Isla Bell Rally

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Early last year, I became aware of the death of a young artist and environmentalist, Isla Bell. The circumstances were pretty awful, and it quickly became obvious that I had a few friends close to family who, with what I consider to be a passionate and inspiring response, had established a charity to support young women artists. I made contact with the family to seek permission to engage in a fundraising campaign through the sale of some tabletop RPGs, as I have done in the past (Medicines sans Frontiers, UNHCR, Effective Altruism) and, over a couple of months and helped by the Conquest games convention and co-contributors (especially Simon Stroud), over $15000 was raised.

However, two days ago, Isla's accused killer, Marat Ganiev, had the manslaughter (originally murder) charges dropped by the public prosecutor , as were charges against his alleged co-offender Eyal Yaffe. Using the grim calculus, I understand the OPP's reasoning; there was no reasonable chance of conviction, because it was not possible to determine the cause of death, "beyond a reasonable doubt", even though everyone is quite aware of what happened.

This Saturday, friends and family have organised an "Isla Bell Justice Rally" in front of the State Library. Isla is remembered, and one day there will be justice for her and others.