Support Abousfian Abdelrazik as Canadian Complicity in Torture Goes on Trial (Online and in Ottawa)

Join us in court beginning October 21 in Ottawa or online as the six week trial proceeds.

To register online to observe proceedings, visit: https://cas-satj.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fSbwmniiRZ2f7_T7xFLkGg 

To receive court location details for Ottawa, contact tasc@web.ca

Abousfian Abdelrazik is “the victim of a series of gross injustices attributable directly or indirectly to Canadian state actors, including arbitrary and illegal detention, prolonged solitary confinement, torture, and forced exile and separation from his home and young children. These breaches of the Plaintiff’s fundamental human rights were flagrant, extreme and continuous over a period of six years. Most egregiously, many senior Canadian officials were fully aware that Canada could have ended the Plaintiff’s cruel and unjust ordeal at any moment by simply securing a flight home to Montreal. In this action, he seeks redress and compensation that vindicates his Charter rights and is proportionate to the unprecedented seriousness of this wrongful state conduct.” (from his lawsuit).

Paul Champ, Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyer, recalls: "I was in the room in July 2009 when Mr Abdelrazik was reunited with his children in Montreal. It was a moment I’ll never forget. When he later asked if I would help to bring a claim for damages for these egregious violations of his rights, I agreed. I didn’t imagine I would still be fighting this case over 15 years later."

Canada has a loathsome history of rendering Muslim citizens to torture abroad and being complicit in their torture. The case of Abousfian Abdlerazik is the first time such a case is scheduled for a trial.

When a combination of civic action and a court action successfully brought him home in 2009, Abdelrazik told the Globe and Mail a “ chilling account of six years of imprisonment and forced exile abroad… Mr. Abdelrazik recounted stories of interrogation and alleged torture. He told of Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agents laughingly saying "Sudan will be your Guantanamo" when he begged to be allowed to return home.

His ordeal - described as Kafkaesque by the federal court judge who ordered him repatriated - is far from ended. But the Harper government made it clear that Mr. Abdelrazik couldn't expect any support in his efforts to remove his name from the UN list.

Mr. Abdelrazik said one of the two CSIS interrogators was the same agent who questioned him at his home two days before he flew to Khartoum in March of 2003. Mr. Abdelrazik said he had called the Montreal police to get the CSIS agents to leave.

"One of them, he turned and said to me, 'You will see…' " he said.

Although CSIS denies it arranged for Mr. Abdelrazik to be imprisoned in Sudan, heavily redacted government documents say he was arrested "at our request," meaning Canada's.
After months in solitary with little food and occasional torture, Mr. Abdelrazik said one day his Sudanese jailers told him the "Canadian muhabarat want to talk to me," using the feared Arabic term for secret police.

Mr. Abdelrazik says he was taken to a room with a table laden "with cakes and fruits and juice and bottles of water," but before he could say anything, one of the CSIS agents said, "Remember I told you in Montreal that 'You will see,' … and now, you will see."

Mr. Abdelrazik said he begged to be allowed to go home and offered to face any charges the agents wanted to press.

"I am not going to help a terrorist," the CSIS agent replied, according to Mr. Abdelrazik. The agent added that Mr. Abdelrazik was "Sudanese, not a Canadian, and should stay in Sudan forever."

"My country doesn't need you," the CSIS agent said. After the two left, Mr. Abdelrazik said the worst period of torture and abuse began.

Stay in touch at Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, tasc@web.ca 

https://www.facebook.com/events/856041686712579

Some background videos and history:

In May 2009, 225 people defied Canadian law and purchased an airline ticket for Abousfian Abdelrazik. He had been tortured in Sudan with Canadian complicity. He was prevented from coming home by Ottawa because of CSIS lies about state security. CSIS had told Abdelrazik "Sudan will be your Guantanamo." Ottawa issued a warning: anyone providing financial support to Abdelrazik risked prosecution and 10 years imprisonment.

As Abdelrazik occupied a cot at the Canadian embassy for over a year, groups like Project Fly Home and Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture worked to bring him home. Finally, when then Global Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon refused to issue travel documents (and failed to have us charged), Mr. Abdelrazik's law\yers (Yavar Hameed, Paul Champ, Audrey Brousseau, Halid M. Elgazza) went to Federal Court and won a repatriation order. Canadians have a right to return home.

The day before court, the Wizard of Oz characters took to the streets with hundreds to chant There's No Place Like Home, including Murray Lumley (Tin Person), Tom Smarda (Scarecrow), Beth Guthrie (Glinda the Good Witch), Matthew Behrens (Cowardly Lion) and Kirsten Romaine (Dorothy Gale).

Video of that event:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMIvK4AFMDw&t=265s

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ-BKbR6pmw

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62sGo6AHvW8

Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2ZjygBoLC0

Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gTjSZhPcCM

Part 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuOoaiqSeM

An Ottawa Rally at the same time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stLm8c1vhq0

Abdelrazik arrives in Canada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoN7LXisOUE

Interview with Abousfian after he was home and trying to get off the UN 1267 List: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftG47TXoh_E

Abousfian speaks at House of Commons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxZTmzrJlM

When the CLC gave Abousfian a sanctions-busting salary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egRcxb0FAYU

Abousfian Abdelrazik talks about why he should be taken off the United Nations' terror watch list as shown to the UN sanctions committee in New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aD46CTW0KI

Documents suggest Canada's spies lied to Sudan to keep an innocent man in prison, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewb4WzS0DFI

Part 1of the Abdelrazik Speaking Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7tm322hFRg

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVX2nbA7mHI

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7lcWYWvIA4

Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvIn4hHwxP0

Prism TV Documentary, 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih19ndPVaTs