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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

January 15, 2022 - 15 janvier 2022

Canadian police expanding surveillance powers via new digital “operations centres”

The Breach 13/01/22 - Canadian police have been establishing municipal surveillance centres to support law enforcement, deploying digital technologies that expand surveillance powers with the help of major US corporations, according to government documents seen by The Breach. Working around-the-clock in special rooms or wings of police stations, these so-called “real-time operations centres” are the cornerstone of a shift to confront what police call the “new challenges” of a digital age. They are intended to provide “virtual backup” for police officers in any situation, supplying them with information drawn from deep social media monitoring, private and public closed-circuit televisions (CCTV), open-ended data collection, and algorithmic mining.

Over the last 10 years, the surveillance centres have been quietly set up within police forces from Halifax to Vancouver, with no public debate about their functions, corporate relationships, or impacts. Described by police as “force-multipliers,” they are already being used to monitor demonstrations. And analysts and experts are warning that the reliance on digital surveillance tools, and databases filled with details drawn from practices like carding, risk “supercharging” discriminatory and racist patterns of policing when delivered to officers in real-time. According to government documents, the centres are modeled after fusion centres created by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security post-9/11. The U.S. fusion centres, which began with a focus on combatting terrorism but later expanded to criminal and political activity, have been criticized for indiscriminate surveillance and civil rights violations.

In the wake of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, more than half of Canadians now support the idea of defunding the police. But with no public input into decision-making about policing, municipal police budgets continued to increase across Canada last year, and the Toronto police board passed a $25 million hike this week.

“These centres are expanding police surveillance into people’s everyday lives and using personal information collected in non-criminal contexts for policing operations,” said Thomas Linder, a sociologist and former research fellow at the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University who obtained the documents through access-to-information requests during his doctoral research and shared them with The Breach. “It is disturbing that the option municipal police in Canada are choosing to contend with a digital era is based on surveillance—and one that derives from a militarized national security approach.”

While creating the centres, police forces have sought out advice and technology from major corporations like Motorola, IBM, and Palantir, many with controversial ties to military and spy agencies.

“It seems like we are moving toward a scenario in which police and state security intelligence agencies want total, real-time information awareness,” said Kevin Walby, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg. “The creation and extension of these U.S.-style intelligence-led policing hubs not only reveals the creeping surveillance powers of police in Canada, but also a state-corporate symbiosis. Major private firms, who are lobbying and offering sponsorships and donations, are increasingly influencing the public police, who are drawing ever more on corporate technology and surveillance capacity.” Read more - Lire plus

Top Mountie violated her legal obligations by being too slow to respond to complaints, judge rules

CBC 12/01/2022 - The time it took for RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki to respond to investigations into claims of Mountie misconduct violated her obligation under the law, the Federal Court ruled today. Critics argue the length of time the force often takes to respond to Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) findings — delays of months or even years — undermines police accountability. "In my view, it is in the public interest to have a police oversight institution that functions properly and is unobstructed," said Associate Chief Justice Jocelyne Gagné in her written decision. The Federal Court case started back in early 2014, when the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) lodged a complaint with the CRCC — the watchdog agency tasked with reviewing public complaints against the RCMP — alleging Mounties were spying on Indigenous and environmental protesters opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline project. The CRCC's findings, which pointed to gaps in the RCMP's surveillance policies, were released only in late 2020. The Federal Court case pivoted to look at what's meant by the part of the RCMP Act that says the commissioner must respond to CRCC reports "as soon as feasible."

Whenever CRCC investigators are unsatisfied with the RCMP's handling of a civilian complaint, or disagree with the force's initial take on it, they send what they call an "interim report" to the RCMP commissioner for review. Only after the commissioner responds can the watchdog release its findings and recommendations. Gagné wrote that these delays "have an impact on the CRCC's ability to fully exercise its oversight role over the RCMP and on the RCMP's good policing practices." In 2019, the force signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the CRCC — which acted as an intervenor in the case — agreeing to respond to public complaints filed with the watchdog agency within six months. Gagné said a six-month deadline would be a reasonable interpretation of the "as soon as feasible" wording in the RCMP Act, and that it should be up to Lucki to argue that exceptional circumstances warrant longer delays.

