This is the second instalment in a series about the Karen Harrison persecutions. It may be a three or four part series, depending on how some matters still in progress turn out.
Karen is fifty years old and has spent her life doing peace, women's rights, and antipoverty organising work in Toronto, and helping the Buddhist community to establish itself in the city. She has been nominated for a Nobel prize for her work for world peace. She was one of the principle organisers of the abortion rights campaign in Toronto, among many other things.
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Karen is a qualified Buddhist teacher, with a position in a Buddhist temple that translates in English as a 'reverend' or as a 'minister of religion'. As a good Buddhist, she does not like to talk about her achievements, but she has a reputation, among the few people still around from Toronto activist circles of the 1980's, for getting things done.
She has cancer; a tumour that is relatively benign but occasionally acts up and causes her some pain.
While she was working at the University of Toronto, she was sexually assaulted. The police claimed not to believe her and she ended up banned from U of T property. In recent years other women connected with that university have made similar complaints about the same individual.
For a decade, she has been subjected to an accelerating political stalking campaign. There are people who wish her ill. Somehow they have been able to find each other and co-ordinate their activities. The police have been strangely disinterested in responding to her pleas for help.
Yet the same police service very aggressively arrested and prosecuted her on plainly spurious charges. While she was in jail and unable to organise her defence, she was convicted by was one of these strange judges who seem always to preside over cases in which the police take a 'special interest'.
a one week break
After a year, Karen had served the time she was sentenced to, and was let out of jail but on strict and unconstitutional conditions. Karen's sister had helped herself to Karen's property and has refused to return it. She would prefer that Karen die or at least be so discredited with their parents that she will no longer share in their substantial inheritance.
Another blow; her credit union has stolen the money she had in her account.
A week after being released, Karen was arrested again. She had been staying at a hostel run by the Buddhist community. One night this hostel was full, so she stayed at her parent's home. Her sister phoned Dave Meslin, who phoned this strange policeman, Terkstra, who came to Karen's parents house in the middle of the night and re-arrested her.
second incarceration
She was in jail for another year, for violating terms of probation. She began a hunger strike. She nearly died from it.
The jail authorities conceded some of her demands for better treatment for herself and others trapped in the jail. Some guards tried to protect her, and and asked "why are you in here? You aren't a criminal".
Despite being in jail, and having very little support from the outside, she found a better lawyer and was able to get released. An old activist friend, now an octogenarian, posted bail for her. He had been a witness in her favour at her trial for supposedly harassing Dave Meslin. He knew she was with him, visiting his dying wife in hospital, when the prosecution said she was somewhere else harassing Meslin. He was not listened to.
rolling the boulder up the hill.
Karen was released again, in a weakened state from her hunger strike, onto the street. She was forced to live for a time with her sister and her sister's husband. The bad sister had managed to make herself a joint bail surety in order to keep better control over her victim. In six months, Karen was able to find a job and a suite, and re-establish her life.
But as 'bail conditions' are designed to do, they set her up for the next incarceration. She was denied legal aid funding to appeal the conviction, further setting her up for rearrest. She began the appeal process herself, but was interrupted by reincarceration on the new accusations from Matthew Behrens.
She came out again, after two months, in July of this year. She still had her suite but her property was again removed by her sister. Documents she needed to build her appeal case were missing.
She found out about an initial hearing on her appeal only a few days before, because the appeal court did not know where she had been. She requested six months to adequately prepare her case. The judge scheduled a new hearing in three weeks time, which was to be before a panel of three judges, to decide whether to put off hearing the appeal.
Three weeks later there was no panel of three judges, just one obviously biased one. He agreed that the bail condition that she could not even talk to anyone about Dave Meslin was unconstitutional, but refused to even hear why Karen needed time to prepare ordered 'the crown' to proceed.
Karen told him that her respect for justice could not allow her to remain in the court and participate in an unjust process, but that she was not giving up her appeal. She walked out. The judge was visibly stunned, but dismissed her appeal.
some justice at last.
The next court date was her hearing for violation of parole. She could, at least theoretically, have been sent back to jail for four and a half years. But on this occasion she had a judge who was a judge.
Terkstra had closely watched every one of her court appearances, except the appeal where there was no chance of getting her rearrested. But he saw how things were going at this court and ducked out early.
It was a very crowded court room, with an angry judge repeatedly dressing down an unrepentant 'crown attorney' for proceeding with all these parole violation charges he could not prove. The drone of legal proceedings was frequently punctuated by the judge's sharp "charge is withdrawn". One more relieved individual flew out the door, reducing the crowd a little more.
Karen's case came up. The 'crown' indignantly sputtered that no, he could not actually prove the case against her, but... Another abrupt "charge is withdrawn" and Karen was out the door.
Now, finally, she has something to strike back with. They had held her in jail for a year on parole violation, and there had been no violation. The terms of the parole did not, as Terkstra chose to interpret them, specify where she could reside.
Now she has a law suit against 'the crown'. But she still has to stay out of jail. The police and their toadies do not seem to be deterred much by defeat in court, as we shall see in part three.
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