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The Current Transcript for January 7, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: The Iranian leadership makes a bad decision. We hope that they won't, but when they do, America will respond.

MATT GALLOWAY: Would the United States really target Iranian cultural sites like Persepolis, as President Trump has suggested? His secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, certainly isn't saying no when asked directly about that. This morning, a look at why. In a war of words, that threat has been greeted with fury in Iran and beyond. That's coming up in about 30 minutes. And after that, it was five years ago today that two gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. 12 people were killed. The columnist Philippe Lancon survived.

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VOICE: I saw that I had no joke anymore on the right side. There was a hole. I remember perfectly that I thought, well now you are a monster.

MG: In an hour, his incredible accounts of the attack and why he doesn't hate those who tried to kill him. But we begin in a city ravaged by the opioid crisis and the stories of those hit hardest by a poison drug supply. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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'You don't expect to bury your child': The parents left behind in Thunder Bay's opioid crisis

MG: Most of what we hear about the opioid crisis in Canada comes out of big cities. Cities like Vancouver and Toronto, but it's Thunder Bay that has the highest per capita opioid overdose death rate in Ontario. And now some families there are asking questions about who's really responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. I travelled to Thunder Bay to speak with some of those people. A warning the following story deals with drug use and contains strong language. Here's our documentary, Dealing in Death.

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KEN BAILEY: I'm going to show you the last picture I have of my son. Apps. Gallery. That's the last pictures I have of my son laying on a gurney in a funeral parlour 10 minutes before he's cremated.

MG: It was August of 2018 that Ken Bailey's son, Mark died. He was 48. Ken remembers the day he went to the police station to get answers about his son's death.

KEN BAILEY: And I went in, I went to the front desk and I said to the receptionist, I said I wanted to speak to somebody about my son's murder.

MG: But the police weren't looking at this as a murder.

KEN BAILEY: Overdose of cocaine and fentanyl. He had enough fentanyl in his system three times the lethal limit, which is enough to knock down a six tonne elephant. And that's, that angered me enough, but it's when I got his autopsy report that the shit hit the fan because it was listed on the, in fact I got it right here. It's listed as an accident.

MG: Ken believes this was no accident.

KEN BAILEY: It was the fentanyl that killed him. My son did drugs for 35 years. He was a professional 35 year drug user. I went to the Thunder Bay police because I want to know how you justify an accident when somebody, it's like me having a beer here and you put arsenic in it and I drink it and die. Is that an accident? That's murder as far as I'm concerned.

MG: Across town, another family is struggling with the very same questions. Keith Rojik has been waiting for us. He's a warm guy with a bushy moustache and a beard. And he's eager to talk with us about the death of his son, Tyler.

KEITH ROJIK: I think my son deserved more than a three hour investigation, no matter what the cause of death was.

MG: Keith knows his son was an addict, but what he takes issue with is the drug that caused his death.

KEITH ROJIK: What killed them was car fentanyl. Ten times the lethal amount, that's poison, that's murder, and the police and the coroner basically closed his his investigation prior to getting the toxicology that I would think if I was a police officer and just myself as a parent, would we need to get that off the street. Right. Anyway, that's car now does not discriminate. It will kill everybody. It's not prejudiced.

MG: Tara Libiakis Keith's ex-wife. She's just come from the hospital where she works as a lab technician. She's in her work clothes, wear their dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail.

TARA LIBIAK: And we don't know who he was with or if he was doing it with someone here, but his door was wide open and we still don't know who called 9-1-1.

MG: Tyler died here in this house last June, three days after his 27th birthday. Keith lives here now with his son's belongings scattered in piles throughout the main floor. Fom a guitar to cabinets filled with the vintage Coca-Cola bottles that he collected. Keith's son's death was also ruled an accident.

KEITH ROJIK: The coroner would not allow the police to get a warrant for the 9-1-1 call. In the recording of the call it said that this person who was a male was here to check up on them. They were friends.

MG: But Tara and Keith questioned whether it was a friend. They wonder if it could have been the drug dealer who actually sold Tyler that lethal dose of car fentanyl.

KEITH ROJIK: One of the most disconcerting things is my son's phone was no more than 10 feet from his body and it didn't have a passcode or lock and they never thought to check the phone.

MG: Keith feels that the Thunder Bay police have not taken his son's death seriously.

KEITH ROJIK: To them maybe it's another junkie. Well, it's not. It's somebody's son.

MG: Back at Ken's house.

KEN BAILEY: It brings up some tough memories. But, you know what, I can't let it go.

MG: He tells me he wants to leave Thunder Bay. Mark's death has consumed him. He describes what Mark was like as a boy.

KEN BAILEY: Mark wouldn't carry a book and get hundreds. I mean, he was really intelligent. I bought him a Commodore 64 when they first came out, within two weeks, he's coding, self-taught. And then all of a sudden, the bottom fell out when he turned 14. Big change. And he got into marijuana and it just escalated.

MG: He started skipping school. And then Ken remembers the day his son threatened his daughter with a knife and he had to kick him out.

KEN BAILEY: I heard my daughter scream and I ran upstairs. There was a knife on the floor and I went down the hall, grabbed him by the collar, took him to the back door. And I said, leave. When you want to be a member of this family, you come back.

MG: From marijuana, Mark got into hard drugs, cocaine, heroin, opioids. He tried methadone to get clean, but it didn't work. Eventually, he was arrested for armed robbery of a pharmacy. And after he got out of jail, he continued to spiral. And on a warm, drizzly night in August of 2018, mark was found dead in a motel in the middle of town. Ken got the news the next day.

KEN BAILEY: I was still in bed because this was about 7:30 in the morning. And Mark's dead. And that's basically it. And I was like, all of a sudden, the world stopped. You don't expect to bury your child. Yeah, there just there's just no description.

MG: Keith and Tara know exactly what that is like.

KEITH ROJIK: This is one of our fishing trips.

