For immediate release (Calgary, Ottawa, June 13, 2019) The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA), Parks Canada and the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund (CFWWIRF) invite you to attend the official opening of a new educational and commemorative exhibit marking one of the historic internment sites of Canada’s First World War internment operations. Located west of the town of Field, B.C., Camp Otter in Yoho National Park was occupied by some 200 internees unjustly interned as enemy aliens from 1915-1916 under the War Measures Act. During Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914 to 1920, more than 8,000 men, as well as some women and children, were sent to 24 camps across Canada, including camps in Banff, Jasper, Mount Revelstoke and Yoho national parks. The event will take place Saturday, June 22 at 1 p.m. (MT) near the Natural Bridge in Yoho National Park, B.C. (Driving directions). UCCLA worked collaboratively with Parks Canada and the CFWWIRF to create the new exhibit recognizing Canada’s first national internment operations within the national parks system, after the previous exhibit at the Natural Bridge in Yoho National Park required extensive upgrading. “Reconciliation requires recognition, and so we are grateful to Parks Canada and the Government of Canada for acknowledging the wrongs done to Ukrainians and other Europeans during Canada’s first national internment operations,” said UCCLA’s Borys Sydoruk. “The unveiling of this exhibit will teach and remind Canadians and other visitors to the park what happened to minorities like Ukrainians in this country in Yoho National Park, as well as 23 other sites across Canada, 100 years ago when the government of the day suspended basic civil liberties.” The affected communities included Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Jews, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Serbians, Slovaks, Slovenes and others, of which most were civilians. - 30 - To RSVP, please contact Borys Sydoruk 403-903-5013 or bsydoruk@telus.net. For more information about UCCLA, please email media@uccla.ca, or visit: www.uccla.ca Twitter Facebook PO Box 57022 Somerset West PO, Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 6P0 Directions to the Natural Bridge in Yoho National Park, B.C. for those driving: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Calgary,+Alberta/Natural+Bridge,+Field,+BC/@51.2448504,-116.4216658,8z/am=t/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x537170039f843fd5:0x266d3bb1b652b63a!2m2!1d-114.0708459!2d51.0486151!1m5!1m1!1s0x5379de3ce590a087:0x70e0c3d71f6b163d!2m2!1d-116.530182!2d51.381982 The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (L'Association ukrainienne-canadienne des droits civils) is a non-partisan, voluntary, non-profit research and educational organization committed to the articulation and promotion of the Ukrainian Canadian community's interests and to the defence of the civil liberties and human rights of Ukrainians in Canada and elsewhere.

Screening schedule 2018 THAT NEVER HAPPENED: Canada's First National Internment Operations Sept 20 - Geneva, Switzerland - United Naions - Palais de Nations Oct 16 - Ottawa, On - Parliament Hill - Private event for MP's and Senators Oct 21 - Fernie, BC - Vogue Theatre Oct 23 - Calgary, AB - Globe Theatre Oct 27 - Burlington, On - Cinestarz Oct 28 - Mississauga, On - Cinestarz *National Internment Commemoration Day Nov 8 - Ottawa, On - Bytowne ​Nov 9, 10, 11 - Saskatoon, Sk - Roxy Nov 9, 11, 12 - Edmonton, Ab - Metro Cinema - Nov 9, 9:30 pm - Nov 11, 3pm - Nov 12, 7pm Nov 10, 11 - Regina, Sk - Rainbow Nov 11 - Winnipeg, Mb - Canadian Museum For Human Rights http://armisticefilms.com/

