Homes Not Bombs

REPORT BACK FROM CSI: OTTAWA, ENDING CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE

2011-12-29T09:26:00.000-08:00

(apologies for the belated nature of this report; the issues, however, remain urgent, so see at the bottom what you can do to help)

REPORT BACK FROM CSI: OTTAWA, ENDING CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE

In the early morning hours of October 26, an Ottawa communiqué was produced by the RCMP’s home-grown Crisis Management Cell (Al Qaeda is not the only disreputable and shady organization that organizes itself with cell structures). The communiqué warned of an impending evolving situation at the Prime Minister’s Office and called on Special Operations as well as Ottawa Police to attend to the scene.

The cause of the crisis, apparently, had to do with “anti-torture” protesters who were set to gather that morning at 9:30 am. While the special bulletin did not explain the whys and wherefores, it would have been obvious to anyone who had been in the city for the previous three days, during which copious amounts of crime scene tape had appeared, accompanied by evidence flags and hooded “detainees,” at a variety of Canadian government agencies and private corporations complicit in torture.

Members of the Crisis Management Cell were also concerned, no doubt, with the banner headline of that morning’s Ottawa Citizen, which revealed that just-released internal RCMP documents indicated that the Mounties knew that the alleged case against Ottawa engineer Abdullah Almalki was completely unfounded. Yet the Mounties nonetheless made up dangerously inflammatory allegations about him that resulted in 22 months of torture in a Syrian dungeon. No one in the institution has been held to account. (for more on those memos see http://rabble.ca/columnists/2011/11/taking-liberties-three-years-after-finding-canadian-complicity-torture-silence-li )

Indeed, October marked three years since the release of a report based on the highly secretive and biased Iacobucci Inquiry, which, despite its major structural faults (the three men at the inquiry’s focus were not allowed to attend the completely secret process), nonetheless found that Canada was complicit in the men’s torture. Despite a subsequent Parliamentary committee’s recommendations, and a vote by the majority of the House of Commons calling for an apology, compensation, and accountability, Prime Minister Harper, as well as the complicit institutions and individuals, have failed to comply with that vote and simply do the right thing.

Hence, public pressure to jump-start a process of accountability to mark that anniversary sprang into action, and for three days, members of Crime Scene Investigation: Ottawa (CSI Ottawa), a fully realized subsidiary of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, had been showing up at dozens of locations, reading aloud damning documents from federal inquiries, court decisions, and independent research that focused both on the cases of three Canadians targeted for torture – Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nereddin – as well as the larger pattern of complicity in torture that has ruined the lives of countless Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and refugees.

DAY ONE: CHURCH RENTS TO RCMP
And so individuals dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods, accompanied by others in CSI jackets and one booming sound system, set out to mark the city’s numerous shameful connections to torture. The first day began during the bitterly cold and damp morning rush hour on Monday, October 24 in the city’s east end where, after the group members parked their vehicles in the massive St. Laurent shopping centre parking lot, they headed out on the torture trail leading to the RCMP.

Much of the territory along Coventry Road is owned or leased to the RCMP, and the Mounties control a number of buildings in the area. They are so pervasive that when CSI organizers had sought to park nearer to the Mounties’ main headquarters on Vanier Parkway, they were told area lots were reserved only for the RCMP. A Catholic Church located next to the RCMP HQ was approached as well, but CSI organizers were informed that the church cannot take a position on a “political issue” (a remarkably ironic comment given the fate of the central figure of the Christian church, tortured to death), and besides, they rent their parking lot to the Mounties as well.

Stop #1 was a smaller RCMP detachment, which was quickly surrounded by hundreds of feet of crime scene tape in English and Arabic, as well as evidence flags. Speakers read out the history of the RCMP’s endless crimes, from the murder of striking labourers and the spying on a wide range of political organizations to their hundreds of illegal break-ins, ethnic cleansing of First Nations communities, barn burnings, taserings, and more. All this was framed in the context of a legendary RCMP Commissioner’s internal letter informing his fellow horsemen that should they have to engage in illegal activities, the Mounties will stand by their men, receive their regular salary along with legal assistance, funding to pay any fines and, if a jail sentence portends, a job waiting for them when they get sprung. Copies of this letter and related readings from CSI Ottawa are available at the following links:

http://www.peoplescommission.org/files/torturecanada/csi_day1.pdf

http://www.peoplescommission.org/files/torturecanada/csi_day2.pdf

http://www.peoplescommission.org/files/torturecanada/csi_day3.pdf

A number of RCMP employees came out of the building to see what was going on. One of them told a CSI member that this whole torture business was a major mess for which the agency should apologize, while another refused comment. The group headed west, past Enbridge (where the company’s connections to paramilitary violence, including assassination and torture of pipeline opponents in Colombia had been a major issue this past decade) and Starbucks, which opened an outlet within a stone’s throw of Guantanamo Bay’s torture centre. Notably, Starbucks has stated it “refrains” from taking a position on the illegality of Gitmo, preferring to open “We Proudly Brew” outlets wherever US troops invade and torture.

The main campus of the RCMP was shortly festooned with miles of yellow crime scene tape while major sections of the Iacobucci report detailing RCMP complicity in the torture of Mssrs Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin were read out. While some Mounties laughed, others listened silently. As the group handed leaflets to passing employees headed out for an early lunch or a jog, comments ranged from un-repeatable epithets to closed windows and middle digit salutes. One Mountie who was polite enough to roll down his window was asked if he had read the Iacobucci report as well as the O’Connor report (which focused on the torture of Maher Arar). He said he had.

“What do you think of the findings that the RCMP was complicit in torture?” he was asked.

“That’s not the way I read it,” he replied, driving away.

WAR DEPT. AND SOA
The group headed back east, stopping in at one of the War Dept.’s satellite buildings. A number of readings were blasted into the building, and many employees stared out from behind the tinted glass. Reports on the torture of detainees transferred by Canadian troops were accompanied by an extensive history of the School of the Assassins (SOA), a Columbus, Georgia-based torture training school which regularly has Canadian soldiers as teachers and students.

As noon approached, the group took a pre-lunch stop at PetroCanada, which, with its parent, Suncor, remained complicit in the torture and murder of thousands of Syrians by refusing to pull out of that blood-stained nation (a far cry from their quick exit from Libya earlier this year). Notably, Suncor did finally pull out of Syria in December, and while they say they were responding to sanctions, the role of public pressure cannot be dismissed, especially given how the corporation set up a special link on their website responding directly to the emails and fact sheets then being distributed by a number of groups across Canada.

Meanwhile, one CSI investigator reported that our group had been followed by a bald man in a silver Mazda. He was, apparently, watching the group while they were at the RCMP, and, remarkably showed up right next to the cars of the CSI demonstrators in the St. Laurent parking lot.

NEITHER WIND NOR RAIN KEEPS US FROM CSIS
As the day wore on, the group encountered wind and heavy rain, but this did not dampen their spirits as they went to CSIS, Canada’s complicit-in-torture spy agency. On behalf of Ahmad El Maati, who was unable to attend, the group again demanded, as Ahmad had three years earlier, that someone from CSIS come down and look us in the eyes to explain why they subcontracted Ahmad’s torture in Syria and Egypt. Frightened by this outburst of democracy, CSIS went, as it always does with demonstrations, on lockdown, and no one could get in or leave.

In general, the area was a muddy mess, as construction on the new super secret Communications Security Establishment headquarters next door continued.

Meanwhile, that unmarked silver Mazda showed up again, and the group decided to confront the driver of the vehicle.

First off, he explained, it was sheer coincidence that when he went to get a sandwich for lunch, he was parked alongside one of the unmarked demonstrators’ vehicles in the acres of parking lot. When asked why he was following the group, he claimed he was not following us, but was in fact “ahead of” us, and that his role was to ensure our safety.

When we informed him he was 11 years too late to ensure the safety of Mr. Almalki, who was there with us, the man, who eventually identified himself as Wayne Russett, an “Aboriginal and Ethnic Liaison Officer,” we asked what he thought of the Iacobucci findings that his organization was complicit in torture. He said he was only a small fish and those decisions were made higher. We informed him that such arguments did not wash at the Nazi war crimes Nuremberg Tribunals and they would not wash now.

He insisted his role was to “help us,” but Almalki asked how he was helping when Russett was engaged in exactly the kind of behaviour the RCMP employed against the Almalki family 10 years prior, when numerous unmarked cars and unidentified officers terrorized his family, at one time following Almalki’s wife and children right into the library, among other intimidating actions.

TELLILNG THE RCMP TO BACK OFF
The discussion went back and forth for quite some time, with Mr. Russett clearly uncomfortable yet strangely not rolling up his window. It was as if he somehow knew something was wrong and wanted to look good in our eyes. He said, for example, that he meets regularly with “ethnic communities,” but we explained such meetings were not about helping, but about targeting specific individuals in communities who happen to speak up for people’s rights. We told him we, as a community, did not want him to be following us, and told him to back off. He said he would see us again.

The group eventually had to leave for other crime scenes, and wound up at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). The sound system again was incredibly useful in booming into the building the many crimes DFAIT officers have committed in the torture of not only these three men, but also Abousfian Abdelrazik (see more at http://www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik/#canadian_involvement_in_arbitrary_detention ). Security at the building told us we could not be there, but we continued anyhow, putting up the crime scene tape and handing out information packages. At one point it appeared that Foreign Affairs Minister Baird was about to leave, but he could not be confronted by the forces of democracy in Canada, and so he waited inside until the coast was clear. We were able to slip some information into his vehicle,, but security was nervous, and eventually called in a squadron of Ottawa police, who arrived just as the CSI Team headed out to plan the next day’s activities.

SUPREME COURT COMPLICITY
Tuesday was freezing in the nation’s capital, but this did not stop the intrepid CSI investigators from setting up shop on the steps of the Supreme Court of Canada. Told by the torture-complicit representatives of the Mounties that we had to stay at a distance, the CSI crew expertly moved forward to where the Crime Scene tape needed to be displayed. Among the cases we discussed were the court’s utter failure to comply with international law when it comes to allowing for deportation to torture (the Suresh decision) as well as their failure to take action demanding Harper repatriate Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay.

The group moved on to the Dept. of “Justice,” and a half dozen entered the premises with the hooded “detainees” as well as a copy of the indictment of George Bush which Dept. lawyers refused to act upon when the former US president was here earlier in the month. One detainee who needed to use the restroom was denied access for “security” reasons, and two security officers were sent down to listen to how the Justice Dept. was found to be complicit in torture in both the O’Connor and Iacobucci inquiries.

What is remarkable is the extent to which all the agencies relied on Justice Dept. lawyers for advice on sending questions to torturers in Syria and Egypt, knowing these could resulting the torture of Canadian citizens. Justice Dept. lawyers also “advised” when the original unfounded, false, inflammatory, and ultimately dangerous allegations were made up against these Canadian citizens. Again, as with the lawyers advising the Bush White House on the “legality” of torture, Canada’s Justice Dept. has failed to prosecute its members and come clean.

Given the massive size of the department—it spans two city blocks—the group had to try multiple entrances, eventually coming upon a “Serving Canadians” booth that offered pamphlets on how to deal with grave miscarriages of justice. Unfortunately, there was no section on how to deal with a failure of governments to be accountable when complicit in the torture of their citizens. All the representatives would offer the group was an 800 number to call to make their concerns heard.

Out into the cold, other sites that morning included the embassy of Colombia (with whom the Canadian government now has a notorious free trade agreement that proposed a fine for acts of political assassination committed against labour leaders), Cisco Systems (the subject of a lawsuit by Chinese dissidents who say Cisco allowed the government tracking technology that could be used to repress free thinkers), L-3 communications (producers of deadly weaponry, refugee rejection technology, and interrogators complicit in torture), the embassy of Honduras (where repression continues post-coup), the headquarters of Canada’s association of war producers, and Starbucks. The Commercial Office of Spain was also investigated for its role in the torture of Ivan Apaolaza Sancho (see http://www.peoplescommission.org/en/sancho/).

The group also noted the presence in downtown Ottawa of Burson Marsteller (who cleaned up images for torturing juntas such as that of Argentina) and Hill & Knowlton (another PR firm putting white out over criminal regimes). Sophie Harkat, whose husband Moe has been subject to a rendition-to torture secret hearing security certificate for close to a decade, spoke at the Federal Court, while the torture and murder by UK troops of Iraqi civilians, as well as their traditional role in colonial torture around the globe, actually brought out foreign affairs specialist named Clive, who had to be reminded these were facts, and not, as he insisted, “allegations.”

CANADIAN COMPLICITY IN AFGHANISTAN
Following a talk at Occupy Ottawa, the group headed to the War Dept., where we read out the powerful testimony of a former Afghan translator, Malgarai Ahmadshah, on Canadians knowingly transferring Afghans to torture (from the age of 8 to 90). Military Police scrambled about, barking orders not to stand on War Dept. property, not to record on War Dept. property, not to take pictures on War Dept. territory. They also pleaded with the group to leave because a major fire drill was about to empty the contents of the massive downtown HQ. Thanking the military police for the tip, the group decided to stay and once again read Ahmadshah’s incredibly painful and courageous testimony, in the hope that fire drill evacuees would hear it again. Alas, as at other institutions like CSIS and the RCMP, employees are not allowed to know the full truth of their organization’s illegal activities, and so the Fire Chief and other War Dept. men waited until the group left.

But not before we spoke with one CF member in fatigues who asked what this was about. We asked if he was familiar with the detainee issue. He smiled knowingly. “I’ve been over there two times,” he said.

We asked if he had anything to say about the torture of detainees.

He said he was familiar with the issue because as a member of the Military Police, he was involved in that transfer. He said he could not say much, but concluded by looking at the group, sighing, and stating, “It’s a good thing you’re here. It’s great what you’re doing.”

Other stops that afternoon included PAE (which provides police training to regimes with nasty human rights records), Public Safety (an oxymoron if ever there was one), Immigration and Canadian Border Services Agency (the latter two involved in consistent repression at home and deportation to torture).

Day two ended at the Spanish Embassy, where high officials were afraid to come out upon seeing Crime Scene Tape. Again, the powerful testimony to the case of Ivan Apaolaza Sancho was read out for the embassy and neighbours. Eventually, a man who appeared to be the ambassador exited, refusing to speak bout incommunicado detention and torture of people in his country, while other staff laughed. They waited until the Mounties showed up, asking, “Is this normal?” The Mounties looked befuddled, wondering where the CSI group got its yellow tape and evidence flags.

OUTSIDE HARPER’S OFFICE
On Wednesday morning, Mounties stationed themselves and their vehicles on the interlocking brick outside the Prime Minister’s Office. CSI investigators immediately surrounded their vehicles and placed “Evidence: Do Not Touch” flags in the earth between the bricks all around the Mounties’ vehicles. Detainee jumpsuits and black hoods were laid out as well, surrounded by evidence flags, and for almost three hours, a litany of Canadian complicity in torture was read out in front of the PMO, including a powerful piece by Moazzam Begg (a former Guantanamo detainee denied entry to Canada a week before) and Ahmad El Maati, who could not be there but sent a statement.

Numerous well dressed white men running around eventually made their way into the PMO, with one of them yelling out “It isn’t true.” When a former Supreme Court Justice guards the reputations of security agencies with total secrecy and still finds them complicit in torture, and is not believed by these men, what reality do they live in?

As the group concluded the three days of activities, some headed south to participate in the annual gathering outside Columbus,. Georgia’s School of the Assassins, while others discussed a return trip in October, 2012, with a commitment to keep up the pressure on the many cases of Canadian complicity in torture. Canada will have to answer questions about the complicity in front of the United Nations Committee Against Torture next May in Geneva.

Meanwhile, the full press conference featuring Abdullah Almalki and Amnesty International’s Alex Neve is available at http://www.abdullahalmalki.com/ (click on the left hand link to videos and press conferences).
A Radio documentary documenting the CSI events, produced by Omme-Salma Rahemtullah, is available at http://previous.ncra.ca/exchange/dspProgramDetail.cfm?programID=117611

Many thanks to those who came from far away—Montreal, Kitchener, Toronto, Belleville, Hamilton, and many more!

WHAT YOU CAN DO
1. Call or email Prime Minister Harper’s office and demand that he respect the will of the House of Commons and enact the changes necessary so that justice can be achieved for Mssrs. Almalki, El Maati, and Nureddin, and so that others will not suffer the same fate. Tel: 613-992-4211. Fax: 613-941-6900. EMail: stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca

2. Sign the petition to end the culture of impunity. To get a copy, email tasc@web.ca

3. Get involved and learn more. Visit www.abdullahalmalki.com for further information.

Learn about other cases of Canadian complicity:

http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/

http://benamarbenatta.com/

http://www.peoplescommission.org/en/

4. Support the work of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture. Cheques can be made out to Homes not Bombs and mailed to PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 1R0

Canada’s Secret Trial Cases Built on Torture

2011-12-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

(this story originally appeared at rabble.ca)

By Matthew Behrens

Four years after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously found them unconstitutional, secret hearing “security certificates” are still in use, with a number of Muslim men fighting unseen allegations while under threat of deportation to torture.

Security certificates have long been used by Canada’s scandal-plagued spy agency CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) to tar refugees and permanent residents as national security threats without having to explain their alleged case. Those detained under the process are never charged, and subjected to lower standards than those applying to any citizen facing similar accusations. Indeed, the law governing the procedure allows for the introduction of any piece of information “even if it is inadmissible in a court of law.”

For the past decade, five Muslim men – dubbed the Secret Trial Five – have endured this Kafkaesque process both behind bars and under humiliating house arrest. Last month, the release of two formerly classified documents indicates that the national security secrecy claims that form the bedrock of these cases have in fact served as a cover for illegal and unethical acts by CSIS.

Indeed, the documents reveal the secret trial regime relies almost entirely on information gleaned from torture. A 2008 letter written by Jim Judd, then head of CSIS, bemoans legislative changes then being proposed that, in raising the bar on the admissibility of information possibly extracted under torture, “could render unsustainable the current security certificate proceedings.”

The CSIS memo does not comment on the ethics or legality of using information gleaned from torture; rather, it speaks to whether or not that information can somehow be corroborated. Judd claims that CSIS must maintain relations with countries that have poor human rights records as part of its so-called counter-terrorism efforts, and he shudders that with a proposed amendment on torture, “a Court could require CSIS to certify that all intelligence gathered in support of Certificates was done without resort to torture. This would almost certainly result in the Security Certificates regime falling into disuse as a consequence of its unworkability.”

Judd adds that a Court could render inadmissible “any and all information provided by agencies in countries whose human rights records are in question – of which there are many.” This scenario could arise, the memo continues, because “much” of the information put forward by CSIS in these cases “corroborates, or is corroborated, by [words blacked out, but clearly implying derived from torture], which under this interpretation of the amendment may no longer be admissible.”

Judd’s memo was written to then Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, and cc-ed to Day’s deputy minister, Suzanne Hurtubise, Richard Fadden of Citizenship and Immigration (and, significantly, currently CSIS head), and Harper’s national security advisor Margaret Bloodworth. Remarkably, Mr. Day, despite receiving this memo confirming that these cases were built on tortured-tainted information, would one month later affix his signature to five new security certificates issued in February, 2008.

Those new certificates – issued against Toronto’s Mahmoud Jaballah, Hassan Almrei, and Mohammad Mahjoub, Ottawa’s Mohamed Harkat, and Montreal’s Adil Charkaoui – were essentially carbon copies of certificates that the five men had been fighting for years before the Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional. Never a government to pay much heed to the annoyances of Charter of Rights-quoting courts, though, the Harper government simply carried on as if nothing were wrong.

Damning as the Judd memo has proven, an additional revelation in the case of Mohammad Mahjoub, also released last month, added further fuel to the longstanding demands that the process be abolished and the men set free. The CSIS document, an appendix to a public “Summary of Disclosure,” concludes that “the bulk of information utilized in Mr. Mahjoub’s certificate was supplied by agencies associated to torture.”

Despite this document now being part of the Federal Court record, proceedings to uphold the certificate and deport Mr. Mahjoub to the substantial likelihood of torture in Egypt continue in January. It’s a sickeningly circular situation for Mahjoub, Jaballah and Harkat, all of whom face judicially sanctioned rendition to torture based on information extracted under torture.

Two other men formerly subject to the process, but still unfairly haunted by allegations anyone can view with a google search, are currently suing the federal government. Toronto’s Hassan Almrei was held over eight years and, following some cosmetic changes to the security certificate process, became the first of the five detainees to be cleared, in 2009. Adil Charkoui of Montreal had his certificate withdrawn when government lawyers, citing undisclosed “national security concerns,” refused to provide court-ordered disclosure.

Critics of the process are now wondering whether, among those documents that were withheld in the Charkaoui case, there was evidence that his case was also built on torture.

"It really makes me sick to think that when I was sitting in solitary confinement on secret allegations for almost eight years, the head of CSIS knew that my case, and the cases of the other men held on security certificate, were completely baseless, because they were likely based on information that came from torture," said Almrei.

"Once again, we see that CSIS uses secrecy to cover up what is not only politically embarrassing, but also clearly immoral and illegal." Almrei was also the subject of a secret government memo from 2003, released during the Arar Inquiry, showing that government officials knew that it was impossible to charge Mr. Almrei with a criminal offence due to a lack of evidence against him.

Ottawa’s Sophie Harkat, who has endured an equally painful sojourn with her husband Mohamed, noted “each time something like this comes out into the open, CSIS only gets a slap on the hand. In the meantime, we pay the price with our lives and freedom. This is seriously disturbing, but it's also not the first time they have hidden the truth."

CSIS has a long history of playing loose with the rules when it comes to torture, refusing in security certificate hearings to confirm what is publicly documented ad nauseum: that governments like those in Syria or Egypt regularly engage in torture.

In a March, 2010 hearing for Mr. Mahjoub, his then lawyer, Marlys Edwardh, asked a CSIS officer whether his agency was “still of the view that they do not know as a fact that Mr. [Maher] Arar was tortured.”

Despite expert reports and a federal inquiry’s conclusion that Arar was indeed tortured in Syria, the response of the officer was “we do not know as a fact Mr. Arar was tortured.”

A year earlier, CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian testified before a Parliamentary committee hearing, “do we use information that comes from torture? And the answer is that we only do so if lives are at stake.” Despite the bravado in his answer, O’Brian’s response stands in contravention of Canada’s legally binding obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

The Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), the more than accommodating “oversight” body for CSIS, produced a 2007/2008 report relating to Harkat’s case based on a complaint that CSIS exhibited a “total lack of concern” with respect to information gleaned from torture. In language typical of that body’s accommodationist posture, “SIRC found CSIS is concerned with human rights, but nevertheless may use information obtained by torture.”

Th report continued, “Although SIRC did not find evidence of a ‘total lack of concern’ on the part of CSIS regarding evidence obtained by torture, it did find that at the time the complaint was made, CSIS lacked specific policies aimed at eliminating any possible Canadian complicity in torture. As noted in the Arar Report, CSIS had no personnel with expertise in recognizing intelligence that may have been the product of torture, but ‘[r]ather, CSIS’s assessment focuse[d] on whether the Service can corroborate the information.’”

CSIS involvement in the torture of Canadian citizens Abousfian Abdelrazik, Omar Khadr, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin, and Ahmad El Maati has been thoroughly documented in court rulings and inquiries. And yet, despite the growing body of evidence that the spy agency is acting in violation of basic legal and moral precepts, few are willing to publicly challenge the institution.

For those remaining under certificate, supporters are gearing up for a “Free the Three” campaign in 2012 that will be calling for the withdrawal of the certificates, an apology, compensation, and citizenship for the detainees, and legal accountability for officials who knowingly acted illegally in their use of information derived from torture.

RCMP's Own Docs Reveal Case Against Almalki Racist, Unfounded

2011-11-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

Three Years After Finding of Canadian Complicity in Torture, Silence Lingers in Ottawa.

By Matthew Behrens

(this story originally appeared at rabble.ca)

Three years after a secretive federal inquiry found that numerous agencies of the Canadian government were complicit in his torture, Ottawa’s Abdullah Almalki held a press conference on Parliament Hill October 25, where he released shocking documents to prove the alleged case against him was completely unfounded and based on racism.

Almalki, who was detained, interrogated, and tortured for 22 months in a Syrian dungeon, has sought answers to many questions since his return to Canada. Why was he targeted? How could agencies of his own government fabricate a case against him and then send questions to his Syrian torturers? He had hoped to participate in the Iacobucci Inquiry struck in 2007 to investigate both his case and those of Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, also tortured with Canadian complicity, but all three were completely shut out of the process, along with their lawyers, the public, and the media.

The Iacobucci report, released in October 2008, found, among other conclusions, that “several of the Canadian officials involved in the decision to send questions for Mr. Almalki were aware that doing so created a serious risk that Mr. Almalki would be tortured.” It also found “Some of the RCMP members involved in the decision to send questions for Mr. Almalki displayed a dismissive attitude towards the issue of human rights and the possibility of torture.”

The report cleared the three men of the serious allegations that had been created about them by CSIS and the RCMP, noting that in the case of Mr. Almalki, a description of him as an “imminent threat” to national security was not only “inflammatory, inaccurate, and lacking investigative foundation,” it was in fact meant to describe someone else.

But the damning findings of the Iacobucci inquiry did not provide a sufficient enough explanation both for what happened and why it occurred, and certainly failed to lay proper blame and seek accountability.

Since that time, Almalki has sifted through many pages of documents he received under freedom of access to information, and was shocked to discover what he found.

“Ten years ago, I never thought that one day I would be standing and speaking publicly about racism,” Almalki says. “I think I had the grace of not experiencing racism in my life before.”

The occasion for his comments was the October 25 release of RCMP internal documents from 2001. About three weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the RCMP sent a dangerous, inflammatory memo to Syria and the intelligence agencies of numerous other countries suggesting Almalki was an “imminent threat” to the public safety and security of Canada. Yet that same day, the RCMP’s own assessment showed he was not a threat at all. “O Div. task force are presently finding it difficult to establish anything on him other than the fact that he is an arab running around,” the document reads.

“It is not only heartbreaking and extremely disappointing to see that the biggest police force in Canada is racist,” Almalki says. “It is rather disgusting and outrageous when you see that this would lead to making up and fabricating accusations about a person that resulted in torture and illegal detention.

“Racism blinds people, impairs their judgment, shrinks their cognitive abilities, and diminishes moral values. Racism stinks and stings.”

A few weeks prior to 9/11, another RCMP assessment of Almalki concluded “It does not appear to me that there is any offense being committed at this time that would warrant an investigation.” This confirmed earlier reports that read “Almalki does not seem to have committed any criminal offence…yet”, upon which it appeared that their investigation was closed. Two months before 9/11, the RCMP assessment of Almalki was “He has not been found to be committing any criminal activities in Canada.”

Subsequent to these memos being written, Almalki was picked up in Syria when he flew there to visit an ailing relative. The RCMP’s inflammatory description of him as an “imminent threat” doomed him to torture in Syria. Questions drafted in Canada were then sent to the Syrians, despite the knowledge that doing so would expose Almalki to the substantial likelihood of being tortured. Indeed, the O’Connor Inquiry (focused on the role of Canadian officials in the detention and torture of Maher Arar) uncovered one interdepartmental memo that stated that it had been “pointed out to the RCMP that such questioning may involve torture. The RCMP are aware of this but have nonetheless decided to send their request.”

Almalki was never visited by Canadian consular officials and, upon his release, was kicked out of the Canadian embassy in Damascus when he sought assistance getting home.

Similar findings of Canadian complicity in the torture of El Maati and Nureddin were put before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security of the House of Commons, which in June, 2009, called for an immediate apology for all thee men, along with compensation "for the suffering they endured and the difficulties they encountered."

The Committee also called on the federal government to "do everything necessary to correct misinformation that may exist in records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad with respect to" the three men and their family members. It also demanded "the Government of Canada issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture for all departments and agencies responsible for national security. The ministerial directive must clearly state that the exchange of information with countries is prohibited when there is a credible risk that it could lead, or contribute, to the use of torture."

Perhaps it is understandable that human rights campaigners view the current political scene in Ottawa with a certain air of resignation, given that members of Parliament actually had to remind the government of its obligation, both domestically and internationally, never to be involved in torture.

On December 3, 2009, that report and its recommendations were endorsed by the majority of the House of Commons, but the Harper government still refuses to act on that majority vote.

To remind the public and government of these unresolved cases, from October 24-26, Almalki and Nureddin joined members of the group Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture as they traveled throughout Ottawa to mark sites of complicity in torture. Agencies such as the RCMP and CSIS, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Justice Department, all mentioned in the torture inquiries, saw crime scene tape go up around their premises, along with evidence tags and hooded, orange-jumpsuit-wearing detainees. Corporate targets included Starbucks, which refuses to take a position on the illegality of the Guantanamo Bay torture centre (where Canadian Omar Khadr continues to languish), while it brews thousands of coffees for the soldiers and interrogators who work behind the wire.

Unable to attend the Ottawa demonstrations in person, Ahmad El Maati sent a written statement, which was read out along with key findings of the Iacobucci Inquiry, over a period of three hours in front of the Prime Minister’s Office on October 26.

“For most people, it is impossible to imagine what torture is like,” El Maati wrote. “I have experienced physical and psychological torture in the most brutal ways. I never imagined as a Canadian citizen that agencies of my Canadian government would be involved in making up false accusations against me. I never dreamed as a Canadian citizen that agencies of my government would threaten me, my family, and my friends. And I certainly never expected to be tortured with the involvement of my government. Yet this is exactly what happened.”

Noting the three years of silence that followed the Iacobucci inquiry, El Maati noted “no one has been charged, no one from any of these government agencies has had to look me in the eye and defend what they did that led to my torture.”

Along with Nureddin and Almalki, El Maati is suing the Canadian government, but that process drags on at a snail’s pace, as the Justice Dept. continues to throw every conceivable roadblock in the way of achieving a just settlement. El Maati sees this as a “war of attrition. The government has refused to look at its responsibility in our cases and do the right thing. And so I am back in a torture chamber of the Canadian government’s making. It is made up of thousands of pages of arguments, deceptions, and lies about me and the others. Most of them we still cannot see because they are kept from us for so-called reasons of national security. I believe, as does Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and so many others, that secrecy is being used not for national security, but to cover up scandalous behaviour.

“This prison that I am in, you cannot see it, but I can feel it, and every day the government does not act on the findings of the Iacobucci report is another day of torturing me, of saying We do not believe you, what happened is not really true, we are not to blame. When does this ever end?”

The RCMP memos, along with other key documents, are available at www.abdullahalmalki.com

Taking Liberties: The Ever-Changing Imperatives of "National Security"

2011-10-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

(This is the first in a series of columns at rabble.ca on “national security” and civil liberties in Canada and abroad that seeks to focus on specific cases as well as the overall framework in which serious human rights abuses have been justified in the name of security.)

By Matthew Behrens

Just after Thanksgiving, Montreal’s Westin Hotel played host to a gathering of high-powered Federal Court judges, NGO heads, lawyers, academics, and members of Canada’s torture-complicit spy service, CSIS. Coming together under the predictably dry title “Terrorism, Law and Democracy: 10 years after 9/11,” the conference sought to determine “whether Canadian law has successfully preserved fundamental rights and values of substantive and procedural justice while at the same time contributing to anti-terrorism.”

This collegial-sounding gathering – entrance to which was restricted to those who could shell out the $895 entrance fee – appears to have been one of those periodic gabfests where elite representatives determine the responsible manner in which the rest of us will perceive terms like “terrorism” and “national security”. Importantly, attendees were safely insulated from the most compelling voices of the past ten years: those who have been victimized by numerous conference participants. The latter included judges who have presided over secret hearings, spies whose organization falsely labels individuals security threats, and academics who produce papers defending arbitrary detention.

Indeed, Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin, who three years ago this month were found by a secretive federal inquiry to have been tortured with the complicity of Canadian government agencies, including CSIS, were not on any of the panels. Nor were Abousfian Abdelrazik and Omar Khadr, both tortured with CSIS complicity. Benamar Benatta, an Algerian refugee rendered to torture by Canadian hands on September 12, 2001, wasn’t there to talk about how his Charter rights had been violated either, nor were Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei, whose bogus secret trial security certificates were finally quashed after a decade-long struggle. Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah, and Mohamed Harkat, who are still facing deportation to torture without being able to see the secret “case” against them, were similarly absent.

Each of those individuals was more than capable of delivering an eloquent assessment of the conference theme – indeed, the names and stories of those who have suffered a fundamental denial of rights at the hands of Canadian authorities in the past decade could fill volumes. But conference organizers instead brought in CSIS Assistant Director of Intelligence Raymond Boisvert, and former CSIS Director Jim Judd (who in one Wikileaks-released document laments Canadians’ “paroxysms of moral outrage” over the human rights abuses committed by his organization).

It must have been an odd sight to witness those CSIS veterans sharing a polite panel discussion with critics of human rights abuses such as of Amnesty International Canada’s Alex Neve, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s Nathalie des Rosiers. One wonders if either of them directly challenged the CSIS men, perhaps asking why there has been no apology, no compensation, and no systemic changes in CSIS to prevent the kind of torture suffered not only by the abovementioned men, but by numerous others. Equally important, did conference organizers and participants consider the manner in which the scandal-plagued CSIS is accorded a significant degree of legitimization and acceptance by having its heavyweights appearing at such a gathering? Or that those who have been targeted, such as Maher Arar or Adil Charkoui, suffer an equal degree of de-legitimization by not inviting them onto the agenda?

As with any important political issue, who sits at the table of such conferences generally determines the scope of the discussion. In this instance, the absence of key voices raises significant issues about how the never-defined term “national security” is framed, filtered, and ultimately understood in this country. Such a closed, circular world logically produces a Canadian military that names First Nations advocates threats to national security and explains why the Canadian financial intelligence unit FINTRAC was found recently to have tarred environmentalists and animal rights activists as terrorists in their online tutorials.

In a similar vein, it will come as no surprise to rabble readers that most mainstream media outlets buy into such narrow narratives. Most reporters assigned to the national security beat are not physically embedded within the RCMP and CSIS in the way those covering the occupation of Afghanistan seem to become stenographers for the Canadian military. But they tend to write as if they were, buying the assumptions created and sustained by those who benefit most from them while generally ignoring the fact that these agencies have a historical profile that reads “pathological liar”.

Witness the Canadian media’s wall-to-wall coverage of the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which occurred in another country. The event allowed many journalists to step outside of their proudly professed neutrality and share their feelings about having “been there.” But the tenth anniversary of the U.S.-led terrorist attacks against Afghanistan the following month failed to elicit significant coverage, much less sympathy, especially for the thousands killed in aerial bombing strikes in the first months of the invasion or those who continue to die under the drone strikes or rot in that country’s torture chambers.