MG: Keith proudly shows me some of the framed photos of a fishing trip he took with his son Tyler a few years back. Tyler's holding up a big fish for the camera.

TARA LIBIAK: He's a very lovable, athletic, kind boy with a lot of friends. Everyone loved him.

KEITH ROJIK: Yeah, very outgoing, very brave, very big heart. He's gonna be missed. I don't know. I'm kind of, sorry.

MG: When did you realize that things were weren't going right, quite right with him.

TARA LIBIAK: Two years ago exactly. Well two and a half now. Sorry. I got an anonymous message from one of his very close friends saying that he was drinking a lot.

MG: Tara started watching her son more closely. She noticed track marks on his arms, so she confronted him. He denied having a problem, but then later that night she got a text.

TARA LIBIAK: While I was asleep, him just confessing to everything. Oh, my God like this is the most terrible thing that can happen right now. It's very heartbreaking.

KEITH ROJIK: It was horrible. You know was fighting with them to get them to go to detox in order to go to treatment.

MG: Finally, Tyler agreed to get help, but at the last minute he ran away.

KEITH ROJIK: I was on the phone in the driveway where I could see both doors and Tyler was here with his girlfriend.

TARA LIBIAK: And while you were out at the front, they escaped the back.

KEITH ROJIK: I phone Tara and I panicked. And then.

TARA LIBIAK: He found him.

KEITH ROJIK: At Shoppers Drug Mart just a few blocks from here, getting clean needles.

TARA LIBIAK: He said just please, just I just want one more hit.

KEITH ROJIK: And he just begged me and begged me. He was crying. And I know now I'm teary eyed like.

TARA LIBIAK: He just wanted one more high before I go to detox.

KEITH ROJIK: I still can't believe that I agreed to that. I never thought I would ever, but if that was the only way to get him to go to detox, that was how I compromised it. That was, well other than his passing, probably the worst day of my life.

MG: That was his first attempt to getting clean. The second initially appeared to go better.

TARA LIBIAK: He did really good and got lots of books. And I don't know how he fell off the wagon, but he did maybe six months later.

MG: It was his birthday weekend.

TARA LIBIAK: He had friends here. They were having some drinks and I said to have too many. You know what happens when you drink at least you want drugs. No, I'm fine. I got this guy here.

MG: Tyler was discovered dead in the living room where we're sitting. The coroner found cocaine and car fentanyl in his blood.

TARA LIBIAK: The day I got a call about Tyler, I honestly did not want to live anymore. Like I said, I want to die. That's all I kept saying.

MG: I asked Tara what she knows about what happened. She tells me that even after his friends left, Tyler wanted more.

TARA LIBIAK: So he went out seeking and got the best stuff he could get, I guess. Cocaine wasn't good enough for him that weekend.

MG: Scoring drugs would not have been difficult. Thunder Bay has the highest per capita rate of opioid deaths in Ontario.

AMANDA RUSNICK: It's as simple as that drug haven.

MG: We're at Amanda Rusnick's apartment, a stone's throw from where Tyler lived in the East End. The tracks cut through this part of the city and there are burnt out buildings in abandoned places on every block. The locals also say that there's a drug house on every street.

AMANDA RUSNICK: I sold a lot of drugs. I did a lot of drugs.

MG: You could call her an expert on the city's drug trade. She's a former addict who's managed to stay clean for over a year. She got hooked on OxyContin and Percocet after suffering from an assault that left her in a coma. That was back in 2004.

AMANDA RUSNICK: It kept me extremely. Pretty much mummified.

MG: She went from having them prescribed to having to buy them off the street.

AMANDA RUSNICK: Well, I was addicted to them in 2008. My pill habit got extremely bad. I overdosed a few times. I started losing weight, a lot of weight. And then I started into smoking crack. I would steal from people. I would beat them up. I look back at the way I was and I can't believe I was ever like that.

MG: You describe Thunder Bay as like a drug haven. How difficult is it to stay sober in a place where there are drugs kind of all around you?

AMANDA RUSNICK: It's hard. It is hard. Like there's days when I just wish that I had drugs. If I get extremely stressed out, I'll want to numb myself.

MG: So far, she's resisted. She knows how risky the drug supply has become. It's well-known here that the opioid crisis is being fuelled by gangs from Toronto and Ottawa who see a lucrative market. Police say there's been a marked rise in fentanyl and car fentanyl flooding this city. The opioids are being cut into all kinds of drugs. They're cheap. They extend the supply and they create a bigger high, making them even more addictive.

AMANDA RUSNICK: My best friend's brother thought that he was buying a fucking oxy and it turned out to be fentanyl and he died that night. My girlfriend found him that morning, the next morning. Like it's pathetic what these people are doing to the people in my city.

TARA LIBIAK: I'm not sure what's happening in this town. I feel like ten years ago it was really Oxy and Percs that people were snorting or eating. The one thing that is hard with me being back at work is seeing all these addicts coming through the emergency department. That's not going to be easy for me, it's going to take some time to lean into that.

MG: Like Tara, Keith sees the changes, too. He tells me about how after Tyler died, he went away for a few days and when he came back, he discovered the people had been using the trailer behind his house. Inside that trailer, he discovered over 300 needles.

KEITH ROJIK: It's ridiculous. I mean, it's horrible. I don't know how else to say that. There's just too many people that we're losing here.

KEN BAILEY: There was a time right after Mark's death. The fighter had a gun out of gone searching for drug dealers. That's how angry I was. I would have, I would if I seen somebody selling somebody drugs, I'd have shot them.

MG: Drugs and drug dealers are everywhere in Thunder Bay and the temptation for Amanda is still really strong.

AMANDA RUSNICK: The thought's always there or well, not always. But I can only think of once that I actually was knocked on the door to go and buy a pill.

MG: And how far would you have to go from this apartment that we're in to go and buy something?

AMANDA RUSNICK: Not far.

MG: She doesn't want to say more than that. If she could, she would leave the city.

