TORONTO, Aug 13th, 2012 – As GoTopless organizes its 5th year of protests worldwide for women’s equal topless rights, many women will gather in the streets of Toronto to expose the city’s discrimination of women’s topless rights established in 1996.

Last year, the Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Department has refused to issue the local chapter of GoTopless a permit for their rally on the grounds that the topless women participating in the event would violate the “proper attire”, code that it is still in effect this year.

Sylvie Chabot a Raelian woman priest, head of GoTopless in Canada reacted by saying: “The rule is in pure contradiction with the provincial ruling of 1996 that officially granted women the right to go topless in the province of Ontario.” (ref: Gwen Jacob was acquitted on December 9, 1996 by the Ontario Court of Appeal, http://www.gotopless.org/files/2012-07/Queen_vs_Jacob.pdf )

“If ‘proper attire’ means that women have to hide their chest in Toronto’s public parks and beaches, then men must be forced to do the same on the basis of gender equality!” Chabot added, referring to the very constitutional argument Maitreya Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement, made as he founded GoTopless in 2007.

“All or none, Toronto!” exclaimed Chabot and added that the men participating in the rally would be wearing a bikini top to support gender topless equality in the current discriminatory legal climate.

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World Swastika Rehabilitation Day (WOSRED) will be celebrated on June 26 through marches and informative events worldwide.
WOSRED was launched last year by Rael, spiritual leader of the IRM, in order to educate people about the true meaning of peace and harmony of the swastika, this ancient symbol regretfully hijacked by the Nazis.

Raelians are often questioned about their symbol, in which a swastika intertwines with two overlapping triangles that form a six-pointed star. People, especially those of Jewish origin, obviously disturbed to see a swastika intertwined with a Star of David, change their perception when they’re told it was used for millennia and is still used today by many peaceful religious groups, especially in Asia.

On June 26, the organizers are expecting hundreds, or, hopefully, thousands of people to celebrate World Swastika Rehabilitation Day in the streets of Miami, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York in the United States; in Vancouver and Toronto in Canada; in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in Australia; in Zacatecas, Veracruz and Mexico City in Mexico; in Milan, Italy; Lyon, France; and Rotterdam, Holland.

The Proswastika group initiated by Rael now includes Buddhists and Hindus, who have used the swastika as a symbol since the very beginning of their religions.Read More

TORONTO, Aug. 23, 2011 – After learning that women will be going topless during the scheduled activities, the Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Department refused on July 21 to issue an Aug. 28 special event permit for the Canadian chapter of U.S.-based GoTopless.org.

A non-profit organization, GoTopless holds annual protest/educational events worldwide to proclaim that women as well as men have a constitutional right to go topless in public.

The Canadian chapter wanted to hold its annual protest in Ashbridges Bay Park, but will now do a protest march instead, assembling at the edge of the park.

“This permit refusal represents gender discrimination, in which men are treated differently than women,” said GoTopless spokesperson Diane Brisebois. “The authorities would rather have us hold this event on Hanlan’s Point Beach, a nudist beach on Toronto Island, but that defeats our purpose. The authorities maintain that top free women are nude, but that’s exactly what we want to change. There is not more nudity in revealing one’s breast than in revealing one’s arm and this is what Gotopless Canada is trying to address.”

For Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement (rael.org) and founder of Gotopless.org, the equation is simple: “As long as men can go topless, women should have the same constitutional right or men should also be forced to wear something that hides their chests.”

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Montreal, November 25th, 2010 – As part of the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women”, Clitoraid invites the public to a silent march to be held Sunday, Nov. 28th in Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto. (* see details below).

The United Nations General Assembly, in 1999, designated November 25th the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women” (http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/violence) and invited governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations to organize activities on that day designed to raise public awareness of the problem.

Unfortunately, in the list of acts of violence against women, female genital mutilation (FGM or “cutting”) appears as the most common.

The World Health Organization estimates that worldwide, 100 to 150 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation. Each year 2 million more girls are likely to suffer the same fate. Most of them live in 28 African countries, a smaller number in the Middle East and Asian countries. But there are more and more in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America.

In May 2006, in response to those stunning statistics, RAEL, the spiritual leader of the Raelian Movement, founded CLITORAID (www.clitoraid.org) a private non-profit organization whose objective is to raise public awareness of this terrible reality. Clitoraid’s main purpose is to raise funds to help African women, with very limited financial means, undergo surgery towards the reconstruction of their clitoris. This technique, which was scientifically validated by a French surgeon, currently allows women of all ages who have suffered “cutting”, to regain clitoral pleasure and to feel whole again.

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