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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles
March 11, 2023 - 11 mars 2023
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ICLMG response to Criminal Code amendments on counterterrorism and international assistance | |
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ICLMG 10/03/2023 - On March 9, the federal government introduced long-awaited amendments to the Criminal Code to allow Canadian organizations to carry out their vital international assistance work in Afghanistan and other regions under de facto control of an entity deemed by the government to be a terrorist group. As an initial reaction, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group stated:
“We welcome the government’s action on this urgent issue, and want to congratulate the dedication and hard work of humanitarian organizations and other stakeholders who for nearly two years have been advocating for Canadian organizations to be able to resume their important work in Afghanistan, in particular the Aid for Afghanistan coalition.
The proposed Bill C-41 would create a new exemption regime allowing Canadian organizations to apply to operate in areas under de facto control of an entity deemed by the government to be a terrorist group where the organization’s activities risk providing financial support to the controlling entity. Positively, this new regime would address not only the prohibition of international assistance in Afghanistan, but also other regions facing conflict or politically complex situations where the payment of fees and taxes to a governing entity could place Canadians at risk of criminal prosecution.
Importantly, the exemption covers a broad array of activities, including humanitarian aid, education, human rights defense and more. This will allow Canadian organizations to provide not just crisis relief, but to engage with local communities on crucial, ongoing projects to support their well-being and livelihoods. However, the new exemption regime will also require deep scrutiny, particularly in regards to a possibly onerous process to apply for an exemption; the creation of new information-sharing protocols between government agencies; and broad criteria that can justify the denial of an application based on undefined “links” to terrorism. Further, organizations whose applications are denied may not be privy to the reasons for or to the information used in the denial of their application.
Finally, the ICLMG coalition also expresses concern that an exemption regime does not address the central problem at the heart of this issue: that Canada’s overly-broad counter-terrorism laws allowed for this situation to occur in the first place. The ICLMG, among others, has long raised concerns that the inherent vagueness and political nature of “terrorism” will continue to have unintended consequences, including on Canada’s international human rights and humanitarian obligations, evidenced by the current restrictions on the provision of aid. While an exemption regime may provide a route forward, it avoids how counter-terrorism laws create areas and entities that are considered ‘no go,’ and continue to primarily, and unjustly, impact majority-Muslim countries and regions. We renew our call for the government to fundamentally revisit its approach on counter-terrorism laws and their enforcement.” Read more - Lire plus
Liberals to change terrorism provisions that block humanitarian aid to Afghanistan
#AidforAfghanistan Coalition of 18 organizations responds to government plan to amend Criminal Code
MSF response to new Canadian government counterterror laws
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Government agency for monitoring social media could be legacy of Emergencies Act report | |
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The National Post 28/02/2023 - One of the recommendations of the Rouleau report, currently under consideration by the Liberal government, is potentially setting up a government agency for monitoring social media content. It’s an idea that draws worries about government mass surveillance, but also exposes a lack of information about the extent to which law enforcement and national security agencies already collect and use information Canadians post to social media.
The final report from the Public Order Emergency Commission recommended the federal government look into “whether a department or agency of government should have the authority and responsibility to monitor and report on information contained in social media.” Justice Paul Rouleau was looking into the invocation of the Emergencies Act by the Liberal government in response to the Freedom Convoy protests, and released the final report on Feb. 17.
"Tim McSorley, national co-ordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, said “the biggest red flag” of the Rouleau recommendation is that “it’s kind of putting the cart before the horse.” He said there’s a need to have a discussion about “how publicly available information and information on social media is already being used before we can really consider what the impacts would be.”
But there’s not a lot of information available about the extent to which such monitoring might be already occurring, digital-privacy watchers told the National Post. [...]
An associate professor at Carleton University specializing in national security - and an ex-CSIS analyst - agreed tasking CSIS with that kind of work would be a “bad idea.” She said often in the wave of an attack, people ask why national security agencies weren’t monitoring social media. “The answer is we live in a democracy, and the mass monitoring of social media is not desirable.” [...]