AMANDA RUSNICK: I just can't afford to do it right now or I'd be gone.

MG: Amanda credits the city's Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinic for keeping her sober and she's fighting to stay clean for a few very important reasons.

AMANDA RUSNICK: My kids, my family, my husband, they're the reason I'm clean. My children mean more to me than my life, than my own personal life and so does he. And I know what will happen if I turn around and get high again. I will lose my kids again.

TARA LIBIAK: I cry alone. Never in front of anyone. And yeah, that's all we can really do.

MG: Tara's pain is still so raw. She's telling me their story in the hopes that it can save another family from being devastated.

TARA LIBIAK: Just hoping that maybe some users can hear this and see how it affects families and that there is help and you need to want it and you need to do it before you die or a family member dies.

KEITH ROJIK: What's been getting me personally through this is my other son, because I know I need to be here for him, right? He's there for me. That's what helps me get out of bed every day.

MG: Tara told me the same thing. She lives for her other son.

KEN BAILEY: This one here, he's probably about four. I'm guessing six here and probably ten.

MG: Ken's sitting in his lazy boy and from the chair, he has a direct line of sight to for photos of Mark. The first is of him as an adult. Three of them are of him as a little boy. He's got red wavy hair and a big grin and looks like a happy kid.

KEN BAILEY: He was a really great kid.

MG: What do you see when you look at those pictures?

KEN BAILEY: Waste. What could have been.

MG: Since Mark's death, Ken's mission has been to get answers from those in power.

KEN BAILEY: I mean, I can show you letters here from the different government agencies.

MG: He reaches for the file that keeps beside the door. Inside are police and autopsy reports, as well as letters to the mayor. the minister of health, the police chief and the list goes on and on.

KEN BAILEY: I've got solicitor general, I've got the attorney general. All it is, is we want to extend our condolences. I don't want condolences. I want you to get off your ass and do something. To me it's something that's totally preventable. We're being invaded now by drug dealers and they're sitting back and they're not doing anything.

MG: Ken says he won't leave Thunder Bay until something changes.

KEN BAILEY: I want somebody to tell me we're changing the law, that there are going to be repercussions for selling fentanyl. There's nothing right now. There's nothing on the statutes right now. If they catch them and they go to court and they're charged and convicted of murder, they're going to spend 25 years in jail. The drug dealers on the street, no, there are no consequences for getting caught.

MG: Ken leans back in his chair.

KEN BAILEY: That's been my life, basically.

MG: Folds his hands in his lap. The file now sits on the table in front of him.

KEN BAILEY: Whatever he's done now is not gonna bring my son back. Like he's gone forever. But that pisses me off. I get angry because he should not have died.

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MG: You've been listening to the documentary Dealing in Death. It was produced by The Current's Lara O'Brien, Joana Draghici and our senior documentary editor, Joan Webber. Tomorrow, more of our series out of Thunder Bay. I'll speak with frontline workers and go on a ride along with paramedics to see what they see on the streets on a freezing cold night in that city. We'll also put some of the concerns around the opioid crisis to Thunder Bay's chief of police. Should these overdoses be considered murder? You'll hear her response tomorrow on the program.

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MG: We'd be happy to hear your responses to the documentary as well. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or head to the website for the contact link cbc.ca/thecurrent. The CBC News is next and then Iran is dotted with historic sites, ruins of cities, tombs, ancient mausoleums. So to say that U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to attack those sites isn't going over well, there is a bit of an understatement. We'll hear about some of those places and find out what's lost, if they're lost. That's coming up in about six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Iranians aghast at Trump’s targeting of country’s cultural sites

Guests: Nahal Toosi, Sussan Babaie, Michael Byers

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, a columnist at Charlie Hebdo hid under his desk five years ago today when two gunmen burst into the office of the French satirical magazine Philippe Lancon watched what he calls their black legs as they walked through shooting his colleagues. What he didn't realize at the time was that he was also hit by bullets and badly injured. His incredible story in half an hour. But first, a reasonable response or an attack on the history of civilization?

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VOICE: Mr. President, if you're listening, please don't bother yourself on my account.

MG: John Limbert worked at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979. That's when the hostage crisis began. He was held captive for more than a year. There were 52 hostages, which is why Donald Trump threatened to target 52 cultural heritage sites in Iran, if Iran retaliates for the assassination of military leader Qassem Soleimani.

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VOICE: I certainly want no part of his to support whatever decision he takes, such as, for example, killing people or blowing up Persepolis.

MG: The ancient ruins of Persepolis are one of Iran's 24 UNESCO World Heritage sites. So any threat to attack them is adding even more attention to an already precarious situation. Nahal Toosi is a foreign affairs reporter for Politico and she is in Washington, DC. Nahal, good morning.

NAHAL TOOSI: Good morning.

MG: In D.C. what's been the reaction to this tweet and then for the comments from the president?

NAHAL TOOSI: Well, it's not gone that well for the president. I mean yesterday we had Secretary Esper of the Pentagon say that effectively rule out the idea of attacking cultural sites. Even some of the president's closest political allies, like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has said it's not a good idea to go after these sites. You know, this is basically considered a war crime. So it's the type of thing that, you know, people just feel like he was being impulsive and everyone's trying to to kind of explain it away or basically gently say this is not a good idea. But the president himself has doubled down on it basically saying, look, yeah if the Iranians can torture and maim our people and do whatever they want then cultural sites should not be off limits.

MG: It seems like it's that's kind of the pattern that the president says something outrageous, people around him say, actually, that's not really what he meant. And he says, no, really, this is what I meant. And he doubles down on it. Does that, I mean, ido the comments from the defence secretary that you mentioned, Mark Esper, do they calm things down at all or is it just part of that pattern?