The federal government pushed back in its own submission to the court, arguing that the RCMP had gotten better at responding to complaints and that the interpretation of "as soon as feasible" should be flexible. "If the past is any indication of the future, it is likely that without judicial intervention, this situation will repeat itself," wrote Gagné in her decision. "In my view, a three-and–a-half year delay is certainly not a reasonable interpretation of the 'as soon as feasible' in the act. Nor does it mean whenever resources become available." BCCLA lawyer Paul Champ called the decision "a huge victory for police accountability and for communities from coast to coast who have been calling for justice. For the first time, a court has made clear that the RCMP commissioner must respond to CRCC reports expeditiously and it has placed a hard time limit on how quickly she must respond," he said. "We hope this decision brings an end to the RCMP's longstanding culture of complacency."

The RCMP said it respects the court's ruling. "The commissioner has previously acknowledged that there has been a delay in responding to CRCC interim reports," the RCMP said in an email to CBC News on Tuesday evening, pointing to the number, scale and complexity of the cases. It added that the force is "making significant progress" in responding to them. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino's mandate letter, released in December, tasks him with "establishing defined timelines to respond to recommendations from the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission." "We thank the Federal Court for its decision," said Mendicino spokesperson Alex Cohen. "The RCMP has agreed that three years is too long to respond to a complaint filed with the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission. Delays are damaging not only to those bringing complaints forward, but also to the police service they concern." Gagné awarded $30,000 to the BCCLA. Read more - Lire plus

Coastal GasLink drops charges against journalists arrested on Wet’suwet’en territory

The Narwhal 24/12/2021 - Charges have been dropped against journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano, who were arrested and detained for three nights on civil contempt charges while reporting on militarized police raids on Wet’suwet’en territory in northwest B.C. on Nov. 19. Their arrests drew international media attention and marked an escalation in an ongoing battle between journalists and the RCMP over the right to report from within injunction zones without risking arrest. The plaintiff, Coastal GasLink pipeline, owned by TC Energy, filed earlier this week to discontinue proceedings against the two journalists on charges of civil contempt of court. Bracken and Toledano have also been relieved of the terms of their release, which included agreement to appear in court on Feb. 14, 2022, and to obey a Coastal GasLink injunction.

Bracken, who was on assignment for The Narwhal at the time of her arrest, said she’s relieved the charges have been dropped, but the fundamental issue hasn’t been resolved.

“I should never have been arrested or charged, let alone detained, in the first place,” Bracken said. “I can’t get those days of my life and work back. Nothing in these proceedings provides any feedback to RCMP for their gross interference with journalists, so what’s stopping police from just doing it again?”

As The Narwhal reported at the time of Bracken’s arrest, the RCMP were tracking her and Toledano in a database of police investigations, a practice which raises questions about the RCMP’s characterization of journalists who report on social conflict or within injunction zones. At the time of their arrests, the RCMP seized recording devices and professional equipment from both journalists, actions that prevented the public from witnessing police conduct during the raid where more than a dozen land defenders were also arrested. Although the charges against Bracken and Toledano have been dropped, The Narwhal, the Canadian Association of Journalists and other news organizations are exploring other legal avenues to hold the RCMP accountable and ensure arrests of journalists don’t continue happening. Read more - Lire plus

Dylan Penner: Racism, resources, and the 'rule of law' in Wet'suwet'en territory

ICYMI: Sign On Letter - From Wet’suwet’en to Tkaronto We Demand an End to the Criminalization of Indigenous Land Defenders

The settler colonial origins of the Five Eyes alliance

Canadian Dimension 04/01/2022 - The Five Eyes spy network, representing the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, was established in 1948.[1] Conventional histories portray its formation as the natural culmination of years of wartime collaboration in the fight against fascism. What that story conceals, however, is the common lineage of these countries as settler colonial states formed through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

Ancient empires, including the Greek and Roman variants, often adopted forms of settler colonialism, but European expansion from Columbus onward shaped its modern guise.[2] From the 1800s, the British empire and its settler offspring would come to the fore in the scramble for global power. Espousing liberalism and free trade while practicing white supremacy, this Anglo alliance was grounded in histories of dispossession of Indigenous peoples, global slavery, white domination, and racial capitalism that met resistance at every turn from the forces of decolonization and worker uprisings. The US was the first of the modern settler states to throw off the mantle of British control, only to expand across the continent in its own imperial quest. The American and the British empires would soon come to collaborate as they sought to gain commercial and strategic advantage in the modern, competitive world of global capitalism. [...]

