Resisting Canada's War Economy and Weapons Industry

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

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.

(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?

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,

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

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

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/