NAHAL TOOSI: It's definitely a pattern. I'm starting to think there's probably some mathematical formula associated with it and have had things come down. No, I mean, I think we're still seeing the Iranians say that they're angry about this, comparing Americans to barbarians. That sort of thing. And it's it's just one of those things also that, frankly, it's sort of a self-inflicted wound because the Trump administration. President Trump himself has said that the U.S. is not angry with the Iranian people. But so it's raised the idea that you're going after their culture and their heritage. It's very much goes against that claim that the only people that you're upset with are the regime in Tehran.

MG: As it is I mean, in terms of, you know, the times that we're in, this war of words gets fought on Twitter. So the president says something and then, as you mentioned, Iran's foreign minister tweets back saying a reminder to those hallucinating about emulating ISIS war crimes by targeting our cultural heritage. Through millennia of history, barbarians have come and ravaged our cities, razed our monuments and burnt our libraries. Where are they now? Doesn't suggest that this is being calmed down in any real measure.

NAHAL TOOSI: Well, I think, you know, again, this was an opportunity for the Iranians as well, and they are taking advantage of it right now. The Iranians want to make sure that the U.S. is the one that's isolated internationally. And so when the president goes and says something about cultural site as opposed to simply saying, look, we're going to attack your military facilities or go after other people, we didn't terrorists in the regime. He basically opens himself up to criticism from allies as well as adversaries around the world and the Iranians know that. And they're very politically savvy and they're going to take advantage of it.

MG: When Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, tweets those who refer to the number 52, should also remember the number 290. What's he referring to?

NAHAL TOOSI: He is referring to an incident in 1988 when the U.S. Navy ships shot down any line, an airliner that was carrying 290 people, including 66 children. All of those people died. The Navy ship mistook it for a fighter plane as they thought that the their ship was under attack. And that's why they took it down. It was a mistake. The U.S. apologized. The U.S. even came to a financial settlement years later with the Iranians, although, you know, there was also that insistence from the U.S. that it genuinely was a mistake and that people were doing what they thought was right because they thought they were under attack. But that incident, frankly, it's not exactly played up in American history books. Most Americans probably don't remember it or have never heard of it. Iranians, however, remember it very much. And many of them, including on the hard line type, to this day, they're convinced that it was an intentional strike on Iran.

MG: You said that's in some ways the Iranian government at the very least has taken advantage of this situation. We know that the Iranian community, whether it's in Iran or in the diaspora in Canada and the United States elsewhere, often is divided on the issues. It's not a unified community. How is that community responded to this threat by the president to target these cultural sites?

NAHAL TOOSI: I'd say there's pretty much like either a universal horror, her people are pretty upset about this, say they think it's ridiculous, but you're right, I mean, in the sense that the Iranian diaspora is a very divided people that are, you know, framed themselves as the opposition often don't get along with one another. And so what I'm also seeing is, you know, people who support this president's hardline policies against Iran, they're basically not really talking about this cultural thing. I mean, it's not like they're going to support it, but, you know, they aren't really stepping up to it to say it's a good idea either. So it's kind of a horror or a silence. And then I've heard some folks who are supporters of this kind of hardline approach, these are non-Iranians, who say that if you was talking about cultural sites, he probably meant associated with the regime. Like, for instance, the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini, the former supreme leader, Iran. And that actually raises an interesting question. Is that type of a place at the tomb of this leader of the Islamic revolution? Is that going to count as a war crime if the U.S. strikes it? It's an interesting question.

MG: I guess I wonder whether I mean, his comments in some ways has backfired in terms of uniting the population, that these sites are so precious to the Iranian population, even if that that that community is divided, that people have come together and said, how dare you?

NAHAL TOOSI: Well, absolutely. I mean, this is and again you don't know if he intended this or if this was just something he tweeted off in a moment of of not thinking. And now he's doubling down because President Trump never likes to admit that he's ever been wrong. And yet it's united. A lot of people, not not only Iranians, but also other countries and the partners of the United States were distancing themselves from this idea. And, you know, again, it just kind of hurts this claim from the United States that they love the Iranian people and they just don't like the regime. It just goes against so much of that. And it's a real mess and the Iranians are, the Iranian regime is very much aware of.

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, in addition to being a reporter, you're also Iranian-American. How are you processing the tweet? What was your first reaction?

NAHAL TOOSI: Well, I was just kind of in shock. And that I think I laughed because it just seems so absurd. I mean, I just could not imagine this going over well at the State Department or at the Pentagon. And then I remembered why I was a little kid and we were in Iran and my parents took us to Persepolis, which is like the ancient capital of the empire and I remember that. It's also known as the throne who was a Shah at the time. And the problem is that the word for throne in Farsi is kind of similar to the word for bed and my parents kept saying, we're going to the zone of Shamseed. And when we got there, I was like, where is Shamseed's bed? You told me his bed was going to be. So I was having some incredibly weird, you know, walk down memory lane. Yeah those are places that even when you're a little like I was, they leave an impression in your mind,.

MG: Nahal, thank you.

NAHAL TOOSI: Thank you.

MG: Nahal Toosi is a foreign affairs reporter for Politico. She was in Washington, D.C. Sussan Babaie is a professor in the history of arts of Iran and Islam at the courthouse at the Institute of Art at the University of London, England. We've reached her in Mumbai, India, where, as it turns out, she's giving lectures on Iranian architecture. Sussan, good morning to you.

SUSSAN BABAIE: Good morning.

MG: What went through your mind when you first heard Donald Trump's threats to target these cultural sites?

SUSSAN BABAIE: Disbelief. Truly an anxious and very deeply disturbed state of mind where you can only think about the incredible cultural heritage of a part of the world that really is one of the basis of of our civilization is shared by everyone. And I'm a historian of arts and architecture. All of these monuments are extremely close to to my professional, intellectual and emotional and personal life. So I can't tell you how disturbed I was about it.

MG: We heard from Nahal about Persepolis, a name and a site that people may be familiar with. Tell us about some of the other more significant cultural sites.