The Second World War saw the British government increasingly dependent on US support. By the end of the war, the US displaced the UK as the most powerful force in the Anglo alliance. But it also faced the forces of decolonization at home, in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, not to mention the challenge presented by the Soviet Union, particularly in Europe.

With Great Britain in decline, Winston Churchill called for a united front of the Anglo alliance in his “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri in 1946. With US President Harry Truman on the stage, Churchill declared that Soviet tyranny (an iron curtain) was descending over eastern Europe. What he conveniently omitted was that independence movements in India and elsewhere were laying siege to British colonialism and the Soviet Union refused to accept the liberal-capitalist paradigm of growth. To counter these challenges, Churchill proposed:

Now, while still pursing the method of realizing our overall strategic concept, I come to the crux of what I have traveled here to say. Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and empire and the United States… If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealth be added to that of the United States, with all that such co-operation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science and industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary there will be an overwhelming assurance of security.[10]

This was a colonial call for unity, for the English-speaking Anglo-American empires to band together in an alliance that would have the power to counter the effects of global decolonization as well as the perceived Soviet menace. The UK and its settler colonial offspring—the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—were to use their economic and cultural power, derived from Indigenous dispossession, global slavery, white supremacy, and racial capital, to establish Pax Americana with the ability to leverage support from non-Anglo allies including European nations and Japan. This was the alliance that spawned the Five Eyes spy network in 1948. It would play a decisive role in the post-war politics of race and empire in the Pacific as well as globally. Source

Matthew Behrens: No Room at Canada’s Inn for Afghan Refugees

Rural Refugee Rights Network 20/12/2021 - With all the experience of Canada’s remarkable network of grass roots groups, community organizations, sponsorship agreement holders, and refugee advocates, IRCC has played its cards close to its chest, shutting out many expert individuals and networks who could facilitate this process. IRCC also keeps repeating that the unavailability of flights out of Kabul and an alleged lack of capacity among “referral partners” are primary reasons for delay, but those excuses mask the reality that there is plenty of space to get this rescue operation expedited.

It’s been 47 years since Toronto Workshop Productions opened a Jack Winter play about the impossible barriers facing Chilean refugees trying to escape the Pinochet dictatorship and get to Canada. The play’s title, You Can’t Get There From Here, might well apply a half century later to the tens of thousands of Afghans hiding out from the Taliban, languishing in unsafe third countries, and wondering if they have been gaslit by a Canadian government that promised safety and asylum, but which only provides auto-generated emails acknowledging receipt of their increasingly desperate inquiries. In 2015, when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals ran on a platform to rapidly welcome thousands of Syrian refugees (contrasting itself with the mean-spirited Harper regime), they initiated a program to land 25,000 people in 100 days. Back then, it was sunny ways and the anti-Harper. But Trudeau’s 2021 election promise to offer asylum to 40,000 Afghans felt more like a rearguard motion to cover for Canada’s 12-year failure to provide safe haven for interpreters, translators, fixers, and others whose lives remain at risk because of their past association with the Canadian occupation.

In fact, 130 days after the first announced commitment to resettle Afghan refugees who had assisted Canada during the occupation, fewer than 10% of them have arrived in Canada. There are two dozen people from the Canadian embassy’s law firm in Kabul who remain stranded there as well. Many grass roots groups, sponsorship organizations, and lawyers daily receive new emails pleading for help. Most are from individuals who meet the qualifications for Canada’s program to assist women’s rights defenders, human rights organizers, persecuted ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and journalists. The plea is always the same: must they die waiting even when they clearly meet the requirements?