While the Canadian media embeds got caught up in an exercise of group-feel and the endless “can it happen here” scenarios, few bothered to note that the 2011 Terrorism Risk Index ranks Canada as 86 out of 197 countries for risk of terrorism, and the lowest of “western” economies. That low ranking is likely not because Canada has dedicated close to $100 billion in subsidizing its national security industry over the past decade. Based on its appalling record of falsely labeling countless individuals security risks, it’s doubtful that Canada’s spies would actually recognize a real terrorist if they saw one. They certainly have not made moves to arrest Dick Cheney or George W. Bush during their Canadian visits, despite proud admissions that they authorized torture.

Ultimately, the national security lens moves depending on political expediency. No clearer example can be found than in the on-again, off-again demonization/friendship cycle with former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who one minute was the “mad dog of the Middle East” and the next a generous host for the extraordinary rendition to torture program for agents of the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Indeed, while CSIS spokespeople grabbed their muffins and shared small talk with their Montreal conferees a few weeks back, Human Rights Watch revealed that Canadian citizen Mustafa Krer had been detained, interrogated, and tortured in Libya for eight years, and that CSIS agents had flown over to take part in the interrogation on at least three occasions.

Gaddafi is now out of the picture, so new arrangements will have to be made. With the apparent decline of Al-Qaeda – some analysts claim the organization will be kaput within 18 months – those whose job requires an enemy are desperately searching for an understudy to play The Next Great Evil. While different groups are being tried on for size and traction – the Haqqani Network in Pakistan has been the subject of numerous auditions, floated before the press like a taste test – there are always old standbys like Iran. Prime Minister Harper recently condemned the alleged plot by Iranian agents to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington (and also claimed that Tehran now represents the most “significant threat” to the world), yet failed to mention that the Obama administration is running an illegal, global assassination campaign using aerial drones and Hellfire missiles that have claimed countless hundreds of civilian lives while violating the most basic rule of law precepts.

At a time when some NGO representatives lament what they term “torture fatigue” and “national security fatigue” – a feeling that people have heard enough about these horror stories and simply want to move forward, as Barack Obama pledged to do when he refused to consider exposure and prosecution of Bush administration criminality – it’s important to remind ourselves that such violations are not a consequence of or reaction to events of ten years ago, but are grounded in historical patterns and power dynamics that continue to evolve. We neglect them at our peril.

Suncor/PetroCanada Must Stop Fueling Syrian Repression

2011-09-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

"Some of the dead, who include children, were also mutilated either before or after death in particularly grotesque ways apparently intended to strike terror into the families to whom their corpses were returned." – Amnesty International, August 30, 2011

Although the Canadian government has instituted sanctions against the Syrian regime, the oil and gas sector, which earns the regime about $3 billion per year, remains untouched by Canadian sanctions.

Take Action, Contact both Suncor/PetroCanada executives and your MPs and demand that Suncor/PetroCanada leave Syria immediately

BACKGROUND
The atrocities no longer garner media attention, but over 3,000 Syrian people have been murdered by the Assad regime since peaceful demonstrations began earlier this year. Over 12,000 have been imprisoned, with untold numbers tortured to death (including children). Although Canadian oil giant Suncor/PetroCanada left Libya soon after the crackdown on protests there, the oil giant has refused to leave Syria, even though its operations financially support the Syrian regime. According to Human Rights Watch, "Under Syrian law the government is the major shareholder in the oil and gas sector through its ownership of the Syrian National Gas and Syrian National Oil companies [now replaced by the General Petroleum Corporation (GPC)]. These two companies have a 50 percent share in every oil and gas project in Syria."

In March 2010, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the Syrian government earns around €2.1 billion (about CND$3 billion) from oil and gas per year.

Given that 50% of all profits from oil and gas operations in Syria are shared with the Syrian regime, Suncor/PetroCanada's continued presence there is a major vote of confidence in brutality, torture, and mass murder.

Amnesty International reported earlier this month that "The sharp rise in the number of reported deaths in custody has been one of the most shocking features of the government’s bloody crackdown on the protests. No less than 88 such deaths have been reported to Amnesty International as occurring during the period from 1 April and 15 August 2011, a figure for four and a half months which is already many times higher than the yearly average over recent years. In at least 52 of these cases, there is evidence that torture caused or contributed to the deaths, a concern exacerbated by reports of widespread torture in detention centres in recent months. Some of the dead, who include children, were also mutilated either before or after death in particularly grotesque ways apparently intended to strike terror into the families to whom their corpses were returned."

Asked about the role that Suncor is playing in the brutal repression in Syria, Suncor/PetroCanada CEO Richard L. George told The Current (CBC Radio) on August 19th, "We're actually not connected to the Assad regime in any way. ... We operate with a partner in Syria, the General Petroleum Corporation, which is a state corporation." (www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/08/19/suncor-syria.html)

But being partners with the state-owned General Petroleum Corporation (GPC) does tie Suncor/PetroCanada to the regime. The state corporation reports directly to the Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Sufian Allaw. In any case, there is no effective distance between state, regime and government in Syria. Suncor/PetroCanada works in alliance with the Syrian regime.

The partnership is symbolized in a photo of Suncor/PetroCanada CEO Mr. George seated beside former Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otri. A large portrait of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad - omnipresent in Syria - hangs over their heads. See photo: http://cfsmtl.wordpress.com/statement/suncor/. More compromising still, an advertisement for Suncor and Petro-Canada featuring President Bashar al-Assad in a construction helmet, talking to what appears to be a Petro-Canada technician, can be found on the pro-regime website Syrian Oil and Gas News, www.syria-oil.com/en/ (middle of left column; also see the website, http://cfsmtl.wordpress.com/statement/suncor/). The caption reads, "Energy for today and tomorrow."

Stand with the Syrian people as they seek democratic rights and lives free from fear and torture.

TAKE ACTION
1. We often feel like corporations are immune from public calls for accountability. In this case, within days of the email and phoning campaign, the corporation put on a major PR display, with videos on its website and the CEO appearing in interviews with the CBC to try and refute claims of complicity in torture. Because Syria is no longer a major news item, perhaps Suncor/PetroCanada feels it can rest easy. That is why the pressure needs to continue.

* Email or call Suncor CEO Richard George, letting him know you expect Suncor to immediately end its partnership with the Assad regime and close operations in Syria: Email: invest@suncor.com or media@suncor.com or sef@suncor.com or info@suncormail.com or Tel.: 403-296-8000.

* Email or call your federal member of Parliament, letting them know that you expect them to publicly call on Stephen Harper to adopt sanctions on Canadian oil investments in Syria. MP contacts can be found here: www.parl.gc.ca.

2. Join CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Complicity in Torture, three days of nonviolent public actions across Ottawa, October 24-26. For details contact tasc@web.ca

3. Don't forget the Suncor/PetroCanada is a leading player in the tar sands, which are destroying indigenous communities. Suncor “continues to be all about the oil sands,” a Suncor executive told an investors' conference in Toronto. “Oil sands will be the growth vehicle for the company.” (Globe and Mail, September 16, 2009)

4. Download a postcard from http://cfsmtl.wordpress.com/statement/parliament-post-card/ and sign it and mail it.

More info: Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, tasc@web.ca, http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/

CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Involvement in Torture

2011-09-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Involvement in Torture
October 24-26, 2011

Join us for three days of public witness, vigils, speakouts, and walks throughout Ottawa as we shine a spotlight on Canadian institutions, public and private, that are complicit in the torture of human beings. Details of getting involved are at the bottom of this email.

WHY A CSI-STYLE FORENSIC INVESTIGATION OF TORTURE IN OTTAWA?
Quite simply, because the Government of Canada condones torture, and there are crime scenes throughout the city where evidence of this complicity has been found by courts, judicial inquiries, and other venues. Examples of such institutions include the RCMP, CSIS, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Dept. of Justice, and the War Department. Secrecy has repeatedly been invoked to prevent further evidence of such complicity from entering the public sphere, and those who have made criminal decisions leading to torture have not been charged and held to account.

Clearly, yellow crime scene tape needs to go up all over the city.

WHY NOW?
October 21 will mark three years since a secretive federal inquiry found the government of Canada complicit in the torture of Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin. Yet the government refuses to accept the findings of its own inquiry, an inquiry in which only its side of the complicity in torture was heard, an inquiry in which none of those who were tortured, nor their lawyers, nor the public, nor the media were allowed to attend. And even with the cards stacked so much in favour of the government, the government was found to be complicit. Now that these three men seek an apology, compensation, and accountability, the government questions the fact that they have been tortured.

October will also mark 28 months since a report from the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security of the House of Commons called for an immediate apology for all thee men, along with compensation "for the suffering they endured and the difficulties they encountered." The committee released a report that also called on the federal government to "do everything necessary to correct misinformation that may exist in records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad with respect to" the three men and their family members.
(full report: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4004074&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=2 )

CLEAR DIRECTION NEEDED ON TORTURE
Importantly, the Committee called on "the Government of Canada [to] issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture for all departments and agencies responsible for national security. The ministerial directive must clearly state that the exchange of information with countries is prohibited when there is a credible risk that it could lead, or contribute, to the use of torture."

On December 3, 2009, that report and its recommendations were endorsed by the majority of the House of Commons. The Harper government refused to act on the will of the majority of the House of Commons.

The rationale behind CSI Ottawa: Ending Canadian Involvement in Torture is to place renewed focus on federal institutions in Ottawa that are complicit in the torture of Canadian citizens, refugees, and immigrants, as well as citizens of countries occupied by Canadian forces. While Canada’s broader complicity in torture will provide an educational backdrop for the week’s events, the specific demands will be:

the federal government's acknowledgement of and implementation of the Standing Committee’s recommendations;
that the Harper government act immediately on the December, 2009 majority vote of the House of Commons endorsing that report;
the full release of all documents related to these cases to the men and their lawyers;
acts of accountability to ensure such actions never again occur.

WHAT IS THAT BROADER BACKGROUND?
The Supreme Court acknowledges the torture of a Canadian citizen in Guantanamo Bay but does nothing to bring him home, and refused to close the door on the possibility of Canada deporting refugees and permanent residents to torture.

Canada has never condemned acts of torture in Guantanamo Bay, nor in sites where its commanders and soldiers may well have known of acts of torture during their role in occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ten years ago, Canada rendered an Algerian refugee to torture, and while documents clearly show the government knew it was legally culpable, it has refused to apologize and compensate.

Canada refuses to arrest and prosecute George W. Bush nor any members of his administration, all of whom have proudly admitted ordering torture. Canada has refused to condemn Barack Obama's continuation of those illegal acts.

Canada refuses to come clean on its role in hosting CIA rendition-to-torture flights.

CSIS and its oversight body admit they use information gleaned from torture.

Canada has effectively shut down an inquiry into the role of Canadian troops in Afghanistan who have knowingly transferred detainees to torture.

Canada hosts branch plants of American corporations involved in torture of detainees.

Canada places “free trade” above human rights in its relations with torture-ridden regimes such as Colombia, Ethiopia and China.

Canada defends torturing regimes like Iran from being sued for the torture and murder of Canadian citizens.

The list goes on.

SPIRIT OF THE CSI ACTIONS
You are invited to come to Ottawa and be one of our CSI team members, a crime scene investigator who will help lay out the crime scene tape, join street theatre with hooded "detainees," read out publicly from documents that show Canadian complicity in torture, and encourage whistleblowers within these institutions to hand over relevant documents and key evidence so that we may seek arrests, trials and, ultimately, fundamental systemic changes.

The CSI demonstrations will be nonviolent and theatrical and invite the creativity of those directly on the ground as well as those who can contribute from afar. Because we will be there acting as upholders of the rule of law, our role will be to act in a style that is respectful of all potential suspects we run across, refusing to humiliate or harm any individual who works for the complicit institutions. Our job is simply to bring them to justice.

Most of the institutions are fenced in to protect them from democracy, transparency, and accountability. Those fences can be decorated with messages from across the country of people who send simple statements or banner: “We are watching CSIS: Name of Community” or similar declarations can be affixed to sites of complicity in torture.

Individuals may wish to dress in their best Miami Vice-style jackets, bring magnifying glasses, cameras, crime scene tape, white lab coats, cotton swab sticks, whatever we need to carry out the job.

We would hope that the code of silence that normally frustrates criminal investigations will not hamper our own investigation, and we would encourage government officials and all those who know of crimes such as complicity in torture to exercise their conscience and their legal responsibilities and come clean, whether they are justice department lawyers advising those engaged in complicity, CSIS and RCMP, or Supreme Court judges who do nothing while Canadian citizens are tortured.

GETTING INVOLVED
1. If you plan to join us in Ottawa (or live in Ottawa), please let us know which days you are able to take part in the torture tours and public events, which generally will run from 10 am-4 pm.

2. Do you have a vehicle that can help transport people to different sites of complicity?

3. If you are coming from out of town, do you need a place to stay? Please let us know asap.

4. If you can provide a place to stay for out-of-town participants for three nights (Sunday-Tuesday), please let us know (and for how many people).

5. Contributions to help with our expenses are greatly appreciated, and can be made out to Homes not Bombs and mailed to PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 2H8.

Stay in touch with us at tasc@web.ca

CSI Ottawa is organized by Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, which has organized a series of cross-Ontario caravans and other activities in solidarity with those who have been targetted for torture by the Canadian government. More at http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/

For more information: Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, tasc@web.ca, PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth ON K7H 1R0

Support the Return to Canada of Two Canadian Citizen Children and their Libyan Refugee Parents and Siblings Who Were Deported in 2008 and Whose Father

2011-07-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

The Benhmuda family fled to Canada from Libya in July 2000 to seek safety from the Gaddafi regime. They built a life here, worked hard and went to school and contributed to the community. Two more children were born to the family, Omar and Adam. However, after 8 years here they were ordered to return and, despite the risk of persecution and torture under the Gaddafi regime, were sent back to Libya in 2008. The three years that have followed have been an intensely difficult journey of jail and torture for the father, as well as hellish living conditions in Tripoli and in a Maltese refugee camp for the whole family.

In February, 2011, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) produced a detailed report that called on Canada to resettle the Benhmuda family in the country they call their own: Canada. UNHCR said they are at risk in Libya and do not have adequate security and integration prospects in Malta.

Since that time, no action has been taken by the Canadian government to bring the Benhmuda family home.

The Benhmuda family need your support to come home to Canada. More detailed information on their case is below, including a link to an interview with the family on CBC’s The Current, along with suggestions on what you can do to help, including letter writing, financial support, and more.

******************

“If we receive an application from that family I can assure the House that it will be given every humanitarian consideration, and indeed dealt with on an accelerated basis." Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, June 23, 2011, House of Commons, in response to a question about whether he will take immediate steps to resettle the Benhmuda family in Canada.

Minister Kenney needs to hear from the voices of people across the country who will encourage him to do the right thing and return this family to Canada.

We are calling on the Canadian government to immediately bring the family to Canada, where they have well-developed roots, and so the children can resume their schooling without further disruption to their already traumatized lives.

BACKGROUND

Adel Benhmuda and his family – his wife, Aisha Benmatung, and their two children Mohamed and Moawiya – fled Libya in July, 2000, after it was clear that the family would continue to be the target of persecution by the Gaddafi regime. Their refugee claim was denied in Canada, but this was not a reflection of the strength of their case or the real fear they felt, as many completely legitimate claims are rejected because of systemic bias and faulty reasoning.

The family approached a lawyer for assistance, but the proper papers were never filed by that lawyer, triggering the process that led to their eventual forced removal from Canada. Even though Mr. Benhmuda had documentation showing that Libyan authorities were still looking for him, this information failed to sway a Canadian immigration officer considering the risk posed to Mr. Benhmuda if deported to Libya.

CANADIANS RAISED A RED FLAG

Although the family had lived in Canada for 8 years, and had two Canadian-born children, Omar and Adam, they were uprooted from a Canadian life to which they had adapted well. The kids loved their schools, their father was considered one of Discount Optical’s best employees, and their mother was actively involved in the community. The Kindergarten teacher of the two youngest boys wrote that the family “proved themselves to be contributing, law-abiding, moral, integral members of our society. Their bills were paid, they established stable employment and housing, and they were raising four boys with good solid values.”

Despite fears that he would be tortured if deported, Adel and his family were put on a plane in Toronto. Their request that the family be returned in as normal a manner as possible (to avoid raising suspicion on the part of Libyan authorities) was ignored, and their passports were handed over to the plane’s crew, who handed them directly to Libyan authorities upon landing in Tripoli, a red flag that led to Adel being jailed and tortured for the next four months, with Aisha unable to determine his whereabouts.

Adel was beaten on the soles of his feet and also suspended from the ceiling upside down as he was subjected to intense interrogation and beatings. He was asked why the family had not been carrying their own passports and why they had filed an asylum claim in Canada. He never received a doctor or family visit.

Adel was eventually released, but life did not improve for the family. The children were unable to attend public school (the family believes this was part of the ongoing persecution)

A SECOND ARREST, MORE TORTURE

In May, 2009, the family was again attacked by police who came to arrest Adel, with his two eldest sons beaten and Aisha violently thrown to the ground and arrested. He suffered another two months of beatings and mistreatment in jail. He was released but shortly thereafter, following a tip from a relative that he faced yet another arrest, Adel and his family managed to flee the country, first to Sweden where they requested refugee protection and then to Malta, where their refugee claim was accepted.

Their living conditions in Malta, however, were sub-human. Forced to sleep in storage containers with only mattresses in the overcrowded refugee camps, they saw rats as big as cats, and were afraid to go out to the washroom at night because of the horrendous cockroach infestation in the camp.

Efforts by Canadian lawyer Andrew Brouwer to get the family returned to Canada have been stonewalled by bureaucrats, with one official writing in an email that he does not see that Canada has any obligation to this family of Canadian children and refugees that it deported to torture.

“In Canada, they talk about human rights and freedom and how you can’t hit your kids – all those things,” says Aisha in a Toronto Star interview. “But they do not care if they break your dreams and your hopes. These are things that will not get fixed.” (See an excellent article on the case at http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/1010236--deported-to-torture )

Listen to the family’s voices on CBC’s The Current at this link:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/07/04/refugee-benhmuda-family/

WHY THE BENHMUDA FAMILY SHOULD BE RESETTLED IN CANADA

The family cannot go back to Libya, as they would be detained, tortured or killed there. While they currently have temporary protection in Malta, Malta does not have the resources or policy framework to properly integrate the large refugee population on the island (one that continually grows given the unrest in northern Africa). Racism, fear and mistrust of refugees in Malta make it very difficult for refugees to find work and access social services, including education.

The UNHCR supports strategic refugee resettlement from Malta, and has agreements with the European Union and the U.S. to resettle refugees.

Given that two of the Benhmuda children are Canadian, and the whole family has lived and thrived here for the better part of a decade, the UNHCR believes it makes the most sense, given other humanitarian considerations, for the family to be resettled in Canada.

Although they are now living in Malta, the Benhmuda family’s situation remains precarious at best. Malta is very close to Libya both economically and diplomatically, and the Libyan embassy is eager to hear about and question Libyan refugees on the island. The embassy there remains loyal to Gaddafi, and Libyans on such a small island cannot go unnoticed.

OTHER HUMANITARIAN CONSIDERATIONS

The whole family speaks English and, for the younger children, Canada was the only home they’d ever known. For the older boys, it was the only home they could remember. One son with muscular dystrophy is unable in Malta to access the specialized support he received in Canada at Sick Kids Hospital, and another suffers from asthma.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

We are calling on Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to act in accordance with the February, 2011 recommendation of the UNHCR to resettle the Benhmuda family in Canada this summer.

Write a letter to Jason Kenney (jason.kenney@parl.gc.ca), and cc NDP immigration critic Don Davies (don.davies@parl.gc.ca), Liberal critic Kevin Lamoureux (kevin.lamoureux@parl.gc.ca) and Prime Minister Stephen Harper (stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca) You can also blind copy tasc@web.ca.

In the subject line, please write “I support bringing the Benhmuda family home to Canada”

IN ADDITION, PLEASE CONSIDER FAXING YOUR LETTER AND CALLING KENNEY'S OFFICE AND LEAVING A POLITE MESSAGE REITERATING THE ABOVE:

Telephone: (613) 992-2235 Fax: (613) 992-1920

LETTER CONTENT

While many refugee advocates have major difficulties with the current government’s refugee policies in general, PLEASE do not turn this letter into an attack on Minister Kenney, as that would only hurt the Benhmuda family. The tone of your letter should be polite and stick to the key facts, and include the following:

Who you are, and why you are writing this letter—perhaps mention reading the Toronto Star article or the CBC interview and your feelings about this.

Thanking Mr. Kenney for promising to look into this case and deal with it on an accelerated basis on humanitarian grounds.

Letting Mr. Kenney know that you support the humanitarian move of bringing the Benhmuda family back to Canada.

Remind Mr. Kenney that no less an authority than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has recommended bringing the Benhmuda family back to Canada

Thank Mr. Kenney for reading your letter, and ask that his office move quickly to bring the family back as soon as possible so they can find a place to live, pick up where they left off, and the kids can prepare for school this fall.

Leave your name and address

ADDITIONAL THINGS YOU CAN DO.

Writer letters to the editor supporting the right of the Benhmuda family to come home, email this alert to your lists, and share this information with your facebook friends

The Benhmuda family faces significant expenses, both legal and for the cost of resettling. Toronto Action for Social Change has set up a special fund for both purposes, and is collecting donations. You can send cheques to TASC at PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 1R0. Put Benhmuda in the memo portion of the cheque.

See more at http://www.wix.com/spotsgang/deported-to-torture#!

Toronto Action for Social Change advocates for the rights of refugees, has a long history of nonviolent action in support of individuals unfairly targeted by governments, and promotes campaigns and actions that transform situations of institutional and individual injustice. More info at tasc@web.ca or http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/

Despite incredibly "Weak Case," Hassan Diab Forced to Keep Resisting Extradition to France

2011-07-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

July 12, 2011 – Dr Hassan Diab is a Canadian university professor fighting for his freedom, and for his life. The French government wants him to face trial for what they allege is Dr. Diab’s involvement in a 1980 bombing that killed four people. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

There’s only one problem. Dr. Diab’s fingerprints don’t match the suspect’s. His palm prints do not match. The physical description does not match. The handwriting does not match. The allegations against him have been found “weak”, “suspect,” and “confusing” by a Canadian judge. That same judge concluded June 6 that “the case presented by the Republic of France against Mr. Diab is a weak case; the prospects of conviction in the context of a fair trial, seem unlikely.”

With such a strong defence, one would think Dr. Diab would be breathing easy. Instead, he is strapped to a GPS monitoring bracelet for which he must pay $2,000 a month (a new version of the Dickensian debtors’ prison, in which your freedom is now dependent on your ability to pay the state’s surveillance costs), barred from leaving his home without a court-approved monitor, and faced with a curfew worse than that imposed on most 10-year-olds. He cannot teach, his home is frequently invaded by RCMP agents, and he lives with the unimaginable stress that he might spend the rest of his life in a small French jail cell.

PRESUMPTION OF GUILT
How could such an outrage occur? Under Canada’s extradition law, the duty of a Canadian court and the Minister of Justice is, first and foremost, to the government seeking an individual. That individual no longer enjoys the rights that are supposed to be accorded everyone else in this country facing the deprivation of their liberty. Canadian standards of evidence are thrown out the window. The case against the individual is presumed to be reliable, regardless of how many inaccuracies, errors, omissions, and contradictions are contained within it. One cannot present evidence to show one’s innocence, and the requesting state need not present any evidence of that innocence.

The deck is clearly stacked yet, as the Supreme Court of Canada has found, extradition is, in the end, not a legal issue, but a political decision: is the government of Canada willing to risk its relations with one of its extradition partners, or is it willing to sacrifice one of its citizens (or a refugee or permanent resident who is also sought) in the name of maintaining happy diplomacy?

In all extradition cases, the argument goes, an individual sought by another country can “sort out the mess” upon their arrival in a foreign jail. It is a process fraught with danger: a foreign government can carry out a persecution by proxy using the extradition law, claiming it has a case against a political pain in the neck living in Canada, presenting what amounts to a “prima facie” case without needing to vouch for the case’s accuracy.

In the Diab case, the French government seems intent on “solving” the mystery of the 1980 bombing at any cost, even if that means nabbing someone who appears to be the victim of mistaken identity. Their main piece of evidence is an “expert” handwriting report by someone who has a degree in biology and forensics and who only took 21 hours of training in expert handwriting analysis.

QUESTIONABLE FRENCH METHODS
What was known as the Bisotti report was subject to a great deal of scrutiny during the extradition hearing, including three blistering critiques by internationally renowned handwriting experts. Indeed, the government of Canada declared that the case all came down to the handwriting, though it took numerous kicks at the can in coming to this very weak conclusion. In fact, both France and the Attorney General withdrew previous handwriting reports when it was revealed that they were based on handwriting samples that were not even written by Dr. Diab..
“Although I could not conclude it was manifestly unreliable, it was nonetheless highly susceptible to criticism and impeachment,” Judge Maranger wrote of the handwriting evidence. Indeed, he went on, “evidence presented on behalf of the person sought has largely served to substantially undermine the French report; it has been shown to be evidence that is susceptible to a great deal of criticism and attack.
“The Bisotti report has been shown to be based on some questionable methods and on an analysis that seems very problematic. The use of two completely separate signatures, i.e. Hassan Diab’s and an illegible fictitious signature, as a means of doing handwriting comparison analysis seems illogical…I found the French expert report convoluted, very confusing, with conclusions that are suspect. Despite this view, I cannot say that it is evidence that should be completely rejected as “manifestly unreliable”.

It’s not just the weak handwriting evidence that is problematic. Maranger wrote that he accepted the Canadian government position that “there is no responsibility upon a requesting state to provide full disclosure of all of its evidence.” Hence, 10 witnesses can testify that an individual was not at the scene of the crime, but someone’s life in Canada could be uprooted and ruined because of the fact that the French, or any other government, can cook up a case that suits their needs and exclude exonerating evidence.

Maranger also notes that the Record of the case (ROC) as originally presented by France — in French, a language Dr. Diab does not speak – was “replete with seemingly disconnected information….while providing some conventional evidence, [it] also contained a great deal of argument, hypothesis, conjecture, and references to information received, without describing the source of that information or the circumstances upon which it was received.”

This, in essence, is secret, “unsourced” information. Where did it come from? Was torture involved?

The ROC also includes information that it gleaned from “a series of reports and newspaper articles,” hardly the stuff that would normally be accepted in a court (but which is normally included against individuals stigmatized by the Canadian government, such as refugees and, in the past decade, Muslims facing secret hearing security certificates and Tamils fleeing genocide.)

MAJOR MISREPRESENTATIONS
Diab’s lawyers raised nine specific issues of misrepresentations including omissions, inaccuracies, and contradictions in the French case, all of which they said amounted to an abuse of process. Maranger found there was an “air of reality” to the arguments put forward by Diab’s legal team, but in the end, he again dismissed them.

Indeed, Maranager bends over backwards to honour the French case, despite making statements such as “Although it was a blatant error requiring an explanation, I cannot find that it constitutes a complete failure of due diligence,” and concluding elsewhere that a problem in the record “was an inadvertent error.” How would he know? And more importantly, how can such problems be so easily dismissed in favour of the requesting state? In another instance, Maranger says “this was clearly a mistake on the part of the requesting authority that should have been corrected.” But it wasn’t. Verbal slap on the wrist to the French, an extra set of leg irons for Dr. Diab.

Under extradition law, Maranger says, there is “a presumption that evidence contained in the ROC is reliable.” So much for the presumption of innocence that is supposed to belong to the person sought.

Maranager found Diab’s defence was “compelling, and forcefully argued,” but that in the end, this did not matter, adding “to use standards of admissibility derived from Canadian criminal law…runs afoul of the governing statute.”

And so, like an Alabama judge convicting Rosa Parks for sitting in the front of the bus (the old “the law is the law and we cannot stray from it” approach that has sustained too many injustices to recount here), Judge Maranger offered up Hassan Diab as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of good relations with the French government. While washing his hands of any responsibility for this decision, he attempted to temper the view of him as a rubber stamp by stating that although he believes that the case was weak, “it matters not that I hold this view. The law is clear that in such circumstances a committal order is mandated.”

But Maranager’s bold statement is not backed up by the facts or the law, and contradicts the quotation he borrows from the Chief Justice of Canada’s Supreme Court, who wrote in the leading extradition case: “I take it as axiomatic that a person could not be committed for trial for an offence in Canada if the evidence is so manifestly unreliable that it would be unsafe to rest a verdict upon it. It follows that if a judge on an extradition hearing concludes that the evidence is manifestly unreliable, the judge should not order extradition.”

Hence, Maranger on the one hand says there is a strong likelihood that the French, in a fair trial, would not secure a conviction given a fair trial – and there is clearly no guarantee of a fair French trial for Dr. Diab – but on the other, draws a conclusion that is completely opposite to a higher court judge’s direction in extradition cases. If the case for “manifest unreliability” is that a conviction would likely not be registered, it is difficult to understand how Maranger can say that the case against Dr. Diab – which he admits is too weak for a conviction – is not manifestly unreliable.

UNEVEN CANADIAN STANDARDS
In addition, as Diab’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, pointed out subsequent to the ruling, if the case had been heard in British Columbia, Diab would be a free man today, for their courts rule differently than Ontario courts on extradition cases.

“The British Columbia Court of Appeal decided there ought not to be an extradition if that is the nature of the extradition case, so Dr. Diab today would be walking a free man in Vancouver had this case been conducted there and in Ontario he is behind bars,” Bayne said. “That is a situation that is simply untenable in Canada, that Canadians are subjected to totally different standards depending on where they live. I would suspect that would attract the attention of the Supreme Court of Canada.”

While some have asked why Dr. Diab doesn’t simply throw in the towel and go to France and “sort out the mess,” the answer is simple: France has been criticized by the international community and is currently before the European Court of Human Rights for violating Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the fair trial right –for running terrorist trials based on secret, anonymous intelligence.” In addition, why should someone give up their life in Canada and risk spending years fighting in another country, especially given the slipshod "case" against them?

The Diab case is a wake-up call for everyone in Canada, for the ease with which an everyday regular life can be disrupted by such a case is frightening. While Dr. Diab is launching an appeal that could very well go to the Supreme Court, he and his partner, Rania Tfaily, have a long struggle ahead of them.

Individuals concerned about the ease with which basic human rights can so suddenly disappear in these cases can get involved on many levels:

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
1. Write to the Minister of Justice, Robert Nicholson, and urge him to stop Dr. Diab's extradition. Email: rob.nicholson@parl.gc.ca

2. Help ease the huge financial burden carried by Hassan and Rania. We are seeking 100 individuals who can pledge $20 or more a month for the rest of the year to help pay the cost of the GPS monitoring. If you are willing to be a proud supporter of Hassan's right not to be subject to detention if he cannot afford the cost of state surveillance, please email us at diabsupport@gmail.com OR visit http://www.justiceforhassandiab.org/donate

3. Sign the statement "A Shock to Our Conscience and an Affront to Liberty" (located at http://stopextradition.diabpetition.org/

To sign, simply send an email to diabsupport@gmail.com letting us know that you wish to sign

4. Help organize an event in your community about Hassan's case and the extradition law.

5. Post details about the injustices in Hassan's case on your facebook or myspace

6. Write to newspapers and to journalists about Hassan's case and the unfairness of Canada's extradition law

More info: Justice for Hassan Diab committee

(report from Matthew Behrens of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, tasc@web.ca)

Resisting Canada's War Economy and Weapons Industry

2011-06-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

June 22, 2011 – Two days before the now-former Senate page Brigette DePape spoke the truth about Canada’s political climate—that we need to build resistance outside of the lifeless chambers of Parliament—her message was already being enacted by a group of war resisters who put together a lengthy June 1st civil resistance action at the CANSEC weapons bazaar.

The protest was not just about CANSEC – Canada’s largest annual weapons fair – but the whole war economy itself. It’s one to which both the majority Tories and the official opposition NDP are devoted, a $23 billion splurge that includes orders of 1,000 new smart bombs at $100,000 apiece. These come complete with the names of Libyan citizens on the receiving end, under the euphemism of collateral damage. If you are homeless tonight, needing shelter from male violence, on a boil-water alert on a First Nations reserve, awaiting health care, locked out of daycare, or suffering from the other maladies affecting Canada, think of what each of those $100,000 smart bombs could have done if they had been turned into smart funds for social needs.

That is the choice of an almost unanimous Parliament, and the message came through loud and clear when everyone save Green Party MP Elizabeth May voted to extend the Canadian bombing of the Libyan people (a most convenient focus for a make- work War Dept. that, drawing down its forces in Afghanistan, needs an excuse to keep bringing in the big bucks). People who view the NDP as a traditional voice for peace – a record certainly not borne out by the facts (see http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/2011/05/canadas-massive-military-budget-is-off.html), in the same way that Canada’s mythological status as a peacekeeper cannot stand the scrutiny of its own history – may have been surprised to see the official opposition voting to bomb other human beings (with a few caveats thrown in, of course!). But one can imagine NDP strategists with their eyes on the next election telling their members they must appear to be a “responsible” government in waiting, and idealistic notions like rejecting murder from the air must be discarded. Those are for irrelevant fourth place opposition parties. When you have your eye on eventually getting elected, you have to be prepared to kill with your $23 billion arsenal.

Arming Your Arsenal

And that’s where CANSEC comes in. It’s where you go to get the tools for your arsenal; where foreign governments can sample Canadian weapons systems and components; where paranoid border control enthusiasts can find new means of stopping refugees from finding safety and asylum; and where police forces can sample the latest tools of repression. Whether you are a diplomatic staff member of Syria or Libya or a member of the bloated Canadian War Dept., the free pass through the gates is available for you.

Interestingly, though, Members of Parliament do not have such easy access. Elizabeth May – even though her party’s stand on military spending is slightly less atrocious than the rest – was unable to gain access, something which she later told the rally outside of the weapons bazaar symbolized the manner in which militarism shuts down democracy.