SUSSAN BABAIE: Well, Persepolis is truly an extraordinary site, which is oftentimes seen in comparison to Greek ancient Greek sites, equally important is the centres of the rule in 500 B.C. and had a really global impact. They were centre of an empire that extended from the Nile to the Ganges. Other ones are scattered all over Iran from the monuments, these would be the early part of the until the fifth or sixth centuries ce to Islamic period as in 7th century onwards all the way through to 20th century. Iran really is completely carpeted with these incredibly important monuments from tomb towers of mystic mystics who were revered by by popular piety to great rulers, conquerors, those who were defeated in the country or in this land, to palaces, urban centres, marketplaces and so on. It's a it's it includes, for instance, just to give you a couple of examples. The Tomb Tower of Ojai to one of the post Mongol rulers of Western Asia, which includes Iran and Iraq of today and parts of the caucuses is in the city or near the city and it's the only remainder of a major urban development. And this building, which was a mausoleum, was the has the dome that covers the largest span since the antiquities such as the pantheon in Rome and the church, the Justinian Church in Istanbul of today and was only really surpassed by what Brunalesky managed to build at Santa Maria del Führer in Florence. This is a historical monument that kind of bridges, if you will, development of technologies, engineering, knowledge about construction and spiration.

MG: Well, and as we've heard, I mean, they have these sites of huge cultural significance to people in Iran, but these are sites that that in some ways are owned or at the very least, part of our entire world heritage.

SUSSAN BABAIE: That's exactly the point. This is where the outrage and appalling nature of such a targeting should should alert us to the fact that, for instance, the city of Esfahan, which is one of the really one of those cities that everyone has to see before they die, it's in that list of cities to do to be seen is highly important in the cultural world. I mean, cultural world of the early modern period. So forms 16th through 18th century Esfahan features in all the European travellers accounts who criss cross in Asia from Europe into Asia and back as one of the greatest cities of the world, and that it was a centre of commerce. It was a cosmopolitan city. It was where the missionaries came, where the trades and ambassador ambassadorial on voice came, where the East India Company is actually set up shop. And indeed, it was a major place for the activities of the Armenian communities to whom this was also home. And indeed, one of the key. It's about of the identity of a country we call Iran today. So it has this kind of a broader cultural implications, while it is also very important to the Iranians.

MG: Just briefly, what is it like to be preparing for these lectures that you're about to give on Iranian architecture, knowing that this threat, whether people take it seriously or not, but he said it and he said it again with this threat sort of hanging over our heads.

SUSSAN BABAIE: Yes, it is, it's even more compelling, more urgent to speak up about these monuments. This is not just a specialized subject. It is really a world attention grabbing kind of an issue. Imagine if we were to target the monuments in India as I am in India. I think about all these amazing palaces and temples and so forth. What happens if we where to target any of these monuments? We know what has happened in the past. I think about what has happened in northern Iraq and in Syria with what the radical elements of ISIS and Al Qaida has done. The bombing of the Buddhas. It's that kind of a very shocking prospect that one is alerted to. And I'm preparing with that kind of idea in mind as I speak about these monuments. I'm gonna have to speak to the great significance of them, to a world culture, to all our shared heritage.

MG: I appreciate you putting that into perspective for us. Sussan Babaie, thank you.

SUSSAN BABAIE: Thank you.

MG: Sussan Babaie is a lecturer in professor in the history of arts of Iran and Islam at the courthouse, the Institute of Art at the University of London. Well, as many observers, including our two guests have pointed out, what Donald Trump is threatening to attack these cultural sites actually amounts to a war crime. Michael Byers is a professor of international law at the University of British Columbia. Michael, good morning to you.

MICHAEL BYERS: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of what you've just heard from Sussan Babaie and Nahal Toosi about the importance of these sites and how personally shocked they are, but also how shocked we should be?

MICHAEL BYERS: Well, I think you made the point perfectly that these sites are part of the cultural heritage of humanity. And indeed, dozens of these sites in Iran are UNESCO World Heritage sites. So the importance of what Donald Trump is threatening could not be higher.

MG: When you saw the tweet, did you take it seriously?

MICHAEL BYERS: Well I don't take much from Donald Trump seriously in terms of thinking that it's meant in face value. There's clearly more going on here than we've been discussing this morning in terms of the president's attempt to distract attention away from other things happening, especially with regards to his impeachment, but certainly in terms of the actual core statement, the threat to target cultural sites, he has badly overstepped and yesterday we saw the reaction with the U.S. secretary of defence actually saying that the targeting cultural heritage sites would be a war crime and it's not going to happen.

MG: What ar the rules that those sorts of targeting, if the attacks were to happen, what are the rules that that would violate?

MICHAEL BYERS: Well, the the prohibition on targeting cultural sites goes back to the late 19th century, the Hague Convention of 1899. It's a core rule within international humanitarian law. You can find it implicitly, but but but still very powerfully in the Geneva Conventions of 1949. And you find it in the Hague Convention of 1954, which the United States ratified a decade ago. And the United States doesn't ratify many international treaties. So so, you know, this is a big deal, including in terms of it's clearly binding. The United States and the U.S. military, its officer corps is deeply schooled in the laws of war. They have literally thousands of lawyers who who vet potential targets for compliance with these and other rules. And what the secretary of defence was making clear yesterday to me is that that if President Trump ordered the destruction of one of these cultural sites, that order would be refused.

MG: That those who are further down the chain of command would not follow that order, despite the fact that it comes from, you know, the commander in chief.

MICHAEL BYERS: Absolutely. And one of the reasons for that, apart from it being a requirement of their job in the United States military, is that under international humanitarian law, a superior order is not a defence to a war crime. So anyone who participated in the targeting chain for one of these sites would be open to prosecution anywhere in the world under what's called universal jurisdiction for having followed the president's order.

MG: So just to be clear, even though the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court, those personnel would face prosecution if this threat were carried out.?

MICHAEL BYERS: Absolutely. This is a core principle of the customary international law governing armed conflict. It's part of the Geneva Conventions. And let me be clear. Canada has legislation. This country has legislation. The Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act that specifically gives Canada the jurisdiction to prosecute anyone in the world from any country who's alleged to have committed such a crime.