by Lubomyr Luciuk https://www.thewhig.com/opinion/columnists/legal-scholars-historical-speech-remembered He was the first to call it what it was. Sixty five years ago, on 20th September 1953, Dr Raphael Lemkin, a legal scholar, spoke in New York City about Stalin’s four-pronged offensive against Ukraine. The country’s dismemberment began with the evisceration of its heart, mind, and soul, achieved through the murder or deportation of Ukraine’s writers and poets, intelligentsia and clergy. That outrage was coupled with a body blow against Ukraine’s peasantry, the repository of the nation’s traditions, orchestrated through a man-made famine. To finish off the assault the country’s ethnic character was diluted through a mass resettlement of non-Ukrainians, particularly along Ukraine’s eastern marches. Lemkin, known to history as “the father of the UN Genocide Convention,” understood clearly what had been done, branding it a “classic example of a Soviet genocide.” He estimated 5 million Ukrainians perished during the Great Famine of 1932-1933, now known as the Holodomor. Another observer, Fred E Beal, reported this same figure in his 1937 book, Proletarian Journey. In a conversation held in 1933 with one of the famine’s architects, Grigory Petrovsky, the president of the ostensibly independent Soviet Ukraine, Beal asked: “They say five million people have died this year…What are we going to tell them?” Petrovsky responded frankly: “Tell them nothing! What they say is true. We know that millions are dying. That is unfortunate, but the glorious future of the Soviet Union will justify that. Tell them nothing!” Demographers now calculate over 4 million Ukrainians starved in just 6 months, one of the greatest genocides to befoul 20th century European history. And yet, for decades, what happened was almost forgotten. Those who spoke out were invariably derided, most notably Gareth Jones, a brilliant Welsh journalist whose first-hand accounts of widespread starvation were suppressed by the “fake news” spread by Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize winning Moscow correspondent of The New York Times. He knowingly bleated the Kremlin line that there was no famine at all. Another truth-teller was the courageous Jewish-Canadian journalist, Rhea Clyman, whose searing accounts of the horror included a May 1933 article in the Toronto Telegraph. She described a peasant near Kharkiv crying: “…we have no bread!…we have nothing to eat. Our children were eating grass in the spring... There was nothing else for them.” Despite these cris de coeur, and even His Holiness Pope Pius XI’s willingness to organize international relief, millions endured agonizing deaths. Appallingly, their destruction was covered up because, as the British Foreign Office’s Laurence Collier wrote, in June 1934: “The truth of the matter is, of course, that we have a certain amount of information about famine conditions…there is no obligation on us not to make it public. We do not want to [] because the Soviet Government would resent it and our relations with them would be prejudiced.” Even more troubling is how, on 26 September 1933, William Strang, of the British Embassy in Moscow, recorded Duranty admitting: “…as many as 10 million people may have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union during the past year.” That intelligence was buried. Western governments were complicit in the cover-up of this genocide. Decades passed before Lemkin’s text was located in The New York Public Library. Published in 2008, widely circulated and translated into many languages since, the thoughts of the man who coined the word “genocide” tell us he was in no doubt that “… a famine was necessary for the Soviet and so they got one to order, by plan…This is not simply a case of mass murder. It is a case of genocide, of the destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation.” Stalin’s offspring, the descendants of those who dismissed survivor accounts as the ranting of anti-Soviet émigrés, cannot ignore Dr Lemkin’s conclusion. On Thursday, with our friends at the Ukrainian Institute of America, the world’s first and only English, Ukrainian, Yiddish and Hebrew plaque, honouring Dr Lemkin for recognizing the genocidal nature of the famine while hallowing the memory of the millions who perished, was unveiled. Flowers were placed on his grave. And this was all done on the 65th anniversary of his speech, in the company of ambassadors, scholars, writers and the public. Remembering a man who spoke truth to power was our privilege, especially at a time when the KGB man in the Kremlin and his minions not only deny the Holodomor but deploy troops against a free Ukraine. I was a new-born when Dr Lemkin spoke. Now I am older than he was when he died. Yet I know that what happened 85 years ago will not be forgotten, never again, and for that we have thanked a righteous man by the name of Raphael Lemkin. Lubomyr Luciuk is a professor of political geography at The Royal Military College of Canada