Access was also denied to the members of Spring Nuremberg Action Group, a loose knit coalition that tried to enter the grounds with copies of the Nuremberg Principles as well as dozens of international treaties and covenants that the group showed in a 22-page document were violated by the very existence of a weapons bazaar whose vendors and participants aided and abetted the commission of crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

The June 1 Rally and Direct Action

June 1^st was a warm and humid day in Ottawa, and by 6 am, large number of Ottawa police and private security roamed the grounds searching out the protesters. Scads of 10-foot fencing completely surrounded the huge Lansdowne Park exhibition grounds, and every vehicle entering was being checked for a special pass. By 8 am, the nuisance of democracy was present at the three main Bank Street entrances to Lansdowne, with Raging Grannies, Nowar/paix, Homes not Bombs, and Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade members, among others, handing out copies of the Nuremberg Principles to CANSEC attendees, encouraging them to read and then sign a pledge to abide by them, a move which could force them to end their role in profiting from the waging of wars of aggression.

Inside, sniper rifles, attack helicopters, hellfire missiles, and other weapons of war were on display in an exhibition that featured a keynote address from Canada’s top warlord, Walt Natynczyk (who won a special medal for commanding occupation forces in the war against and occupation of Iraq that many continue to believe Canada was not a part of). Warlord Natynczyk declared, perhaps in reference to the fact that CANSEC is controversial, that the greatest weapon for Canadian soldiers is “an open hand and a smile,” something Libyan civilians who were murdered by a NATO bombing on the weekend never saw, because the Canadian warlord running the show overseas said they were in fact part of a key “command and control node”.

Again, the euphemisms are everywhere. Command and control nodes, collateral damage, tool kits. We do not hear about bloodshed, about limbs torn off, eyes burned out, eardrums exploded, the things that happen 10,000 feet below when Canadian pilots “release” their weapons.

An extensive rally organized by Voice of Women and Physicians for Global Survival featured Raging Grannies songs, speeches from numerous CANSEC opponents, a reading out of the names of victims of war, and poetry about the distance between the individuals who press the buttons launching drone attacks and the consequences of those actions.

A Die-in Leads to Direct Action

Then a die-in was held, during which participants, their chalked outlines drawn on the sidewalk and driveway entrance to CANSEC, were reminded that though, in their role as the victims of a bombing raid, they had been in school or hospital or attending a wedding, the Pentagon and War Dept. press releases would state that they were suspected al-Qaeda militants, and only if news got out about their murder would restrained expressions of regret be issued with the caveat that the “enemy”, or “them,” always put civilians in harm’s way. (The placement of Canada’s War Department right in downtown Ottawa on a major thoroughfare, next to the always busy shipping centre a mere 50 feet across the street, is of course different—we do not have the enemy’s “different morality,” we are not barbaric beasts.)

Groups at the entrances to CANSEC had spent four hours handing out the Nuremberg Principles, inviting attendees to sign on and work towards ending their complicity in the preparation for war. Many CANSEC-ees simply refused to see the faces of the protesters or the pictures of the victims. Others replied with the standard “I’m good,” while some tried to speed their way through, straining not to see the protesters with the same effort they they refuse to see the victims of their products. We must be invisible. Why would anyone oppose what they do for a living?

Similarly, the whole concept of Nuremberg, a cornerstone of international law following the Second World War, was treated like a quaint concept, perhaps even something invented by the group of 70-100 people who spent the day at the protest. Indeed, “The Nuremberg principles, as they call them,” was how one TV reporter described what the SNAG group were carrying. Perhaps an unintended reference to something no one else wanted to see – that there ARE laws, albeit written by the victors of wars, that are supposed to aid in ending the international war system, but which are signed onto and then ignored or blatantly defied.

As the SNAG folks made their way to the south fence entrance following the die-in, the gate quickly closed and the group sat in front of the gate. People sang anti-war songs, and while an effort to speak with a CANSEC representative proved fruitless – he refused to talk or even take our documentation, saying it was all a big speech – police threatened the group with arrest for blocking a gate which they had already closed.

When it appeared we were not moving, police came and placed their own lock on the gate. One down, more to go, and so the group moved north to another gate, where large numbers of delegates headed for the Bank Street restaurants for lunch. Larger numbers of police showed up and formed a phalanx that tried to prevent us from closing off that entrance or from entering.

A small group wandered further north to a gate where there were only two private security and, getting onto the grounds such that the moveable fence could not be closed, created yet another “situation evolving,” as it was described on police walkie talkies. More resisters showed up and prevented a bus of CANSEC visitors from getting in, and bit by bit more police came through and formed a new line. Again, threats of arrest were made, but as before, the police eventually backed off.

The group continued going from fence to fence for over two hours, eventually concluding that ironically, it was CANSEC itself that day that found itself in prison, behind the bars of its own making. As a final act, the group stated that if they could not get onto the grounds with the Nuremberg Principles and other international laws, they would at least get their documents onto the grounds, and with that, one by one, the 22-page documents were placed underneath the fence on the hot asphalt, where the wind picked up and started blowing copies about.

No Laws Can be Allowed on the Grounds!

Worried CANSEC organizers scurried about, not in the interest of cleaning the environment of litter, for the military is the single largest polluter on the planet – but perhaps more because they still did not want their folks to see what was here. One CANSEC organizer said he would present this material to his bosses (though it was not clear if this would be done in the spirit of “I kept this from the exhibitors” or “Perhaps we should consider the fact we may one day be in the docket of an international war crimes tribunal, just like the German industrialists of yesteryear”).

Like Brigette DePape, resisters at CANSEC were pretty much dismissed by the respectable organs of the media as a cute nuisance. Everyone has the right, of course, to protest, we are told in a patronizing fashion. But that same attitude will no doubt change as larger numbers of people who believe and act on the fact that war is a crime, that war is stupid (in the words of Voice of Women founder Kay MacPherson) and that war is terrorism, organize to end the CANSEC bazaar.

Unsurprisingly, since early June and the subsequent House of Commons call to extend war, no apologies or regrets have emerged from CANSEC exhibitors about the role of their products in illegal activities that kill people.

And following last weekend’s attack on a Libyan apartment building, there do not appear to have been any NDP press conferences featuring former anti-war punk rockers who are now MPs saying they are having second thoughts about supporting this bombing campaign.

CANSEC 2012 is already being planned at a remote new location near the Ottawa airport. The war industry has not paused. And neither should we.

Plans are already underway to have larger numbers of folks trained in nonviolence to confront the warmakers in 2012. From members of Homes not Bombs and Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade and Nowar/paix to Quakers and Raging Grannies and Radical Relics, the nonviolent conspiracy for an end to war is growing.

For more information, contact tasc@web.ca

And just as importantly, stay informed on Canada’s role in the weapons industry by subscribing to Press for Conversion, and visit their website at http://coat.ncf.ca/

(report from Matthew Behrens of Homes not Bombs and the Spring Nuremberg Action Group.)

Homes not Bombs

PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street

Perth, ON K7H 1R0

Canada's massive military budget is off the table in federal election

2011-05-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

By Matthew Behrens
April 26, 2011

|Among many substantive issues not discussed during campaign 2011 is the $23 billion Canada now spends on war, a massive investment that all three major federal parties will maintain if elected.

Add in the ongoing costs of the Afghanistan war plus undisclosed funding for Canada's bombardment of Libya (well over 200 aerial bombing runs and aerial "sorties" to date), and the $23 billion figure may run higher.

To put this in perspective, slightly more than $63 million a day is spent on Canada's war machine. That's the daily equivalent of 420 affordable housing units or 3,000 four-year full-tuition grants for university students. Over the course of a month, that's 13,000 affordable housing units and 90,000 students going to university without massive debt load.

It is in this context that politicians preaching fiscal restraint and support for burdened families continue proffering blind allegiance to a well-funded institution whose leadership, past and present, has always been clear: in the words of former General Rick Hillier, their role is to kill people.

While many young people join the military because they believe they're contributing to society (in addition to those who simply need the income or an education), there are other ways for them to live out those aspirations without having to pick up a gun and face the choice of killing or being killed.

But those other choices are not part of the dominant parties' platforms. (By contrast, the Green Party would reduce war spending to the then historically high 2005 levels, the Bloc has criticized high war spending but is not specific in its plans, and the Communist Party would reduce military spending by 75 per cent).

In the case of the NDP, it's likely that many supporters are unaware of their party's willingness to choose guns over butter. After all, the NDP is traditionally seen as the place where anti-war activists park their vote, and the strongest anti-war statements usually come from its MPs, who often speak at peace rallies. But most NDP MPs have long accepted the framework of ever increasing amounts of war funding.

Why focus on the NDP when they are the party that appears closest to social movements? The answer would hopefully be self-evident, inasmuch as the party relies on them for election workers and funding, yet appears to ignore them by developing policy that's aimed at some mythic "middle of the road Canada."This is not news to anyone who has followed the party's growing acceptance of militarism, especially under Jack Layton's leadership.

The NDP endorsed a 2002 Parliamentary Committee's call for increasing military spending a full 50 per cent (which would mean $28 billion per year by the end of 2010, and we're almost there). That was the same year NDP MPs began joining their colleagues in a unique indoctrination program called the Canadian Forces Parliamentary Program, which "embeds" MPs in war training exercises where, according to a report in Canadian Parliamentary Review, they "learn how the equipment works, they train with the troops, and they deploy with their units on operations. Parliamentarians are integrated into the unit by wearing the same uniform, living on bases, eating in messes, using CF facilities and equipment."

In May 2005, the NDP supported the Paul Martin 2005 Liberal budget. Hailed as Canada's "First NDP budget," it sported the largest military spending increase in 20 years, making Canada's war budget higher than at any time since the end of World War II.

When the infamous NDP-Liberal-Bloc coalition came together in December 2008, the issue of withdrawal from Afghanistan was suddenly "off the table." And as NATO generals recently called for increased bombing of Libya despite rising civilian casualties, there was silence from the campaign trail.

Shortly after my concerns were posted on Jack Layton's Facebook page, I received a phone call from the NDP's Ottawa-based "war room," a thoroughly insulting moniker to anyone who has actually experienced the horror of war as civilian or soldier (why not a "torture room" or a "pillage room" to make further light of those subjects?). A campaign worker, to his credit, wanted to dialogue, but noted that if Jack Layton were to discuss military cuts, he would be hurt in mainstream media coverage and by the perceptions of "average Canadians."

While this line did not surprise me -- it is used by every political party facing the choice of taking a principled stand or following backroom advisers wholly insulated from the electorate -- it certainly is not in sync with this spring's Leger Marketing report that revealed almost 60 per cent of those polled declared "Canada should take a peace dividend and cut back on military spending to focus on other more pressing social issues at home." Despite a decade of endless military propaganda, "Red Friday" support the troops rallies, yellow ribbons, and a seriously weak Canadian peace movement, such numbers are remarkable.

Those numbers have not changed substantively in over a decade: a 2000 Maclean's poll found 75 per cent of Canadians chose housing over updating the military, with only 19 per cent favouring the latter. This followed the military's mythic "decade of darkness," the Chretien years of massive social program cuts that barely touched military spending, which never dipped below $10 billion. Indeed, the mid-1990s saw reports on military warehouses overflowing with weaponry, and between 1980 and 2000, Canada invested over a quarter of a trillion dollars in war.

As Canadian bombers prepared to unleash their fury on Yugoslavia in 1999, the Globe and Mail reported that "The Canadian Forces can hurl more raw firepower at a potential enemy today than they could during the Persian Gulf War... Since the gulf war, all three services have increased their 'combat capability' (the wherewithal to inflict heavy damage on the enemy), said Major-General Kenneth Pennie, director-general of strategic planning for the Canadian Forces. The equipment includes new frigates for the navy, armoured vehicles for the army and high-tech 'smart' bombs for the air force. Given the improved accuracy, Gen. Pennie said, 'we find that some conventional weapons can be more useful than nuclear weapons.'"

At that time, homelessness had recently been declared a national emergency, and while then Liberal war minister Art Eggleton was asked how Canada could afford the bombing of Yugoslavia, he replied "It's obviously something that the government of Canada will cover." Yet a week later, the Toronto Star reported "(Federal minister responsible for homelessness) Bradshaw's spokesperson said yesterday there are no plans to put more money into affordable housing."

This is a problem with historic roots: there's always money for war, regardless of how bare the cupboard might be. The refusal to challenge a Canadian institution and ask fundamental questions about why it is needed, and how it fails to contribute to a civil society, is frustrating to say the least.

And so, despite the perception of the NDP as a natural choice for voters concerned about peace, the NDP simply proposes moving the chess pieces around without asking why we're still playing the same old deadly game. Indeed, we are reassured that the NDP opposes the F-35 fighter jets. Fair enough. But that money would instead be spent on the navy's warships, the same ones on which numerous NDP MPs have found themselves embedded over the past decade.

While this sounds like a benign alternative, it ignores the fact that Canadian warships have contributed more misery than the Canadian bombings missions of the past 25 years. Indeed, during the 1990s, Canada's navy spent over $1 billion in the enforcement of devastating sanctions that killed over 1.5 million Iraqi people. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq that myth-makers have tried to convince us Canada was not involved in, the Canadian Navy played a key role in escorting the U.S. warships launching cruise missiles and bombing runs. There are few clearer examples of aiding and abetting the murder of Iraqis than this.

Canadian warships are also dangerous. The HMCS Fredericton, for example, the "Stalker of the Seas," boasts weapons which fire 4,500 rounds of ammunition a minute, Harpoon missiles that can "deliver" a 227 kg warhead to a range in excess of 130 km and a Bofors gun, "capable of firing 2.4 kg shells at a rate of 220 rounds/min at a range of more than 17 km." Not most people's idea of peaceful conflict resolution.

But pointing out such things fails to burst the NDP's bubble. They would put the military to work on "peacekeeping" and humanitarian relief, helping after disasters, and flood cleanup. But those are all civilian functions that one need not have training in the art of killing to perform.

"We need to support our military," my local NDP candidate pleads, a phrase used ad nauseum that reduces one of Canada's best-funded federal programs to the status of a fragile flower whose petals could fall off at any moment. Can we not look forward to the day when "need to support" is used in support of daycare, women's programs, education, an end to poverty?

While space does not allow an exploration of the myth of Canada's potential for peacekeeping -- something which was always a cleverly disguised bit of cover for the west's Cold War aims -- it is important to point out as well that the NDP's proposal to use the military to do the work that used to be handled in conflict zones by NGOs makes the latter's work all the more difficult, since it blurs the distinction between armed parties and civil society, putting NGO workers at risk.

After pointing out all these reasons why I could not support the NDP, my friend at the NDP war room pleaded with me for my support. How can I vote for bloodshed and misery, I asked, whether it is delivered from the skies, from a warship, or through the hunger that millions will suffer to pay for all this?

Ultimately, it comes down to a choice: will we continue to choose the path of the gun, so successful that over 100 million lives were lost as a result during the 20th century (which excludes the millions who died because all the funds they needed to sustain life were sent to the war departments of the world)? Or will we seek another way? So far, those with any hope of forming the next government have made their unfortunate choices clear.

Matthew Behrens is an Ontario social justice advocate and freelance writer.

A Quarter Century of Protesting Canada’s Weapons Fairs: Come to CANSEC protests June 1 in Ottawa.

2011-05-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

(An exploration of some of the history leading to the nonviolent direct actions planned June 1 in Ottawa)

On June 1, groups of people who have in past years stood in protest outside the gates of Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park, home to Canada’s largest weapons bazaar, will attempt to go inside, carrying with them the Nuremberg Principles. The nonviolent direct action, organized by the likes of Homes not Bombs, the Raging Grannies, the Radical Relics, and the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, is working under the banner of Spring Nuremberg Action Group (SNAG).

SNAG’s proposition is simple: the Nuremberg Principles, which arose as a means of trying to develop an international legal order that would prevent the kinds of crimes that occurred during the Second World War, should be applied today as a means of shutting down Canada’s war industries, which are aiding and abetting crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Canada’s own Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program states: “A person is considered complicit if, while aware of the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity, the person contributes directly or indirectly to their occurrence.”

It’s not a new idea. At the end of May, 1989, Canada’s largest weapons fair, ARMX89, was confronted by the most dangerous threat faced by the merchants of death: democracy. Democracy came in the form of a large rally of some 3,000 people who came to Lansdowne Park, followed the next morning by a blockade of all entrances that saw almost 200 people arrested and thrown into detention. It was a welcome harvest of resistance that had grown from the seeds planted by a small group of candle-holding vigillers who had previously gathered in 1987.

While many of us sat chained together both at the Ottawa police station and then at the detention centre, weapons dealers from apartheid South Africa, torture regimes in Latin America, and dictatorships from around the globe, including China, were present. (Indeed, equipment similar to that used in the Tiananman Square massacre was on display at ARMX89). The basis for the nonviolent civil disobedience was clear: such weapons bazaars clearly violated Canada’s war crimes act, and Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark would be subpoenaed to testify at our trial.

Needless to say, the threat of us turning our trial into a legal referendum on the weapons trade was too much too handle, and charges were dropped against all of us within two weeks. Ottawa City Council passed a resolution banning such weapons shows on municipal property, and ARMX went looking for a new home for 1991. It thought it found one in Carp, a small community outside of Ottawa, but when members of the now defunct Alliance for Nonviolent Action and the still thriving Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade publicly stated that the 5 police cells in Carp would in no way be a match for the even greater numbers of nonviolent resisters who would come to shut down the show, ARMX 91 was cancelled.

The show came back in 1993, retitled “Peacekeeping 93”, but again large numbers, unimpressed with the Orwellian name change, came and resisted. Eventually, the show was condemned to a Washington, DC hotel, kicked out of the country. Since that time, a few small groups have carried on with the anti-war work that is necessary to create a peaceful society, their numbers occasionally enlarged in reaction to international events such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Among those groups, Homes not Bombs has continually organized rallies and nonviolent direct actions at Canada’s leading weapons manufacturers, and the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade has faithfully documented the criminal behaviour of such corporations for over two decades both on its website and its excellent newsletter, Press for Conversion.

But the weapons industry, like any plague, never rests, and slowly started coming back in the form of CANSEC, which for a number of years has been a showcase not only for weapons dealers promoting horrific means of killing people, but also high-tech surveillance and control systems designed to be used against demonstrators seeking democracy, refugees seeking sanctuary, and peoples seeking their national liberation. Since 2003, demonstrations organized by a variety of groups have occurred at CANSEC.

This year, for the first time in a long while, though, there will be an attempt to confront CANSEC with nonviolent resistance in the form of an attempt to enter the grounds and determine whether or not those inside will publicly sign their adherence to the Nuremberg principles, which prohibit the preparation and organization for wars of aggression.

NUREMBERG
Anyone even remotely familiar with Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other wars of aggression that have been waged this past decade by the U.S., Britain, and Canada with the technology of Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Northrup Grumman, and so many others, can safely deduce that Nuremberg’s legacy has been ignored (perhaps in large measure because, viewed in perspective, Nuremberg was a form of victors’ justice, not applied to the crimes committed by Allied forces. This despite the statement from US Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg, Justice Robert Jackson, who stated “while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment."

(Notably, former US Secretary of War Robert McNamara fessed up to Allied criminality in the film Fog of War, in which he stated “[General Curtis] LeMay said if we’d lost the war, we’d all have been tried as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing [ie, firebombing Japanese cities] would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”)

Since their proclamation in the late 1940s, so-called Western Nations have violated the Nuremberg Principles with the saturation bombings of countries around the globe, the development and implementation of torture states, and the genocidal use of economic sanctions against the people of Iraq, among many others crimes.

While previous German executives of a number of companies at CANSEC (Krupp, Flick) were in the dock at the Nuremberg Trials, others have contributed to crimes that have not, unfortunately, been officially condemned because they have been committed by the winning sides in fights that are usually lopsided to begin with. Most of the CANSEC exhibitors, like the rest of the world, had full knowledge about the questionable pretexts used by the Bush administration in the 2003 act of aggressive war and subsequent horrors committed against the people of Iraq (as well as the devastating sanctions that claimed the lives of over 1 million people). The millions murdered in Southeast Asia, in Korea, throughout Latin America, and so many other parts of the globe in the name of fighting communism and fighting terrorism also fit into this picture.

When a group of Homes not Bombs and Catholic Worker resisters attempted to get members of the Canadian military to sign on to the Nuremberg Principles in 2003, during Canada’s participation in the war against Iraq (yes, Canada WAS a part of that!), we ended up in the jug. The group, Spring Nuremberg Action Group, had tried to throw a snag into military operations, and for the better part of a day CFB Downsview was on lockdown, hiding out from the forces of democracy.

RETURN OF SNAG
In 2011, SNAG has been resurrected and will be the organizing principle behind nonviolent actions June 1 at CANSEC. It’s an opportunity to connect what is built and sold in Canada with the crimes we see daily across the globe.

It is safe to assume, for example, that the regimes massacring the citizens seeking democracy in the Middle East will be at CANSEC. It is a show open to all diplomats in Ottawa, as well as all NATO militaries.

In 1989, then Toronto city councillor Jack Layton got on one of the school buses taking demonstrators to Ottawa, leading songs as he played guitar there and back. Some 22 years later, he is now the official opposition leader, complementing a governing party that makes for a House of Commons in which no sincere anti-war sentiments will be expressed for four years (unless, of course, we can get them to changer their dangerous direction)

With opposition and government in agreement—war is the best way to solve society’s problems, and that is why Canada will continue to spend $23 billion annually on its military, the largest use of federal discretionary funding– it obviously falls to the citizens of this nation to take things into our own hands. Nonviolent action is a form of direct democracy: when leaders not only fail to act, but by their silence are complicit in these crimes, it is our obligation, under the Nuremberg Principles, to not look the other way, to inquire, to speak out, to protest, and to resist.

CRIMES OF STATE IS NO EXCUSE
Justice Robert Jackson, who was chief prosecutor for the US at Nuremberg, said that “one who has committed criminal acts may not take refuge in superior orders nor in the doctrine that his crimes were acts of states." In his opening comments, he also noted “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

While the deliberate nuclear bombing of two civilian Japanese cities, as well as the firebombing of cities that were designed to create massive firestorms, murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians, were surely war crimes committed by Allied powers, those crimes did not end in 1945. In fact, they continue to the present day, whether the targeting of dikes in Vietnam by US bombers and the dropping of tonnes of napalm on a poor peasant society, the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure in Iraq (including the power grid, knowing this would increase mortality because it would shut down water cleaning facilities), the use of depleted uranium-coated weapons, and a host of other crimes. That list grows longer when considering the ill-treatment of war’s victims, whether those taken into prison and tortured, refugees who are blocked at every point from seeking asylum, and those who are literally starved to death while the world spends trillions on the types of killing machines that will be displayed at CANSEC.

This is the conversation we hope to have with those at CANSEC on June 1. It will be but one step in the ongoing struggle to ensure that the needs of people everywhere – clean water, food, housing, daycare, education, health care, safety from violence, etc. – are met, rather than flushed down the rathole of military spending, a cruel and calculated crime which robs the hungry and the poor at the outset and then murders them from the air and on the ground when they rise up to say they will no longer tolerate such inequality.

To join us in Ottawa for the direct action, for the rally and ongoing vigils, and for further information, contact snag.cansec@gmail.com

For further information, visit http://www.nowar-paix.ca/snag/index.html and also visit http://coat.ncf.ca/

If you would like to make a contribution to the costs borne by those organizing to close CANSEC, cheques can be made out to Homes not Bombs, marked CANSEC in the memo portion of the cheque, and mailed to PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 1R0. Those funds will help defray the costs of out of town travelers coming to Ottawa, bail and related legal costs, and the organization of events for 2012.

(report from Matthew Behrens of Homes not Bombs, tasc@web.ca)

Will CSIS Require “Dream Ban” for Canadian Muslims?

2011-04-09T05:19:00.000-07:00

New Secret Report Alleges to Have Found a Link Between Muslim Dreaming and “Extremism”

April 8, 2011 -- The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the spy agency tasked with protecting the never-defined “national security” of Canadians, may well have come upon the ultimate terror-fighting strategy: banning the dreams of Muslims.

CSIS, a national agency which regularly terrorizes members of the Muslim community with unannounced home and workplace visits, threats of jail, deportation, and prevention of family reunification, has for quite a few years produced reams of reports on what it thinks could affect the “security” of Canadians.

The latest secret “intelligence assessment” (pardon the oxymoron) is called “The Role of Dreams in the Justification of Jihad,” obtained under the Access to Information Act by the National Post. The 6-page, largely blacked out document, states in its summary that “Dream interpretation is closely tied to religious belief in Islam. Islamist extremists often report having dreams about the Prophet Muhammad or fellow mujahideen. Dreams about religious figures can inspire extremists to act.”

Hence, in its simple-as-abc, connect-the-dots approach, CSIS appears to have come up with a genius bit of pre-crime-think straight out of a Tom Cruise thriller. While much of the report has been redacted, it is clear that investigations of Muslim dreaming could open a new front in Canada’s war on terror.

While it is unclear whether Muslims will now have to keep dream journals that can be accessed by CSIS agents (if you have nothing to hide in your dreams, why would you want your dream journal kept private?), this new approach to spying on Canada’s Muslim communities seems to build on longstanding CSIS practices that have more to do with the practices of carnival soothsayers and crystal ball prognosticators than with anything remotely resembling reality.

While it is true that various agencies of the federal government are engaged in crime-think research – it was revealed in early March that the Canadian War Dept. is researching mind-scanning technology in the hope that “this ability can be used by members of the military and the security forces to isolate adversaries prior to commission of actions” – CSIS has long preferred to rely on feelings, intuition, stereotypes, and other unscientific methods when the facts simply won’t add up. Indeed, the whole raison d’etre of security certificates, the measure by which refugees and immigrants can be indefinitely detained based on secret allegations, is the idea that individuals may in the past, could at present, or may at some point in the future pose some kind of threat. The basis for such a conclusion, of course, is secret, as it cannot withstand public scrutiny.

Typical of CSIS attitudes are comments regularly found in the reports of its toothless oversight body, the Security intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which in the past raised questions, for example, "about some beliefs the Service has about the nature of the threat. We are of the opinion that these beliefs are sometimes overdrawn."

SIRC found that in one CSIS case, "information put forward was more than a decade old and the information adduced was derived from one source's 'feelings.'” Another finding was that "One source's speculation was quoted. Some assertions that the target engaged in 'suspicious activities' appeared to us to be misleading or exaggerated."

"For another person targeted, [CSIS] failed to include in the affidavit significant information of which it was aware which contradicts its own position on the person,” SIRC found in another instance. In yet another case, a hyperactive CSIS treated as a threat activity something that "seemed to be routine diplomatic behaviour," while in another case, "with little corroborating information, CSIS ascribed intelligence gathering motives to apparently normal consular contacts."

On more than one occasion, the CSIS oversight body has stated that the government needs the best possible national security advice “unencumbered by unfounded speculation."

Yet it is precisely on unfounded speculation that CSIS builds its dreamworld of national security threats. This has been evident in the false naming as imminent threats a series of Canadian citizens who were tortured as a result of CSIS and RCMP targeting, the unsubstantiated allegations that have been used for years on secret trial security certificate cases, the naming of individuals to no-fly lists, and the refusal to grant security clearance to individuals working for the federal government.

In the last instance, perhaps the most famous case involved that of diplomat Bhupindar Liddar, who had been deemed a security risk by CSIS. That claim was unambiguously rejected in a September, 2005 SIRC report that found CSIS "purposefully misled" its oversight agency in an attempt to "suppress information that was embarrassing to the Service."

"I wish that such events never occur again," Paule Gauthier, former chairwoman of SIRC, wrote. The report found "there is no reliable evidence that supports a conclusion that Mr. Liddar may engage in activities that would constitute a threat to the security of Canada." She said CSIS undertook an "inaccurate and misleading" investigation that produced "unqualified, alarming" findings that relied on "uncorroborated and/or unreliable sources."

"I find that many of the conclusions concerning Mr. Liddar . . . result from the transfer of suspicions about a person who would support Arab causes," she wrote.

More recently, CSIS and its fellow paranoid spooks in the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre developed a report called "Lone-Wolf Attacks: A Developing Islamist Extremist Strategy?" A Lone Wolf is described as someone “inspired by a terrorist ideology or organization to conduct attacks, but acts independently, without established ties or accountability.” They ascribe these attacks to the philosophy of “Leaderless resistance,” and then state that the internet is “helpful to an individual who may be preparing to conduct a lone-wolf attack, providing ideological motivation, encouragement, justification.”

"Lone wolves are difficult to identify because they do not join terrorist groups or associate with other known extremists," they conclude. If you read between the lines, this means that pretty much anyone can now be a suspect.

One wonders if wolves, who do populate the Arctic, are the metaphoric inspiration for another CSIS report that conjures up images of abominable snowmen coming south with the global warming threat. “The Canadian Arctic: Threat from Terrorists and Extremists,” discusses how the Arctic might become, according to a Canadian Press report from earlier this year, “a conduit for international or domestic radicals.”

If we keep going in this direction, it may not be too long before Jonah the terrorist may be coming in the belly of a whale via the Arctic Circle. Polar bears may soon be equipped with anthrax tablets. There is no end to the terror that may be wreaked by the things out there trying to get at us in here! Perhaps Canadians should all move to Texas to be safer. But even then, the threat of a rogue asteroid, launched by Martians (from the RED, Communist planet) could signal the rise of a new Bolshevist threat (coming from the cold Siberian plains). For those who work at CSIS, it is getting just so scary out there. People may laugh at her now, but maybe former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin can help stop this????

While CSIS is having nightmares, there is still the problem posed by the dreams of Muslims. On the third page of its secret report, CSIS declares “Dreams provide a inspirational (sic) component of the world of the jihadist. Jihadists receive divine guidance of future events and see the legitimacy of their actions in their dreams.”

CSIS then concludes that among those who have been “reported” to have experienced significant dreams of jihad are Osama bin Laden, Zacarias Moussaoui (the so-called 20^th hijacker), shoebomber Richard Reid, Mullah Omar, and Iraqi Abu Musab Al Zarqawi.

Of course, CSIS has no more interviewed these men than it has the individuals about whom they claim to know the thought processes in security certificate cases. Yet the report is one more example of making a whole community suspect in the eyes of their neighbours, a practice that CSIS continues to engage in, with serious human rights consequences, from its Ottawa bunker.

What are we to make of this? Maybe by keeping Muslims up at night, we will prevent their dreams, and therefore prevent attacks. Perhaps everyone who lives next door to a Muslim individual or family could as their patriotic duty play that funky music LOUD all night long?

All of these threat assessments are incredibly convenient for CSIS: by constantly throwing threat assessments against the wall in the hope that something will stick, they detract from the real threat posed to the security of people in this country: the actions of federal agencies like CSIS, the RCMP and others who continue to profile and unjustly target whole communities, often leading to serious crimes, including complicity in torture.

(report from Matthew Behrens of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada)

What you can do:

1. Sign the statement calling for the abolition of secret trials in Canada at www.harkatstatement.com/

2. Support our work: Donations can made out to Homes not Bombs and mailed to PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 1R0

3. Support the talented filmmakers putting together a major documentary on secret trials in Canada: http://secrettrial5.com/

4. Attend the October CSI: Ottawa Crime Scene demonstrations focused on ending Canadian involvement in torture. These nonviolent gatherings will name and spotlight Ottawa-based agencies and corporations complicit in torture, mark them as crime scenes, and carry out the investigations necessary to ensure accountability, system change, and compensation for victims of their actions.

Harkat Ruling Concludes Government Need Not Tell the Truth in Secret Hearings in Canada,

2011-01-19T05:55:00.000-08:00

Harkat Ruling Concludes Government Need Not Tell the Truth in Secret Hearings in Canada, and a Federal Court Judge, Through his Quiet Acquiescence, Agrees!

Latest Revelations in Secret Trial Detainee Mohamed Harkat’s Case Reveal New Levels of Lawlessness in Security Certificate Regime

(report from Matthew Behrens of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada )

January 18, 2011 – Mohamed Harkat, an Algerian refugee detained in Canada on secret allegations he is not allowed to see since December 10, 2002, got bad news last month when a Federal Court judge, Simon Noel, kickstarted the process of deporting him to torture.

In a shockingly poor decision, Noel upheld the security certificate against Harkat on the basis of unsubstantiated secret allegations as well as CSIS-created “summaries” of alleged phone conversations from over a decade ago, the originals of which, if they ever existed, have long since been destroyed. (Security certificates allow the government, using the lowest standards of proof, to indefinitely detain immigrants and refugees on the basis of secret allegations as well as secret information not normally admissable in a court of law, with the ultimate aim of deporting them – usually to torture). Noel also made an adverse finding against Harkat that completely contradicted a fellow Federal Court judge’s ruling on the same issue in a separate security case last year. (See more at http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/2010/12/harkat-condemed-by-secret-allegations.html )

TOP SECRET FOOTNOTES

As if to justify the secrecy that has condemned Harkat, Noel has since issued a new, redacted set of formerly “Top Secret” footnotes to that ruling which, government lawyers had argued, would imperil national security if released. Their recent public availability has not brought the sky crashing down on us, but anyone interested in reading them will find that the most dangerous thing about them is the amount of toner ink that will be used up in printing page after page of large, solid black blocks keeping secret what lies underneath, punctuated only occasionally by a word or two. Page 7, for example, is incredibly useful. Under the section labeled “Weapons,” not a word is released, just lots of black ink. Under “Afghanistan,” all we see is “Harkat denies having gone to Afghanistan,” followed by a one-third page of black ink. Under “Financial Resources” is another large block of black ink, at the bottom of which, helpfully, is Noel stating “Based on this information, the Court concludes that Harkat did have other financial resources available to him while in Pakistan.” Pages 13-14 are completely blacked out.

But things only get worse in a separate, redacted version of a formerly top secret annex to that decision.

NO DUTY OF CANDOUR AND GOOD FAITH

The latter proves quite troubling since it deals with a motion by security-cleared lawyers, known as special advocates, who argued that the government Ministers bringing the certificate “had breached their duty of candour and utmost good faith as they did not bring their best efforts to gather the information for the Court in order for it to reach an informed decision.” (For those unfamiliar with the term, “candour” means “the quality of being open and honest; frankness; fairness; impartiality.”

That the special advocates would bring such a motion is not surprising. CSIS, the spy agency behind the certificates, has a long history of not sharing its complete file in the secret chambers where these hearings are held. This includes withholding information that would paint the detainee in a positive light, not telling judges that their informants had failed lie detector tests, and using information gleaned from torture.

Indeed, Judge Noel wrote in a separate decision related to the Harkat case in 2010 that such behaviour, and the “failure of CSIS, and of its witnesses, to act in accordance with the obligation of utmost good faith…has undermined the integrity of this Court’s process….Evidence of a failure to disclose relevant evidence which may negatively affect the Court’s determination of the reliability of a human source has been put before the Court….information filed in support of the certificate by the Ministers has been ‘filtered’ and that undertakings made to the Court have not been fulfilled.”