MG: So if those officers or perhaps the president himself were to come to Canada, for example, they could face arrest here?

MICHAEL BYERS: Yes. With regards to the president herself, there would be difficult issues involving what's called head of state immunity. And some of your listeners will remember the Pinochet case from London in 1998, which concerned a very similar issue.

MG: Has there been success in protecting sites like this? Sussan mentioned ISIS and its destruction of monuments in Iraq and Syria. How difficult is it to ensure, despite the rules being in place, that ancient sites like this of enormous cultural significance are actually protected?

MICHAEL BYERS: Well, it's difficult to prove that an action which did not happen was the result of legal rules, but we certainly see in armed conflicts involving Western developed countries like the United States a clear respect for these rules. To give you just one example, in 1991, during the first Gulf War, one of my American colleagues who at the time was a lawyer in the U.S. Air Force, called off an air strike that would have taken down the famous statue of Saddam Hussein. And you know that wasn't an ancient cultural site, but it was an unnecessary target that had been chosen for symbolic reasons and not military necessity. And he, as the lawyer, called off that strike.

MG: Just a few seconds left. Given everything that you said and the fact that the U.S. generally is a proponent of trees that protect these cultural heritages during wartime, what message does it send to the world when the president says he's willing to violate those rules?

MICHAEL BYERS: Well, it makes Donald Trump a very uncomfortable ally for other countries that believe in an international rule of law, and this makes it very difficult for, for instance, the government of Canada, which has 500 troops in Iraq, and to know that the commander in chief of our most important ally has no commitment to the rules of war. It's one of an accumulating set of uncomfortable facts concerning this president in terms of his reliability as an ally. And that just makes things more difficult as we move on.

MG: Michael, we'll leave it there. Thank you.

MICHAEL BYERS: Always a pleasure. Thank you.

MG: Michael Byers is a professor of international law at the University of British Columbia. We reached him this morning on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.

[Music]

MG: Coming up.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I could hear this voice telling "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar." And after every "Allahu Akbar" shooting one bullet.

MG: Those bullets were being fired at Philippe Lancon's friends, his colleagues. Philippe was in a meeting at Charlie Hebdo, a newspaper office five years ago when two gunmen forced their way in killing 12 of his colleagues. His harrowing account of that day and what he takes from that experience is coming up in just about 90 seconds. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music]

CORRECTION: One of our guests spoke about the downing of an Iranian airliner in 1988 by U.S forces, killing all 290 people aboard. He stated the US later apologized for the incident.

Actually, the US has never apologized. Though 8-years later it did express "deep regret" and paid more than $61 million to the victims' families to settle a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice.

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'I don't hate them': Charlie Hebdo survivor reflects on the massacre, 5 years later

Guests: Philippe Lancon

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One and Sirius XM. Five years ago today, in Paris, 12 people were killed when two gunmen burst into the offices of Charlie Hebdo. That is the satirical weekly newspaper, controversial in part for publishing cartoons about the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. Philippe Lancon was a columnist at the newspaper. His morning meeting was disrupted by the sound of gunfire. His new book is called Disturbance: Surviving Charlie Hebdo. I'm going to speak with him about that day, but a warning we are talking about a violent shooting and some of the details are disturbing. Philippe Lancon is in Paris. Hello.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Hello, Matt.

MG: Five years is incredible in terms of the passage of time. How are you feeling now about what happened five years ago?

PHILIPPE LANCON: The event is like disappearing in my memory, you know. Maybe because I wrote this book, maybe because time is passing. As time goes by, I think I'm not, of course, at all forgetting anything. I'm living with this and in a way, the event is always in front of me and not behind me. But I am moving. And so the event is moving in inside me and in front of me as a kind of magic mountain disappearing step by step, step by step in the clouds.

MG: That's a really powerful image. You said that you feel different. Do you feel different than from before the attack?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes. Different from before the attack and different from the guy when I was in the hospital where I spent almost nine months and then different from the guy who had several surgery after while, because this surgery was so intense that it was like a second private life. So now I'm different because I'm still going to the hospital, but less and less, of course. And so step by step, this private life, this second private life is disappearing. But I always have a deep memory of this life. I don't forget it.

MG: You write about this in great detail in the book. Describe to me what happened five years ago. How did the attack unfold that morning?

PHILIPPE LANCON: I will tell you very quickly, only from my point of view and what I lived. So there was this conference between cartoonists and journalists. And as always, in Charlie Hebdo, which the satirical newspaper, we were speaking about the novel of Michel Houllebecq novel, Submission, was published this day, the 7th of January.

MG: And this is was a novel, we should say, that this is a novel that that when it was published, generated a lot of controversy.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes, a lot of controversy, because Houllebecq was imagining a country, France, where Islamist people have got the power. The prime minister is an Islamist, not a Muslim, an Islamist. But a soft Islamist. There is not really violence in the book. Ironical novel I would say. I would say it's ironic. Some people in the conference would say that it was really racist against Muslims, although people would say, no, it's not a kind of discourse against Muslim. It is a novel.

MG: And so you were there in the office discussing this novel?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes. And then at the end of this discussion, suddenly we listened to some noises and people shouting but we were in this little room and we were around 12 here and we didn't know what it was, you know. And then suddenly I personally saw, I understood that something was happening, but I didn't know what it was. And I saw the policeman who was protecting the chief editor Charb, because we had a lot of threats for now almost 10 years, nine years -- who began to take his gun. When I saw that, I understood that really something serious was happening. But I understood, too, that it was already too late, because I remember and I write about that, that when I saw the policeman taking his gun, I thought you do it too slow. It is too slow.

MG: You thought that he was pulling his gun out too slowly.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes, like in a Western, you know. And then I pulled myself from the ground lying down and I thought I was safe. And then I saw two black legs with the rifle, which was a Kalashnikov coming through close to me and I could hear this. It was a voice telling "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar." And after every "Allahu Akbar," shooting one bullet. So now I know, of course, and after a while I knew that there was shooting in the heads of every people they met.