Killed Waiting for Canada’s Help

Canada’s sick answer to that painful question, unfortunately, is yes. On the evening of December 10 – International Human Rights Day – a 10-year-old girl named Nazifa, whose family had been approved for resettlement to Canada, was shot dead in Kandahar. A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Minister Sean Fraser called this death “tragic and heartbreaking.” While Fraser himself added that the killing would “shock the conscience of every Canadian,” both failed to take any responsibility for it, or to acknowledge that it was painfully predictable. Kynan Walper, a spokesperson for a group of Canadian veterans and interpreters, Aman Lara (Pashto for “sheltered path”), told Global News, “There was a 10-year-old girl who was shot … when she should have been on her way to Canada. This was avoidable and it was bound to happen, and it’s going to happen more. We need to do better, and I understand that everyone’s trying, but we need to do better, we need to pick this up…whether it be through flights, whether it be through ground movements, whether it be through co-operation with other countries, we need to continue this with a renewed urgency so this does not happen again.” Read more - Lire plus

Afghanistan in Freefall: Deadly U.S. Sanctions Blamed for Shocking Humanitarian Crisis

Held without Charge: The Call to Repatriate Canadians Detained in Northeast Syria

Free Jack Letts 08/12/2021 - Since the fall of the Islamic State in 2019, thousands of foreign nationals have been held in arbitrary and indefinite detention in northeast Syria without charge. Currently, there are at least 40 Canadian citizens, including children, among those detained in degrading and inhumane conditions. We call on the Canadian government to end these arbitrary and unlawful detentions by immediately repatriating all Canadian citizens.

This event was moderated by Professor Azar Masoumi, and featured four speakers:

John Letts: Father of Canadian citizen Jack Letts who has been detained without charge in North East Syria since 2017, John has been campaigning for his repatriation to Canada.
Tayab Ali: Partner at leading British law firm Bindmans LLP, Tayab is recognised as a top Solicitor Advocate with an international criminal and civil practice. He represents the Letts family in the UK.
Monia Mazigh: Author and academic. She is currently an adjunct professor with Carleton University’s Department of English Language and Literature.
Justin Mohammed: Programs Manager (Campaigns and Advocacy) at Amnesty International Canada, Justin has been the Human Rights Law & Policy Campaigner at Amnesty for the last two years, where he was responsible for the organization’s work on refugee and migrant rights, the arms trade, and Canadians detained abroad. Prior to joining Amnesty International, he clerked at the Federal Court of Canada and served as a Human Rights Officer with the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. Watch - Visionnez

Actions for Jack Letts

La reconnaissance faciale : La fin de l’anonymat?

La Ligue des droits et libertés 09/12/2021 - Pour la LDL, trois usages de la reconnaissance faciale (RF) devraient faire l’objet d’une interdiction immédiate. Ces usages, dont on peut douter de la légalité, devraient être clairement interdits par la loi : A) La surveillance de masse des lieux et endroits publics B) La surveillance de masse en ligne (plateformes numériques, réseaux sociaux, etc.) et C) L’utilisation de banques d’images constituées par des organismes publics ou ministères. [...]

La RF menace la vie privée, la démocratie, et partant, de nombreux autres droits pour lesquels l’anonymat est essentiel. Les libertés d’expression et de réunion pacifique s’accommodent mal d’une surveillance policière. Le même effet paralysant peut s’étendre au droit de manifester ou de s’assembler. La RF peut de même stigmatiser certains groupes et communautés en les soumettant à une surveillance disproportionnée sur la base de données historiques biaisées. La liberté de circulation et le droit à la liberté sont aussi concernés. De faux matchs peuvent entraîner de graves conséquences : interpellation policière abusive, arrestation illégale, détention arbitraire.

L’argument sécuritaire tient largement du mirage. Ni l’efficacité, ni surtout la nécessité de cette technologie n’ont été démontrées.

Depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, les mesures de contrôle des populations s’intensifient (caméras vidéo, surveillance des médias sociaux, drones, etc.) sans que notre Monde s’en trouve plus sécuritaire. Au contraire, des personnes innocentes ont été victimes de ces systèmes. Malgré leur inefficacité, ces systèmes d’espionnage s’incrustent. L’utilisation de la RF par les services de police (SP) conduit à une banalisation de la surveillance et comme le note les commissaires « une fois enclenchée, il peut être difficile de limiter cette capacité de surveillance accrue ». Pour la LDL un moratoire sur toute utilisation de la RF par les SP s’impose jusqu’à l’adoption d’une législation à la mesure des enjeux, fondée sur un débat public informé et transparent. Lire plus - Read more

Civilian Casualty Files Reveal U.S. Hid Thousands of Deaths in Middle East Air War

DemocracyNow! 22/12/2021 - U.S. air power has been central in the country’s wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, with officials promising that drones and other sophisticated weapons allow the U.S. military to carry out precision airstrikes that spare civilians caught in war zones. But a groundbreaking investigation by The New York Times reveals the U.S. military’s air wars have been plagued by bad intelligence, imprecise targeting and a lack of accountability for thousands of civilian deaths, many of them children. The two-part series by reporter Azmat Khan is based on 1300 confidential Pentagon documents, as well as on-the-ground reporting from dozens of airstrike sites and interviews with scores of survivors. “What you have is a scale of civilian death and injury that is vastly different than what they claim,” says Khan, who spent five years on the investigation. Read more - Lire plus

'Anti-Democratic and Cowardly': US Building New Secret Courtroom at Guantánamo

Common Dreams 30/12/21 - Human rights advocates and attorneys representing Guantánamo Bay detainees on Thursday decried a secret new courtroom reportedly being built by the Pentagon at the notorious offshore U.S. prison.

The New York Times reports Gitmo's new second courtroom—which will cost $4 million—will not allow members of the public to witness proceedings against detainees to be tried for alleged terrorism-related offenses. People wishing to view those trials will have the option of watching delayed video footage in a separate building.

"I've observed trial proceedings in person at Guantánamo. The chipper 'secrecy' imposed by the military is insulting, anti-democratic, and cowardly," said Michael Bronner, producer of the 2021 film The Mauritanian, which portrays Gitmo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi's 14-year fight for freedom. "The entire enterprise makes a mockery out of what the U.S. pretends to stand for." The Times calls the second court "the latest retreat from transparency in the already secretive national security cases at the base, where the military and intelligence agencies have been restricting what the public can see." [...]

News of the new Gitmo courtroom comes amid an ongoing push by human rights advocates to hold President Joe Biden accountable to his stated intention to close the military prison, which was opened by the George W. Bush administration in January 2002 and is viewed globally as a symbol of the indefinite detention and torture that have characterized the U.S.-led War on Terror. Once Biden's boss, former President Barack Obama ordered the Guantánamo prison closed in January 2009 but was blocked by Congress and later abandoned the effort. Today, 39 men remain imprisoned there.

Of these, 28 have never been charged, and 10 have been cleared for release. Earlier this year, 56-year-old Moroccan detainee Abdul Latif Nasser was repatriated after 19 years in detention. Last month, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have closed the prison at Gitmo. However, the NDAA signed by Biden earlier this week bars him from transferring detainees to third countries or the U.S. for trial. [...] "I urge the Congress to eliminate these restrictions as soon as possible," Biden said. Read more - Lire plus

TAKE ACTION: Tell President Biden: Close Guantanamo

Khalid Qasim: I’ve been held at Guantánamo for 20 years without trial. Mr Biden, please set me free

UN rights experts condemn ‘unrelenting human rights violations’ at Guantánamo Bay

‘Lawyers can only access clients by travelling to Guantanamo’

US approves release of five more Guantanamo detainees

Lithuania pays Guantánamo ‘forever prisoner’ Abu Zubaydah €100,000 over CIA torture

Meet the Muslim Army Chaplain Who Condemned Torture of Guantánamo Prisoners & Then Was Jailed Himself

Exclusive: many resettled Guantánamo detainees in legal limbo, analysis shows

Omar Deghayes: I was held in Guantanamo for years after being picked up by bounty hunters. They had the wrong man

Innocent Until Proven Muslim book talk with Dr. Maha Hilal

Massachussets Peace Action 14/12/2021 - When we analyze the events of the 9/11 Attack, and its aftermath, one legacy that usually remains invisible and unacknowledged is how the War on Terror has impacted Muslim Americans. What has it meant to live as part of the “suspect” community? In her recently published book: Innocent Until Proven Muslim, Islamophobia, the War on Terror and the Muslim Experience since 9/11, Dr. Maha Hilal deconstructs two decades of U.S. Policies that, essentially, established an apparatus of State violence against Muslims.

