Founded in 1983 - United for Diversity and Racial Equality

SOUTH ASIAN FREELANCE JOURNALIST EXPELLED FROM HOTEL, FILED RACIAL PROFILING COMPLAINT



Montreal, May 16, 2013 --- After being forced to leave for no reasons, a South Asian Canadian freelance journalist has filed a civil rights complaint against a downtown hotel and two security guards.

Last April, CF, a Canadian-born South Asian freelance journalist specializing in international affairs, went to the Delta Hotel Centre-Ville, located at 777 University St. downtown, to attend the Quebec Medical Association Convention as a freelance journalist. CF presented himself at the main registration desk, showed his press card and was waiting to be registered as a journalist when he was interrupted by a security guard, who asked him what he was doing.

Both CF and the registration desk staff person told the guard that he was being registered. The guard left and a second guard soon arrived, asking him what he was doing at the hotel. As the staff person told the guard that she was registering him and preparing his press pass, CF showed his press card, which the guard did not even look at.

CF was then told to leave the hotel in a blunt tone and refused to tell CF why. Sensing the situation aggravating with the guard’s insistence, and humiliated in front of the registration staff, CF decided to leave. He was then escorted by both staff to the main exit, still not knowing the reasons for his expulsion. To this day, he still does not understand the grounds for his expulsion.

Deeply humiliated and embarrassed by such treatments in full public view, CF believed that his race and appearance led both guards to believe that someone of his skin color cannot be a journalist. He mandated CRARR to file a civil rights complaint against the establishment in which he seeks damages, an apology and the adoption by the hotel of a policy against racial profiling.