MG: What happened then?

PHILIPPE LANCON: But I didn't know. At this moment I didn't know even if there were many people or only one or two or three. I only see a pair of two black legs coming. Step by step close to me and shouting and saying, "Allahu Akbar." You understand?

MG: Yeah.

PHILIPPE LANCON: After two minutes, less than two minutes, these two black legs disappeared. And then the silence, an absolute silence. And in the silence, I opened my eyes because I when the black legs were very close to me, I do, I did like the children do, you know? I play the dead guy. So I closed my eyes and when the black legs disappeared, I opened my eyes again. First thing I saw that my left hand was absolutely bloody and injured. And then behind my left hand I saw the head, the body and the head of one of my co-workers and I could see the brain was going outside of the of the head.

MG: Oh my goodness.

PHILIPPE LANCON: As I say, it has been my first view on the afterward, not the day after, but the minute after.

MG: The minute after.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes. And then I decided to turn my head and I saw my right arm absolutely open and injured by a bullet. So at this moment, I understood that I have been injured, but I didn't think at this moment that it was so important..

MG: And you didn't feel this? You just saw it?

PHILIPPE LANCON: No, because I spoke about that with my surgeon and the great injury was my jaw because my jaw had exploded with a bullet.

MG: Your jaw?

PHILIPPE LANCON: At this moment, I didn't know that.

MG: Your jaw had exploded.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes. And so my surgeon told me afterwards that there is a kind of shower of adrenaline. I was under this shower of adrenaline and so I didn't feel anything.

MG: When you saw those legs standing in front of you, when you heard people being shot one by one, did you think in that moment that you were going to die?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes, I thought that I was going to die, but at the same time, life is very strong, you know. And so even in the moment, you think, I may die. There is a little voice who tell you I won't die. You won't die because as you say, you are like I was like a child, the child who plays the dead guy, but he knows he's not dead. And he knows something in him knows he will not die. So it was two things at the same time. I don't know if I'm clear about.

MG: Absolutely. No, it makes perfect sense. In telling that story you have a very clear memory of what happened. And I wonder how difficult it is for you to tell the story. Does it take you back to that moment or is there still, you talked about, you know, how different you are, is that difference allowing you to be able to tell that story?

PHILIPPE LANCON: For me now, it is like a like a story, you know, and like a novel. But the fact is that there is I don't know if I would say the hero or the character of the novel is me.

MG: You talked about the surgeries that you went through to recover. How long was that recovery process?

PHILIPPE LANCON: The recovery process in a way is still going on because it's not over, but I would say a tough recovery process took almost two years and a half.

MG: And how many surgeries have you have you undergone?

PHILIPPE LANCON: I don't really now I don't count anymore, but more than 20.

MG: More than 20?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes. Some very heavy surgery and some others not so heavy, you know.

MG: How did you, you talked about looking in the mirror. How did you realize how serious the injuries were to you?

PHILIPPE LANCON: When I was on the ground, I told you I felt with my tongue that my teeth were destroyed in the mouth because it was like bones inside, you know, little piece of bones. So I saw that something happened there, but I still I didn't know. Then I sat on the ground and I took my mobile because some young cartoonist came across called Coco came and I gave her my mobile so that she could the phone call my mother. And when I gave her my mobile, I saw my face in the cell phone. And then I saw that I had no jaw anymore on the right side. There was a hole. I remember perfectly that I said, "well, now you are a monster. "

MG: That's what you thought.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes. But maybe you may not believe it, with a kind of almost a funny sense of the situation, because maybe because it's a satirical newspaper and we get used to it. But I thought, my poor guy, what is happening to you now? And because it was so unbelievable to see me like that, you know, byt I was not crying. Coco was crying. The cartoonist I told you about and another journalist who was here. She was crying, too, looking at me. But I was not crying because I was inside the situation, not outside.

MG: What did you see in the office after the killers had left?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Well, first as I told you, the dead body of Bernard and then some legs and bodies, but I didn't know at this moment what legs was belonging to, you know. And because there was a lot of colour of dead bodies everywhere. Then the firemen came very fast. After they put me on a chair, they took that chair up and put me, of course, outside of the room and put me down the building in the car. But inside the room, when I was up in the air, exactly like an angel, you know, I could see down the dead bodies. So there are some I remember and one of them was the news cartoonist, the face was almost yellow. It was like in the cathedral. You have in France, we have sculptures of dead people in the church, you know? And it was like that. And then on the right, I saw Wolinski. He was a very good friend of me and an old cartoonist, very, very famous in France, a kind of national monument. And he was dead too, but he has a very beautiful face. He has been shot in the stomach and down, not the head. And he was dead too. But he was beautiful. Like an old bird. Beautiful.

MG: Like an old bird.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes. Yes, an eagle, I would say. Many of them had the face absolutely destroyed by the bullets. And maybe I saw that, but I don't remember. So I don't write about it. I only write about what I saw and what I personally lived.

MG: The two people who did this were linked to al-Qaeda. They were killed by security forces after a manhunt that lasted three days. How did you learn that that they had been killed?

PHILIPPE LANCON: By my brother. When I was, of course, in the hospital, my brother who is a very elegant and soft man. Maybe the only time in my life when I saw him, I heard him telling something brutal. He told me almost at the end they killed these assholes. And I was shocked because this is not the way my brother is speaking usually. And what I remember is I was you know, I couldn't speak at this time. I was, I had no jaw, it was a very terrible sight. And so the only thing I said that you shouldn't speak like that. That's what I thought.

MG: You can understand why he would say that though. I'm wondering how do you, do hate the men who did this to you?

PHILIPPE LANCON: No, no, no, no, I don't. Because as I told and as I tell you, I only saw two black legs. How could could one hate two black legs? In a way, it is abstract. It was very concrete, but it is I didn't see this man and I didn't know them. It is so absurd. So that hate is not the proper feeling about that for me.