With someone’s life and liberty at stake, the government tried to pull a fast one, and got caught. What’s remarkable is how Noel was willing to give them another try and believe them the second time around, even though he had no way of knowing whether CSIS and the Ministers were really telling the truth this time. After all, as we learned from a Federal Court decision that came out last December in a related security certificate case, CSIS, which had been ordered to stop listening in on solicitor-client calls in these proceedings, continued to do so for an additional two years in clear defiance of a court order. How on earth could Noel have concluded that CSIS and its minions were not simply pulling another fast one, continuing to act in an illegal and dishonest manner?

A number of years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada held that a duty of candour and utmost good faith was especially important in secret hearings (excuse the oxymoron), because the individual who was not in the room could not defend her/himself. But according to the released Annex in the Harkat case, when faced with a special advocate motion that such honesty was clearly lacking, “The Ministers replied that the duty of utmost good faith does not apply to security certificate proceedings.”

ONE-WAY TICKET TO TORTURE

Noel says that regardless, in his opinion, the ministers provided him with enough information to nail Harkat in absentia. Therefore, he finds that he does not wish to “pronounce myself as to the scope of the duty of good faith” in secret hearings, a statement that seems to imply there is wiggle room to justify, say, 50%, or even 30% good faith, as opposed to the 100% one would hope for. His particularly harsh approach to Harkat, especially after the government’s malfeasance, speaks once again to the inherent unfairness and danger of secret hearings: the lack of transparency means it is impossible for us to know exactly what went on, and Mr. Harkat, as a result, faces a one-way ticket to torture unless people across this continent speak up and intervene.

That first intervention may well be adding your name to those opposed to secret trials in Canada at www.harkatstatement.com

There is plenty you can do to say no to secret trials and the broader agenda of political repression

1. Immediately sign on to the statement against secret trials located at www.harkatstatement.com

2. Learn more about the manner in which “national security” is increasingly used as a means of repressing First Nations, refugees and immigrants, political activists, and so many more, and how we can resist that agenda, at the Whose Security? Our Security gathering in Montreal February 4-6. More information at http://www.peoplescommission.org/en/forum/ At the close of that forum there will be a solidarity dinner with Sophie and Moe Harkat, with proceeds going to the campaign to support Justice for Mohamed Harkat.

3. Read the story of resistance to secret trials by Sophie Harkat at http://www.rabble.ca/news/2011/01/fighting-mohamed-harkat

Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 1R0

RCMP Invades Eid celebrations

2010-12-18T06:25:00.001-08:00

Open letter: Why is An Agency Complicit in the Torture of Canadian Muslims Allowed to Have a Booth at Eid celebrations?

(The following letter was sent to organizers of Ottawa's Eid celebrations in September, 2010. Three months of silence have greeted this letter, so it is now being published in an open forum to encourage discussion on this topic)

Dear Friends

I trust that you and yours had a wonderful Ramadan and Eid Celebration.

I am writing because I read in a Sept. 12 Ottawa Citizen article entitled "Spirits high as festivities mark end of Ramadan" that individuals attending Eid celebrations at Carleton University could, among other things, "meet a member of the RCMP's national security community outreach team."

While I appreciate the openness and kind nature of Ottawa's Muslim community, I was rather shocked to see that a representative of an organization that has been found to be complicit in the torture of Canadian Muslims would be welcomed at such a holy event. Indeed, Ottawa resident Abdullah Almalki is one such individual who, along with his family, has faced over a decade of the most hellish existence imaginable, in large part due to the unjustified targetting, spreading of false information about, and harassment at the hands of the RCMP.

While it is unclear why, exactly, the RCMP was there, the intention behind inviting them, and the goal of the RCMP in appearing – both of which I would be curious about – are nonetheless not nearly as significant as the powerful symbolic value posed by the agency's presence at this community function.

It has been almost two years since the Canadian government's internal inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci, found that the RCMP's sharing of information with the U.S., and sending questions to Syrian interrogators, likely contributed to Mr. Almalki's torture. Iacobucci also found that Canadian officials (including from the RCMP) falsely labeled Mr. Almalki as a threat in communications with American, Syrian and other foreign agencies before his detention, without taking steps to ensure those labels were accurate or properly qualified, without attaching caveats, and without considering the potential consequences for Mr. Almalki.

Iacobucci found that the RCMP labeled Mr. Almalki in communications with Syria as "linked through association to al Qaeda" and an "imminent threat" and did so "without taking steps to ensure that the description was accurate or properly qualified", and that the words "imminent threat" in particular were "inflammatory, inaccurate and lacking investigative foundation."

As someone who is gravely concerned about our government's complicity in torture, I have read the inquiry reports from Mr. Iacobucci (concerning the cases of Mssrs. Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, all tortured as a result of Canadian intelligence agencies falsely labelling them as threats) as well as Judge O'Connor (concerning Maher Arar, also tortured as a result of the RCMP's false targetting and labelling). It is well nigh impossible to come away with anything but a negative impression of the RCMP's behaviour, which clearly constitutes complicity in criminal harassment, racial profiling, and torture.

Despite the half-hearted apology Mr. Arar received from the RCMP, Mssrs. Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin have yet to receive an apology, compensation, or an official clearance of their names. Further, none of the agencies involved (RCMP, CSIS, DFAIT) have taken the steps necessary to ensure accountability for decisions that clearly led to the men's torture, and in the case of the three men above, the government is now denying that they were in fact tortured, despite the findings of expert medical practitioners and two judicial inquiries.

This brings me back to the article in the Ottawa Citizen and the RCMP's presence at the Eid celebrations. The very presence of a "national security" representative implies that the Muslim community is the breeding ground of threats to national security. This in itself contributes to the false notion that Muslims have to be watched and are not to be trusted. We know of both the RCMP's and CSIS's record of extortion in the Muslim community, threatening those who will not spy on their communities, and their presence here suggests one more effort to infiltrate and control the community.

I believe very much in the power of nonviolence, and the transformative nature of dialogue with one's opponents, especially when they are engaged in activities that are harmful to the community. However, that attempt to heal community does not involve a welcoming embrace of those who have wronged until there has been an acknowledgment of the wrong, and measures have been taken to right the wrong.

The RCMP has not done this in the cases of Muslim brothers Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin. To have the RCMP present at this holiest of days is, to be blunt, an insult to these men, their loved ones, their community. It is a tacit form of approval for their behaviour, an implicit message that all is well and there is no cause for concern. They are thus no more held to account by the Muslim community than they are by the federal government.

I am hoping that you will reconsider any such invitation at next year's celebrations, and be wary in future public events that having members of such agencies as the RCMP present is, in its present state of denial, an act that serves to paper over the very real, painful, unresolved issues that afflict a growing number of members of the Muslim community.

I look forward to speaking further with you about this, and look forward to your reply.

Peace

Matthew Behrens
Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture

Secrecy in Extradition Case Threatens Hassan Diab

2010-12-18T06:11:00.000-08:00

Ottawa Man Fights Forced Removal from Canada Based on Secret Intelligence

By Matthew Behrens

Like a number of Muslim men in Canada, Ottawa’s Dr. Hassan Diab is forced to wear the ultimate symbol of state control: a GPS monitoring unit. This tracking device, for which the impoverished and currently unemployed university professor was forced to pay $30,000 for the first year (and now $1,500 monthly), is permanently affixed to his leg, tracking his every move under strict house arrest.

Diab bears this burden because the French government, which is attempting to have him forcibly removed from Canada, accuses him of involvement in a 1980 bombing on Paris’ Rue Copernic that killed four people. But in an unprecedented move, his extradition is being sought on the basis of secret “intelligence,” the source of which even French officials are unaware, with the possibility that it was extracted under torture.

Starting Monday, November 8, Diab will appear in an Ottawa courtroom in an effort to end a Kafkaesque nightmare that began with his arrest two years earlier. Jailed under Canada’s notoriously weak extradition law, Diab endured over four months of detention before transfer to draconian house arrest, only allowed to leave his residence with one of the five sureties who posted his $290,000 bail.

Because Hassan Diab is a common Middle Eastern name, Dr. Diab chose not to respond with alarm when, while working in 2007 as a University of Ottawa sociology professor, he was approached by a Le Figaro reporter asking him whether he knew French authorities were claiming he had been involved in the 1980 bombing.

But what Diab could not so easily dismiss were the unidentified individuals and vehicles that began following him, and the attempted break-in at his residence. Although he filed numerous reports with Ottawa police, the intensive surveillance (which he later found out was conducted by RCMP agents) continued, culminating in his 2008 arrest.

Since then, Diab has been involved in protracted court proceedings challenging weaknesses in the French case. It’s been a frustrating process, in large measure due to the low threshold French authorities are required to meet in order to extradite him. Indeed, as Manitoba Judge Freda Steel wrote in a 1999 extradition case, “evidence at an extradition hearing should be accepted even if the judge feels it is manifestly unreliable, incomplete, false, misleading, contradictory of other evidence or the judge feels the witness may have perjured themselves.”

Those subject to extradition under such maddening conditions are reassured that they can work things out in the requesting country after they have been uprooted from Canada and jailed overseas. But critics note such a process easily undermines human rights protections, including the right to be free from arbitrary arrest and persecution based on ethnicity or religion. “All too often,” writes University of Alberta law professor Joanna Harrington, “extradition is seen as a matter of comity or respect for Canada’s international relations, but without recognition that this respect should also extend to Canada’s treaty engagements with the international community in the field of human rights.”

Diab’s supporters point out that even when pieces of evidence alleged to be “smoking guns” have been withdrawn from the case for what some experts have deemed “appalling unreliability,” the case remarkably goes on, with the French cooking up new assertions that they try to mold in a manner that they fervently hope will stick.

Indeed, a 94-page factum filed by Diab’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, declares the case is replete with “misrepresentations, overstatements, misstatements, omissions, inaccuracies and editing that create a misleading, incomplete, unreliable and unfair Record of the Case.”

The Ontario Superior Court judge presiding over the extradition on November 8 will hear about a litany of problems, including the fact that Diab’s finger and palm prints do not match those offered by the French. In addition, key pieces of evidence appear to have been tampered with, possibly amounting to fraud, and information that would exonerate Diab has been buried in the record, with lawyers representing the Canadian government having argued the French are under no obligation to present information in their hands that would cast a positive light on Dr. Diab. Indeed, French documents cited by Bayne state Diab’s only potential link to this case is “incidental” because, in a remarkable leap of illogic, that common name happened to be in the phone book of an individual who was interrogated, but never charged, in a case completely unrelated to the 1980 bombing. They also concede that Diab was “not known to be part of any” terrorist group.

Despite what would appear to be an open-and-shut case in Diab’s favour, the French have refused to correct any misrepresentations, contradictions, and inaccuracies in their alleged case, despite having had 10 months to do so.

But why? Perhaps, given a war-on-terror climate that automatically assumes guilt when a Muslim is suspect, bedrock rule-of-law details fall prey to fear and profiling. That’s certainly the case in the French context. Internationally respected Human Rights Watch has produced two separate reports condemning the French government’s broadly defined and applied counterterrorism laws and procedures for failing to live up to fair trial standards. Equally of concern is the French judiciary’s acceptance of evidence derived from torture.

Last month, the BC Civil Liberties Association wrote a letter to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson outlining its concerns that the use of the unsourced, secret French intelligence in the Diab case, possibly derived from torture, “would put this country in breach of the universal prohibition against torture.”

With his life in limbo, Diab will enter the Ottawa Courthouse November 8 hoping the rule of law prevails, and that, even with the low extradition standards, the sheer weight of the facts will tilt the case in his favour. But he and supporters are not resting easy. They are asking that individuals and groups across Canada add their name to a statement calling for his extradition to be stopped and for the process to be brought in line with Canada’s human rights obligations. That statement, and further background, are at http://www.justiceforhassandiab.org/

Harkat Condemed by Secret Allegations

2010-12-18T06:04:00.000-08:00

Mohamed Harkat Condemned by Secret Allegations He Does not Know

By Matthew Behrens

December 17, 2010 – A week ago, three interconnected Federal Court decisions upholding the regime of secret hearings and judicially sanctioned rendition to torture were issued in Ottawa. On the eve of International Human Rights Day, the 8^th anniversary of his arrest on a secret trial certificate, Algerian refugee Mohamed Harkat and his wife broke down in tears as they received the news.

For the past eight years, Harkat has been subject to a “security certificate,” a measure by which individuals can be detained, held indefinitely without charge based on secret allegations neither they nor their lawyers can contest, and ultimately be deported, despite the risk of torture. The standard of proof in such hearings (which only apply to refugees and immigrants) is the lowest of any court in Canada, and a judge may accept as evidence anything not normally admissible in a court of law.

Despite a unanimous 2007 Supreme Court ruling that found the secret trials process was unconstitutional, Parliament in 2008 simply rubberstamped new legislation that very much mirrored the old. Despite a limited (and many claimed a sham) process of consultation with Parliamentarians, during which leading legal experts, academics, and human rights organizations showed in stark terms how the new law would not withstand a Charter challenge, the bill sailed through Parliament and, in 2008, resulted in new certificates being issued against Harkat and four other Muslim men (two of which have since been quashed).

In dismissing Harkat’s Charter challenge to the new regime, Federal Court Judge Simon Noel writes “Parliament has designed a security certificate regime that provides a named person such as the Applicant, Mr. Harkat, with a fair hearing.” Yet Noel fails to reconcile this belief with the finding of the Supreme Court that “a fair hearing requires that the affected person be informed of the case against him or her, and be permitted to respond to that case."

At a packed December 10 press conference, Harkat lawyer Norm Boxall took reporters through a dozen of Noel’s inflammatory findings and noted that in each and every case, there was “absolutely no evidence” presented in public to support them, despite the legal team’s persistent requests for disclosure. Summing up the frustration that lies at the heart of the secret trial detainees’ struggle, Boxall asked, “What can an innocent person do other than to say ‘I didn’t do it,’ and then to be told that they’re a liar based on material they can’t face?”

While his lawyers have promised to pursue every legal angle they can (limited as they are under the legislation), Harkat now faces the threat of deportation to torture in Algeria. He is currently under bail conditions that require him to wear a GPS tracking bracelet, to report once a week to an immigration office, and to seek permission should he wish to travel outside Ottawa. Compared to the brutal house arrest conditions that he faced when first transferred out of prison in 2006, his current relatively easier conditions now, though certainly frustrating, serve as an ironic counterpoint to Mr. Noel’s finding that Harkat suddenly poses a “danger” to Canadian security.

That finding is based on allegations that, among other things, Harkat allegedly operated a Peshawar guesthouse that “may be linked to Ibn Khattab” (a leader in the fight against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan who was later killed in Chechnya). Harkat denies this. Yet even if it were true, in a 2009 decision quashing the security certificate against Hassan Almrei, Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley found that the Almrei’s admitted “association with Khattab does not, in my opinion, support a finding that he is a danger to the security of Canada.” The fact that Noel would contradict his fellow judge in such a manner is, according to lawyer Norm Boxall, “at the very least embarrassing.”

In addition, Noel curiously takes on geography Sarah-Palin style, arguing that Mr. Harkat’s statement that while in Pakistan he did not visit Afghanistan because it was a long 4.5 hour trip was “exaggerated” because when the judge looked at a map, it did not seem that far. Noel concludes, based on “closed evidence” that Harkat was in fact in Afghanistan (certainly no crime), and backs up his conclusion by saying this was information that was “tested” by the special advocates, as if their presence in the secret room somehow makes it true.

Such broad, unsubstantiated conclusions are rife throughout Noel’s decisions. Much is based on guilt by alleged association, regardless of the degrees of separation. Noel agrees with the unsubstantiated CSIS claim that Harkat may be a member of the “Bin Laden network” (a concept whose existence is thoroughly rejected by top national security experts) because this “network” uses false passports. When Harkat arrived in Canada he, like most refugees, also had a false Saudi passport (which, we are also informed, was the “passport of choice for Muslim extremists entering Canada prior to 2002.”)

Noel also believes Harkat facilitated the entry to Canada of an individual who arrived with a “shopping list of munitions and weapons…and instructional documents on how to kill.” This does not sound like anything out of the ordinary for Ottawa, where weapons buyers from the likes of Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications and other manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction regularly gather for trade shows that feature “lowest cost per kill” machinery. However, Noel says the fact that this individual also had in his possession what appears to have been excerpts from an Al-Qaeda instruction manual makes this all the more sinister. Harkat denied knowing and assisting this individual, yet Noel nevertheless goes on at length over several pages, reproducing the contents of the shopping list and manual. It’s a fairly blunt guilt-by-association maneuver that is all the more damaging to Harkat because has has no way of responding: the only information that allegedly links the two men was heard in secret. Where did this come from? Who was the informant, and how well-paid? Was the informant truthful?

Many of the allegations against Harkat appear to arise from summaries of alleged phone calls that took place a dozen years ago. Noel says that the public summaries “do not specifically mention where they originate from. This was deliberate.” Harkat argued they should not be admitted as evidence, since the original recordings have been destroyed, and all that remain are skeletal summaries of notes. Harkat is unable to determine which voices were on the phone (if in fact those calls did exist); who did the translation, and whether that translation was accurate; why his phone was apparently being intercepted; who actually wrote the summaries.

The summaries themselves are boilerplate CSIS, and read very much like those in related cases in which certain keywords are inserted and repeated to make it sound like Harkat is being deceptive or hiding something. Hence, we learn that Harkat “revealed” he would register for an ESL course, as if this were a decision bathed in mystery.

Noel comes to the startling conclusion that although Harkat disagrees with the existence and summarized content of specific calls, the fact that Harkat does allow that a couple of summaries of conversations with family members appear to ring true “can only demonstrate that the summaries of the conversations produced by CSIS are more reliable than not.” Noel then goes on to quote “John,” a CSIS witness who did concede “that errors can occur, but CSIS followed various methods to minimize them.”

Harkat denies making numerous of the calls. The Court, Noel says, could only accept Harkat’s denials “if the Ministers had made up this evidence in order to support the allegations.” He says there is no such evidence, but how would he know, and can he trust the word of CSIS, the RCMP, and other “intelligence” agencies when they normally come up with false allegations (whether it be the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or the commonly used “imminent threat” label wrongly affixed to numerous Canadians who were tortured overseas as a result)?

Indeed, Noel, who waxes on that “For the Court, honesty, truthfulness and transparency are essential to establish credibility,” knows full well that CSIS has failed on all three counts both before other judges as well as himself. In the Almrei case, his fellow judge Richard Mosley found CSIS agents "were in breach of their duty of candour to the Court," noting that the allegations against Hassan Almrei were assembled “with information that could only be construed as unfavourable to Almrei without any serious attempt to include information to the contrary, or to update their assessment." He also found that " certain of the human sources in this case had motives to concoct stories that cast Almrei in a negative light."

It is a matter of public record that Harkat’s case, overseen by Noel, has been burdened by numerous instances of CSIS malfeasance. One of the potential informers, it was learned last year, was carrying on an affair with a CSIS officer investigating the case. CSIS also withheld information indicating an informer had failed a polygraph test. Under such instances, Noel, in a previous decision, wrote “it was found to be necessary to repair the damage done to the administration of justice and to re-establish a climate of trust and confidence in this proceeding.”

Despite such clear efforts by CSIS to manipulate the court process, Noel saves all his rancour for Harkat, and not the scandal plagued spy agency which was also found last month to have brazenly defied for two years a court order to stop listening in on solicitor-client calls in a separate security certificate case.

Much of Noel’s rulings carry on in such a manner, at times reading in a contradictory, sloppy, and incredulous fashion that borders on a personal attack against Mr. Harkat. On the one hand, Noel slams Harkat for sounding as if he had “memorized a story,” a fabrication he allegedly took great pains to prepare, yet on the other, he criticizes him for making mistakes in recalling certain dates (condemning him for the fact that as a non-English speaker, Harkat wrote something in his 1995 refugee application that did not exactly match his 2010 testimony, being off by a couple of months in relation to something that happened in 1989). To Noel, if Harkat is consistent, it is a story; if he is inconsistent, he is a liar. In such a manner Harkat was deemed to be untruthful as opposed to merely human.

“Mr. Harkat is an educated and knowledgeable person. It is surprising that he did not know about the Islamic platform of the [Algerian political party] FIS,” Noel writes, yet one could say the same about most NDP members who are clueless about that party’s economic platform. But this among other findings is used to attack Harkat’s credibility.

Noel’s cultural blinders are on as well when he dismisses the notion that Harkat could have gotten a relief agency warehouse position without providing references. Noel prefers the testimony of Martin Rudner, a right-wing terror industry spokesman who has never been to Saudi Arabia, over that of Sulaimen A. Khan (who works at Ottawa’s Islam Care Centre and was a founder of the charity Human Concern International), who is quite familiar with hiring practices in Saudi Arabia. Noel concludes that were this an ordinary job, he perhaps could buy the explanation of not needing references, but since Harkat’s position would be managerial, he simply refuses to go there (notably, Noel assigns far too much importance to the position, making it sound like the CEO of a multinational when in fact Harkat would be supervising three employees in a Peshawar warehouse).

In addition, Noel says the fact that he believes Harkat had a relationship with Ahmed Said Khadr (the Canadian aid worker accused of being a financier for bin Laden) makes him a threat. Harkat says he once spent four hours in the back seat of a van on the way from Ottawa to Toronto with Khadr in the front, and the two exchanged few words. Noel finds this implausible. Noel also notes that the expert above, Mr. Khan, admitted that he himself, as an aid worker, was “very close” to Khadr. And yet Noel does not ask why CSIS has not placed Mr. Khan, or the thousands of other Canadians who would have known Mr. Khadr, under surveillance or subject them to a security certificate.

Ironically, the rulings take on an almost desperate tone to justify and salvage the secret trial system. The reasons also appear to reflect Noel’s own feelings about Harkat, who he alleges is not credible and who has, in the judge’s words, “surrounded himself in layers of clouds in which he does not let any light come through.” Gratuitous comments that open the door to slamming Harkat include musings like “Many lawyers were involved in this proceeding, all paid from the public purse.” We do not know how many informants were paid from the public purse, or how much, though we do know some of it was taken out in trade, given the sexual relationship of one of the CSIS agents.

All three decisions also take on a seriously disturbing tone, chastising Harkat and his lawyers for their repeated argument that the process remains fundamentally flawed and unfair. Perhaps because the process, designed to be “informal” and “expeditious” has ground on for 8 years, Noel feels Mr. Harkat and his fellow detainees have had more than enough shots at Canadian justice. Noel’s writing style is reminiscent of a white liberal in 1960s America asking why African Americans keep pushing for more when they allegedly have so much (a common enough complaint that was responded to by Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”)

In the meantime, the decisions drown in self-justification. On the one hand, Noel praises both the system and himself for not relying on information gleaned from torture. Noting the evidence “does not raise issues related to torture,” in the very next sentence Noel says “Whenever a concern was raised in relation to this matter, the Ministers’ counsel immediately agreed to have that information withdrawn.” This is problematic on a number of levels. This seems to imply that the Ministers were putting in information that may well have been gleaned from torture, despite their knowledge that the security certificate legislation expressly forbids it. It also calls to mind the Security Intelligence Review Committee finding that CSIS has no way of determining whether its information does come from torture. CSIS officials are on record as stating they do receive information from torture, and will use that information if it can be “corroborated.”

Despite this, Noel dedicates a fair amount of space in his reasonableness decision to one of the more tortured high profile figures of the past decade, Abu Zubaydah (allegations against whom were pretty much withdrawn earliuer this year by the U.S. Justice Dept. after years of alleging he was a terrorist kingpin). Nonetheless, Noel insists on finding an association between him and Harkat, concluding that two of them must have met since they apparently were in Peshawar at the same time (a city of over 1 million people). In coming to this conclusion, “the Court did not rely on any information relating directly or indirectly to torture,” Noel reassures us. How would he know? How would CSIS know?

In his ruling on constitutional issues, Noel does acknowledge that Harkat’s charter rights have been violated by the current process, stating that Harkat “is deprived of his liberty and eventually, depending on future decisions, of his right to the security of the person as well.”

That being said, Noel reassures us that all is well and, in comments that echo his earlier 2005 finding that secret hearings were constitutional—a decision overturned by the Supreme Court – he sets out again to claim that the procedure designed to ensure disclosure “has worked well,” and that the limits imposed on Harkat’s Charter rights are “demonstrably justifiable.”

He claims that “full acsess to the bank of information in the hands of CSIS in regards to Mr. Harkat” has been provided in the secret hearings, yet we know Noel expressly withheld witnesses from the special advocates using the remarkable justification that individuals being heard in secrecy by lawyers sworn to secrecy would be at risk of losing their confidentiality.

In ultimately upholding the security certifcate regime, Noel fails the Supreme Court test that clearly stated “Security concerns cannot be used to excuse procedures that do not conform to fundamental justice." He is ultimately blinded (and perhaps cowed) by the world of the secret agents (going so far as to capitalize Intelligence throughout the decisions, as if to add to its imprimatur), and states repeatedly that “this material is highly protected and such material cannot be shared with anyone.”

It is ironic to hear such words in the Wikileaks age, when the steady stream of what used to be highly classified information has been released and no harm has come to daily life as we know it. Indeed, what we have learned from Wikileaks as well as recent Federal Court decisions and judicial inquiries into Canadian complicity in the torture of its own citizens is that national security confidentiality is always overclaimed.

All of this leaves Mr. Harkat in limbo, an extension of the frustrating 15 years process he has engaged in an effort to gain the full rights of citizenship. Understandably, he worries about the things most of us take for granted – schooling, finding employment, starting a family – and wonders whether the Kafkaesque system that Canada continues to employ will ever allow him to live a normal life.

Another Forgotten Victim of 9/11 Awaits Justice in Canada; Benamar Benatta Seeks Apology and Accountability for Canadian Government’s Role in his Ren

2010-09-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

BY MATTHEW BEHRENS

September 12, 2010 – It would be difficult to imagine that nine years ago today, anyone on the planet was unaware of the terrorist attacks that had occurred the previous morning in the United States. Yet one individual in Canada was not only unaware, he was also falsely tarred with responsibility for the attacks and illegally rendered to the U.S., where he would face five years of imprisonment under conditions that constituted torture.

Benamar Benatta, a former member of the Algerian air force who, for refusing to commit war crimes, had to flee for his life, came to Canada seeking asylum on September 5, 2001. Like many refugees, he was thrown into detention pending further investigation, and was in solitary confinement, cut off from the rest of the world, when the planes struck New York City and Washington, D.C.

Following a brief detention review on the morning of September 12^th, during which Benatta had no access to legal counsel or a translator, he was remanded one further week in custody.

Later that day, two officials who Benatta believed to be Canadian asked him whether he knew how to fly airplanes and whether he had any counter-terrorism training.

RENDERED TO TORTURE IN THE U.S.

What happened next is a nightmare beyond imagining. That evening, he was taken from his cell, placed in the back of a car, and driven across the Rainbow Bridge into the U.S., all without benefit of a hearing, access to a lawyer, or due process of any kind.

Surrounded by dozens of men with guns on the U.S. side, he was taken to an immigration detention facility and interrogated four days about alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks. He was then bundled off to Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Centre, where he was thrown into a solitary confinement cell, the letters WTC (World Trade Center) plastered across his door, and treated as a prime suspect in the attacks.

With the light burning 24 hours a day in his solitary confinement cell, he was jarred awake every 30 minutes day and night with guards banging on his door. Once again denied access to a lawyer, he was only taken out of his cell for interrogation. In addition to humiliating strip searches, he experienced continual beatings, including having his head slammed against the wall, his leg shackles stomped upon, causing foot and ankle injuries, and other torturous treatment at the hands of guards. This was all later confirmed and well-documented in studies by the U.S. Department of Justice and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which concluded that his treatment was tantamount to torture.

Conditions were so bad that Benatta and other detainees conducted hunger strikes, with Benatta going to the point where prison officials, fearing he might die, were on the verge of force feeding him.

FBI CLEARS BENATTA WITHOUT TELLING HIM

In November, 2001, the FBI cleared Benatta of any suspicions of involvement in terrorism, but no one told him. Apart from some U.S. officials, no one knew where he was as he continued his indefinite punishment in solitary confinement. It would not be until he was transferred to a detention facility in Batavia, New York, in April, 2002, that he first saw a lawyer, but he would spend over four more years behind bars.

In 2003, Benatta was finally brought before a judge to face criminal charges that were dismissed as a “ruse” by the FBI and immigration authorities to justify his continued detention.

The judge found that “there is no doubt in this court’s mind that the defendant, because of the fact that he was an Algerian citizen and a member of the Algerian Air Force, was spirited off to the MDC in Brooklyn on September 16, 2001 and held in SH [special housing] as ‘high security’ for purposes of providing an expeditious means of having the defendant interrogated by special agents of the FBI….” The judge also found Benatta “undeniably was deprived of his liberty and held in custody under harsh conditions which can be said to be ‘oppressive.’”

But Benatta would not breathe the air outside of prison for another three years, when he was eventually released and returned to Canada to resume his refugee claim (since accepted). Benatta is also now a permanent resident in Canada.

TREATED LIKE A CRIMINAL

Benatta says that “On the day I was released, I had nothing – no money, no belongings and no family or friends to turn to. When I arrived in Canada by prison escort, after being interviewed for hours by Canadian officials, I was allowed to leave with a U.S. lawyer who had come to help me. We headed to the local Wal-Mart, me still in my prison uniform, to find some new clothes. I will never forget the frightened little girl who ran from me, or the cashier who eyed me like I was a criminal. It is these little indignities that stick with me.”

Canada’s role in this nightmare is the focus of a lawsuit currently before the courts. As with other torture cases in which Canadian officials maintain a maddening policy of denial (largely from scandal-ridden spy agency CSIS and the equally complicit RCMP, along with the Department of “Justice” and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade), Benatta is unable to get a concession that what happened to him was real, much less the responsibility of federal officials.

Yet in Benatta’s case, the Canadian government knows it is in the wrong. In January 2006, while Benatta was still behind bars in the U.S., a briefing note was prepared for the President of the Canadian Border Services Agency by Nicole Houle, Director General, Admissibility Branch, Peoples Programs Directorate. Houle wrote that the agency has “reviewed the file and determined that proper procedures may not have been followed and that Mr. Benatta may be entitled to have his [refugee] claim heard in Canada.”

INTERNAL DOCUMENTS ADMIT CULPABILITY

The briefing note later states “the notes and documentation on file and the lack of clear supporting documentation for the actions taken [the illegal transfer to the U.S.] suggest that an oversight my have occurred in this case, which resulted in Mr. Benatta not being allowed to have his refugee claim heard in Canada.”

It is putting it kindly to refer to this action as an “oversight” when it was Canadian officials who took the proactive step of calling up the U.S. and informing them them of Benatta’s presence in Canada. Indeed, U.S. Magistrate Schroeder, hearing Benatta’s case in 2003, found as fact that “as a result of the horrific events of September 11, 2001, Canadian authorities alerted United States authorities of [Benatta’s] presence and profile as set forth and returned him to United States authorities on September 12, 2001.”

The CBSA briefing note further states that “there maybe [sic] at least a moral if not legal obligation to review Mr. Benatta’s file” and a need to explore “the legal ramifications or liability for the Agency in this case given Mr. Benatta’s long term detention in the U.S.”

Despite this acknowledgment of complicity in his rendition from four years ago, Benatta is still facing an uphill battle. Earlier this year, an Ontario Court ordered the federal government to disclose all documents related to the case when it was found that Ottawa had been withholding numerous files.

Such lawsuits tend to drag on for years, especially when the government stalls, stonewalls, and attempts to whitewash its complicity in clearly illegal activities. But still Benatta fights on, seeking an apology, accountability, and compensation for nine lost years.

A man who refuses to commit human rights abuses is someone we should celebrate and welcome. But in a world gone mad with hyped up Muslim-hatred and ruled by irrational fear (a poll released two days ago revealed half of Canadians feel Muslims do not share their “values”), Benatta still faces an uphill struggle.

Anyone who knows Benatta (as this writer does) comes to the early and easy conclusion that he is an individual of great integrity. He is also someone who clearly continues to suffer from the aftereffects of torture and the further humiliation of trying to deal rationally with a Canadian government that denies and deflects all questions of responsibility.

SUPPORTING BENAMAR BENATTA

It is a stunning challenge, but one he can only meet with the support of people in this country who are willing to support him. Benatta survives in poverty, trying to finish a university degree so he can find work.

Individuals who wish to help out with financial support can do so through a special “Benatta fund” set up by Toronto Action for Social Change, which pays for such necessities as food, rent, and educational expenses.

If you wish to support Mr. Benatta, you can make out cheques to Toronto Action for Social Change (marked “Benatta” in the memo portion of your cheque) and mail them to PO 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0. Tax receipts are available for donations over $75. For details on how to receive a tax receipt email us at tasc@web.ca.

In the meantime, it never hurts to write to Stephen Harper (via the website http://pm.gc.ca/eng/contact.asp) and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Toews.V@parl.gc.ca), calling on them to accept responsibility, and not only offer an apology and compensation, but take the measures necessary to ensure this never happens again, and that those responsible are held truly accountable.

Further information is available at www.benamarbenatta.com

Attack of the Beards: A Reflection on the Hirsute Hysteria Dominating Canadian Media in Latest “Domestic terror” Allegations

2010-09-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

Attack of the Beards: A Reflection on the Hirsute Hysteria Dominating Canadian Media in Latest “Domestic terror” Allegations

September 3, 2010 – Coverage of the alleged Ottawa “terror” plot seems more inspired by Fashion TV or The National Enquirer than the objective, professional standards one would hope undergird established Canadian news outlets. Giant helpings of Islamophobia mixed with repeated references to speculative allegations not even mentioned by police in their end-of-the-world-is-coming-to-Ottawa press conference have done nothing but contribute to an environment of fear and hysteria.

A BUNCH OF BEARDS
Almost every article describing the accused men refers to the way they and their loved ones look. The Toronto Star notes one man was “sporting a bushy beard [and] a knitted skull cap.” The Ottawa Citizen reports one young man had a “full, long beard,” and that his wife wore a niqab.

The Citizen also reports that, in one case, “[the accused] took an extended vacation more than a year ago and returned having grown a full beard. It wasn’t known where he spent the weeks he was away.” (This is not normally information one shares with an employer or even fellow employees, but here it is clearly painted as suspicious.)