September 20, 2018 at 4:00 pm, 2 E 79th Street, New York, NY USA http://ukrainianinstitute.org/event/unveiling-of-a-multilingual-plaque-honoring-dr-raphael-lemkin/ On Thursday, 20 September 2018 at 4:00 p.m., the Ukrainian Institute of America and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation will be unveiling a multilingual plaque (English, Ukrainian, Hebrew, Yiddish) honouring Dr Raphael Lemkin, the “father of the UN Genocide Convention,” specifically in reference to the speech he gave in New York City (20 September 1953) acknowledging the famine of 1932-33 as a Soviet genocide. 📷Professor Lemkin, of Polish Jewish decent, was born in what is now Belarus. His early life was marked by tragedy as his family was forced off their land during World War I, but this perhaps sparked his lifelong interest in what he termed “crime against international law” and is credited with coining the term “Genocide” from his studies of “Crimes of Barbarity”. Ultimately, this led to his presentation in 1948 at the United Nations General Assembly calling for the adoption of a resolution and the formation of a “Convention for the Prevention and Punishment for the Crime of Genocide”. Professor Lemkin, from an early age, studied other such crimes against humanity like the Ottoman attacks against the Armenians, anti-Semitic pogroms and other group targeted violence. He succeeded in introducing the term “Genocide” in the indictment against the Nazi Leadership as a member of the American team working on the Nuremberg trials and wrote and lectured extensively on the Holocaust and the Holodomor. His work highlighting crimes perpetrated against a captive people for the purpose of extermination and with supposed legal justification, not just the Jews, Ukrainians or Armenians, but all peoples, should not be forgotten. In fact, it is ever more poignant now as we continue to witness new human rights violations in the world today. Event organizers: the Ukrainian Institute of America, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation, and Lubomyr Luciuk, PhD, Professor, Department of Politics and Economics, Royal Mlitary College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Special thanks to the Russ Chelak, the Holodomor Research and Educational Consortium, Ihnatowycz Family Foundation, Oleh Lesiuk, Dr Eddy Portnoy, Dr Roman Serbyn, Dr. Daniel Swistel, the Temerty Family Foundation, Myroslaw Trutiak (MST Bronze Ltd), Major Michael Wiesenfeld, the late Nigel Linsan Colley, Alexandra Chyczij, Roma Lisovich and Professor Taras Hunczak. Sponsored by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation and the Ukrainian Institute of America.

For Immediate Release (19 April 2018, Kingston) Concerned over the deterioration of the internee cemetery at Spirit Lake, Quebec, Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (www.uccla.ca) has initiated an on-line petition addressed to the Government of Canada requesting action be taken to secure, restore, and reconsecrate this historic site and make limited access available for research, commemorative and religious purposes. Sponsored by MP James Bezan the petition can be found on line at:https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-1643 It reads: PETITION TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA Whereas: The Government of Canada needlessly categorized many Ukrainians and other Europeans as “enemy aliens” during Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914-1920; An internment camp was set up at Spirit Lake, Quebec, one of 24 across Canada; At least 16 internee burials took place at the Spirit Lake cemetery; The Department of Agriculture sold these lands to Quebec in 1936 and the province sold them to a farmer in 1988; Attempts to restore and re-consecrate the Spirit Lake internee cemetery have been rejected by the property owner and the cemetery is all but lost to the boreal forest; Federal officials, repeatedly informed about the deterioration of the cemetery, claim this is Quebec’s problem, abrogating all legal and moral responsibility for a cemetery established under federal authority and for the remains of the unfortunates buried there. We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to use whatever measures necessary to provide for the archaeological examination, restoration, re-consecration and limited ongoing site visits for commemorative and religious services to the Spirit Lake internee cemetery, working in collaboration with the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Ukrainian Canadian Congress, so hallowing the victims of Canada's first national internment operations. Commenting, Dr Luciuk explained: “The Spirit Lake internee cemetery has been in a deteriorating condition for many years. Despite many years of effort this unique historic site will simply be erased from the cultural landscape if no determined government intervention occurs in the near future. It is most certainly up to Ottawa to redress this situation since it was the Government of Canada that rounded up these civilians, transported them into the forests of the Abitibi, herded them behind Canadian barbed wire and then exploited their labour. Those who perished in these difficult circumstances were buried there, far from their communities and loved ones. Not one of the 16 men and some children who died at the Spirit Lake internment camp between 1915-1917 would ever have been there if the government had not branded them as “enemy aliens.” So, regardless of whom Ottawa sold the land to, or what happened to it in the decades following, saving this internee cemetery from oblivion is a federal obligation, and long overdue.”

UCCLA. For Immediate Release (Ottawa, 22 June 2018) Thousands of postcards are being sent to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Mélanie Joly, asking her to make Ottawa's National Holocaust Monument inclusive by remembering all of the victims of the Nazis. Commenting, a member of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Borys Sydoruk, said: "My recently deceased father was a slave labourer in Nazi Germany who found refuge in Canada after the Second World War, worked hard here, raised a family, paid his taxes and contributed to making Canada a better place for all of us -- and yet his suffering, and that of the millions of Ukrainians who were victims of the Holocaust, is not even mentioned in passing at Canada's National Holocaust Monument. Why have Ukrainians, Poles, Russians and other victims been excluded from any mention in this publicly funded memorial in our national capital? We have brought our concerns to Minister Joly's attention before, without so much as even a courtesy of a reply. Her silence is unacceptable. All victims of the Holocaust should be remembered."