MG: But help help me understand that, because to a lot of people, that would be the natural instinct. These men came and they murdered a number of your colleagues. They could have killed you. There are a lot of people who would hate them.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes, of course. I know people who hate them and who hate people who are backing them. That's not my case. It's very difficult for me to explain, but I don't want to lie. And this is the truth. This is my truth. Maybe because I don't want to think about these guys, you know, so I don't hate them. I feel pity for what they of course, I'm very sad about what they did. Sad, more than sad. But. And it's terrible and I suppose they were stupid people. Morons. But journalists are looking for fast answers. We don't know what is in the dark side, really of these people.

MG: I was gonna say one of the things that that people said in the the days, the hours and weeks after was that not just about the book that was published on the same day, the submission book, but that Charlie Hebdo —and you've talked about this — It had been under threat since 2006 when it first published the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Its offices had been firebombed. There was a security guard that was there. And people wondered whether the attack should come as a surprise. Do you think that it was a surprise?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes, it was a surprise because we knew these threats. Of course, we knew better than everyone — but the fact that the cartoon about Mohammed, yes you have these kind of official motivations. That's what we read in the newspapers and what people say, because they repeat what they are supposed to think. It doesn't explain why two brothers decide one day to take Kalashnikov and to organise the slaughter of so many people who are cartoonists and journalists in a newspaper. You know, I don't buy these kind of explanations. There is something deeper and this thing deeper is is linked with the lives, the lives personal life of these two people. And this I don't know and nobody will know.

MG: Do you ever look back on the decision to publish those cartoons and wonder in light of what happened, whether that was the right decision?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Yes, but this is we did what we did because we thought in 2006 that the most important for a satirical newspaper who was very famous in France, was the freedom of expression. Because it is what it is. I mean, Charlie Hebdo is not The New York Times. You know, it is a satirical newspaper in France. People are not supposed to buy it. It's not an institution in the sense that we are not supposed to be serious and full of respect with people. We are most of people in this newspaper are cartoonists. Their job is to make fun about everything and that's what they did. And so, of course, when they knew that cartoonists were threatened by death because of their cartoons, that's why they decided to publish cartoons of Mohammed, not because they were good cartoons or not because they hated Mohammed or whatever, but because only to to remind people that we are in a democracy where every kind of thing can be published. And then if some people think they are insulted or that that they feel bad about, that they can make a trial. You know, with lawyers and so on. This is democracy. But in a democracy, there is no death penalty for cartoons.

MG: I just wonder. I mean, and again, it might be an academic argument, but given the personal toll, not just on yourself, but on your friends that were killed, whether you ever have a moment, whether you wonder whether it was worth that? That the point of publishing the cartoons may be the point of publishing the cartoons, but if people were offended and that this in some way was the result, whether you look back on that and think what could have happened?

PHILIPPE LANCON: No I don't think so. I deeply disagree with that. There is not on a balance people who offend others and on the other one, people give death. Either you think your freedom of expression is very important or you think it's not. But it's like these people who say that they are against death penalty, but only in several case they are for death penalty. So they are not against death penalty. They are for death penalty. You know, you are against or you are for. Freedom of expression is the same. You are absolutely for freedom of expression and then in a democracy, you have justice and lawyers. If there are fake news or if people who feel they are insulted, they can absolutely defend themselves. And they go through, yes they go through the justice for that. And this is civilization. Giving death with Kalashnikov, this is not civilization.

MG: What did you make of the huge demonstrations that followed this attack? You saw enormous crowds in the streets of Paris and they would be chanting and they had signs saying, Je suis Charlie. They were standing in solidarity with you and the staff of the magazine. What did you make of it?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Really, to be honest at this moment, I didn't care about it. Now, of course, I know what it was. Maybe we can remind people who are listening to us that it was the greatest meeting in Paris since the liberation of Paris in 1945. The end of the war. And it is simple to understand that first, some of the cartoonists who have been shot dead were really, as I told you, national monument in France. They were very, very famous. People grew up with them. With Cabu and with Wolinski most of all. And so and it is a part of the French spirit of satirical spirits. It is a very old French story, you know. And so that's why people were in the streets. I think they said the we don't want that in France. We don't want this kind of lack of civilization. We are a free country. We want the cartoonist to do what they they want to do, freely and without being shot dead. That's very simple. I think people who are really upset with what happened. It was a really deep democratic reaction.

MG: And what about you? Are you afraid of getting around Paris anymore?

PHILIPPE LANCON: Not anymore. I have been afraid during of course. I mean, it was maybe nine months after the attack when I first take the subway, a younger Arab was with a bag, was very close to me. And I really felt afraid. And of course, I'm not racist at all and I decided to stay close to him in the subway because I told to myself, if you go out now then you will always be afraid. The day I decided to stay on the subway close to this guy then it was a victory.

MG: It's an incredibly powerful story and I'm glad you survived and it's a pleasure to talk to you Philippe. Thank you.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Thank you Matt.

MG: Bye bye.

PHILIPPE LANCON: Bye.

MG: Philippe Lancon is a journalist. His memoirs called Disturbance: Surviving Charlie Hebdo. He was in Paris. Well, that's our program for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One. When Avkash Mann is in Canada, he enjoys relative anonymity. In India he is one of the country's biggest Punjabi pop stars. The Canadian-Indian musician Avkash Mann is Laurie Brown's guest. Coming up next on Q. We're going to end this radio program talking about movies and one movie in particular. Perhaps you've seen it. Little Women is Greta Gerwig's adaptation of the classic novel. Not surprisingly, it features a lot of well, women. And while it's been a box office success, that is largely due to, you guessed it, women. Only about 30 percent of the audience seeing this film is male and that is something that bothers the Globe and Mail's culture contributor, Johanna Schneller. She, along with Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth, get the last word today. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. And we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Jan. 7, 2020 episode transcript

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