We are also informed that the wife of one of the men “dressed modestly”. The same article also references the “full beard often worn by Muslim men of strong faith,” but that during one man’s court appearance, it was a “full but neatly trimmed beard.” Brownie points clearly go to this Muslim! Another article in the same paper (Citizen) references an individual “with a curly beard and a brown skull cap over his long curly brown hair, and [another defendant] sporting a full beard.”

Are we to take from this that Muslims apparently “sport” beards, as if they are part of the terrorist tool kit? And can you tell a good Muslim from a bad Muslim by the length and curliness of their facial hair? As the week goes on and another young man is arrested, he is referred to as a “slightly-built bearded man.”

What is next? Inquisitorial committees asking men of Muslim faith the $64,000 question: Do you now or have you ever sported a beard?

SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOUR
In addition, we see that normal, everyday activities also become suspicious when engaged in by men of Muslim faith.

The Star reported that a neighbour of one of the accused men said that the first time she saw him, “he was pacing his lawn with his hands behind his back.” Where is the editorial hand that asks this journalist how this in any way contributes to the story?

The Citizen reported that the neighbour of another of the accused men recalled that his girlfriend had seen “men in robes, with beards and a type of ‘cone’ hat, near the elevator. When she tried to enter the elevator, the men told her to take the stairs instead, he said.”

No explanation is offered for this alleged behaviour, and we only hear one side of the story after a few days of scare headlines may have influenced this recollection, but seriously, are men allegedly plotting mass destruction going to discuss this in a 20-second elevator ride?

But Muslims grouped in elevators are clearly something we need to be vigilant about. Indeed, as Ottawa Police Chief Vern White warned residents of the National capital region this past week, we must all be wary now.

A NEW REALITY?
“Threat of terror our new reality” screams the front page of the Ottawa Citizen, though the police chief reassures us that there is no reason for people to be living with fear, even though he promises we have to be concerned about terrorism “for at least a couple of decades to come.” White tells us to be “vigilant about the abnormal. It doesn’t hurt to make the call and let police decide what’s up.”

But how does one define abnormal? Is it the one who doesn’t sit religiously watching the Ottawa Senators on the tube or attend Red Friday support-the-troops rallies? Is it someone who questions Canada’s occupation of Afghanistan, and this nation’s role in the torture of Afghans?

In the meantime, the press at all levels continue to parrot the party line without serious questioning. The Ottawa Citizen’s September 2 lead story screams, “Report links Ottawa ring to Taliban.” Reporter Ian Macleod conclusively begins his story by informing us that “The Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for May’s failed Times Square bombing, is now implicated in the alleged jihadist scheme to bomb Ottawa.”

What sounds pretty convincing in the first paragraph becomes, in the second paragraph, “the possible connection” between the groups. So where is this report? It emerges from the Daily Times of Pakistan, which states there is an “intense investigation” underway to determine “whether” the Pakistani Taliban “had a hand in the supposed plan to attack sites here.” Further, the report is based on statements from “an unnamed western diplomat and two officials in the ministry of the interior.”

BASELESS SCARE HEADLINES
So how can the media scream such a conclusive headline based on an overseas newspaper’s attempts to establish a link based on the unsubstantiated speculation of nameless individuals whose credibility cannot be established and who can hide behind their anonymity to press any agenda they please? The answer is simple: at the far right of the column is the bearded man in an orange jumpsuit staring out at us. Guilt by alleged association is easy to get away with when a climate of fear is created and stereotypes rule the day.

That stereotype deepens with sinister overtones related to travelling overseas. Colin Freeze of the Globe and Mail opines on August 28 that “the latest circuitry discovered is disturbing. Sources [unnamed] say it could have set off many explosions…While the device was assembled in Canada, police say they were partly built out of know-how acquired from terrorists overseas.”

If these alleged plotters are so smart—engineers, computer scientists, medical professionals –why would they need to go overseas to learn how to assemble the kind of basic electronics anyone could figure out here at home?

Freeze then says: “Details of the plot remain fuzzy, but there is speculation that Parliament Hill was a target on the terrorist hit list.” Who is speculating? Mr. Freeze? An official source, perhaps one who would publicly take responsibility for such a claim? And why would anyone trust a source from the so-called “intelligence” community when its agencies have clearly been found by Canadian courts to have lied, withheld information that goes against their own theories, and used information gleaned from torture?

LINKED BY SEVERAL DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Such examples of sloppiness (or, if one were to look at this systematically, fear-based bias) are everywhere. Further fear is put out there with the front page Ottawa Citizen headline, “CSIS kept close eye on suspect who worked with radioactive isotopes.” Well, turn to page three and the headline reads “One accused worked near radioactive isotopes.” An even smaller headline reads “Ahmed had no access to isotopes – used in dirty bombs – hospital says.”

Are editors at the Citizen asleep at the wheel here? From working with isotopes to being near them and then having no access to them – but reminding us that if he DID have access, he could always make a dirty bomb – scares the heck out of people who have been trained to react to those key words, like “extremist,” “dirty bomb,” “Islamist,” “beards”…

If we look further into what it is that may have “inspired” one of the men to be involved in the alleged plot, we are informed by The Ottawa Citizen that two threads are available to national security agents. One: the individual traveled to Pakistan to help with earthquake relief. This not uncommon act of charity on the part of the individual was replicated by thousands, so does that make them all security risks?

Two: “he added his name to a letter that demanded the Canadian government offer better medical care to three men held in jail on security certificates. (The men were then on hunger strikes.).” The report neglects to mention that over 70 health care professional signed that letter, and thousands of Canadians wrote letters on behalf of the men who were trying to improve living conditions in the facility dubbed Guantanamo North. Those detainees were held under a secret process unanimously declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada. Are all of these individual letter writers and Supreme Court judges now suspect?

Meanwhile, the terrorism industry’s most trusted guardians, those who produce endlessly scare mongering “op-ed” pieces for our papers, cheerily joined in the fray with repeated warnings that Canada’s time will come.

One Kingston academic praises the arrests as “clear successes for the Canadian security community.” How can these be successes if the men have not even been tried, much less convicted? The Toronto Star editorializes on August 27, “Breaking up a terror plot,” without using the term alleged – have they made up their minds already?

PROFILING IS STILL THE RECOMMENDED ANSWER
The Globe and Mail’s editorial board seems to have made up their own minds too. While editorialists scream bloody murder about the allegedly disabling political correctness of not offending the Muslim community, and now take pains to say they are not trying to profile the community, they go ahead and do it anyway.

In an August 27 editorial, “The call of jihad rings far and wide,” the Globe expresses shock that one of the men alleged to be involved “accepted the Hippocratic oath.” The Globe did not mention that doctors complicit in torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Force Base, and other sites of torture have also taken that oath.

The editorial then asks “how to protect against a threat that cannot be stereotyped or fought by profiling based on age, appearance, or education.” In a leap of illogic, they answer that question by relying on the very profiling they say they will not use, saying “it is vital that those who would kill their fellow Canadians…are not sheltered or ignored by anyone in the Muslim community.”

MUSLIMS JUST CAN’T WIN
Aha, so there it is again: the false conclusion that the Muslim community “harbours” those engaged in terror.

The arrests of this past August are reminiscent of those that took place 7 years ago, when Canadian media faithfully repeated baseless allegations against almost two dozen young men falsely accused of links to al-Qaeda. The so-called RCMP Project Thread was a complete and unsubstantiated bust, but lives were ruined and fear spread as headlines in “liberal” papers such as the Toronto Star blared “"Terror suspect may be freed; But others held as security threats; Documents claim links to Al Qaeda".

Then as now, the same racist questions are raised, almost all of which ask whether Muslims are willing to “integrate” into Canadian or “Western” society. “He seemed so westernized,” says one friend of a suspect (Star, August 27), while others worry about the “ordinariness” of the suspects (they played hockey!!!!).

Most incendiary was the August 27 headline in the Ottawa Citizen, screaming out, above two pictures of bearded men: “Your friends and neighbours: The Face of homegrown terror.” What kind of message does this send to anyone who may wear a skull cap and sport a beard? Are they to be looked at with suspicion? Obviously. And now, the ordinariness argument is thrown in. Not only are we to fear and suspect people who look this way, we are doubly to fear them if they are doctors, engineers, or computer technicians who like to play ball hockey. The message is clear: if you are Muslim, you cannot be accepted in “Canadian” society. If you are a successful Muslim in a professional field, can we REALLY trust you?

TIME FOR A CHILL PILL
Amidst all the hand-wringing and scare mongering, there have been the odd voices calling for reason and reflection. One of them, the Citizen’s Dan Gardner, reminded Canadians that while no one was killed by “terrorism” in 2006, 41 people were killed in bath tub accidents, 9 in canoe and kayaking incidents, six by hot tap water, 104 by choking to death, and 54 by falls from ladders. Gardner notes that perhaps it’s time we stepped back and examine the real threats to the health and safety of Canadians (heart disease, diabetes, etc.).

“Terrorism is nothing more than one item on a very long list of relatively modest threats we cope with in modern life,” he writes. “Perceptions to the contrary are not the product of evidence and reason, but of flawed media reporting, self-interested hype and unfortunate foibles in human psychology.”

His conclusion, ultimately, is that we need to “calm the hell down.”

Amen.

(Report from the bearded Matthew Behrens of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada and Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture)

"A revolution is interesting insofar as it avoids like the plague the plague it promised to heal." Daniel Berrigan

Risking Jail to End Abdelrazik's Prison Without Walls

2010-05-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

Sanctions-busting telethon supporters risked jail for Abdelrazik

By Matthew Behrens (from rabble.ca)
| May 4, 2010

Viewers tuning in to last Wednesday evening's rabble.ca videocast from Montreal could be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled across a surreal version of the infamous PBS fund drives that annually dominate American airwaves.

Indeed, the perky pitches from energetic hosts, a phone bank of pledge takers, and a large map of Canada with pins marking the city of each donation would have seemed familiar to anyone who enjoys public television or radio.

But that is where the similarities ended. Those calling in to take part in a "sanctions-busting telethon" in support of Montreal's Abousfian Abdelrazik were informed that, by donating, they could risk prosecution under Canadian law. Remarkably, over 100 people who did get through understood the caution, pledged thousands of dollars, and consented to having their names listed in a public act of defiance. (Their names can be found at http://www.peoplescommission.org/en/abdelrazik/supporters.php)

The telethon was part of a six-month campaign to remove Abdelrazik from the United Nations 1267 list, which imposes a travel ban and asset freeze on anyone unlucky enough to be named. Individuals can be placed on the list without notice or access to the "case" against them, and with no right to a hearing or an appeal.

Abdelrazik was placed there during a six-year ordeal of detention and torture in Sudan, one in which the Canadian government was found complicit by the federal court in 2009.

After repeated attempts to return home were foiled by the federal government, Abdelrazik entered the Canadian embassy in Khartoum in April 2008, and endured a 14-month exile there until hundreds of Canadians under the banner of "Project Flyhome" purchased an airline ticket for him, risking prosecution under Canada's United Nations Al Qaeda and Taliban Regulations (which stipulate that no Canadian shall "provide or collect by any means, directly or indirectly, funds with the intention that the funds be used" by a listed person).

Ottawa's refusal to issue a subsequent travel document triggered a federal court case that eventually resulted in an order compelling the government to bring Abdelrazik home. That decision also condemned the 1267 listing as "a denial of basic legal remedies and as untenable under the principles of international human rights. There is nothing in the listing or de-listing procedure that recognizes the principles of natural justice or that provides for basic procedural fairness."

And although he returned home on June 27, 2009, Abdelrazik found himself in a prison without walls, still subject to the 1267 restrictions preventing him from travel, accessing any assets, holding a job, or receiving social assistance.

In an interview with rabble.ca during the telethon, Abdelrazik described his shock last July when, shortly after opening a bank account in Montreal, he was called in by a manager who informed him his assets had been frozen. "I couldn't believe it," he says, "The manager, he looked sad, but said there was nothing he could do."

Since that time, Abdelrazik and his children have been condemned to legally enforced poverty, given the Canadian government's failure to push the UN to remove him from the 1267 list and to stop enforcement of his own restrictions, which, notably, have never been reviewed by Parliament.

Faced with the same Kafkaesque conundrum that his supporters met in 2009, the telethon seemed the perfect vehicle to again publicly challenge the sanctions imposed on Abdelrazik. No doubt to Ottawa's chagrin, the response to the telethon was immediate and enthusiastic.

Even before the event began, individuals from across the country -- from Camrose and Vancouver to Meaford, Iqaluit, Rivière de Loup, and Halifax -- had already pledged more than $1,350. As the telethon officially kicked off at 7 p.m., the phone lines were immediately flooded with calls from across the country, and remained busy until 9 p.m.

No one balked at the warning repeated scores of times throughout the evening about potential prosecution. In fact, many welcomed the challenge and, as one pledge taker noted, "One woman who is 87 said if the Mounties don't like it, they can come and take her away. Then she put her 91-year-old husband on the line and he said they could take him too."

Midway through the telethon, which also featured diverse entertainment by the likes of Norman Nawrocki, Al and Jess Blair, Ehab Lotayef, and Jou Jou Tourenne, viewers were informed that Abdelrazik has been granted an exemption that allows him to access a small portion of his funds for basic living expenses, a limited window of hope that he credits in part to the amount of grassroots support he has enjoyed since his return.

But the exemption is not enough. Addressing Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon directly, Abdelrazik pleaded, through an Arabic-speaking interpreter: "I'm asking you at least for once to give priority to the human side. My kids, my family, have suffered for seven years. Please address the United Nations and ask that my name by taken off this inhuman list. I want to live like any other Canadian. I want a normal life."

In a subsequent interview, Abdelrazik said the telethon "gives me hope and encouragement to go on. This support, it makes me happy and sad at the same time. They are all taking a risk for me."

Always on Abdelrazik's mind are his three children and step-child who, he says, are also victims of this process, since they do not have a normal life, and can sense that they "do not have a normal father." He describes the pain he feels when he has to explain why they are the only family in Canada who cannot travel to the U.S. and visit Disneyworld.

Abdelrazik thanked his supporters, and noted, "I spent six years trying to come home. I can't spend another six trying to get off this list. This list makes me insecure and isolates me from others; until I am free of it, I won't feel like I am truly home."

Individuals wishing to make Mr. Abdelrazik feel more at home can join the campaign by contacting Project Fly Home, and by donating directly. Write cheques to Abousfian Abdelrazik and mail them to CSCP Charlevoix, P.O. Box 65053, Montréal, Q.C., H3K 0K4

2010-02-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture
Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West
Toronto, ON M6C 1C0
(416) 651-5800

For immediate release

Abdullah Almalki Refused Entry to Air Canada Flight
Members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture Demand Answers for Why Almalki was not Allowed on Domestic Flight

December 7, 2009 - Members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture are expressing major concerns about the fact that, after being given a boarding pass for an Ottawa-to-Windsor flight on December 2, Ottawa resident Abdullah Almalki was not allowed onto the domestic Air Canada flight. Almalki, a Canadian citizen who was found to be tortured with the complicity of his own government, was supposed to have been in Windsor the next day to deliver a talk on "two-tier citizenship" as well as the manner in which the Canadian government was complicit his torture in Syria.

"The very day Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in China talking about the need to respect human rights, we have a Canadian citizen, Abdullah Almalki, turned away from a domestic flight that would have taken him to Windsor to talk about human rights," says campaign spokesperson Matthew Behrens. "What is going on?"

At the last minute, Mr. Almalki, an Ottawa engineer and father of six, was informed he could fly to Toronto but not carry on to Windsor because he was apparently "restricted from travelling in US airspace." In addition, Mr. Almalki found that his bag, despite being bound for a domestic flight, was opened and searched, but no sticker explaining that invasive intrusion nor indicating who searched his bag was placed on it.

Mr. Almalki, tortured almost a full two years in Syria based on false allegations and questions that came from Canada and, according to the secretive Iacobucci internal inquiry, based on allegations that were “inflammatory, inaccurate, and lacking investigative foundation,” is seeking an apology, accountability, and compensation for the ordeal that he and his family were put through by the Canadian government.

This incident occurred the day before the House of Commons passed a motion calling on the government to respect a series of recommendations from the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security which, among other things, calls on the “Government of Canada do everything necessary to correct misinformation that may exist in records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad with respect to Mr. Almalki, Mr. Abou-Elmaati and Mr. Nureddin and members of their families.” (Mssrs. El Maati and Nureddin, both of Toronto, were also tortured both in Syria and, in Mr. El Maati’s case, in Egypt, based on similarly false allegations.)

Asked by members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture how he felt about being turned away from the Air Canada flight, Mr. Almalki stated, "We have the O'Connor report more than three years ago, the Iacobucci report more than a a year ago – both of which confirm the Canadian complicity in my interrogation and torture in Syria – and now we have the MPs who represent the majority of the Canadian people in Parliament voting in favour of the government issuing an apology and correcting in Canada and abroad the huge and terrible misinformation that Canadian agencies falsely spread about myself and my family. When will the government act, and how much longer do my family and I have to suffer? Whose decision was it to prevent me from boarding a domestic flight to Windsor? I need answers, Canadians need answers.”

The refusal to allow Mr. Almalki on the Air Canada flight adds insult to the injury already sustained by the family earlier this year when they found out that his wife and oldest son, aged 15, had problems boarding a plane in Vancouver until his wife showed airport officials a copy of the 544-page Iacobucci internal inquiry report.

Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture is an organization that for a number of years has worked with Canadians who have been tortured with the complicity of their own government. In 2008, it organized two cross-Ontario caravans raising awareness of the issue and organizing speaking events featuring Mssrs. Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin.

For more information, or to contact contact Mr. Almalki, please contact Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture at (416) 651-5800 or visit www.abdullahalmalki.com.

Hassan Almrei Wins Against Secret Trial Process

2010-02-08T17:01:00.001-08:00

Hassan Almrei Finally Sees End of His Secret Trial Security Certificate!
Detained almost exclusively in solitary confinement since 2001, Almrei now
looking to piece his life together

(report from the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada)

Toronto, December 14, 2009 -- The Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, which for almost a decade has sought abolition of secret hearing security certificates, rejoices in the decision to quash the security certificate against Hassan Almrei, who has spent more time in solitary
confinement than anyone in recent Canadian history.

In a 183-page decision released today, Judge Richard Mosley of the Federal Court found, "Having considered all of the information and other evidence presented to the Court, I am satisfied that Hassan Almrei has not engaged in terrorism and is not and was not a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe has, does or will engage in terrorism. I find that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that Hassan Almrei is
today, a danger to the security of Canada. Thus, I find that none of the grounds of inadmissibility in subsection 34(1) of the Act have been made out and, accordingly, I find that the certificate is not reasonable and must be quashed."

Significantly, Mosley also found that the government and CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, "were in breach of their duty of candour to the Court," noting "The duties of utmost good faith and candour imply that the party relying upon the presentation of ex parte evidence [i.e., the stuff being heard in secret in the absence of Mr. Almrei and his lawyer] will conduct a thorough review of the information in its possession and make representations based on all of the information including that which is unfavourable to their case. That was not done in this instance. The 2008 SIR [security intelligence report] was assembled with information that could only be construed as unfavourable to Almrei without any serious attempt to include information to the contrary, or to update their assessment."

The Almrei decision is riddled with comments that point to the weaknesses in the alleged case against him, weaknesses that show that CSIS and other government agencies have taken full advantage of a fundamentally flawed and unfair process to try and not only falsely tar Almrei with the terrorist brush, but to have him deported to torture in Syria as well. Similar findings have been made in other recent security certificate cases as well.

While Judge Mosley still comes to the remarkable conclusion that the security certificate process as currently constructed is working, this is no comfort to those three men who continue to wonder what is in the secret case against them: Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub, and Mohamed Harkat. They still do not know the heart of the case against them, or even if such a case exists; that is still to be determined in secret, and they continue the fight to stop their deportation to torture and to end draconian house arrest.

GOVERNMENT WITHHELD INFORMATION FROM THE COURT
Indeed, one imagines we shall see in the remaining cases a similar pattern of CSIS malfeasance emerging. Mosley notes that his 2009 decision is based on information "that was not previously presented to the Court," noting that only information that casts a negative light on Mr. Almrei was presented until additional disclosure requirements as a result of a second
Supreme Court challenge by detainee Adil Charkaoui opened a few more doors.

Mosley notes that when he looked at the secret files, "redactions had been excessive and tended to unnecessarily obscure portions of the records. For example, the names and other identifying particulars of casual contacts and sources of information, including police officers, was routinely redacted in these documents in keeping with the [CSIS]’s policy of protecting human sources. This information was not sensitive and would not have put individuals at risk if inadvertently released." He was also critical of the government's practice of continuing to file "new" information that was not presented to the ministers who signed the security certificate, a tactic the government tends to use to bolster its case at certain strategic times when it appears the detainee may be gaining ground.

Despite Mosley's conclusions as to the workability of the law as currently constructed, his lengthy reasons are a good insight into the "workings" (read failings!) of a security certificate and how, despite his own confidence in the process, one can see how easily a certificate can
condemn one to years of indefinite detention in advance of deportation to torture (indeed, until the recent quashing of the Charkaoui certificate, only two others out of almost 30 had ever been quashed.)

As the law allows anything to be put into evidence, even if it is not normally admissable in a court of law, Mosley notes that in Almrei's case, much of the unclassified material consisted of newspaper and magazine reports along with on-line reports, often with unknown authors and
questionable reliability.

PROFILING AND PARANOIA
Some declassified surveillance reports show the extent to which profiling and paranoia contributed to the arrest and decade-long ordeal of Mr. Almrei. For example, one report "describes Almrei’s driving behaviour as he was followed around Niagara Falls while he visited several nightclubs and restaurants. This ... report was relied upon in support of an assertion that Almrei had exhibited security tradecraft in an effort to determine whether he was being followed. Another interpretation, conveyed by one of the surveillance teams, is that he was wandering around just to kill time."

Meantime, the "human sources" whose allegations jailed Almrei were also highly suspect. Mosley points out that CSIS interview notes of the informers, if any were actually made, were not retained. And "in respect of one human source, a polygraph examination had not been performed as was previously reported. With regard to a second human source, the
circumstances surrounding a 2007 polygraph examination, not directly related to this matter, were in question...the second human source was found to have been deceptive in providing answers during the 2007 polygraph examination."

Worse still, these deficiencies had not come to light until this year. As Mosley points out, "Production of the Charkaoui 2 [disclosure] information also allowed for a comparison of the reports of information provided by the human sources with other information held by CSIS including the intercept and surveillance reports. That comparison identified some serious contradictions. In the result, I was satisfied that the highly relevant information provided by one source in particular was not credible as it conflicted with surveillance and intercept reports made by CSIS personnel regarding the same dates and times. It is of particular concern
that these contradictions did not come to light until they were put to the Service witness in cross-examination by the Special Advocates [security-cleared lawyers who can test some, but not all, of the secret case]. That witness was unable to provide satisfactory explanations for
the failure of the Service to analyse the conflicting reports and to disclose this information to the Ministers and to the Court. This suggests a serious lack of analytical capacity in managing the enormous volume of information collected by the Service."

The Almrei decision, in analyzing the public merits of the case, is almost unceasing in pointing out the many flaws in the CSIS approach to these cases, from the use of information for which the original source was not checked, and the use of excerpts from such unreliable sources as
Wikipedia, to the provision of clearly stale and outdated information and misleading and selective quoting from important judicial decisions that actually change their original meaning in a manner meant to, again, cast a negative light on Almrei.

Of course, advocates for secret trial abolition have pointed out such fatal flaws in the process for years; it will forever be a cause of shame that Federal Court justices have been so blind to the bias that so clearly existed, with the resultant, incalculable human cost to the detainees and
their families.

The fact that Mr. Almrei had lied to authorities, which he himself admits, seems to have been blown out of proportion as well. As Mosley quite correctly recognizes, "It is an unfortunate reality that many people lie in their encounters with the authorities over immigration matters.
Particularly those who come from regions of the world where telling the truth to the authorities may not be advisable."

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION
Mosley also takes to task the amazing calisthenics through which CSIS witnesses place the "facts" of their case by building guilt by association. Indeed, he shows how witness Thomas Quiggan, a national security expert, explained that "The Ministers' case is concerned with
inferences drawn from association or linkage to Al Qaeda. The Taliban supported Al Qaeda. Hamid Karzai supported the Taliban. Canada supports Karzai. If you took the logic to its extreme, in Mr. Quiggin’s view, one could say that the Canadian government is linked to Al Qaeda. It is all a question of context."

Another expert witness, Brian Williams, had pointed out that he was stunned to read the Security Intelligence Report on Mr. Almrei, which Williams said he would have given "a failing grade had it been submitted by one of his students." (Interestingly, the exact same words had been used five years ago by a secret trials opponent while in court, and she was taken to task for making such a comment. Times have changed.)

Interestingly, Mosley comes back to Williams' testimony by recalling, "Williams has turned down requests to testify in 14 Al Qaeda related cases. He was sceptical about this one also but agreed to read the materials. As he did, he says, he had a growing concern that the government story did not fit what he knew about the history of the region. He found glaring historical errors and misstatements.

Williams says he would have failed a student who relied on flimsy internet sources such as those in the public summary. In his view, the document was prepared under pressure and with orders to find linkages between Almrei and Al Qaeda. As a result, the analysts used “wiki-intel” to hastily paste together reckless claims. Williams claims he had never seen such a poorly
prepared analysis of this nature."

CSIS LETHARGY
As Mosley brings his lengthy decision to a close, he points out that one of the government's main contentions -- that Bin Laden retains the resources to launch a major strike, "The source given for this proposition is a January 1999 report from a non-authoritative, and now stale, online source. While that may have been true in 1999, it is questionable to-day." Indeed, it is typical of a larger lethargy in the preparation of the allegations against Almrei, and Mosley laments, "I found it troubling that the work done to prepare the new SIR [security intelligence report] in 2008 had not kept pace with developments in the field. And the sources relied upon by the Service were often non-authoritative, misleading or inaccurate," and "simply recycled stale information without attempting to offer a more balanced and nuanced view."

Mosley also notes that numerous of the human sources in this case provided information from which CSIS "then drew certain inferences from that information which, in my view, were not well-founded," adding "I am satisfied that certain of the human sources in this case had motives to concoct stories that cast Almrei in a negative light."

YEARS IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
Almrei, arrested in October 2001 on secret allegations that he could not access or rebut, spent the following four years and two months in solitary confinement, freezing through the first two winters in an unheated cell at Metro West Detention Centre. Many Canadians first heard of Almrei when he went on a 40-day hunger strike to have the heat turned on in his cell in October, 2003. At the time, a classified government memorandum (later released during the Arar Inquiry) revealed that the federal government did not have enough information to lay a criminal charge against Mr. Almrei; that same document expressed concerns that the torture of Mr. Arar in Syrias would make it more difficult to have Mr. Almrei deported to the same fate in Syria.

Almrei, along with Ottawa's Mohamed Harkat (held on security certificate since December 10, 2002), joined the historic 2006 Supreme Court challenge launched by Montrealer Adil Charkaoui (arrested in May 2003) to seek an end to security certificates. The Court, in February 2007, unanimously found that the heart of the security certificate process violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, asking how one can answer a case that one does not know. But the federal government simply added some minor changes (including security-cleared special advocates who could test some of what is in the secret file), but the new legislation allowed the detainee no greater access to the case against them than they had before.

Following the transfer of four secret trial detainees to the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (aka Guantanamo North), Mr. Harkat, along with fellow detainees Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohammad Mahjoub, were eventually released to strict house arrest, leaving Mr. Almrei once again in solitary confinement as the only detainee in the Kingston facility. Released under
house arrest earlier this year, Mr. Almrei has lived on his own, wearing a GPS monitoring bracelet and phoning the government to seek permission to buy groceries, visit doctors, and have friends visit.

The quashing of Mr. Almrei's certificate is the latest blow against the draconian secretive process, which allows for lower standards of justice than those applied to citizens facing equally if not more serious allegations. Reecently, Montreal's Adil Charkaoui saw his certificate
quashed, and Mohamed Harkat uin Ottawa had most of his house arrest conditions dropped. While Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has announced that there will be a review of the law because it does not appear to be working, critics of the process note that then Public Safety
Minister Stockwell Day, in February of 2008, praised the new secret trial legislation as among the best in the world.

"The fact that even with the cards stacked so high against the detainees that these cases are falling apart shows how non-existent they are to begin with," says spokesperson Matthew Behrens. "The fact that Mr. Almrei has lost a decade of his life to a process that has detained him with, as the government has admitted, not enough information to even lay a criminal
charge, speaks to how dangerous this process really is."

Behrens notes that the claims these cases are falling apart because of national security concerns -- CSIS does not want to disclose information even in the secret hearings -- is pure rubbish. "As we saw in the Arar Inquiry, the government claims National Security Confidentiality every
time it is worried about being embarrassed, not because anyone is threatened by its release."

While media reports continue to portray these victories as "blows" to a beleaguered CSIS, they fail to see the reality: they are in fact a testament to the almost decade-long struggle of the detainees, their families, and their supporters to overcome vicious lies and scare tactics
and cling to some basic cherished principles, including the presumption of innocence, and the right to see and question one's accuser. They have also continued to struggle for the right of all people in Canada, regardless of citizenship status, to equality in the eyes of the law, a principle
grossly violated by security certificates (along with numerous other attributes of immigration law."

That struggle continues. If you can help, we would appreciate contributions. You can send donations to Homes not Bombs, PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0. The funds will be used for ongoing educational and political work as well as detainee family support.

For more information: Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, tasc@web.ca, (416) 651-5800

Benamar Benatta: Another Detainee Canadians Transferred to Torture

2010-02-08T16:58:00.000-08:00

Benamar Benatta: Another Detainee Canadians Transferred to Torture;
Take Action to Demand a Public Inquiry into Canada's First 9/11 Rendition to Torture

While headlines rightfully scream about the scandal of Canadian troops transferring Afghan detainees to torture, an Algerian refugee here in Canada continues waging a lonely struggle to determine why Canadian officials decided to illegally render him to the United States on September 12, 2001 with the false, dangerously inflammatory accusation that as a Muslim who knew about airplanes, he was connected to 9/11. The resultant five years of indefinite detention in the U.S. under conditions that the United Nations declared constituted torture continue to haunt Mr., Benatta, who was eventually returned to Canada where his refugee claim was accepted (adding further concerns that a person in need of protection was so callously thrown back to the U.S., from whence he could have been deported to his death in Algeria).

While Greater Toronto area residents can attend a free International Human Rights Day public event featuring Mr. Benatta and Prisoner of Tehran author Marina Nemat on Wednesday, December 9 at 7:15 pm at Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street (mark your calendars!), all are invited to respond to the call to demand a public inquiry (see below)

Thanks!

Toronto Action for Social Change (founding member of the Benatta Coalition for a Public Review, www.benamarbenatta.com)

Read more about Benamar's case here: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/668160

Contributions to the Benatta Education Fund can be sent to Toronto Action for Social Change, PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0. Put Benatta in the memo portion of cheque. All funds will go toward Mr. Benatta's efforts to complete his education. If you would like a charitable tax receipt email us at tasc@web.ca for details.

Below is an appeal from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association regarding the case.
++++++

Please forward this item widely and take a moment to email the PM and his Ministers about this case, calling for an immediate inquiry into how Canada helped send this man off to torture in the US. Thanks, Tom

Please send your emails to

Prime Minister Harper, PM@PM.gc.ca

Minister of Public Safety Van Loan VanLoP@parl.gc.ca

An inquiry is needed to determine how Canada became an accomplice to torture in the U.S.
By Tom Sandborn, Special to the SunOctober 9, 2009

Most Canadians know the name Maher Arar. It has been clearly established and admitted by our government that misconduct by Canadian officials played a role in Arar's shameful rendition to torture in Syria.

Far fewer of us know the name Benamar Benatta. We should, because credible accounts suggest that Benatta, an Algerian national who applied for refugee status in Canada in the week before 9/11, was rendered back across the border into the hands of American officials who held him for five years, despite the fact the FBI dismissed suggestions he was a terrorist only months after his involuntary surrender to American custody.

During his five years of American imprisonment, Benatta says he was tortured, and a 2004 report from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention agrees his treatment "could be described as torture." When handed over to American officials, Benatta had been in Canadian custody for seven days and should have had the benefit of due process guaranteed by law and the Charter.

Instead, it appears he was unceremoniously bundled into the back of a car and shipped across the border into the hands of men who were willing to ignore his rights and subject him to years of unwarranted detention and maltreatment.

Since his return to Canada in 2006, Benatta has received the refugee status he asked for in 2001. What he has been denied is any credible explanation of how Canada came to act as an accomplice to torture in his case. He has been calling since his return for an impartial and public investigation that would provide him, and the Canadian people, with an account of how this civil liberties and human rights nightmare was allowed to unfold.

This summer, the BCCLA (www.bccla.org ) wrote to Canada's prime minister, attorney general and minister of public safety, calling for just such an inquiry. To date, we have received no substantive reply. Benatta, finally safe in Canada after his American ordeal, deserves a public accounting for the role Canada played in sending him into harm's way. The Canadian people deserve reassurance that our tax dollars will not in the future be used to open the door to a torture chamber.

It is past time for an inquiry into the Benatta case. The BCCLA again urges this government to finally do the right thing and convene such an inquiry.

Tom Sandborn is a member of the board of directors of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

Help Bring Home Another Canadian Abandoned by Ottawa

2009-06-28T12:00:00.001-07:00

Help Bring Home Another Canadian Abandoned by Ottawa

Abdihakim Mohamed, Aged 25, Autistic, Without His Primary Caregiver, Denied Passport, Stuck in Kenya Over 3 Years

BELOW
1. INTRODUCTION
2. BACKGROUND, PLUS LINK TO CBC STORY ON "THE CURRENT"
3. TAKE ACTION

1. INTRODUCTION

Although Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik will finally be coming home after six long years of Canadian-government enforced exile in Sudan, there remain numerous other Canadians who have been abandoned by their country while overseas.

One of them is an autistic 25-year-old Canadian citizen, Abdihakim Mohamed, who is at grave risk both in Kenya and, should he be deported to his birth country, Somalia, unless Ottawa acts immediately to repatriate him. For over three years, efforts to have him brought home have been met by a bureaucratic brick wall. (See Backgrounder below for why Mr. Mohamed is without a passport).

In Kenya, Mr. Mohamed faces a life where he is without adequate supervision and care, as well as the stigma against individuals with disabilities, and the risk of being caught in the rash of extra-judicial killings by Kenyan police. He is also at risk, as someone identifiable by his Somali heritage, of deportation to an even more dangerous conflict zone because Mr. Mohamed does not have Canadian ID with him.

