About 35 members of Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture on their way to Ottawa protested outside Liberal MP Belinda Stronach’s office and the RCMP office in Newmarket this afternoon.

The caravan started in Toronto yesterday.

“It says (Ms Stronach’s) office is open until 2:15 on Friday,” said Matthew Behrens, co-ordinator of the event. “But we are here at 1:15 and the office is closed.”

Protesters gathered on the steps of the constituency, displaying banners and flyers for passersby.

“Torture happens when people are silent, therefore, we have to speak out and act,” Mr. Behrens said.

Marina Nemat, a local author and torture survivor, joined the caravan. Her book, Prisoner of Tehran, details her horrific experience in an Iranian jail.

In 1982, she was imprisoned, tortured for her open Christian beliefs and then handed down a death sentence, which was later reduced to life in prison. For more than two years, she was tortured and crammed into a single jail cell with more than 70 people.

“How can that happen?” she asked the crowd. “How is that possible?”

She wasn’t even allowed to attend her own trial, Ms Nemat told the gathering, comparing her journey and confinement to the Holocaust.

“The danger signs were there. The danger signs are here,” she said. “We will wake up one morning and democracy is going to be dead.”

The caravan is calling for a public inquiry into the role of Canadian officials in the torture of Canadian citizens abroad.

Ms Stronach  has spoken out in Parliament about human rights, said Mr. Behrens, as he left the steps of her office, hopeful Ms Stronach will contact him.

“We hope our demands are consistent with her world view and (she) supports us,” he said.

Amanda Persico is a journalism co-op student from Centennial College