Cara Zwibel, director of the CCLA’s Fundamental Freedoms Program, said “if we feel like our communications and actions, which increasingly happen online, are being monitored by the government, there are things we will be less likely to do,” such as political activism and opposing government policies." Read more - Lire plus
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Le SCRS ne considère pas assez les effets des mesures de réduction de menace | |
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La Presse canadienne 18/02/2023 - Le Service canadien de renseignement de sécurité (SCRS) ne tient pas suffisamment compte des conséquences raisonnablement prévisibles sur les tierces parties quand il utilise ses pouvoirs pour réduire une menace, juge l’Office de surveillance des activités en matière de sécurité nationale et de renseignement (OSSNR). L’agence fédérale reproche au SCRS d’utiliser un cadre d’évaluation « exagérément étroit » pour établir s’il convient de délivrer un mandat judiciaire.
Il y a huit ans, le Parlement fédéral avait adopté une loi permettant au SCRS de ne pas se contenter de collecter des renseignements sur les activités d’espionnage et de terrorisme au pays, mais de prendre des mesures pour réduire les menaces. Par exemple, le SCRS peut annuler des transactions bancaires, entraver les déplacements d’une personne ou s’ingérer dans les communications d’un groupe radical. Selon la loi, le SCRS doit avoir « des motifs raisonnables de croire » à une menace à la sécurité nationale avant de prendre des mesures pour la réduire. L’agence doit aussi obtenir un mandat de la cour si ces mesures contreviennent à la Charte des droits et des libertés ou à d’autres lois canadiennes. [...]
La Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles, un groupe établi à Ottawa, juge inacceptable que le SCRS puisse demander à une tierce partie, comme une entreprise privée, de prendre des mesures contre des individus sans accepter la responsabilité des conséquences éventuelles. Pour elle, le fait que le SCRS n’approuve pas la recommandation de l’OSSNR « démontre que l’agence continue de contourner la loi et qu’on ne peut plus lui faire confiance dans l’exercice de ses pouvoirs ». « On nous a répété de ne pas nous inquiéter des pouvoirs de réduction de menace du SCRS, parce qu’ils ne sont pas si invasifs qu’ils nécessitent le recours à un mandat, affirme Tim McSorley, le coordinateur national de la coalition. Il est maintenant limpide que le SCRS confie ces mesures de réduction de menace à de tierces parties. Cela leur sert de prétexte pour ne pas songer à demander des mandats judiciaires. » La coalition demande que le gouvernement fédéral suspende les pouvoirs du SCRS et soumette la question à la Cour fédérale. Lire plus
ICYMI: CSIS failed to fully consider human toll when disrupting threats, watchdog says
ICYMI: ICLMG: Feds must immediately suspend CSIS threat reduction powers following latest watchdog report
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Demonizing Detainees: A Case Study in Canadian Media Islamophobia | |
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Centre for Free Expression 27/02/2023 - As thousands continue to suffer extrajudicial, indefinite detention under torturous conditions in Western government-supported “death camps” in northeast Syria, Canadian media outlets elected to foment outrage instead about the Federal Court of Canada decision ordering the government to uphold the fundamental rights of Canadian detainees and finally request their repatriation.
Shamefully and irresponsibly, in a series of recent items across various CBC platforms, the horrific plight of the Yazidis is used to perpetuate harmful misrepresentations about the detainees: many of whom are in fact victims of ISIS and human trafficking themselves; more than 60% of whom are children; and all of whom have experienced extreme rights violations, as widely documented by UN Experts, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Save the Children, UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, amongst other prominent human rights organizations.
These pieces of CBC coverage (“Yazidis ‘heartbroken’ over pending repatriation of suspected ISIS members,” “Yazidis plead with Canada not to repatriate alleged ISIS members,” “Yazidi refugees fear return of suspected ISIS members to Canada”) provide an excellent case study of how Islamophobic media tropes operate to distort reality, drum up moral panics, and depict the unconscionable as not merely defensible but desirable.
1. Wrongful “Terrorist” Labelling: The repeated, sweeping references to the detainees as “alleged/suspected ISIS members” and the camps as “ISIS detainee camps” by the CBC and other media outlets demonstrates, yet again, the utility of the “terrorist” label for portraying the targets of oppressive violence as the perpetrators. In actuality, the Canadian detainees include children like 9-year-old Yusuf, who “has severe autism, is non-verbal, and still wears diapers while limping from a shrapnel wound in his leg […] Yusuf urgently requires brain surgery to address his carotid artery stenosis […] The Canadian government has long been fully aware of the life-threatening medical challenges facing Yusuf, but has refused to assist him,” as detailed by human rights advocate Matthew Behrens.