Note that with respect to Somalia, the federal government has issued an "OFFICIAL WARNING: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against all travel in Somalia. Canadians in this country should leave. There is no resident Canadian government office in Somalia, and the Government of Canada cannot provide consular assistance to Canadian citizens in distress in Somalia."

To save Mr. Mohamed from the fate that the Canadian government warns against, all that would be required to bring him home is a one-way travel document or replacement passport.

But the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) is refusing to issue him one, coming up with one excuse after another. With each day that goes by, Mr. Mohamed, both as a Canadian of Somali heritage as well as someone who is unstable at the best of times and requires constant care, is in danger of arrest, imprisonment, and worse. (In fact, he has already been arrested twice and poorly treated by Kenyan authorities who, discovering he was Canadian, figured they could rely on a bribe to have him released. This pattern might escalate to further arrests and requests for bribe money).

Canadian officials have alleged that Mr. Abdihakim is an "imposter" whom his mother is trying to "smuggle" into Canada (relying on the fact that there are very few family photos -- some Muslims do not take photos of one another unless for official reasons -- and that Mr. Mohamed had a good command of certain details, which they concluded was a sign that he does NOT have autism. Anyone who knows anything about autism would conclude otherwise! Many affidavits from people who can attest to Mr. Mohamed's identity have been filed with the Canadian government.)

Just as popular pressure helped bring home Abousfian Abdelrazik, we are calling on people across this country to once again write and call the Minister responsible, Lawrence Cannon, and ask that he do the right thing. Below is an extended backgrounder on the case, as well as a section on steps you can take to Bring. Mr. Mohamed home.

LINK TO INTERVIEW ON CBC'S THE CURRENT FROM JUNE 24, 2009: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200906/20090624.html

BACKGROUND
(Thanks to Ottawa writer Kate Heartfield for the following summary)

In 2004, Anab Mohamed Issa, who works two jobs as a cleaner in Ottawa, travelled with her 20-year-old son, Abdihakim Mohamed, to Bosaso, Somalia. She liked Canada, had been here since 1990, but her son wasn't doing well here.

Abdihakim Mohamed is a big man, with disruptive behavioural problems. It was more than Ms. Issa could handle on her own. A psychiatrist in Scarborough thought a change in cultural context might improve his communication and social skills. So Ms. Issa and her son went to stay with relatives in Somalia. After about nine months, Ms. Issa returned to Canada.

That's when she made a mistake.

She described it, later, in an affidavit: "He was happy staying with my family and they were happy to look after him. However, I did not want to leave his Canadian passport with him because I was afraid it would be stolen. Canadian passports are very valuable in this part of the world and I wanted to keep it safely. I thought this was the best course of action because I have Power of Attorney for Property and I am responsible for his passport. I could not trust him to look after it and there was nowhere safe where it could be kept under lock and key."

It was the wrong decision, but understandable.

At Pearson Airport, in April 2005, Canadian officials seized her son's passport from her, because it was being carried by someone other than the holder. Fair enough.

In 2006, Ms. Issa's mother-in-law in Somalia got sick and was having trouble looking after Mr. Mohamed. Ms. Issa decided to bring her son home. She took him to Nairobi, to apply for a passport at the Canadian High Commission there, which serves Somalia. The immigration officer in Nairobi didn't believe Mr. Mohamed was who his mother said he was; one of the issues seems to be that he didn't seem autistic enough. The photo on his citizenship card was taken when he was younger, although to my eye, it bears a strong resemblance to a more recent photo.

Ms. Issa returned to Canada, leaving her son under the imperfect care of relatives in Nairobi. She kept trying to get him a passport. Mr. Mohamed is unhappy in Kenya; his autism and his Somali ethnicity make him vulnerable to thuggery and harassment from the authorities.

In April 2008, Ms. Issa got a letter from Passport Canada informing her she was under investigation for her "involvement in attempting to obtain a passport for an imposter in the name of [her] son Abdihakim." But she hasn't been charged with anything.

Then, in July, the same agency said she couldn't apply for a regular passport on her son's behalf anyway, because Mr. Mohamed's mental incapacity preceded the granting of Power of Attorney. Passport Canada told her she needs a court order giving her guardianship.

Ms. Issa would be happy to oblige -- but that process requires Abdihakim to be in Canada. Her other option, Passport Canada said, was to apply for a passport of limited validity on compassionate grounds.

But then, in November, Passport Canada told her that "there remains the issue surrounding the true identity of this individual, which must be resolved before a travel document will be issued."

In a particularly pig-headed coda, Passport Canada asked for her help in determining who the man applying for a passport in the name of her son might be.

Jean Lash of South Ottawa Community Legal Services has been gathering a pile of affidavits from Canadian citizens who know Mr. Mohamed and can vouch for his identity. Mr. Mohamed has offered to submit to DNA testing, Ms. Lash says, but Passport Canada hasn't taken him up on the offer.

"He had a valid passport, which was seized by the government," says Toronto lawyer David Yerzy, who knows Mr. Mohamed and signed an affidavit attached to his recent photo. "It's not lost. All he needs is a passport renewal."

++++++++++

TAKING ACTION

1. Please write a polite, simple letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, copying Stephen Harper and your MP, calling on him to stand up for the right of Mr. Abdihakim Mohamed to come home, and to issue him a a passport or other appropriate travel document to ensure he can be brought back to Canada. Phone calls are helpful too.

Lawrence Cannon
Telephone: (613) 992-5516
Fax: (613) 992-6802
Email: CannoL@parl.gc.ca

Stephen Harper
Telephone: (613) 992-4211
Fax: (613) 941-6900
Email: HarpeS@parl.gc.ca

Contact details of MPs via www.parl.gc.ca (click on "Members of Parliament (Current)").

2. Please share this email with your networks.

Thanks!

Toronto Action for Social Change, PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0, tasc@web.ca

No More Impunity!

2009-06-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

Demand an Apology, Accountability, and Compensation for Three Canadians Targetted for Torture

As Canada Marks the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture June 26, Contact Prime Minister Stephen Harper, "Public Safety" Minister Peter Van Loan to Demand Canada End its Involvement in Torture (contact details below)

IN THIS EMAIL
1. BRIEF SUMMARY
2. BACKGROUND
3. TAKING ACTION

BRIEF SUMMARY
Three Canadians -- Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin -- were tortured overseas with the complicity of their own government. We are calling on the Government of Canada to issue an apology, provide compensation, ensure that all officials responsible are held accountable, take steps to eliminate false information about these men and their families from Canadian and international databases, and demand that the federal government issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture.

BACKGROUND
Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin are Canadian citizens who were targetted for torture by agencies of their own government.

All were falsely labelled as alleged threats to Canada's "national security," and all wound up in Syrian torture chambers (and, in one case, Egyptian torture chambers as well) where they were interrogated and tortured based on questions that came from Canada. A problematic secret federal review of their cases (The Iacobucci Inquiry, which unfortunately excluded the men, their lawyers, the press, and public from participating) nonetheless found that Canadian agencies were complicit in the men's overseas detention, interrogation, and torture.

Last week the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security of the House of Commons called for an immediate apology for all thee men, along with compensation "for the suffering they endured and the difficulties they encountered." The committee released a report that also called on the federal government to "do everything necessary to correct misinformation that may exist in records administered by national security agencies in Canada or abroad with respect to" the three men and their family members.
(full report: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4004074&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=2 )

CLEAR DIRECTION NEEDED ON TORTURE
Importantly, the Committee called on "the Government of Canada issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture for all departments and agencies responsible for national security. The ministerial directive must clearly state that the exchange of information with countries is prohibited when there is a credible risk that it could lead, or contribute, to the use of torture."

Unfortunately, the committee did not go far enough in demanding actions that could end the culture of impunity that continues to thrive with respect to torture in the highest levels of the Canadian government, from CSIS and the RCMP to the Justice Dept. and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Indeed, names were named in both the O'Connor Inquiry (which examined the case of Maher Arar) and the Iacobucci inquiry, and it is clear in both reports that the actions of Canadian officials led to the torture of Canadian citizens abroad.

Yet there has been a disturbing silence on the issue of holding officials accountable. In fact, with one exception, it appears that all officials who appear to have been complicit either directly or indirectly in that overseas detention, interrogation, and torture, have received promotions.

CULTURE OF IMPUNITY IN OTTAWA
Perhaps the most high-profile of those Canadian officials is Michel Cabana, who ran Project AO-Canada (the investigation that was found to have been based on false information that led to the overseas detention, interrogation, and torture of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, and Ahmad El Maati). Remarkably, Cabana is now the Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP, one heartbeat away from the top job in a national police force that has been implicated in torture.

We have serious questions about the suitability of Mr. Cabana to hold such a high position in an organization that is supposed to be cleaning up its act and ending its complicity in torture.

With the recent court orders to repatriate yet two other Canadians tortured with the complicity of their own government (Omar Khadr and Abousfian Abdelrazik), we need to ask: how many more cases of torture-by-proxy exist, and how many more will continue to occur unless there are major systemic changes in the way things are run in Ottawa?

While we work towards those systemic changes, we join the call from the Parliamentary committee "to immediately implement all the recommendations from these inquiries, as the failure to do so could result in further serious violations of the rights of Canadians."

While the committee calls for an oversight committee of all agencies involved in "national security" investigations, we remain concerned that such a committee can only review human rights disasters AFTER they have occurred. Rather, we need pre-emptive action to stop torture-complicit spies from doing further damage to folks in this country and abroad.

TAKE STEPS FOR JUSTICE NOW!
The Federal government will state that such recommendations cannot be agreed to because civil suits are in progress, yet Maher Arar received an apology before his case was heard in court. The Committee also disagrees with this position, declaring "The majority of the Committee does not agree with the government’s position that issuing apologies can influence the course of civil actions. The majority is of the opinion that the government must officially recognize the harm caused to these Canadians." Indeed, the government could end the civil suit process immediately by fairly addressing the damage that has been inflicted on the men and their families.

While there remain many other tangled webs of Canadian involvement in torture (the case of rendition survivor Benamar Benatta, who still seeks a public review of his case, the ongoing secret rendition-to-torture hearings taking place in the Federal Courts under the name of "security certificates," Canada's involvement in the U.S.-based School of the Assassins, complicity in the torture of people in Afghanistan, among many others), we have an opportunity to take immediate steps to ensure a small measure of justice for Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin.

TAKING ACTION
1. Please write a polite, simple letter to Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, copying Stephen Harper and your MP, calling on them to immediately apologize for and provide compensation for Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, as recommended by the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Please add in as well that you feel officials involved in facilitating their torture need to be held accountable, and that systemic changes are required to permanently end further Canadian involvement in torture. Remind them that the committee also calls on " the Government of Canada issue a clear ministerial directive against torture and the use of information obtained from torture." Please remind them as well that false information about these three men and their families exists in government databases around the world and here in Canada, and every effort must be made to erase those lies.

Personalize the letter if you can.

Peter Van Loan
Telephone: (613) 996-7752
Fax: (613) 992-8351
E-mail: vanloan.p@parl.gc.ca

Stephen Harper
Telephone: (613) 992-4211
Fax: (613) 941-6900
Email: HarpeS@parl.gc.ca

Contact details of MPs via www.parl.gc.ca (click on "Members of Parliament (Current)")

*******

More information:
Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture:
http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/search/label/end%20torture
PO Box 73620, 509 St. CXlair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0, tasc@web.ca

More details on the men and their cases, plus video interviews: http://sites.google.com/site/endtorturenow/

Committee report: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4004074&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=2

Mahjoub Forced Back to Jail by Devastating House Arrest Conditions

2009-03-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Canadian Secret-Trial Detainee Mohammad Mahjoub Forced Back to Jail by Draconian Conditions That Have “Broken” His Family.

Tear-Filled Courtroom Hears About the Pain of Family Under House Arrest, and A Father’s Sacrifice to Free His Children

TORONTO, MARCH 18, 2009 – It was not, as most media reported, a “choice” for secret trial detainee Mohammad Mahjoub to return to the confines of Guantanamo North after almost two years of draconian house arrest. Nor could one really categorize it as a “protest.”

It was, rather, a forced jailing, the logical outcome of a cruelly designed process that is more properly called a “control order,” with all the eerie consequences that follow.

CONTROL ORDERS IN CANADA
In essence, Mr. Mahjoub and other secret trial detainees on “bail” have had all of the indignities and humiliations of jail come home with them, placing their families in the web of 24/7 surveillance, turning their spouses and grown children into jail guards, and leaving their little ones bewildered, frustrated, frightened, traumatized.

To be able to live with their families, the detainees had to consent to having phones tapped, mail opened, and GPS tracking devices strapped permanently to their legs. “Freedom of movement” is restricted to three government-approved outings a week that are closely monitored by agents of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) wearing bullet-proof vests. The agents snap pictures of the men and their wives and kids and anyone else in camera’s view, images of which are sent on to a counter-terrorism database in Ottawa.

On a summer’s evening, they have to be inside the house by 9 pm. If the family wishes to sit outside, the detainee can pull up a chair on one side of the screen door, but must never be out of sight of his wife, or it is deemed a breach of bail. There are no cell phones, no internet access, no visitors who have not been approved by the government (isolating the family because few people are willing to have their names join the government’s counter-terrorism database, especially if they are members of a vulnerable targetted community).

The home, once a place of sanctity, becomes a jail, and government agents can enter any time of day or night without a warrant, and seize anything they feel is “suspicious,” even if it’s a children’s toy (as happened in the Mahjoub family).

Mr. Mahjoub had originally “chosen” to enter house arrest because it was the only way he could be with his family after over seven painful years of indefinite detention without charge based on secret allegations created by the same spy agency whose false information resulted in the overseas torture of Mssrs. Arar, Almalki, El Maati, and Nureddin.

AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL SECRET PROCESS
Mahjoub’s house arrest has continued despite the fact that the process under which he was kidnapped in 2000, the security certificate regime, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2007.

Security certificates are elaborate rendition-to-torture hearings straight out of Kafka: you are never allowed to see the case against you and, if the certificate is upheld, you face deportation to torture. The legislation allows anything to be introduced as “evidence” that is not normally admissible in a court of law, so one is no longer in a court of law, save for the window dressing of judicial robes.

In a move that Kafka and Orwell would have envied for its absurdity, judges inform the public, in the spirit of openness, that secret hearings will or have taken place in the absence of the detainee. To “protect the interests” of the detainee, a new system came into place in 2008 that created “special advocates” who are allowed into the room where some of the secret case is heard, but are not allowed to speak with the detainee once they have been in the protected chamber, nor to see the whole of the secret case, nor to cross-examine the confidential “informants” whose allegations seem to be the heart of these cases.

It is against this horrific backdrop that Mr. Mahjoub, his wife and grown step-son entered Courtroom 6-D this morning in a last-ditch effort to seek some form of mercy from a Federal Court that has never had a problem upholding and enforcing the undemocratic process. On the right side of the courtroom is a disturbing glass booth, especially built for these cases but as yet unused. It is there to create the impression that whoever sits inside is so dangerous that even physical touch would bring irreparable harm, an impression that is needed by the government to distract people from understanding the manner in which these cases are built on thin shadows of uncontested secrets.

CHILD UNDER HOUSE ARREST SPOKE OF SUICIDE
It was here last fall that Mr. Mahjoub and his family laid out in painful detail the humiliations and trauma of being treated like criminals any time they got approved outings to go to a children’s play area or a mall. During many days of hearings that lasted into December, Mahjoub and his wife, Mona Elfouli, had testified about the effects of house arrest on their young children, informing the court that one of them said he wanted to leave home because of the conditions and another had talked of killing himself. The effect on the family has been nothing short of profound and destructive.

Judge Layden-Stevenson, who heard the case, released a decision last week that was the final straw for a family that was already on the edge. While she determined that Mr. Mahjoub could remain at home alone without a supervisor, he could only do so on weekdays between 8 am and 6 pm, but not with his young children (the government claimed, and the judge bought to a certain degree, the argument that “the best interests of the child cannot trump national security interests.”)

Seeing no alternative to ending the family’s present state of misery, Mahjoub’s wife, Mona Elfouli, and their adult step-son, had decided to withdraw their consent to remain as supervisors to Mr. Mahjoub, triggering the process that would result in his being returned to the Guantanamo North facility in Kingston, Ontario.

SIMON THE SOCIAL WORKER
Presiding today was case management judge Simon Noel, who attempted to play the role of social worker, stating “the consequences of the decision is a major consequence on the freedom of an individual,” perhaps losing sight of the fact that house arrest is a continuation of confinement by other means that also incarcerates the family.

“If something can be done [to prevent Mahjoub from going to jail], this court is open to it,” Noel said, but he did not elaborate on how this was possible, since he said he could not revise the decision made by his colleague, Layden-Stevenson.

“We are going back into the darkness, we are not moving ahead,” Noel continued, losing sight of the fact that the whole security certificate regime over which he presides is just such a bleak place.

One by one, family members took the stand.

Mona Elfouli declared, “The CBSA give us no choice but to go to this decision. They have become a barrier between the children and their father. They are punishing the children for having their Dad back with them. They take pictures of them, they even take the children’s own toys. They can’t enjoy their time with their Dad. I care about the future of my children, and the CBSA are working hard to destroy them. I am not going to let that happen.

“My older son has no life because of the conditions. My little ones cry every day. And now Justice Layden-Stevenson says the kids cannot stay with their Dad. Imagine I have to go to the doctor, the kids would get kicked out of the house [Mahjoub would not be allowed to be home alone with his children]. Imagine the kids come home from school and he is alone, this means the kids can’t come in.”

Openly crying, Elfouli pleaded, “I care about Mohammad. I am torn inside. It would be better and easier to give him a fair trial instead of punishing and oppressing him.”

“But why is it so rushed?” Noel asks of the decision, again not catching sight of the fact that an accumulation of humiliation and traumatic incidents over the past 22 months have torn apart the Mahjoub household.

“Why don’t you give us a fair and open trial and stop oppressing us? This is a game and I don’t want to be part of it,” Elfouli replies.

Given his major role in facilitating a process that denies Elfouli’s husband a fair process, Noel has no answer to that question, preferring instead a count-your-blessings sermon.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
“I understand fully the situation you are in,” Noel says, to a whispered chorus of “No, you don’t!” from the public gallery. “The judicial system is following its course. We’re all trying to improve the system. The legislation has been changed, in the closed hearings Mr. Mahjoub’s interests are represented. The system has improved. This is Canada. It is working.”

The sermon is so full of irony and flat-out misrepresentations as to be stomach turning. Mr. Noel does not know what it is like to have his children followed as if they are criminals, nor to have his lawyer-client conversations listened to by spy agency CSIS, nor what it’s like to fear losing a loved one to overseas rendition to torture based on secret allegations.

As for the statement that things are improving and that Mr. Mahjoub’s interests are represented behind closed doors, it was Noel himself who just two weeks ago stripped special advocates of any meaningful role they might play when he ruled the security-cleared lawyers would be barred from cross-examining secret informants behind closed doors.

Noel’s attempts to placate are not bought by Elfouli.

“I disagree with you,” Elfouli says. “When we come to court the pressure does not ease. We just get more conditions, and the most affected is me and the children.”

“I understand that,” Noel says. “Is there anything else that you have not told me?”

What more can be said?

Mahjoub’s adult stepson says the decision to withdraw as a supervisor is a culmination of a lot of things, noting the security certificate process has been declared unconstitutional. “My mother and I and my two brothers do not have a say. We do not have legal representation. Our interests are ignored or skimmed over. We are not being heard.”

His stepson continues, “As one example of many, I had a condition imposed on me, but I wasn’t exactly involved in that decision. I wasn’t summoned, and yet my ability to use my cell phone in my house has been restricted to a locked room. I don’t know that there was due diligence from the Crown.

“In the past, we have seen that the Crown’s clients have not been held accountable in terms of their actions. My mail was being intercepted. I agreed to it being viewed but not to it being delayed or photocopied and distributed. In my view that is unlawful search and seizure.”

He relates an incident in which his parents and younger brothers went to an ice rink but were confused about the date of the outing. Afterwards, the CBSA demanded that they sign a letter acknowledging the error but which also included a number of false statements. When Mahjoub and Elfouli refused to sign, they were told they would be grounded for three weeks, “which in my view is extortion.”

(In fact, the behaviour of the CBSA bureaucracy has at times been so over the top that even Judge Layden Stevenson stated that the CBSA “has demonstrated a tendency to overreach on more than one occasion,” and that in one instance, “the reaction of CBSA’s Chief of Operations can only be described as high-handed....An objective observer would understand Mr. Mahjoub’s frustration.”

Yet when CBSA has over-reached (for example, in illegally recording and handing over lawyer-client tape recordings for CSIS analysis, or sending copies of mail to the counter-terrorism branch for copying, analysis, and further distribution, something never contemplated in the consents to the mail opening), there is no reprimand.

REFUSING TO BE EXPLOITED ANY LONGER
“It’s the lack of accountability, and the way I see it, I’ve done what I could and I don’t see an opening any time soon,” Mahjoub’s stepson continues. “I feel the Minister’s clients have used the situation to exploit and I do not want to be a part of that exploitation anymore. I fear for the safety of anybody else in Canada.”

A clearly distraught Mohammad Mahjoub finally takes the stand, and explains that the bad experiences of his indefinite detention have been visited upon his family now as well. “We can’t handle it anymore,” he says. “My kids say Daddy, we can’t handle it anymore. I have to protect my family and my kids from the abuses of the CBSA. I have to go back to jail to protect my family because they are broken.”

As Noel directs Mahjoub to spend a few moments with family before his return to jail, he ends with a message that sounds like a Wall Street stock advisor trying to buck up investors pummelled by the recent economic chaos.

His words are remarkably unhelpful.

“The Court is here, it has been there in the past and it will be there in the future, in the interests of justice, for respect of our laws, and the interests of Mr. Mahjoub.”

Small comfort as the lights go back on in Guantanamo North, and Mr. Mahjoub begins a new chapter in his decade-long saga of indefinite detention without charge.

HUMAN BEINGS MAKE MISTAKES
Outside of court, Mona Elfouli tries to explain the conflict she feels as a mother trying to raise loving children. What she says mirrors what she told the Federal Court last fall:

"I brought my kids up to love everyone and to be there for everyone, and not to fear anyone and not to be angry at anyone. But my kids is growing up now, with the situation that we are in, because of the surveillance, because of [government agents] coming in and taking things from them and making their life miserable, they started to say, I hate CBSA.

“I say, Guys, you know what? We love everyone. Don't say you hate them. Say, I hate their action. I don't like it, and we can talk to them and get them to change it. When their dad was in detention, at the beginning they were small; they didn't know. At the time, I wanted to explain to them. I said, You know, you're old enough to understand that your dad is in jail, and that's not because he has done something wrong. It's just the government are human beings and they sometimes make mistakes. And we talked to them and tried to help them to correct their mistake, and when it is corrected, your dad would be home.

“It took a long time after I said that, and the children, I was afraid they wouldn't trust what I said anymore. But then, their dad came home. And I said, See, guys, we were able to make it.”

Elfouli has promised her pre-teen children that the same relentless persistence that brought their father home after seven years in jail will end the secret trial process that dogs their daily lives. She is relying on opponents of security certificates to ensure another seven years don’t pass before this promise to her children comes true.

How you can help:

While we work on a broader political campaign to get Mr. Mahjoub out of Gitmo North, there are some immediate things yoou can do:

1. Write to Mohammad Mahjoub a message of solidarity and support, reminding him that he is not forgotten and that efforts to end two-tier justice in Canada will continue. He can be reached at:

Mohammad Mahjoub
Kingston Immigration Holding Centre
c/o CSC RHQ Ontario Region
440 King Street West
PO Box 1174
Kingston, Ontario K7L 4Y8

2. Write to Mona Elfouli and her children. Letters can be sent to: Mona Elfouli, c/o PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Avenue West, Tornto, ON M6C 1C0

3. Contribute to the ongoing costs borne by the families of the secret trial detainees. Now that Mr. Mahjoub is back in jail, it will be expensive for his family to visit, and we need to raise funds for transportation and lodging.

Contributions can be sent to Homes not Bombs, PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0. Put “Family Fund” in memo portion of cheque

If you would like a tax receipt for charitable purposes, contact us for more details.

Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0, tasc@web.ca

CSIS, Sex, Lies, and Torture: Canada’s Secret Trials Just Got Even More Bizarre

2009-03-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

CSIS, Sex, Lies, and Torture: Canada’s Secret Trials Just Got Even More Bizarre.

(In Two Federal Court Rulings, we learn that part of the case against secret trial detainee Mohamed Harkat is born out a love affair between a CSIS employee and a “person of interest to the Service,” while in another we learn that special advocates will not be allowed to examine “human source” witnesses who have come up with the unsubstantiated allegations against Harkat and the other detainees.)

March 1, 2009 – Just as “information” gleaned from torture is hardly reliable (the victim will say anything to make the torture stop), information gleaned from a spy’s torrid affair with a “person of interest to the Service” (the spy’s sexual partner will say anything to keep the lovin’ comin’) is just as questionable.

But in the case of secret trial detainee Mohamed Harkat, it appears that secret information obtained both from sex and torture is now being used to have him deported to torture in Algeria.

And so marks yet another chapter in the ongoing secret rendition-to-torture hearings of Canada’s secret trial detainees, all of whom have yet to see the so-called case against them.

In a series of “expurgated reasons for judgment” written last November but only released a few days ago, Simon Noel of the Federal Court revealed that a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officer working on the Harkat case had what appears to have been an affair with a “person of interest to the Service.” Throughout the decision are a series of markings that look like this: “[...]”. They represent information not shared for unexplained “reasons of national security.”

Hence we learn in paragraph 2 of the decision about “the [...] relationship that developed between her and a person of interest to the Service [...] in the context of the Harkat investigation.” One is not sure if the secret part of the sentence relating to the relationship should read “intimate,” “totally hot,” “dysfunctional,” “inappropriate,” or just plain “platonic.” After all, inquiring minds need to know, but as in all security certificate proceedings, the hot stuff stays behind closed doors.

SPIES HAVING A [...] RELATIONSHIP!

T.S. (we are never sure what the acronym stands for, whether Totally Sexy or an actual name) was a CSIS employee from the 1980s until 2002. We don’t learn much about her, because three paragraphs of material state only that she “[...].” Shortly after T.S. began suffering from domestic difficulties, a “person of interest to the Service” known as A.B. (Absolutely Buff?) initiated phone contact at her workplace, and as the relationship developed, “gifts and photos were exchanged.” After receiving written instructions to end the relationship in 1998, T.S. refused.

As the chronology continues, only a grocery store bodice ripper can compete. “In April 1999 T.S. travelled to [...] for a holiday where she had a [...] encounter with A.B. CSIS was unaware of the [...] encounter until 2001, at which time the decision was made to begin an internal security investigation.” In January 2002 T.S. was dismissed, following which [...]. A grievance filed by T.S. was denied because of [...]

The Special Advocates (security-cleared lawyers who are allowed to go behind closed doors and challenge some of what is supposedly there) argued that they should have access to the employment records of the agent. They had raised concerns about “the reliability and credibility of the information provided [...]” and requested copies of T.S.’s employment records, which the government argued against based on privacy grounds. Even though everything that takes place in the closed hearings stays behind closed doors, at the risk of being prosecuted and sent to jail for 14 years under the Security of Information Act , Noel of the Federal Court insists that “privacy rights do exist even in the closed portion of the proceedings,” a brilliant bit of illogic that allows CSIS to withhold whatever it does not wish to reveal in secret hearings (perhaps information that shows there is no case against Harkat, among others!)

Noel states that the employment records of former CSIS intelligence officer T.S. are not necessary for the court to determine the accuracy of allegations against Mr. Harkat. Noting that employment records would contain such things as annual evaluations, positions held within the agency, salaries and benefits, Noel states “this type of information, which is inherently personal, will not help determine the reliability of the information [...] nor will it allow for an assessment of the quality of the reporting [...]”

But simple common sense states that it WOULD be helpful to see an annual assessment of an employee in CSIS, whose actions result in targetting individuals for years of misery under security certificates. What if an annual assessment states said employee relied rather heavily on tarot cards, the advice of Sybil the Soothsayer, articles in The National Post, or similarly bizarre sources to build the alleged case? What if an assessment found that, like many in CSIS, T.S. was prone to bouts of paranoia, Islamophobia, and a hatred of all things Halal?

Noel states that all of this would be subject to privacy rights, yet the hearing is taking place behind closed doors in a secure location, where it becomes a major crime for any of the security-cleared lawyers to utter a whisper about any of this. More importantly, all of this impacts on the case of a man, Harkat, who needs every chance he can get to prove his innocence, given that he faces torture or death if forcibly deported to Algeria based on secret allegations he will never be able to see, much less contest.

Noel’s decision is a split one, however, for he does see the value in the special advocates’ request that “has as its object the [...] report that studies the reliability and veracity of the information [...] which was primarily reported by [...] who had a [...] encounter with a person of interest to the Service [...]”

This might refer to an internal CSIS report that makes such an evaluation, but CSIS is an organization whose own review committee (and whose former agents) all critique an institutional tunnel vision that would prevent the organization from making an honest assessment. If the Special Advocates can only see what CSIS chooses to allow them to see, they can hardly get a clear, unbiased picture.

SPECIAL ADVOCATES DENIED ACCESS TO SECRET HUMAN SOURCES

Meanwhile, the much-criticized Special Advocate system (which then “Public Safety” minister Stockwell Day praised as the answer to all of the unconstitutional problems with secret hearings) took a major body blow in Noel’s companion decision, written in early December but also not released until last week. In essence, it creates the firewall CSIS has been praying for all along: the security-cleared lawyers can see some, but not ALL, of the secret case, and certainly not the most crucial parts that the government will likely be relying upon.

Must the drafters of secret trials legislation now go back to the table and call for Super Special Advocates (who will act in a capacity even more restricted than the Regular Brand Special Advocates, thus creating a two-tier system of special advocacy that mirrors the two-tier justice of security certificates?). We know from recent history that two of the Special Advocates, though security-cleared, were nonetheless initially denied their posts based on secret information, requiring them to hire their own Special Advocates to fight for the right to begin their jobs.

In any event, Noel has done a terrific job of protecting CSIS from what it most feared: that skilled lawyers would actually cross examine the “human sources” behind closed doors and have their credibility picked apart in the same manner in which CSIS witnesses who appear in the limited public portions of the proceedings are generally mincemeat within five minutes of cross examination.

Thus, the security certificate, which denies an accused from challenging his/her accuser, now denies even the special advocate, who is supposed to protect the interests of the accused, from confronting said accuser. That Noel would have no problem with this is apparent in the way in which it appears his mind is already made up in these proceedings. While writing of the “two weeks of closed hearings” from September 2008, he says the government presented evidence in support of their case “and the danger associated with Mr. Harkat.” This is a public ruling, available on the court’s website. No finding of danger has been made with respect to Mr. Harkat. The least a federal court judge could do is put in the words “alleged danger” or “alleged danger the government claims is associated with him.”

IGNORING THE DANGER OF FALSE LABELLING

Noel, like many judges and journalists in Canada, has yet to take a lesson from the inquiries into the torture of Canadians Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin. Throughout those inquiries, we learn time and again about the dangers of false labelling, and the particular need for great care to be taken when referring to anyone who is deemed suspect. The same agency responsible for the false labelling leading to torture in the above cases is behind the security certificate cases.

In Noel’s second ruling, he states that “the evidence currently before this court discloses that [...] human source(s) provided information to the Service in relation to the intelligence investigation into Mr. Harkat’s activities.” The Special Advocates (who in this case were clearly not special enough) sought an order producing those witnesses for a secret cross-examination, a request Noel ultimately denied. What, then, is the purpose of a special advocate if they cannot get to what is allegedly, in secret, the heart of the case?

What if, for example, one of the covert human sources received his information from an overseas torture session in which the victim made up whatever the torturers wanted in order to stop the torture? As we learned from the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC)’s 2008/09 annual report, this would hardly be a surprise, since CSIS “uses information obtained by torture.” That assessment comes from a complaint generated by Mr. Harkat’s public lawyers.

Yet thanks to Mr. Noel, this human source, even in secret, need not be questioned about his complicity in the torture of someone else, nor about the assumptions that guided his theories about Mr. Harkat, nor about the accuracy or reliability of what this individual has produced. In other words, Mr. Harkat is no further ahead than he was before the Supreme Court of Canada declared the security certificate regime unconstitutional.

Noel’s ruling is filled with useless rationalizations for why said sources must be protected even from a secret cross examination in which all parties are sworn to secrecy. The court relies on jurisprudence with respect to police informer privilege, protecting the informer’s identity unless the innocence of the accused is at stake (which is the case in all secret trial cases). Noel declares that “covert human intelligence sources are individuals who have been promised confidentiality in return for their assistance in gathering information relating to the national security concerns of Canada,” but he does not explain how that confidentiality would be violated if they were to testify only in a secret hearing.

EVIDENCE OF ANYTHING CAN BE FOUND AT [...]

His illogic continues, stating “If the Service is unable to protect the identity of its sources or is required to produce them in the context of a Court proceeding (even one that is closed to the public), the number of individuals willing to come forward with information would be reduced. Indeed, there is evidence before this Court that the recruitment of human sources would be harmed if the guarantees of confidentiality given by the Service were not upheld by this Court.”

Anyone interested in considering such evidence can go to Mr. Noel’s footnotes, which read thusly: “[...]”

Of course, if a CSIS witness is forced to appear in a secret session, how on earth would A.B., potential CSIS informant in the community, even know, unless CSIS agents violated their own oath of secrecy and told them? In another case of CSIS easily pulling the wool over Noel’s eyes (something CSIS regularly does in these cases, simply making unsubstantiated, bold absolutist statements), “Evidence before this Court established that identifying a source to a Special Advocate or requiring a source to testify in a closed proceeding, even anonymously, will almost certainly end the Service’s relationship with that source.”

Again, the source of said bold statement is “[...]”

No proof required, for reasons of national security.

How, then, does one test the case against Mr. Harkat, as well as the cases against Mssrs. Jaballah, Mahjoub, Almrei, and Charkaoui? The answer, to CSIS’s satisfaction, is that the case will never be fully tested, even within the extremely problematic Special Advocate system where the detainee cannot see the case nor consult with the Special Advocates after the latter have viewed the secret file. All of the information on an individual will not have to be released, and CSIS is using secret arguments to build in even greater protections to cover it’s own derriere with respect to the errors, misinterpretations, and falsifications that are its trademark.