UCCLA, For Immediate Release - 1 January 2007 (Ottawa) A five-metre high statue of the bard of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko, erected near Palermo, Ont., a 1951 gift to the pro-Communist Association of United Ukrainian Canadians from the Kyiv-based Soviet Ukrainian Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, has been reported stolen, apparently for its scrap metal value. Commenting on this theft, the director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, said: "While it it true that Ukrainians everywhere honour Ukraine's greatest poet, Taras Shevchenko, the statue stolen from Palermo was unveiled by the Soviets and fellow travellers in Canada as a propaganda exercise. It was denounced as such at the time and has been remembered for what it was, ever since. No self-respecting Ukrainian Canadian would ever have anything to do with it. So, by all means, catch and prosecute the thieves, but let's not whitewash the bandits who hid behind this statue in the first place. "What is more shocking is that trilingual bronze plaques recalling the only Ukrainian Canadian First World War Victoria Cross recipient, Cpl. Filip Konowal, were stolen from The Royal Westminster Regiment's armoury in British Columbia and, sometime this past November, from the facade of Branch #360 of The Royal Canadian Legion, in Toronto, without any media attention at all. No citizen should be indifferent to the utter lack of respect shown by those who stole plaques commemorating a Canadian veteran and war hero and, in fact, honouring all of the men and women who fought for our freedom in the world wars."

Bezan Tables Motion to Uphold Integrity of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act UCCLA, OTTAWA – April 20, 2009 James Bezan, Member of Parliament for Selkirk-Interlake tabled a Private Members motion in the House of Commons calling upon the government to uphold the integrity of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. M-356 asks the government to take necessary steps to refuse entry to Canada to people who have engaged in, or been a member of a group that has engaged in acts of espionage, subversion, terrorism, genocide, or crimes against humanity. It also calls on the government to denaturalize and deport those who have obtained Canadian citizenship under false pretences and to enforce removal orders against all persons who are inadmissible to Canada. “The people of Canada have always taken strong positions denouncing and combating crimes against humanity. Canada has always stood on solid ground opposing the Holocaust in Germany, the Holodomor in Ukraine, the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, and we have been actively engaged in the war on terrorism,” Bezan said. “Why would we allow people who have been involved in these crimes to come to Canada?” This week, a Federal Court Judge refused an appeal of a deportation order for an ex-KGB agent that has been in Canada for the last 12 years, admitted on a student visa. Bezan believes that the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the court have made sound decisions in this case in accordance with existing legislation. “Canada should not be a safe haven for terrorists or former members of any communist state's secret police forces,” Bezan stated. “People that have been members of organizations such as the KGB, Gestapo, Al Qaeda, or the Taliban do not meet the requirements for entry to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. If they have entered Canada, then they should be deported,” said Bezan. For more information, please contact: Office of James Bezan, MP Phone: 613-992-2032 E-mail: media@jamesbezan.com M-356 — April 20, 2009 — Mr. Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake) That, in the opinion of the House, in order to ensure that Canada is not a safe haven for any individual who has engaged in or been a member of an organization where reasonable grounds exist to believe have engaged in an act of espionage or an act of subversion against a democratic government, institution, process or committed terrorism or genocide or crimes against humanity, as they are understood in Canada, the government should take all necessary steps to: (a) allow visa entry only to persons that meet the requirements of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Regulations; (b) denaturalize and deport all persons who have obtained citizenship, permanent residence or refugee status by means of false pretences or the concealment of material facts; and (c) enforce removal orders against all persons who are inadmissible to Canada and not in possession of a valid Temporary Residence Permit.

