the few human rights protections
still afforded them."

"With the media and now legal workers increasingly barred from California's
prisons, one has to wonder if there's anyone left to monitor what goes on
inside."

I am certain that if I am returned to the US authorities I will be forced to
serve decades of my life in federal prison. I am sure that I would be given
a much longer sentence then the 10 year mandatory minimum sentence that I am
guaranteed to serve there. Remember I can receive up to life and in the US,
once a person is considered a fugitive, if the US authorities manage to
catch that person, they always add much more time to their sentence. I am
also certain that the guards in the prison would retaliate against me for
speaking out about the violence that is infilicted upon women in US prisons
today.

I ask that you please review again all of the details of the Amnesty
International and the UN reports on the violence that women face in US
prisons today and that you consider my own well being because I fear for my
life if I am sent to a US prison. I do not believe I would withstand this
type of torture and cruelty. I do not feel that any woman should have to
endure such archaic, inhumane and violent conditions. I believe it would
shock the conscience of the Canadian public to send me to a prison system as
dark and dangerous as the American prison system. I pray with every fiber of
my being that you will allow me to remain here in Canada where I am safe. I
could not bear to be separated from my husband, my son, my friends and the
life I have created for myself here. I want nothing more than to be able to
live here in this beautiful country which I have grown to love so much and
which I would be proud to call my home.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Renee Boje
http://www.reneeboje.com
rboje@...


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From: "renee boje" <rboje@...>
To: ccc-members@yahoogroups.com, freerenee@...
Subject: RB: Pot Refugee support letters
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 14:38:22 +0000

Hello friends,

Just wanted to give Irwin Cotler's address to everyone, since I forgot to do
so with the press release I sent out yesterday.

If you are able to send an email to the Minister expressing your support for
my remaining free in Canada, please cc the email to myself and to my lawyer
John Conroy. Here are the email addresses:

Cotler.I@...
jconroy@...
rboje@...

Thank you!
In unity & love,
Renee
http://www.reneeboje.com

----end of forwarded emails-----

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There is a forum thread about these email messages:
http://www.cannabisculture.com/forums/showflat.php?Number=954659

Drug War Prison Gulags (mostly in USA). Revised links list. Horrors of the prison industrial complex. Brutality of police, prisons, guards. The Drug War aspects, connections, links, causes, politics, etc.. Brutality, scapegoating, war crimes, investigations, coverups, news stories, groups, activism, etc..
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/gulags.htm and
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/gulags.htm and
http://corporatism.tripod.com/gulags.htm and
http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/gulags.htm

Also, Kay Lee frequently documents cases of prison brutality. She has many webpages. Her email messages link to many of them. Her posts are archived here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/drugwarnews

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