Clearly taken in by the spy agency’s scare-mongering press releases, Noel sounds the alarm, stating that “widening the number of people with access to the identity of a human source puts both the personal safety of the source and the national security of Canada into jeopardy.”

COURT COVERS CSIS BUTT

Special Advocates have argued that they should be able to see any information related to the Harkat investigation because of their top secret clearance and because they are bound to secrecy under the Security of Information Act. Noel disagreed, thereby rendering the Special Advocates to even more of a window dressing position than could have been imagined.

Mr. Harkat’s right to defend himself is thoroughly gutted by the court’s deference to undisclosed, unsubstantiated national security considerations.

In concluding, Noel asserts the special advocates “have not established that the production of human source(s) as a witness in these proceedings is necessary to avoid a flagrant denial of procedural fairness,” which is quite rich given that the whole security certificate proceeding, special advocates or not, represents just such a denial of procedural fairness.

Noel ends with a political broadside, stating “there are issues which, on occasion, transcend the proceeding in which they arise. Issues that impact not only on similar proceedings but potentially on the intelligence system as a whole. The issue before me is one such question which will reverberate throughout our intelligence network – nationally and internationally. Great care must be taken by the Court in balancing the competing issues that have been reviewed in these reasons.”

Hence, CSIS remains protected from revealing its alleged case, increasing the likelihood of Mr. Harkat’s rendition to torture with Simon Noel’s judicial seal of approval.

The reasons for such a rendition to torture will also likely be a secret, because, as we can see from all the [...], we simply cannot be allowed to know.

CSIS GETS NO PUNISHMENT FOR ILLEGAL ACTIVITY

The Federal Court’s ongoing deference to CSIS in such matters is not surprising. Indeed, in December, 2008, it was revealed that CSIS, one party to these proceedings, had been listening in on two years’ worth of solicitor-client phone calls in three of these cases, a clear and well-understood violation of one of the bedrock principles of a democratic justice system.

But while the Federal Court did issue an order calling on CSIS to stop listening to such calls, the judge hearing the case stated: “I don't want to hear any more about it. It is done. It is over. It is finished. It has happened. We understand it happened. It is unfortunate, but there is nothing we can do to change the past. We can only look at what goes from here in terms of where it will go from here.”

There is no sanction, no punishment, for CSIS. No indication that such behaviour will not be tolerated in the future.

Starting next month, the public portion of some of the rendition to torture hearings will get underway. Little of substance is likely to be heard from the government’s side because of “reasons of national security.” Thanks to Mr. Noel’s ruling, it appears increasingly clear that little of substance will be heard behind closed doors either.

Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, tasc@web.ca

House Arrest as Intelligence Gathering Tool

2009-02-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

Secret Trial House Arrest Used as Massive Data Mining Project;
Secret Canadian Border Services Agency Manual on Security Certificate Detainees Reveals Operational Details Far Exceeding Court-Ordered Conditions

TORONTO, FEBRUARY 11, 2009 – In a stunning confirmation of what secret trials opponents have long suspected, a redacted version of a secret Canadian government manual reveals that the draconian conditions of house arrest imposed on those subject to security certificates are being used as a cover for intelligence gathering purposes on the detainees, their families, their supervisors, their friends, and their communities.

There are currently four men under the most severe house arrest conditions in Canadian history, placed there because of the two-tier justice security certificate procedure declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in February 2007. Before their release from prison, they had to agree to court-imposed restrictions that included wearing GPS monitoring bracelets 24/7, agreeing to phone taps and opening of mail, surveillance cameras both outside and, in one case, inside their homes, and unannounced searches and seizures by government agencies.

In addition, trips outside the house could occur only with government permission, no visitors are allowed without prior government approval, and there is no internet or cell phone access. These and a host of other measures are applied against individuals who have never been allowed to see the case against them, who face the lowest standards of any court in Canada, and who are fighting deportation to torture.

Difficult as these conditions can be, the men and their families have long charged that their lives have become even more miserable because the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), whose role is to monitor compliance with those conditions, has been exceeding its authority. Indeed, CBSA has been introducing additional restrictions not approved by the court, making arbitrary decisions that allow no route of appeal, and behaving as if some of their agents have the heart-thumping theme music to CBC’s overhyped “The Border” performing repeat rotation on their ipods.

CBSA EXCEEDS COURT’S ORDER
For example, upon releasing the detainees from Gitmo North, the Federal Court entrusted wives, older children, and community friends with monitoring the individuals’ compliance with terms and conditions. But as time has gone by, and more CBSA officers have been hired, the men and their families find themselves constantly followed and overtly surveilled, making it impossible for families to enjoy a rare outing together without being closely followed by officers wearing bullet-proof vests and sidearms. This behaviour unfairly marks the families as suspicious, if not dangerous, to the general public, and traumatizes the children and their friends.

Indeed, this fall, young children of the detainees testified in court about the impossibility of enjoying a government-approved family trip to a skating rink, to a parent-teacher interview, or even to a department store to buy Eid gifts because of the manner in which they were followed and felt criminalized by the overt (and unnecessary) monitoring of CBSA agents.

Why, the families ask, is such intrusive surveillance necessary when the court has declared its trust that family supervisors have promised to report any breach, when the men can be tracked via the GPS, when the phones are monitored, when they cannot make any move (including a quick trip to the corner store for milk) without the government knowing about it at least 72 business hours in advance? In addition, if the CBSA really felt that the detainees were up to no good, wouldn’t covert surveillance make much more sense? After all, someone allegedly up to no good is not going to try something when state agents follow his every move, often within a few feet of one another.

CBSA says that this is all needed to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of house arrest. One suspects, though, that as an institution, CBSA, like its brother agency CSIS, simply does not trust any decision of the Federal Court of Canada with which it disagrees. Their approach, court decisions be damned, is that if Canada’s national security is to be protected, these agencies must do whatever it takes, even if it goes beyond the letter of the law or the terms of the release conditions.

CSIS LISTENS TO LAWYER-CLIENT CALLS
The appearance of a presumption of guilt regarding the detainees, their families, and their friends, is well borne out by the national policy manual released almost in full following a secret hearing this week in Toronto for detainee Mohammad Mahjoub and his family. It follows on months of hearings during which officials from the CBSA confirmed that all mail to the detainees’ homes (including credit card bills, bank statements, phone bills, magazines, personal letters, and birthday cards addressed not just to the detainee, but to his wife and children) is photocopied and sent to their Counter-Terrorism branch in Ottawa for further investigation.

Also recorded and passed along to Ottawa are all phone calls, along with photos of the detainees, their family members, visitors, and bystanders who happen to be in the line of view when agents have taken shots.

The CBSA asked agents of the spy agency Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to listen to all of those phone calls. In December, 2008, it was revealed that solicitor-client calls are among those recordings that have been listened to by CSIS agents for close to two years, allowing one party to the proceeding exclusive access into the defence strategy of the defendants. (The long-standing principle of solicitor-client confidentiality is a fundamental bedrock of a democratic society, and the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed in 2001 that it is a principle of fundamental justice and so is protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms).

While the Federal Court did issue an order calling on CSIS to stop listening to such calls, there was no penalty for this violation. Indeed, the judge hearing the case stated: “I don't want to hear any more about it. It is done. It is over. It is finished. It has happened. We understand it happened. It is unfortunate, but there is nothing we can do to change the past. We can only look at what goes from here in terms of where it will go from here.”

But what if those illegally obtained solicitor-client phone calls served an “intelligence gathering” purpose that allowed CSIS to continue to build up its unfounded accusations against the detainees, their families, and their friends? Where does the cycle of illegality end, and where is the bold statement that declares such behaviour will be severely dealt with? In a system supposedly built on checks and balances, an agency like CSIS needs to go to court and seek judicial approval for any intrusive investigation that may severely curtail someone’s privacy rights. While the Federal Court almost always grants warrants for CSIS investigations, it is highly unlikely that the court would sanction such an intrusion into the calls between a lawyer and her client. In this instance, CSIS got through the back door what it could not receive through the front.

GOVERNMENT TRIES TO PREVENT SPECIAL ADVOCATE FROM SEEING SECRET DOCUMENT
This week, just prior to the final submissions with respect to conditions of house arrest, Mr. Mahjoub’s defence counsel asked that the court consider finally acting on a request made October 30 for production of the CBSA national policy manual, which had till then been considered top secret. Asked why the document had not been handed over to the special advocate (who is allowed to view secret information but not speak with Mahjoub), a government lawyer said there were “national security confidentiality” concerns. That lawyer was rebuked by the judge, who wondered why a secret document could not be given to the security-cleared individual tasked with seeing secret information and arguing for its public release.

Implausible rationalizations ensued, but the judge saw no reason why a secret hearing could not proceed on the question of the manual. Following the clearing of the court and a sweep for “bugs,” or listening devices that may have “compromised national security,” an “in camera” secret hearing was held, during which the special advocate argued that the document should be released to Mr. Mahjoub and his lawyers. After almost five hours of argument, about which Mr. Mahjoub, his public lawyers, the press, and the public are allowed to know nothing, the document, partially redacted, was finally released.

Entitled “Security Certificate Case Monitoring,” it provides a fairly biased view that would likely scare and confuse CBSA officers tasked with following the detainees. Indeed, with scare-mongering headings like “There is no zero risk situation,” it repeatedly states that these individuals have “links to terrorism,” a specious and defamatory allegation that has not been proven in a fair and legal process. Under a security certificate, such an allegation does not even have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court, and is normally based on wholly secret information.

If the officer’s pulse has not already increased by this point in the material, it will surely go up a notch upon reading the bold-faced heading that “National security must not be compromised.” Given that no rational discussion ensues about what this means -- only that bold statement that something really important is on the line without really explaining what it is -- perhaps Dirty Harry theme music now goes onto the ipod, while agents visualize themselves as versions of renegade copper Clint Eastwood on the streets of Toronto and Ottawa.

Amidst the fear-mongering are also moments of curious writing choices, as in the section that defines risk as “the chance that something bad will occur.”

CLOSE PHYSICAL MONITORING
The presumption of guilt that is built into security certificates drips from the manual. A heading called “Challenges to monitoring” explains that “it is probable that the ISSCs [individuals subject to security certificates] will continually oppose monitoring and seek to weaken or remove the release conditions.” Why this seems to be a “bad” thing is not explained, especially since this right to review and change conditions is built right into the legislation. Additionally, it does not address the fact that individuals who have never been charged with, much less convicted, of any crimes, might object to such onerous conditions when they have yet to face a process that is consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Also not explained is the humiliating nature of the conditions, which reduce the men and their families to appendages in some futuristic surveillance state in which they cannot drive anywhere without state agents following so close that rear-ending is possible, and where beloved children’s toys are seized and held for six months based on the suspicion that they may constitute a threat to national security (as in the case of one family’s seized Wii this past summer).

Officers are instructed to engage in close physical monitoring to “watch and listen to the ISSC during outings,” a practice that not only comes off as harassment, but also makes the court-approved supervisor (usually the detainee’s wife or adult child) feel they are not trusted. Imagine being in a food court or restaurant on one of your three weekly government-approved outings, and the close proximity clearly identified officers would need to be to “listen to” the targetted individual, and one can get a sense of how intimidating this practice can be, especially for young children.

The manual instructs its officers to be on the lookout for any behaviour or action that may constitute a “threat to national security,” without the terms “threat” or “national security” defined. In discussing how to approve a detainee’s home (because detainees can only live in a certain house that must be approved by the government), they are asked to determine “does the surrounding area pose a risk to national security or public safety in any way?”

Under a section entitled “residence check,” officers are told they may enter a detainee’s house to conduct a search but must do so with respect, but “where there are reasonable grounds to believe that there is a potential risk, officer safety will take precedence over cultural, religious and gender considerations.” Given the pumped-up manner in which the institution presents the issue to its officers, a case can no doubt be made that officers are always on guard against such perceived (albeit completely unsubstantiated) risk, and numerous complaints from various detainees about the manner in which such sensitivity considerations have not always been respected support this conclusion.

DO VISITORS SUPPORT “VIOLENT JIHAD?”
The manual encourages CBSA officers to maintain ongoing communication with detainees’ supervisors (usually wives, grown sons and daughters, and community members who came forward) “to work through minor difficulties without the involvement of the court and to obtain valuable information about the integrity of the ISSC supervisor.” In other words, supervisors, who have been approved by the court, nonetheless remain under suspicion by CBSA, which wants to maintain “integrity checks” on them.

In a sign of what may be yet to come, individuals who have been approved as visitors may, according to the manual, be subjected to a search upon entering or leaving the detainee’s residence (even though this is not contained in any court order). The document references an as yet unseen “Visitor Consent to Search form” which has yet to be presented. Indeed, at every review of conditions, the passage of time should, in theory, allow for a loosening of these restrictions, but at every opportunity, CBSA is attempting to put even more restrictions on the detainees.

As it is, some potential visitors have tended to shy away from applying for approval, given that the application form demands, in addition to basic identification information, the name, address, and phone number of their employer. All individuals wishing to visit the men and their families must answer two final questions: “Does the visitor named support terrorism or violent jihad? Has the visitor attended any training camp or guesthouse operated by any entity that supports terrorism or violent jihad?” Not exactly the kind of routine one normally goes through upon making dinner arrangements with your friends.

INTELLIGENCE GATHERING UNDER THE GUISE OF MONITORING COMPLIANCE
All of these intrusive measures were put in place only after receiving signed consents from the detainees and their adult children. Those consents were specific with respect to the issue of monitoring compliance with conditions, nothing more.

Yet in one of the most telling passages of the CBSA document, one sees the manner in which this house arrest scheme has become an unauthorized government tool to gather intelligence about all manner of people associated with the individual targetted by the government. The section on phone taps states that “telephone monitoring can also be a valuable source of information on the ISSC as well as their supervisor and associates [i.e., their friends, none of whom are subject to security certificates but all of whom are now the subject of investigation].

This is clearly the sign of an agency acting way beyond the limits of the terms imposed by the court. As with the case of listening in on solicitor-client calls, this instance shows again that CBSA is unable to adhere to the law or to the orders of the Federal Court. The price for a detainee who breaches a condition is jail; the price for the government is a yawn, a shrug from the court, and a plea to simply move on with a process that regularly violates the detainee’s rights.

The CBSA document then states that telephone taps are “most beneficial after a catalyst event, such as a residence search, interview, spot check or interactions during an outing or appointment. These occurrences, along with what the ISSC says and who they say it to, could be valuable information that leads to additional targets.”

Additional targets? In essence, house arrest becomes a huge fishing expedition for the government. Say Mr. Mahjoub is walking down the street, accompanied by a court-approved supervisor who is tasked with monitoring compliance with the conditions and reporting any breaches (hence making the well-funded CBSA surveillance completely redundant), and he bids “good morning” to a passerby. Does the passerby become the target of investigation? Does that individual’s photo, sent to Ottawa by CBSA, end up as part of an information exchange containing no caveats? Will it eventually be used if that bystander travels overseas and is detained at the request of Canadian officials for questioning, perhaps even torture, by the Syrians or Egyptians (the kind of scenario we have seen documented by two recent federal inquiries into Canadian complicity in the torture of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin)?

The manual then states that the use of these surveillance tools is not just to detect breaches of conditions (which, again, the men point out, is a task entrusted to the court-approved supervisors): “Even when a breach of conditions is not apparent, the information may be beneficial for intelligence purposes.”

When the detainees and their loved ones consented to opening of their mail and tapped phone lines as a condition of house arrest, they did not consent to such information being used for investigation purposes, only to monitor compliance with conditions of release. The CBSA’s stated position that they are only monitoring the men is undermined by the next sentence, which states “Where possible, monitoring officers should attempt to gather intelligence for use by headquarters, the regions and other government departments.” Who knows where this “information-sharing” ends, and the degree of harm that may come to individuals who suddenly find themselves on no-fly lists, rendered to a third country, denied employment for mysterious reasons, all because of the secretive actions of over-zealous, racially-profiling agencies like CBSA, CSIS, the RCMP, Foreign Affairs, and the Department of “Justice.”

THE BROADER, BIZARRE CONTEXT
Of course, all of this falls into a bizarre context: state violations of court orders that allow for such invasive practices as phone taps as a condition of getting out of jail to be with one’s family are small details in the much broader picture. What right does the Canadian government have to employ the repressive security certificate measures that create such abuses in the first place? Condemned by international human rights bodies, the United Nations, and people from coast to coast in this country, the secret trials process, in addition to the grave consequences for those targetted and their loved ones, is contributing to a variety of precedents that auger a surveillance society that is not as far away as some would think.

As this week’s hearing ends, and Mr. Mahjoub now awaits a decision (along with similar decisions on house arrest conditions being awaited by detainees Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohamed Harkat), CBSA, CSIS, the RCMP, and other government agencies continue sitting high above any concept of accountability, enjoying a culture of impunity. They can listen to privileged calls for two years, they can exceed the limitations of a court order, they can get away with behaviour that constitutes harassment and violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and they can certainly be complicit in torture (as was found in the O’Connor and Iacobucci inquiries), and no one is charged, no one is demoted, no one is held responsible.

Meanwhile, scheduling is now taking place to conduct the rendition-to-torture hearings of the five secret trial detainees, slated to begin this spring and summer.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: CAMPAIGN TO STOP SECRET TRIALS IN CANADA, PO BOX 73620, 509 ST. CLAIR AVE. WEST, TORONTO, ON M6C 1C0, TASC@WEB.CA

Democracy Broke Out

2008-10-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

When Democracy Broke out at Carolyn Bennett’s Election office:
Tiny Vigil at office of Secret-Trials-and-Deportations-to -Torture Supporter Bennett Draws Angry Office Response

Toronto, October, 2008 -- One would have hoped that the sick individual or individuals who have been going through the ridings of Toronto Liberals, spray-painting homes and slicing brake lines, could have found another way to express displeasure with the Liberals that did not involve putting people’s lives at risk.

One of the ridings subject to this horrifying hooliganism was that of Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett who, along with her “leader” Stephane Dion, rightly condemned the physical attacks as undemocratic and dangerous -- cutting brake lines gets into an area where people’s lives are at very real risk.

While most would certainly agree with their sentiment and concern, one has to wonder what kind of country we would live in if such sentiments were equally applied to all people in Canada (and around the world), and not simply to those who, because of their support for the Liberals, have been targetted.

Indeed, these Liberals have shown little concern for the people of Afghanistan, whose lives they agreed would have to be put at continued risk of torture and murder at the hands of Canadian troops when they voted to extend the occupation until at least 2011. These sacrifices of the Afghan people were necessary to prevent what the Liberals perceived as their own drubbing at the polls had they decided to show some backbone and call for the earlier withdrawal of Canadian troops.

LIBERAL SUPPORT ENSURED PASSAGE OF SECRET TRIALS BILL

Nor did the Liberals show any concern for individuals who continue to face indefinite detention without charge based on secret evidence and two-tier justice when, earlier this year, they fell in with the Tories and voted in favour of new security certificate legislation that, in the end result, will produce legally-sanctioned renditions to torture.

Some Liberals abstained from voting on the legislation (hardly an honourable neutrality. As Desmond Tutu reminds us, “If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”)

But numerous Liberals, including Carolyn Bennett (a physician), voted FOR it, despite the human rights abuses associated with it, depsite the medical consequences of torture and prolonged detention without charge. Bennett was one of numerous Liberal MPs who met with our campaign during the run-up to the vote on the bill, and expressed her concerns at the unfairness of the legislation. Yet she went ahead and voted for it anyway (full list of shame of all MPs who voted yes to secret trials appears at the bottom of this posting)

To protest such cowardice, and the Liberals’ role in not only putting lives at risk, but putting democracy at risk (how can it not be when there is two-tier justice?), two members of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada held a noon-hour vigil recently at Ms. Bennett’s campaign office at Eglinton and Bathurst.

(The vigil took place long before the cut brake lines and graffitti incidents marred the campaign. )

What was most interesting about the day was the horrified reaction of her election staff and volunteers when a little bit of democracy broke out on the sidewalk in front of their office. Holding a banner that read “Stop Secret Trials in Canada: End Deportations to Torture,” the two individuals were fairly dwarfed by the massive windows filled with Bennett signs and gaudy paeans to the greatness of Liberals.

Office staff curious about the banner were informed why we had chosen to be there, but refused to allow that what we were doing was in any way acceptable.

“You must be working for Stephen Harper,” one agitated staffer declared.

“Does it not concern you that Carolyn Bennett voted for secret trials and deportations to torture,” we ask.

“No she didn’t.”

“We can show you the Hansard record of Parliament that shows she clearly did.”

They try and change the subject.

“Well, she had no choice, there could have been an election” if she actually voted against the bill.

“Well, we have an election right now, what’s the difference? She and the Liberals caved on everything Harper wanted to do, they didn’t force the election, Harper chose it. If anything, the Liberals are the Harper supporters.”

VIGIL ACCUSED OF BEING WITH THE TORIES

We continue handing out flyers and speaking with passersby as agitated staff continue ranting inside, pointing accusatory fingers at us. The individual who appears to be the lead staffer takes time out from calling potential voters to make up a placard of her own. “These people are supporting Harper!” the sign reads, with two arrows pointing left and right. She takes time out of her busy schedule and comes outside to paste the sign on the office window.

“Don’t you see what you’re doing?” she demands. “You’re trying to get Harper elected!”

As more volunteers filter into the office, few stop to discuss the issue with us. Many carry with them that sick sense of entitlement that only the Liberals should be allowed to govern Canada, and no one seems concerned that their candidate, the one they spend hours knocking on doors for, supports secret trials and deportations to torture.

No one, that is, until two young volunteers come out and ask what this is about.

“I have an uncle who spent nine years in an Albanian jail without ever being charged,” says one of the volunteers, noting that what we are talking about sounds a lot like whather uncle went through. She takes our flyers, and as we discuss the issue, the agitated staffer comes out again and yells at us to stop “harassing” her staff.

So much for all the Liberal rhetoric about how elections should be about issues. We show up to discuss an issue and, rather than looking at the facts of the situation, we are dismissed as Harper supporters who have no right to protest.

Bennett will likely win in her riding, where she’s been a shoo-in for the past decade. But democracy lost that January day when she and fellow Liberals voted to put lives at risk by voting for secret trials and deportations to torture.

The Secret Trials List of Shame:

Below is a list of shame, individuals who voted in Parliament on 6 February 2008 for secret trials, two-tier justice, indefinite detention without charge, invasive surveillance and control orders, and deportation to torture. The NDP is the only party whose members all stood against the bill.

Abbott
Ablonczy
Albrecht
Allen
Allison
Ambrose
Anders
Anderson
Bagnell
Bains
Baird
Barnes
Batters
Bélanger
Bell (North Vancouver)
Bennett
Benoit
Bernier
Bevilacqua
Bezan
Blackburn
Blaney
Bonin
Boshcoff
Boucher
Breitkreuz
Brison
Brown (Leeds—Grenville)
Brown (Barrie)
Bruinooge
Byrne
Calkins
Cannan (Kelowna—Lake Country)
Cannon (Pontiac)
Carrie
Casson
Chamberlain
Chan
Chong
Clement
Coderre
Comuzzi
Cotler
Cullen (Etobicoke North)
Cummins
Cuzner
D'Amours
Day
Del Mastro
Devolin
Dhaliwal
Dion
Dosanjh
Doyle
Dryden
Dykstra
Easter
Emerson
Epp
Eyking
Fast
Finley
Fitzpatrick
Flaherty
Fletcher
Fry
Galipeau
Gallant
Godfrey
Goodale
Goodyear
Gourde
Grewal
Guarnieri
Guergis
Hanger
Harris
Harvey
Hawn
Hearn
Hiebert
Hill
Hinton
Holland
Hubbard
Ignatieff
Jaffer
Jean
Jennings
Kadis
Kamp (Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission)
Karetak-Lindell
Keddy (South Shore—St. Margaret's)
Keeper
Kenney (Calgary Southeast)
Khan
Komarnicki
Kramp (Prince Edward—Hastings)
Lake
Lauzon
Lebel
LeBlanc
Lemieux
Lukiwski
Lunn
Lunney
MacAulay
MacKenzie
Malhi
Maloney
Mark
Marleau
Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca)
Matthews
Mayes
McCallum
McGuinty
McGuire
McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood)
McTeague
Menzies
Merrifield
Miller
Mills
Moore (Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam)
Moore (Fundy Royal)
Murphy (Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe)
Murphy (Charlottetown)
Neville
Nicholson
Norlock
O'Connor
Obhrai
Oda
Pacetti
Pallister
Paradis
Patry
Petit
Poilievre
Prentice
Preston
Proulx
Rajotte
Ratansi
Redman
Regan
Reid
Richardson
Ritz
Rota
Russell
Savage
Scheer
Schellenberger
Scott
Sgro
Shipley
Simard
Simms
Skelton
Smith
Solberg
Sorenson
St. Amand
St. Denis
Steckle
Storseth
Strahl
Sweet
Szabo
Temelkovski
Thibault (West Nova)
Thompson (New Brunswick Southwest)
Thompson (Wild Rose)
Tilson
Toews
Tonks
Trost
Turner
Tweed
Valley
Van Kesteren
Van Loan
Vellacott
Verner
Volpe
Wallace
Wappel
Warawa
Warkentin
Watson
Wilfert
Williams
Yelich
Zed

Don't Deport Ivan to Torture

2008-10-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

IVAN APAOLAZA SANCHO: HUNGERSTRIKE ENDED AS REFUGEE PREPARES
PSYCHOLOGICALLY FOR TORTURE

Deportation in one week unless Federal Court grants stay

:::: Renewed call for support, 10 October 2008 ::::

Basque refugee Ivan Apaolaza Sancho yesterday ended a week-long hungerstrike - which included three days complete fast (without water). The authorities of Montreal's Rivière des prairies prison, where he has been held for over 15 months without trial, had responded to the hungerstrike by putting Ivan in isolation, removing his clothes, glasses and books, and
severely limiting his telephone access. Ivan is now out of isolation; his clothes, glasses, books and telephone access have been restored.

In a call to one of his supporters, Ivan explained that he had ended his hungerstrike in order to better prepare psychologically for the possibility of being deported and facing torture. In isolation, cut off from the outside world, stripped of clothing and glasses, he felt that he was being broken down mentally so that the physical torture later would be easier.

Last week Ivan was told that he would be deported to Spain on Friday, 17 October. The Ligue des droits et libertés stated that they are "greatly concerned about several aspects of the treatment Mr. Apaolaza Sancho will face in Spain: on top of secret or incommunicado detention, and on top of the practise of dispersal or continual transfer of prisoners detained for
terrorism by the Spanish authorities, there is the fact that this person strongly risks being perceived by Spanish authorities as an important source of information ..." (Denis Barrette, 7 October) Spain has been criticized for its use of torture by Amnesty International, as well as European Union and United Nations human rights bodies.

Ivan's lawyers have filed for a Federal Court review of Immigration Canada's negative Pre-removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) decision, and will ask for a stay of deportation, but there is no guarantee that the Federal Court will accept the appeal or grant the stay. If the Federal Court refuses to review the PRRA, there is nothing to prevent the deportation save a direct
intervention by federal ministers.

Interviewed on 30 September, Ivan explained what he is facing, "I have experience of friends, family members that have been tortured. One of the first things that I remember when I was a kid is seeing my uncle in bed after being tortured for ten days. And I have a lot of friends who have been tortured and after - because of the declarations under torture - they spend eight, ten years in jail."

He continued, "It is not only the torture. It is also the conditions that Basque prisoners have in Spain. It is the big sentences that they are given for - whatever, even if you don't commit a crime, even if they didn't prove anything, they say that you are a member of a political party that is illegal now and you can face 10 years. I could face 20 years in jail."

In May 2008, the Commissioner Louis Dubé of the Immigration and Refugee Board ordered Ivan deported from Canada on the basis of allegations against Ivan made by the Spanish state. Contrary to mainstream media reports, the government has produced NO evidence to support those allegations which would link Ivan to any crime or to the ETA (a Basque armed militant group considered by Canada to be a 'terrorist organization'). The ONLY information the government has supplied to make its case consists of unproven Spanish police warrants. And the only piece of information in these unproven warrants which could link Ivan to the ETA comes from the confession of a Basque activist which a Canadian tribunal recognized was probably obtained under torture. This is the basis on which Ivan has been imprisoned for 15
months, stripped of his right to apply for asylum in Canada, and faces deportation to possible torture and abuse.

Full interview with Ivan linked at:
www.radio4all.net:8080/files/jaggisingh@gmail.com/2840-4-ivansancho-final.mp
3

Background information on Ivan: http://peoplescommission.org/ivan.php

YOUR SUPPORT IS REQUESTED:

1. Please stay in touch with us to learn about public actions in the coming days and weeks. Join the support list for Ivan to learn of any developments or emergency actions: send an email to
libertepourivan-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.

2. Have your organization write a statement protesting Canada's violation of Ivan's rights and calling on Stockwell Day to intervene (details at
http://peoplescommission.org/ivan.php, in the 'What you can do' section).

---------------
Freedom for Ivan Committee
libertepourivan@gmail.com
tel. 514 848 7583
http://peoplescommission.org/ivan.php

Secrets and Lies

2008-10-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

Report for Bail Hearing of Hassan Almrei

Toronto, October 5, 2008 -- In the middle of what we are often told is the signal moment of democracy – a federal election campaign – none of the national party leaders has found time to comment on the fact that during the past month, a series of secret rendition-to-torture hearings have been occurring at undisclosed locations in Ottawa. Neither the detainees affected, nor their lawyers, has been allowed to attend these hearings or contest the allegations that could wind them up in Syrian, Egyptian, Algerian, and Moroccan torture chambers.

All this is possible because of security certificate legislation that was passed earlier this year with the Tories and Liberals voting hand in hand. The purpose of these hearings is to forcibly remove those subject to certificates from Canada, and in the five cases currently pending, all face torture if deported.

As a symbolic sop to those who are concerned about civil rights in Canada, the legislation does allow the detainee a show hearing that is held in public, yet the core of the matter -- if indeed such a “core” does exist, and that’s doubtful at best -- will be heard in secret.

FOURTH ATTEMPT AT BAIL

This past week in Toronto, detainee Hassan Almrei, who on October 19 will mark seven years of indefinite detention without charge, began the public portion of his bail hearing, his fourth effort to get out from behind bars at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (aka Gitmo North), where he remains the last of the secret trial detainees to be in a physical jail. The other four are suffering, along with their families, under a pernicious regime of house arrest that is having devastating consequences, especially on their wives, parents, and children.

Almrei, who spent his first four years and three months in solitary confinement, again finds himself in the most expensive solitary confinement cell in Canada, a $3.2 million facility with a staff of 21, often described as a maximum security jail inside a maximum security jail.

In the open portion of the secret hearing this past week, two witnesses for the government addressed both the ongoing efforts to deport Hassan as well as the unsubstantiated reasons why he should not be transferred to house arrest. In many respects, the hearings were depressing not only for their patent injustice, but also for the repetitive nature of the story that repeatedly gets told in such settings, despite the passage of time and the fact that the certificate process was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2007. Notably, the “replacement” model was condemned as unconstitutional by leading law associations across the land, but passed by both the House and Senate with no serious review.

Hassan’s hearing came on the heels of a constitutional challenge (see a report on the challenge at http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/2008/10/where-are-canadas-judicial.html). It begins with a chilling report from the Federal Court judge who says, with no particular sense of horror, that the court has begun secret hearings in Ottawa in the absence of Mr. Almrei, and that the secret hearings would continue next week.

REMOVAL TO TORTURE STANDARD PROCEDURE

The government’s first witness is Marc Towaij, the Acting Director of Enforcement in the National Security Division of the Canadian Border Services Agency. A man who has worked as an “immigration escort” for deportees and as a “senior removals officer”, Towaij had been asked to assist in preparations to “remove” Mr. Almrei to torture in Syria in 2003. This was around the same time an internal government document (later released at the Arar Inquiry) was being written, conceding that the Canadian government did not have enough information against Almrei to lay a criminal charge against him. The memo, written for then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham, was more concerned with the media fallout from such a deportation than the risk to Almrei himself. The conclusion: this could affect our ability to deport other detainees. it may give Canada a black eye on the world stage, so develop media lines.

Towaij testifies about the lengthy process that would follow a finding that a certificate is reasonable, discussing how a danger opinion is formulated (no need to go through the lengthy process here; suffice it to say that in all of these cases, the conclusion is always the same: deportation regardless of the substantial risk of torture, a conclusion based on secret information).

Like his government colleagues in such hearings, Towaij speaks in that bizarre language of looking out for the rights of the individual he seeks to deport to torture. These cases are a priority and must move quickly, he says, for after all, “Mr. Almrei is detained.”

Towaij says such cases require a charter aircraft (but fails to mention that the go-to company in this case is Skyservice Business Aviation (for background on this area of complicity in torture, see http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/2008/08/you-cant-get-there-from-here-comedy-of.html)

Under cross examination, Towaij is asked whether he had any concerns -- especially following the return to Canada of Maher Arar, who spoke publicly about his year of torture in a Syrian hellhole -- that Mr. Almrei might face a similar risk of torture. He is asked this because, on his deportation papers, Almrei was listed at the time as a “terrorist suspect,” a tag that surely would have wound him up in a torture chamber.

“That is our standard procedure for a removal order,” Towaij explains.

“Are there no exceptions” when it comes to concerns that such standard procedure might place someone at risk of torture, he’s asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Towaij replies.

Did Towaij check with someone else to see whether this standard procedure might place Almrei at risk? Were any precautions taken?

“No,” comes the terse reply.

Was Towaij familiar with Maher Arar’s torture in Syria? He says he was.

“As a removals officer shouldn’t you consider whether your actions place [Hassan] at risk?” he’s asked again.

JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS

“My requirement is to enforce the order,” Towaij states blankly, causing what’s known as “the Nuremberg ripple” in the viewing gallery (at Nuremberg, Nazi officers tried to use the “just following orders” defence for their participation in torture, among other atrocities).

“That was our practice. No, I was not concerned. My job was not to worry about risk.”

And so it goes, one of the reasons there will be another Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture this October (for more info see http://homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/search/label/end%20torture)

The next day, the government presents a CSIS witness who is only identified as “Sukhvindar,” who says he cannot provide his full name for national security reasons. A former military intelligence officer (pardon the oxymoron), he has been at CSIS since 1991, where he is now a chief of intelligence. He claims that “Sunni Muslim extremism represents a continuing threat to our national security”, and says that Hassan Almrei “adheres to a violent philosophy that relies on the use of force.”