UCCLA - For Immediate Release (Calgary, 21 January 2009) The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation (UCCLF) is pleased to announce Christina Dykun, 21, of Toronto, Ontario as the recipient of this year’s inaugural Civil Liberties Opinion-Editorial Award. This award was to be given to a high school or post-secondary student who had an opinion-editorial on a Holodomor theme published in a major Canadian newspaper, an initiative undertaken in recognition of the 75th anniversary of Ukraine’s Famine Genocide. Christina’s submission, titled “Nation still hungers for the truth”, appeared in the November 23rd edition of the Calgary Sun. As the winner of the competition, Christina will be awarded $1,000.00 as well as a copy of Into Auschwitz, For Ukraine by Stefan Petelycky for her efforts. Christina is in her fourth year at the University of Toronto, graduating in the spring with an honours B.A. in English and History. Her future aspirations are within the field of Law. Her active involvement in the Plast organization stems from early childhood, and is currently a ‘podruha’ at the Plast Toronto Branch. Having graduated from ‘Ridna Skola’ in Chicago, she continues her study of Ukrainian linguistics and history at the university level. Christina is very involved within the university Ukrainian life, as she has been a member of the Ukrainian Students Club at the University of Toronto as well as a member, past president and vice-president of the student council at St. Vladimir’s Institute in Toronto. Her involvement in extracurricular activities is quite varied. She has played on the Varsity Team at the University of Toronto all four years, helping her team secure a first-place OUA finish 3 years in a row. This year, Christina was elected captain, and continues her involvement in Varsity Athletics as a representative on the Varsity Board. Other interests include music, where she has played the piano competitively for 14 years, and today enjoys playing as a relaxing pastime. Her lifelong enjoyment of reading and writing are furthered by her chosen curriculum. The UCCLF would like to congratulate Christina for writing an excellent opinion-editorial and having it published.

UCCLA - For immediate release, Ottawa, Feb. 25, 2009 With the assistance of MPs James Bezan, Judy Wasylycia-Leis and Borys Wrezsnewskyj, the Ukrainian Canadian community has posted thousands of postcards across Canada inviting people to make use of their public and university libraries on March 9, the 195th birthday of Taras Shevchenko. Known as "the bard of Ukraine," Taras Shevchenko's poetry has inspired Ukrainians over many generations. In one of his most famous poems, he called upon his fellow Ukrainians to learn from others while not forgetting their own. Commenting, Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association chair Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk said: "We believe public libraries provide an essential service in every community right across Canada. By encouraging people to make use of libraries, we hope to ensure the ongoing vitality of these centres of learning. And by asking Canadians of Ukrainian heritage to go to a library on March 9, the 195th anniversary of Shevchenko's birth, we also want to make sure that books on Ukraine and Ukrainian Canadian themes are taken out and read. We want to underscore the contribution Ukrainians have made to Canada while also recalling the long struggle Ukrainians waged to secure their independence so that they can now enjoy human rights and civil liberties of the sort that we in Canada sometimes taken for granted."

UCCLA news release, (Monday, 14 September 2009) - Ottawa The Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund was launched officially today with a notice published in the national edition of The Globe and Mail (Focus & Books section/see attached). Thousands of postcards and posters are also being distributed to individuals, public and university libraries and to various ethnocultural communities across the country providing information about how to apply for a grant to do research, commemorate or otherwise recall what happened to thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans during Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920. The endowment, valued at $10 million, was established on May 9, 2008 following over two decades of work on the part of the Ukrainian Canadian community. Interest earned on that principal shall be distributed annually by an endowment council representing several of the affected communities. The fund is held in trust and managed by the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko, in Winnipeg, itself established by an Act of Canada's parliament in 1963. Commenting on the endowment's goals, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and a member of the council said: "The few internees who were alive when we began our campaign for symbolic redress always told us that what was important to them was that other Canadians should learn about how they had been branded 'enemy aliens,' interned, forced to do heavy labour for the profit of their gaolers, disenfranchised and subjected to other state-sanctioned indignities - even though they were innocent of any wrongdoing. "The Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund fulfills their hope of an acknowledgment for, fundamentally, this initiative is about memory, not money. I am proud that I was able to play a role in hallowing all of the internees and in righting an historic injustice, making sure that no other Canadian ethnic, religious or racial minority ever again suffers what the victims of Canada’s first national internment operations did.” For more information on the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund please go to www.canadianinternment.ca

UCCLA MEDIA RELEASE (14 December 2010) A growing controversy over the proposed contents of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (see The Globe and Mail, "Group says rights museum slights sufferings of Ukrainians,"11 December 2010) was, in part, provoked because of promises made in April 2003 by the Asper Foundation. Speaking for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Dr Lubomyr Luciuk, its director of research, said: "The attached letter from Mr Moe Levy, sent on behalf of the Asper Foundation, makes clear that in return for its support  the Ukrainian Canadian community was led to expect that the truth about the genocidal Holodomor and about what happened during this country's first national internment operations would be allocated permanent and prominent space in this publicly-funded national museum. Reading through the final report of the Content Advisory Committee it becomes clear that those pledges have not been honoured. Making this letter public puts these facts on the public record."