Dr. Maha Hilal is Co-Director of Justice for Muslims Collective, Researcher and Writer on institutionalized Islamophobia. Her writings have been published widely, including in Newsweek, Business Insider, Middle East Eye and Truthout. Watch - Visionnez

CAIR urges US gov’t to probe group accused of ‘spying’ on Muslims

A data ‘black hole’: Europol ordered to delete vast store of personal data

The Guardian 10/01/2022 - The EU’s police agency, Europol, will be forced to delete much of a vast store of personal data that it has been found to have amassed unlawfully by the bloc’s data protection watchdog. The unprecedented finding from the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) targets what privacy experts are calling a “big data ark” containing billions of points of information. Sensitive data in the ark has been drawn from crime reports, hacked from encrypted phone services and sampled from asylum seekers never involved in any crime.

According to internal documents seen by the Guardian, Europol’s cache contains at least 4 petabytes – equivalent to 3m CD-Roms or a fifth of the entire contents of the US Library of Congress. Data protection advocates say the volume of information held on Europol’s systems amounts to mass surveillance and is a step on its road to becoming a European counterpart to the US National Security Agency (NSA), the organisation whose clandestine online spying was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Among the quadrillions of bytes held are sensitive data on at least a quarter of a million current or former terror and serious crime suspects and a multitude of other people with whom they came into contact. It has been accumulated from national police authorities over the last six years, in a series of data dumps from an unknown number of criminal investigations.

The watchdog ordered Europol to erase data held for more than six months and gave it a year to sort out what could be lawfully kept. The confrontation pits the EU data protection watchdog against a powerful security agency being primed to become the centre of machine learning and AI in policing. The ruling also exposes deep political divisions among Europe’s decision-makers on the trade-offs between security and privacy. The eventual outcome of their face-off has implications for the future of privacy in Europe and beyond. Read more - Lire plus

Nearly 8,000 detained in Kazakhstan amid anti-government protests

LA Times 10/01/2022 - Nearly 8,000 people in Kazakhstan were detained by police during protests that descended into violence last week and marked the worst unrest the former Soviet republic has faced since gaining independence 30 years ago, authorities said Monday.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Monday described the unrest that followed initially peaceful protests against rising energy prices as a “terrorist aggression” against the mineral-rich Central Asian nation of 19 million and dismissed reports that authorities targeted peaceful demonstrators.

Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry reported that a total of 7,939 people have been detained across the country. The National Security Committee, Kazakhstan’s counterintelligence and anti-terrorism agency, said Monday that the situation in the country has “stabilized and is under control.” [...]

Tokayev has said the demonstrations were instigated by “terrorists” with foreign backing, although the protests have shown no obvious leaders or organization. On Friday, he said he ordered police and the military to shoot to kill “terrorists” involved in the violence. Read more - Lire plus

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ACTIONS & EVENTS

NEW The Green Square Campaign

January 29, the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia, serves as a reminder of the work we must do as a nation to eradicate Islamophobia, hate and racism in Canada. In honour of the memory of the victims, in recognition of those who selflessly and courageously put themselves in harm’s way to protect others, and in solidarity with the survivors of this tragedy, we mark this day by inviting each and every Canadian to stand with us by joining the Green Square Campaign.

Make a green square and wear it on your jacket from January 25-29.
Share your story! Make a video or post a message and tell us why the Green Square campaign is important to you and what action you want to see to make Canada a safer place for all Canadians. Use the hashtags #GreenSquareCampaign #WeRememberJan29
Monument Lighting: Get your local monuments, city halls, or landmarks lit green on January 29th.
Organize a vigil or virtual event
Friday Khutba: Organize a special jummah prayer at your mosque to pray for the victims, their families and for the safety and well being of Canadians of all backgrounds.
Add a temporary frame around your Facebook profile picture
Green Letters Campaign
Download a virtual Green Square Zoom/Google Meet/Microsoft Teams background.

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