Almrei has always flatly denied any support for violence, but the basis for this opinion of his beliefs is wholly secret evidence that he cannot see. Sukhvindar, like previous CSIS agents who have testified against Almrei, has never met or interviewed Hassan, and bases his opinion solely on what he has read in the public record and, one can assume, an extreme case of racist profiling. (One courtroom observer says that the description wrongfully assigned to Almrei -- “adheres to a violent philosophy that relies on the use of force” -- sounds a lot like former Canadian warlord General Rick Hillier, who earlier this year abandoned his troops in Afghanistan for the prettier pastures of the private sector. Hillier is famous for noting that the job of the Canadian Forces is to be able to kill people.)

Sukhvindar repeats the unsubstantiated theory (popular in CSIS circles) that Almrei would be a threat because, even though under house arrest, surrounded by surveillance cameras, his phone tapped, and a GPS device attached to his ankle, Hassan would remain someone with the “pedigree” that would constitute the kind of star power that would influence others.

This fantasy world theory, dreamed up in the CSIS world of tunnel vision, has been applied to other detainees who were subsequently released (though CSIS continues to disagree with the soundness of such decisions!)

CSIS admits that Hassan is not a member of Al Qaeda nor does it believe he will engage in violence in Canada. But what the agent DOES believe is that Hassan has “the background, training, experience, willingness, and commitment” to help those who would do evil. CSIS is concerned he might counsel others on the nefarious art of terror support (something about which Almrei knows absolutely nothing), even though every visitor to his house arrest scene would have to be government approved, and only outings that are approved far in advance with approved individuals, an approved route, and agent surveillance would be allowed.

Playing the game of guilt by 18 degrees of separation, Sukhvindar says that Hassan once knew a man in Afghanistan who went on to fight in Chechnya (and was killed in 2002). The danger here is that Chechan rebels (who have never committed actions outside of Chechnya or Russia) might want to strike at Russian targets anywhere in the world, perhaps, he says with a suggestiveness that seems painfully and awkwardly planned, the Russian embassy in Ottawa. If you can’t follow that, welcome to the club.

He also says Hassan might engage in the use of clandestine methodologies, such as making three way calls (on his tapped phone).

CSIS AND THE WORLD OF MAXWELL SMART

Then again, he might take a cue from Maxwell Smart and use code words.

“Language is a key. You might say the coffee is good at Starbucks,” Sukhvindar says, which could be code for a jihadist call to action.

Sukhvindar is asked whether CSIS has a relationship with Syrian Military Intelligence, an agency with a horrific record of human rights abuses. He says he is not allowed to speak to that (national security), even though this was part of the public record at the Arar Inquiry. “I’m not aware of that section of the Arar Report,” he says. Sukhvindar also says he has visited the Middle East but cannot say where. This answer seems like a result of CSIS analysis of previous testimony, where agents who have admitted to travelling in certain parts of the world open themselves up to questions they’d rather not answer because it would prove politically embarrassing. For example, one agent testified he took training in Egypt, another country with a rather awful human rights record.

Sukhvindar does not speak or read Arabic, has never met Almrei, has only seen the public allegations, and does not even know whether CSIS ever interviewed Hassan.

He also says he has no understanding of the current situation in Syria and, like past CSIS witnesses, refuses to agree that torture is commonplace there, stating only that he is aware of such “accusations.”

Like all CSIS employees, Sukhvindar, though under oath, regularly withholds information that would provide a more complete picture on Hassan. The concept of the whole truth and nothing but the truth escapes him, and so he uses his platform to throw in scary-sounding allegations, without being questioned about him. His favourite, repeated twice, is that Hassan once had access to a “secure area” of a major Canadian airport.

“Did you know Mr. Almrei was employed at the airport?’ he is asked.

“No,” he replies. (Cleaners and many other airport staff work in “secure areas” at Pearson!!!)

Hastening back to the world of scare mongering, the CSIS man opines, “I could speculate for hours and hours about how [Almrei] could promote violent jihad.” Of course, he neglects to see the weak limb he has crawled out on: it would only be that, speculation, since he has failed to present anything other than low-rent spy theories that have no basis in fact.

Sukhvindar is asked whether any of those released on control orders in Canada have breached their conditions.

“I cannot answer that,” he says, implying they have but he cannot get into how.

“So if you knew a detainee was breaching the release conditions you wouldn’t bring it to the attention of the court?” he is asked.

“We don’t monitor them in that way.”

“Do you have any information on breaches that have occurred?”

“That would be getting into classified information.”

(Notably, none of those currently on control orders have been returned to jail, though in one instance last January, Ottawa’s Mohamed Harkat was pulled out of the shower by state agents a few days before a review of his conditions for rather ridiculous reasons that, again, had everything to do with politics, and nothing to do with “security”. After a few days in jail he was returned to house arrest).

And so it goes. As Sukhvindar leaves the court, his briefcase’s security key dangling on top (maybe there’s important information in there!), the judge announces he will retire for more secret hearings in the absence of Mr. Almrei and his lawyers.

Meanwhile, political party leaders and media pundits prepare for their “democracy is working in Canada” lines as election day approaches. Hassan will no doubt read about the returns from his solitary confinement cell at Canada’s Guantanamo North.

Where are Canada's Judicial Whistleblowers? Secret Trial Dispatches

2008-10-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

Dispatches from the Land of Secret Trials where: Hassan Almrei marks seven years of indefinite detention without charge; Federal Court Chief Justice Alan Lutfy wonders why people are demanding the highest level of fundamental justice for secret trials cases; Secret Rendition-to-Torture Hearings Are Now Ongoing at Undisclosed locations in Ottawa

TORONTO, OCTOBER 1, 2008 – Last week, a U.S. military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay exhibited a quality that appears wholly lacking in Canada’s own Justice Department. Call it conscience, call it courage, call it a career-ender, but Army Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld rediscovered something called ethics when he realized that his own office was failing to turn over exculpatory material to lawyers for an Afghan detainee (ie, materials that would work in favour of the detainee).

Mr. Vandeveld is not the first to desert Gitmo’s rigged process, which he described as “slipshod.” Numerous others -- Maj. Robert Preston, Capt. John Carr and Capt. Carrie Wolf, as well as Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantanamo’s military commissions -- also asked to be relieved of their Gitmo duties for similar reasons, with one of them explaining that “he had been assured he didn’t need to worry about building a proper case; convictions were assured.” (as reported by Scott Horton, “The Great Guantanamo Puppet Theater,” Harper’s Magazine).

WHERE ARE CANADA’S WHISTLEBLOWERS?

One wonders what’s taking so long for Canadian Justice Department lawyers to show a similar amount of courage. After all, just as detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are denied access to the secret case against them (one often built on information gleaned from torture), so detainees under Canada’s security certificate procedure are similarly denied the right to know why they have been detained indefinitely, without charge, based on secret information that is likely to have been derived from torture. (Canadian spy agency CSIS’s own oversight body, SIRC, produced a report last February confirming Canada’s scandal-plagued spy agency does use information gleaned from torture. As usual, Canadian media outlets failed to make much of it.)

After the secret hearing procedure was declared unconstitutional by Canada’s Supreme Court in February, 2007, Bill C-3, designed to replace the old law, was born eight months later, essentially a carbon copy with a couple of window dressing changes. Rushed through Parliament at the speed of light, with barely a hint of consultation, MPs and Senators nonetheless heard a litany of complaint from leading law associations across this land that declared it would not pass a Charter challenge. How, one wonders, did the Justice Dept. lawyers who must have screened the bill before it was tabled last fall, perform the ethical calisthenics required to hold their noses and look the other way as this juridical disaster was readied for public presentation?

As was predicted at the time, the new bill would only create further legal challenges and result in nothing but further misery for the detainees and their families, who continue to live with the fear of deportation to torture.

WHEN THE GOVERNMENT’S CASE ALWAYS WINS

As for those Justice Department lawyers who continue to prosecute these cases, one wonders if they breathe a C-3 sigh of relief that, as with their brethren at Gitmo, they can rest assured they don’t need to worry about building a proper case, as convictions are assured under a process so terminally biased against a detainee. (Technically, there is no conviction in an upheld certificate, since there is no charge; rather, there is only a finding of “reasonableness,” which is the lowest threshold to be met in any Canadian court)

Indeed, even with the addition of a so-called special advocate (who can see what’s in the secret file but is prohibited not only from revealing what’s there, but also from communicating with anyone, including the detainee, without a judge’s permission), the individual detained still does not know the case any more today than when the law was declared unconstitutional. And even if the Special Advocates are able to mount a significant and vigorous challenge to the secret allegations, they are likely to run into the brick wall of the reasonableness standard.

The idea that upheld certificates are supposed to be “assured” was no more evident than in the internal review undertaken by the Inspector General of CSIS after Mahmoud Jaballah, detained for seven months in 1999 on a certificate, had his case quashed by the Federal Court, which found the certificate was “not reasonable.” The goal of the review was to determine “whether the Service's security intelligence report was a credible, balanced and accurate representation of the case against Jaballah; and whether the case against Jaballah was presented well enough.” Which is strange, considering that role belongs solely to the court under the security certificate scheme, and that the issue had been decided in 1999.

But when the cards are stacked against a detainee and the detainee still wins, Canada’s spies refuse to accept the verdict. Individuals concerned with how a judiciary is supposed to work in a democratic state might pause here and wonder why, when a certificate was already reviewed and found to be not credible by the body tasked with this process, it is second guessed by the CSIS Inspector General. The Inspector General’s conclusion? “Our assessment of the security intelligence report concluded that it was a well-founded account of an accurate, credible, and balanced case...It was difficult to follow the reasoning of the Court in reaching the decision that it did.”

The conclusion of this 2000 report was “Even though this security certificate was an accurate presentation of the facts, we took note of and encouraged Service initiatives underway that would make security intelligence reports more cogent and compelling when presented to the Court.”

JABALLAH MEETS A CASE OF DOUBLE JEOPARDY

That report must have served in its own humble way as a green light that encouraged CSIS to issue a new certificate against Jaballah in 2001, relying on a “new interpretation” of a case already dismissed as not credible by the Federal Court two years earlier. Perhaps garnishing their new report with language designed to appear more “cogent and compelling,” CSIS got its way this time, with the certificate upheld and Jaballah detained until 2007, when he was transferred to a draconian house arrest where, to this day, an outing for a jug of milk requires special permission from state authorities.

Which brings us to the present, and a new round of secret trials this fall. Given that this process is designed to produce deportation orders, and that all five men subject to certificates face a substantial likelihood of torture if deported to their countries of birth, they might be more properly called “rendition-to-torture hearings in search of a judicial seal of approval."

Anyone who follows these cases might readily conclude that the courage and insight found wanting in Canada’s Justice Department is matched by the Federal Court, which, after the security certificate scheme was declared unconstitutional, behaved as if nothing had changed, denying bail to one of the detainees because of findings made under that unconstitutional process and refusing to relax the stringent house arrest of the other four. One Federal Court judge noted with a fair degree of certainty, in what can be accurately described as a preferential option for the powerful, that “I do not believe that the Supreme Court intended the previous rulings are to be revisited or that current proceedings necessarily are to be altered as a result of its determination.”

Hence, individuals whose lives are made hell by an unconstitutional process are not allowed, in the eyes of this and other judges, to revisit decisions made under that fundamentally flawed and unfair process.

The Federal Court has done more than its fair share in supporting the secret trial process. For example, it took the unprecedented step of posting the unsubstantiated CSIS allegations on their website. It also funded the study of a special advocate system designed to save the secret trial process rather than explore how such draconian measures could be justified in the first place. It also appointed five judges to the new sets of hearings, all of whom have already made negative findings about the detainees, such that one cannot help but wonder about a possible apprehension of bias.

And if there is not outright bias, there surely might be reasonable grounds to believe that the psychological and political pressure on these judges might be similar to the dynamics that forced the resignation of the Guantanamo chief prosecutor. Col. Morris recalled that he was told by his superior that “We can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.”

APPREHENSION OF BIAS IN FEDERAL COURT?

While it might sound far-fetched to state that the federal court judges are receiving similar marching orders, common sense and the patterns of power lead one to ponder whether a dynamic similar in tone and content to that which forced Col. Morris’ resignation might be an unspoken, perhaps even subconscious element at play here in Canada.

Indeed, is it difficult to imagine the Federal Court, having upheld this unconstitutional process in the past, and having made negative findings against the five detainees, suddenly changes its mind simply because the special advocates are part of the process? It takes nothing away from the skillful efforts that will likely be made by the special advocates to note that, for the court, a lot is on the line here. Will judges admit that they made errors in past hearings and, given the arguments of special advocates who are now in the secret chamber, suddenly say their own process of challenging government information was not up to scratch (this when one judge last year talked in open court about how “good” they were in closed session)? Will judges who likely take lunch with one another really feel comfortable coming up with a completely opposite finding from their counterparts?

These are valid questions, as judges are as fallible as the rest of us, subject to the pressures and politics of the national security scare mongering that surrounds these cases.

Then again, it is highly possible that the judges have not had access to the whole of the case (including exculpatory information). Indeed, the security certificate in practice allows the government to present what it relies upon, which does not necessarily mean all of the material in its possession. One signal of this possibility is in the order released last week by Judge Simon Noel who, following a week-long secret hearing in the absence of Mr. Harkat and his public lawyers, gave CSIS six months to produce all documentation related to the case of Ottawa detainee Mohamed Harkat. CSIS had said it needed all that time to compile all of the secret materials. Which begs the question: if the secret case was already presented to the judge hearing Harkat’s case years ago, why is it not sitting in one place, easily accessible? Or does this mean that CSIS did NOT present everything in its files related to Mr. Harkat at the previous secret hearing?

Either way, Harkat is unlikely to see any of it, since the files will only be seen by government lawyers, the judge, and the special advocates. Upon seeing that information, the possibility that a special advocate will be able to ask Harkat questions about it is an open question right now, one that led to a constitutional challenge being heard in Toronto this past week.

BAR AGAINST COMMUNICATION

As written currently, the legislation sets out a complete bar on communication related to the case by the special advocate once s/he has seen the secret file. That means no communication with the detainee, with special advocates, with public counsel for the detainee, with office staff, with Justice Dept. lawyers, even with family members of special advocates who might want to know where their loved ones are and when they’re coming home. The rationale for this is the fear of a speculative “inadvertent” breach of confidential information, even though all the advocates have been security cleared and taken an oath to protect that information.

Any attempt to communicate with the detainee, for example, must go through a process of judicial consideration and approval, thus opening up one’s potential defence not only to the judge hearing the case, but also to the government lawyers likely to be present for (and likely arguing against) the ability to further question the detainee. The process thus invites the judge and the government lawyers inside the defence’s strategy, violating the concept of solicitor-client privilege.

“What is proposed here [by the government] is that the court supervises all solicitor-client communication,” argues lawyer Marlys Edwardh, who notes such a thing has never been done in Canada and clearly violates fundamental justice. Edwardh and her colleagues are very clear: they see no reason why special advocates should be prohibited from open communication regarding matters not affected by “national security” concerns and, should those concerns arise, and only then, would it be appropriate to consider approaching a judge. Even then, it is suggested, such concerns should not be presented in front of the judge hearing the case, nor in front of the government lawyers, who would again gain an insight into defence strategy.

A brief filed by detainee Hassan Almrei’s counsel notes that “there are no equivalent restrictions on the government’s lawyers in their communication with one another or even with the named person or their counsel.....Counsel for the Minister and for CSIS has had knowledge of the secret evidence when he or she cross examines the person named in the certificate. There does not appear to have been any allegation that counsel revealed confidential information as a result of this contact.”

So severe are the current restrictions that no one knew about the secret hearing in the Harkat matter. It came as a complete surprise to the other lawyers working on related cases. After expressing their concern that they did not know about the hearing, the lawyers were asked by Chief Justice Alan Lutfy, “So what?” You know about it now, he says, which shows that, despite a slight delay, the system somehow works. Throughout the hearing, he seems to lean on the idea that the system should just work its way through and deal with problems as they arise, thus ignoring the clear charter rights breaches raised by detainees’ lawyers.

THE CHEERFUL RENDITION CONDUCTOR

Lutfy has attempted to play the role of enthusiastic, if not painfully cheerful, conductor in forcing these hearings to move ahead at any and all costs, regardless of the wishes of the detainees. Perhaps most significantly, a question he raised during the constitutional challenge betrayed a systemic bias that appears to run throughout all of these hearings: why, he asked, did security certificate cases have to be heard “at the highest level of fundamental justice?”

Lutfy had the audacity to pose this question when not thirty feet away from him sat Mohammad Mahjoub, detained from June 2000-April 2007, now under house arrest with his family and fighting deportation to torture to Egypt, and Mahmoud Jaballah, detained since August 2001, and now similarly under house arrest in Scarborough and fighting deportation to torture in Egypt. Neither man has seen the alleged “case” against him, and likely never will. Each has spent years in solitary confinement, both have suffered innumerable physical hardships, and their families have been traumatized both by the incarceration and by the intense surveillance and intrusion by state agents into their daily lives. All this has been based on a secret process (in complete opposition to the highest level of fundamental justice) designed to protect CSIS, whose prior claims to “national security confidentiality” in fora such as the Arar Inquiry have been clearly shown to do more with avoiding embarrassment over their unsavoury practices (ie, complicity in torture).

Yet the legislation as written starts with the premise that it is the secret information of CSIS, and not the rights of the detainee, that are paramount, and everything possible must be done to protect that CSIS secrets. It is in this environment that standards are so low that with two exceptions, every certificate issued since 1991 has been upheld. Government lawyer Marianne Zoric argues that preventing disclosure of the case to the detainee is “not a mean-spirited attempt to prevent the named person from having their day in court...the process is not fundamentally unfair.” She does not appear ready to join her courageous colleagues who have departed Guantanamo Bay.

Lutfy’s question about fundamental justice is an informative one. Perhaps he does not entirely grasp (or want to acknowledge) that security certificates represent two-tier justice, in which permanent residents and refugees receive a lower standard than citizens. In reply, lawyer John Norris noted that the individual’s liberty interest is engaged here in Canada and that, regardless of status, such cases deserve to have applied to them the highest level of fundamental justice.

Lufty fancies himself a casual judge, and his incessant retreat into homespun witticisms and self-congratulation might prove vaguely amusing were these not rendition-to-torture hearings. Indeed, since he took on the task of “case management” for the five secret trial cases earlier this year, his chin-up approach, constantly encouraging all parties to keep smiles on their faces and positive vibes in the air, seems well at odds with the life-and-death issues facing the five detainees.

Perhaps it is a form of cognitive dissonance -- an inability to face up to the sheer injustice of the process -- or simple guilt reduction that leads him time and again to comment on the need for fundamental justice to be part of the secret trials and rendition to torture process. Indeed, he tells the court that if he has anything to pass on to his children, it’s his “integrity.”

Throughout the two days of proceedings, he reminds us that “the court is very conscious of the open court principle,” even as he acknowledges that a secret hearing without Mr. Harkat and his lawyers just finished up last week in Ottawa and another secret hearing without Mr. Almrei and his lawyers is proceeding this very day. But nonetheless, he blithely carries on throughout the hearings in a manner bespeaking that Shakespearean quip: methinks the chief justice doth protest too much. Hence, every half hour on the hour, we hear such reminders of the virtue and natural goodness of the court...”the world works best when there’s transparency”...”we believe in open courts”...if certain decisions that should be made public are kept private, “the institution we all work for would suffer, it wouldn’t be terrific”...”we are running a fair hearing here”...CSIS should “not go too far in infringing the rights you are trying to protect”...

Symbolism is important to the federal court’s chief judge, so much so that he goes off on a tangent about the relative thickness of the “public summaries” of allegations provided by Canada versus those provided in the U.K. Such patriarchal locker room talk could no doubt form the basis of an interesting psycho-sexual thesis about our phallo-centric culture, in which size is what counts. Lutfy gets into the size issue when he recalls a conversation he had with two British special advocates last February. They were, he says, surprised to see that the public summaries of allegations in Canada were far more “substantial” than in the UK. “I showed them the summaries, and what impressed them was the inches...they don’t have [their summaries big enough to be measured by] inches over there,” Lutfy says, using his fingers to indicate the relative difference in summary sizes in what feels like a scene out of an early Woody Allen film

(Part of what gives the public security certificate cases their “inches” are the binders of newspaper clippings, web downloads and other material that have nothing to do with the detainee, but give the appearance of having built a strong case when all CSIS has to do is say person A is associated with all of this big, bad stuff.)

Lufty, ever a fan of symbolism, then says he is “very proud” of the fact that the Federal Court, in a magnanimous display of openness, now posts when secret hearings are scheduled to take place (even though no one can attend them). When a defence lawyer rises to say he has searched the website and never been able to find such notices, Lutfy reassures him that they are indeed there, but that he should contact court staff if he needs further help. Orwell would be pleased.

While these sentiments are all well and good, had they been put into practice, one wonders what place, exactly, security certificates would have in a 21st century democracy. But Lutfy’s sense of place in the world, along with the rest of his court, the government, and its spy agencies, seems to work along the lines that Lewis Lapham uses to describe the American empire: when one is convinced of one’s own sense of virtue, there is no need for the law. Hence, the virtuous Americans have gleefully cast off the Geneva Conventions as “anachronistic,” but advise us to fear not because they would never do anything untoward.

And so it is for security certificates, where we are asked to assume the virtuous nature of our system because, after all, there is no rule of law or due process in these cases. Right in the law itself, it states quite clearly that anything not normally admissable in a court of law can be considered by the judge in a security certificate case. Which means we are no longer in a court of law. When we are no longer in a court of law, and the case against one is secret, one must repose one’s trust in the judge’s virtue and hopefully strong sense of fair play.

It’s in that sense of trust that Lutfy is asking the detainees to place their faith. Indeed, after lawyer John Norris talks about who protects the interests of the detainee (the defence lawyer and the special advocate), Lutfy chimes in, asking if Norris has forgotten someone. After pausing, Lutfy hastens to remind the court that it is the judges who are ALSO looking out for the interests of the detainee. But how, exactly, does a judge look out for the interests of a detainee while presiding over a hearing designed to prevent the detainee from knowing the case, and whose eventual outcome is deportation to torture?

In fairness, the legislation historically places the judges in an unfair position, in much the same manner that U.S. segregationist judges were perhaps sometimes caught between their desire to uphold the constitution and Bill of Rights and their perceived need to enforce racist statutes because they had been passed by their legislatures. We remember the names of the ones who rose above strict statutory interpretation and remembered that the law is nothing without justice.

One thinks of the analogy because in this instance, Lutfy often pauses with a sense of reverence at the wonder of Canadian democracy, and reminds us that this atrocious piece of legislation was “enacted by Parliament,” as if such a statement somehow brings to reality the often mistaken notion that Canadian laws are only put in place after careful, thoughtful consideration and true consultations with people across this land.

Mr. Lutfy is no doubt familiar with the slipshod manner in which the latest legislation regarding security certificates was rammed into place, rubber stamped by a House and Senate that was told repeatedly by leading legal associations that the bill would not survive a Charter challenge, but passed it anyway. The victims are all Arab Muslims, who suffer because of Parliament’s fear, its racism, its refusal too take democracy seriously. Had the targets been Smith or Jones instead of Mahjoub and Jaballah, perhaps the wise Parliamentarians would have paused for breath on their race to pass new secret trials legislation.

What effect is this having on the house arrest front? As Barb Jackman, lawyer for Mssrs. Mahjoub and Jaballah states, both men are on the verge of turning themselves in to be sent back to jail. Why? Because the suffering of their families, who also live under house arrest and are targetted for constant surveillance and harassment, is so great that they feel the only way to end it is to go back behind bars.

How does this end? We saw that it was sustained public exposure and grass roots political action that took the issue from relative obscurity to the Federal Cabinet table and the Supreme Court docket.

While we remain committed to that form of action, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few assists along the way. Justice Department Lawyers Against Secret Trials and Deportations to Torture? Federal Court Judges Refusing to Preside over Rendition to Torture Hearings?

If you need help with the placards and T-shirts, you know where to reach us.

Designated Olympic Protest Zones: Not Just in Beijing!

2008-08-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Designated Olympic Protest Zones from Beijing to Toronto (a report from Toronto Action for Social Change)

(Left, Kamila Talendibaeva, holding bullhorn, calls on those inside the Chinese consulate in Toronto to meet about bringing her husband, Huseyin Celil, back to Canada)

As many “Westerners” sneered at the Chinese government for its designated protest zones during the Olympics, it was terribly convenient to forget that this experiment in Beijing-style “democracy” was nothing new. In fact, it’s how the Chinese have learned “democracy” from those who boast most about it, countries like the US and Canada, where designated protest zones, police repression, and denial of freedom of assembly are all too common.

Anyone who is familiar with large or small scale Canadian protests has been subject to the insult of designated protest pens, mini-jails that are nowhere near the spot where the protest makes the most sense. In last summer’s Montebello protest (where the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico gathered and RCMP undercover agents were “uncovered” holding rocks after trying to rile a crowd), a field in the middle of nowhere was “given” to protesters, who smartly refused it. In the G-8 summit at Kananaskis, all roads were simply cut off, stranding individuals wanting to protest as closely as possible to the world’s most powerful warlords. And the 2010 Olympics on stolen First Nations land is already shaping up be a police paradise of secret warehouse detention centres, street sweeps of “undesirables”, and protest zones that will likely be as near to the games area as Kamloops is to Kazakhstan.
TORONTO’S CHARTER-FREE ZONES
In downtown Toronto, anyone who has dared raise a placard or held the end of a banner knows from experience that the area is full of what might charitably be called Charter–free zones, where the guarantees of free expression and assembly do not exist. Such zones spring up at the whim of Metro police and the RCMP, and are usually aimed at individuals who, for lack of a better description, are not terribly satisfied with the status quo. For example, the sidewalk in front of the U.S. consulate on University Avenue is open to anyone who wishes to walk by, provided they are not carrying a sign. The minute that happens, they are told by police to move across the street or face arrest. Of course, if you want to have a 9/11 memorial right on that sidewalk, where businesspeople are invited to leave condolence notes, the area is open to you.

Similar police behaviour occurs during protests at the Metro Convention Centre, where ordinarily public sidewalks are suddenly declared “private property”, off-limits to such gatherings (even as Blue Jays and Argonauts fans throng by waving their team flags and banners and placards.)

Anyone who questions such behaviour is told by Metro Police and RCMP that this is the way things are. Further questioning is met with cold stares or threats of arrest. One can challenge such arbitrary edicts, of course, but there is a risk that this may result in an overnight stay in downtown lockup. It is strange indeed – and no small matter of intimidation -- that people planning to attend simple, peaceful protests in a “democratic” society must build in possible jail time as part of their daily planners.

For individuals who work in groups such as Toronto Action for Social Change, this is nothing new. One of our members found this out the hard way almost a decade ago when he decided to protest a gathering of terrorists at the Royal York hotel. It was a celebratory meeting of NATO war ministers who were then gladhanding themselves over the terror bombing of the former Yugoslavia, a campaign that had renewed the manhood of the allegedly flaccid military alliance. This mild-mannered gentleman (then 64 years of age) decided to take his one-person protest, wearing an anti-war sign, to the front of the hotel shortly after midnight (having first enjoyed a mellow night of jazz at the Rex). He was told he was not allowed on the sidewalk because it was “private property.” He argued the point, then insisted that if he could not be on the sidewalk, he would stand in the street, whereupon he was arrested, assaulted by police, and held overnight with an assault charge that was eventually dropped.

LIFETIME BANS AND OTHER INCONVENIENCES
Anyone familiar with street protest in Toronto knows this is common police practice. Other TASC members have been banned for life from Queen’s Park for planting vegetable gardens or singing persistently.

While these are annoying inconveniences on the road to justice, they certainly are nothing compared to the police behaviour directed at anyone in this city who does not enjoy white skin privilege or a certain amount of financial assets. Incessant harassment of the homeless, area bans issued against young people because of their skin colour (police essentially tell them not to enter the downtown shopping district upon pain of arrest), and the standard crimes of driving while black or flying while Arab remain daily signs that Canadian democracy is limited to those with the largest amounts of cash and privilege.

So all the holier-than-thou coverage of what happens with the Chinese protest scene during the Olympics takes on the stink of high irony. Nowhere was this made more clear than during a series of protests we organized this summer at the Chinese consulate on St. George Street with the Canadian Committee to Free Huseyin Celil, a Canadian wrongfully jailed for life in China on trumped up charges.
IMPRISONED FOR LIFE ON TRUMPED UP CHARGES
Celil is a Uyghur who spoke up for the rights of his brutally repressed people and eventually escaped China, coming to Canada as a refugee with his family and children, and eventually becoming citizens. He was arrested in Uzbekistan over two years ago and illegally handed over to China, where he was threatened with unspeakable tortures into signing a “confession.” Celil was not allowed to present a defence at his “trial,” nor were Canadian consular officials allowed to attend.

Since China had promised to improve human rights if it were given the 2008 summer Olympics, we decided to organize a series of walks and rallies encouraging that government to keep its promise while calling on the Canadian government to appoint a special envoy to go and do whatever is necessary to get Celil freed.

RCMP: TEACHING THE CHINESE HOW TO GOVERN PROTEST?
The first demonstration we held, a hot Sunday afternoon in late June, got off on a bad footing when four of us, quietly enjoying the shade of the trees at the consulate, were told we were on the wrong side of the road by the RCMP. When we explained that we had been on this side of the road numerous times before over the years, we were informed that did not matter, and the new rule was that everyone had to be across the street (in front of a seniors’ home which no doubt did not appreciate the appearance that its practices were being protested!)

The RCMP, in a fashion that the Chinese back in Beijing must have picked up on quickly, demanded to know the names, addresses, and birth dates of protest organizers. We refused and then asked why, and they said it was for their file. Why, we asked, did they need to create a file on a group of peaceful people, many of them Uyghur refugees, who were simply exercising democratic rights? Was the file to be shared with the Chinese in the hopes of intimidating the Uyghurs who DID have the courage to speak out, or harassing their family members still under Chinese occupation? Would names and other information be shared with the Chinese to be used in their torture chambers just as the RCMP and CSIS did in the cases of Canadians tortured in Syria—Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin?

The June rally, which had come together rather quickly, planned to walk to Queen’s Park, the grounds of the Ontario legislature. This was a Sunday afternoon, so the building and large grounds were empty. Nonetheless, Metro Police told organizers that the gathering could not be permitted and that certainly, no speeches would be allowed, since there had been no permit issued. When we explained we did not require a permit to gather in a public place, we were told to stop being so “mean.” Eventually, the police backed down, though when we did arrive at the empty legislature, they insisted we gather further from the building’s front steps because of the “rules.”

The second demonstration, held in late July, was similar in tone. While we decided to avoid hassles and gather in front of the beleaguered seniors’ home, we were confronted with a rather difficult situation. An ambulance pulled up to go in and get someone, but getting to and from the building was difficult for the ambulance crew, even with our relatively small numbers (about 50 people). So we decided on this Sunday afternoon, when the Chinese consulate was closed anyway, to go across the street and stand on the sidewalk in front of the building that made the most symbolic sense to be protesting.

As we stood where we wished to stand in the first place, the Mounties and Metro police again gave us the third degree lecture about how this was unacceptable. We explained that there was a health and safety issue across the way, and that our presence was a possible impediment to the health care crew. We insisted on staying there until the ambulance had gone. One individual from the China Rights Network complained that he had been on this very spot dozens of times, and wanted to know why things had changed. Rather than receiving an explanation, he was asked for his name and other personal details.

After the ambulance left, and as speeches continued in front of the seniors’ home (a great video overview on the Celil case and the plight of the Uyghurs is available athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLyLUXEqM-U), a number of us decided to try a further discussion with the RCMP. An officer explained that no matter what reason he gave, he would be seen as “wrong” by the protesters, so had decided not to give one. When we pressed, he came up with a story about concerns for our health and safety, because cars go by and might hit someone who steps off the sidewalk. Given that there is a stop sign not 50 feet from where we were standing, we explained that this was a highly unlikely scenario and that, in fact, someone was more at risk on the OTHER side of the street. Needless to say, the concept that a small group of adults carrying placards could not resist darting out into the road spoke to a bizarre RCMP view of protesters as infants who required extraordinary forms of physical protection.

OLYMPIC OPENING NIGHT PROTEST
Subsequent gatherings were just as strange. On the opening night of the Olympics, a group of about 50 people again gathered at a downtown intersection before undertaking the 25-minute walk to the Chinese consulate, this time arriving in front of the building. While nervous RCMP looked on, they said it was okay to be there as long as we did not block the entrance. We wondered why they had suddenly changed their policy—was it because they were afraid of analogies being drawn to the protest zones in Beijing? Or were they simply unprepared for our protest which, given the wall to wall Olympics coverage, no doubt got lost in their daily media mix?

Given that we were not harassed during Olympics opening night, we figured that closing night would be just as carefree. Wrong. As a group of about 30 people showed up, quietly standing around, we were immediately accosted by an RCMP agent who told us we were not allowed to be in front of the empty consulate on a Sunday evening at 8:30 pm. When informed that we had been in the exact same spot two weeks earlier with no problems, the agent seemed confused, and returned to the line that such protests were not allowed. When asked for an explanation, she called in backup, who shortly arrived with the same old story. We explained that we would only be here for about 15 minutes, but were informed that after that time, we would be removed to the other side of the street.

What had changed? We asked.

“We have received information,” the agent cryptically replied.

“From the Chinese? About us?” we countered.

“I can’t reveal that information,” was the reply.

Since it was our intention to leave shortly anyhow, we informed the RCMP that we were heading out, but not because we had been ordered to do so. We also commented that just as there is a race to the bottom when it comes to the “globalization” of labour and environmental standards, so there is when it comes to human rights. As corporations complain that strict environmental guidelines make it hard for them to do business in one country while another openly dumps its toxins into the water and air, one can imagine countries like Canada complaining that other countries get to openly repress and torture their protesting citizens, so why can’t we?

It’s a slippery slope, one we continue to glide down at our peril.

Those wishing to help out on the Huseyin Celil case are encouraged to contact the Canadian Committee to Free Huseyin Celil, c/o Wilf Ruland, deerspring@hwcn.org, (905) 648-1296, or Toronto Action for Social Change at (416) 651-5800, tasc@web.ca

In the meantime, please consider sending a short note to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging that a special envoy be appointed to go to China and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure the safe return of Mr. Celil to his family in Burlington, Ontario. Harper’s office can be reached at pm@pm.gc.ca, or (613) 992-4211.

And don’t forget to join the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture, through Southern Ontario, October 17-23.