Dustin LaFortune

Archive for the ‘General News’ Category

Hi all! You may have noticed that there hasn’t yet been an update from the normal Wednesday teleconference calls. This is because a normal one didn’t happen last week. However, Renee did say that most of the team members were spoken to individually, so she’ll have some updates for us soon.

Egads We’ve been busy lately! Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes here. Finally getting to posting the PayPal statements too – hoping to have them up at the same time as the bank statement next time – a lot of my time at the computer these days has been ‘drive-by’.

The ‘plan of action’ for taking money out of the account is to try and wait until there is enough to withdraw around $300 to $350 while still leaving $40 to $50 in at all times to cover “unseens” (not sure what the means yet, but since once we transfer it out, we can’t put money back in from the bank [not allowed with the type of account], so it seems like a prudent idea).  For reporting purposes, we will ‘count’ the money as the final total once it is actually IN the bank account.

Paypal statements for June 2010 – page was too long to fit on one, so it’s in three parts.

Click for full size

Click for full size

Click for full size

While it still remains to be proven, one of the concerns is that Dustin was tortured during his ordeal. Did you know that a regular citizen cannot be charged with torture in Canada?

Linda and Jeanne from http://www.ritualabusetorture.org/ have been kind enough to put together a slideshow to explain just how this is in our country.  Thanks Linda and Jeanne!

To see it full size, simply click on the “Menu” button on the bottom left of the slide and choose “View Fullscreen.” When you’re done, press your “Esc” key on your keyboard to close.

Some Readings

The links from the slide:

• Article re sexualized non-state actor torture and guns entitled, Canada: Torturers, Guns and Bullets:

http://www.iansa-women.org/sites/default/files/newsviews/en-iansa-wn-bulletin22-web.pdf

• Article of women’s stories connected to spillover warring/military non-state actor torture, civil society responses to the previous linked questionnaire and the discriminatory existence of a patriarchal divide that  has valued identifying & criminalizing state torture while invisibilizing non-state actor torture -  Peace Studies Journal:

http://www.peacestudiesjournal.org/archive/winter09/mcdonald.pdf

• Article re spousal non-state actor torture – Defining Torture by Non-State Actors in the Canadian Private Sphere, pp. 29-33 :

http://www.ccvt.org/pdfs/firstlighwinter2009.pdf

A very, very heartfelt and HUGE thank you to all the wonderful people who have opened their hearts to Dustin and donated to the account. We are pleased to announce that in the month of June, we received $1081.85!

There have been no disbursements to report. A screen shot of the June statement is below – simply click for full size:

Click for full size

Thank you again!

UPDATE: “Wait! Some images are missing! Where’s Courtney??” We know . We had a false DMCA Notice served for this website this morning. False or not, we still needed to go through a DMCA Counter-Notice to ensure this website wasn’t taken down. The papers have been filed and the 7 images that were in dispute have been disabled both here and in the main gallery for the time-being. After 10 days, barring any further dispute, they will be back up!

Dustin had an exciting weekend! His friend Lynn and his brother Rogi were able to visit him and Dustin was given permission for an outing. As well as visiting parks and monuments, they got to go to the Science Centre!

All the practicing he’s been doing with the support bars in physio is obviously helping!  He got to stand up holding railings outside and admire the view for the first time in months. No doubt Lynn and Rogi were tired too by the end of the day after pushing that wheelchair all around town.

You’ll also see that Courtney was able to stop by for a short bit and help Dustin learn about his iPad. I’m told that it should/could be integrated into his therapy.

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the explaining for themselves – stay tuned later this week for Renee’s regular Wednesday teleconference notes for an update on how he’s doing – as you can see, he’s come so far! Way to go, Dustin

Photos re-published here with the permission of Lynn Ness.

Dear Supporters,

It is with great regret that we announce the shutting down of the Facebook group to comments. Right now our focus needs to be on Dustin, his healing and arrangements for the rest of his life. There are so many of you who are wonderful and supportive and gave so much to the community. We are so sorry all of that was getting lost in the noise.

From now on, we are going to focus our energy on bringing more updates to this website so people stay informed of his progress. To be notified of how Dustin is doing and any other important updates, you can either sign up for the newsletter on the right-hand side of this page or subscribe to the RSS feed in your preferred reader.

If you’d like to become more involved, we have the How You Can Help page with several different ways you can show your support. As always, messages of support and encouragement for the family are welcome! Simply use the form on the Contact page.

Thank you so much to everyone!

First, the start of an FAQ page is put up. Still working on probably a dozen or so questions – will put those up as they are completed. You can see the FAQ here. http://dustinlafortune.com/faq/

And then at long last we have been able to put everything together for the In Trust fund for Dustin. It’s been a bit of a process, but we got there! Thank you for your patience.  You can learn more about donating and the fund here.  http://dustinlafortune.com/donate/