A vile video taken by a guard inside a Nova Scotia jail and that was shared on social media violates a female prisoner’s privacy and makes disparaging comments about her medical condition. The Halifax Examiner was provided the 20-second video clip by a person who captured it on the SnapChat app. The video was posted […]
Prisoners, acting mostly on their own, are changing the legal landscape of Nova Scotia’s jails
Today, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Kevin Coady published a decision, saying that the way two prisoners at the Burnside Jail are being held in solitary confinement is unfair, and he wants the jail administrators to address the situation, and if they don’t within 14 days, he wants to see the prisoners in court, potentially […]
A case of gangrene raises health concerns at the East Coast Forensic Hospital
People in the mental health community who are close to family members of a 45-year-old man are speaking out after the man was admitted to hospital with gangrene in his stomach. The patient, who lives with schizophrenia, has been in and out of the East Coast Forensic Hospital for the past 20 years. Family members […]
Ramadan in jail: prisoners in Burnside are being denied the right to practice their religion
Malik is calling from the jail asking for the numbers of any Muslims he can contact just to talk to, maybe hear some Quran from. The last time he prayed with community was during Ramadan last year, and since then, his requests for spiritual services have been denied. Last year, Muslim prisoners at Burnside (Central […]
Fixing freedom of information in NS (and jails), pulp mill politics, and plastics – all that, and more.
Morning File, Wednesday, January 16, 2019
I’m Joan Baxter, filling in for Tim today. News 1. Freedom of Information in Nova Scotia – the failure and the fix As Tim wrote, yesterday Nova Scotia privacy commissioner Catherine Tully and auditor general Michael Pickup released their reports on the FOIPOP website security failure. Both painted damning pictures of how the government handled […]
Nova Scotia needs a JAIL hotline
Martha Paynter is a nurse, nursing PhD student, and director of Women’s Wellness Within. For one month, prisoners at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre (OCDC) have had access to a phone hotline a few hours a day to report concerns and receive support from volunteers. This is the jail where Julie Bilotta was forced to […]
Prisoners in Burnside respond to the clemency decision for Cyntoia Brown
The following is a statement issued by prisoners in the Burnside jail. We, the prisoners of Burnside, stand with all oppressed people over the world. These tyrannical times are hard on those who fight for freedom. We realize that some of these battles against criminal systems of injustice have been going on since the beginning of […]
Medjuck v. Medjuck: Harold says his brother Ralph, one of Nova Scotia’s most powerful property developers, ripped him off for decades
Morning File, Friday, December 21, 2018
News 1. Bike projects Erica Butler has Part 2 of her update on bike projects. In Part 2, she discusses the Brunswick Street/Spring Garden Road, Forest Hills Parkway, Macdonald Bridge, Bedford Highway, Vernon Street, and Oak/Allen bike projects. Click here to read “Update on ongoing bike projects, Part 2.” This article is for subscribers. Click here […]
Three months after jail protest, conditions are “worse than ever,” say Burnside prisoners
"Nobody will help us...In some ways the silence is worse than the violence."
Prisoners in the Burnside jail say that conditions are “worse than ever” since the peaceful protest that ended September 9. They are calling for independent oversight of the provincial prisons and an external review of conditions, legal aid funding for adequate representation for habeas applications, and intervention by the Human Rights Commission. They describe a […]
There are a lot of ugly buildings in Halifax
Morning File, Wednesday, December 12, 2018
News 1. Habeas Corpus Five prisoners at the Burnside jail filed more habeas corpus applications last week, claiming that they were inappropriately kept in lockdown for up to four days. As has become typical, by the time the habeas applications could make their way to a court hearing before a judge, four of the prisoners […]