2. Presumption of Guilt: In several instances, the description of imputed ISIS links as “alleged” or “suspected” is dispensed with altogether, and the detainees are explicitly referred to – despite the acknowledged absence of any supporting evidence – as “ISIS families,” “the perpetrators of these crimes of genocide,” and “the very people who raped and tortured on a daily basis.” Omitted is the Federal Court’s affirmation that “the Respondents [the government] do not allege any of the Applicants [the detainees] engaged in or assisted in terrorist activities.”
3. The Impossibility of Innocence: The presumption of guilt is so firmly entrenched that it not only persists but, perversely, is strengthened by the dearth of legal corroboration: a sign that it functions as an irrational “unfalsifiable hypothesis,” irresponsive to empirical evaluation. For instance, one CBC Radio interviewee – a former paid CSIS informant and current public safety professor – decried that only 1-in-10 British returnees from Syria were prosecuted, supposed proof of the inability of Western courts to adequately punish ISIS terrorism. Never mind that, according to the UK’s Conservative then-Home Secretary, the returnees were “all investigated […] and the majority [were] assessed to pose no or a low security risk” – even under the UK’s alarmingly capacious anti-terrorism laws; and that many “returned from that area in the early days who had almost certainly done nothing other than humanitarian aid work […] The very fact of going is not an offence,” as London’s Metropolitan Police commissioner at the time pointed out.
4. Collective Racial Punishment: In the CBC pieces, the fact that some detainees may even just “semi-resemble one of the ISIS members” is cited as a legitimate reason for opposing their return; as throughout the “war on terror,” Muslims have been exposed to abuses such as extraordinary rendition, secret detention, torture, extrajudicial killing, pre-emptive policing, and no-fly listing due to characteristics such as their names, countries of origin, mosque attendance, choice of clothing, and growth of a beard. The justification of harms on the basis of superficial criteria such as “semi-resemblance” is not only the very definition of racial profiling, but also, insofar as it constitutes a form of collective punishment, a serious violation of international law. Read more - Lire plus
WATCH: Muslims and the Media: Western media’s role in fanning fear of Islam and Muslims
ACTION: Call/Write to Ensure Ottawa Obeys Court Order to Bring Canadian Detainees Home from Syria ASAP
ACTION: Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!
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How the Hassan Diab affair undressed Canada’s extradition law | |
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The Toronto Star 07/03/2023 - Prominent lawyers and members of the legal profession have been petitioning for a change to Canada’s Extradition Act for some years. Finally, in early February, their plea for reform was heard by MPs of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
It was a historic event, the culmination of appeals dating back to 2018 when Hassan Diab requested a public inquiry into the miscarriage of justice that he suffered at the hands of both France and Canada between 2008 and 2018. Canadians eager to learn more about the flagrant iniquities of Canada’s current extradition law — a law that patently violates Canada’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms — need look no further than the Hassan Diab Affair.
Falsely accused of involvement in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue and extradited to France in 2014 on the flimsiest and most spurious of grounds, Diab languished, without charge, in a maximum-security jail for more than three years. In 2018, French investigative judges found him innocent and ordered his release.
When he appealed to then Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould for a public inquiry into his case, his request was turned down. She commissioned an external review that merely served to uphold the dubious deeds of those who surrendered him to France.
But Diab’s harrowing story had by then garnered considerable media attention, illuminating the defective character of Canada’s extradition act on three basic grounds:
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Tilted in favour of the requesting state (e.g., France) and indifferent to the basic rights of the “person sought” (e.g., Diab), the law rests on an unreasonable presumption that the requesting state is presenting reliable evidence and acting in good faith — even when certain states, such as France, are known to have sourced their “evidence” through torture and unsworn intelligence, i.e., through “hearsay.”
In the Diab case, material that France first presented to Canada in 2008 was not reliable — it contained blatant lies, among which the claim that there were no discernible (or usable) fingerprints of the bomber. In fact there were several identifiable fingerprints and they excluded Diab.
The current extradition law presumes the “person sought” to be guilty and this prior to any investigation. It leans toward a predetermined outcome set by the requesting state — the swift expulsion of the “person sought” from Canada so matters can be dealt with “expeditiously.” Never mind that such “efficiency” means tearing the individual away from loved ones and callously thrusting them into a foreign land, where language barriers are both alienating and disabling.
The Diab file makes clear that Canada was willing to sacrifice its own citizen at the altar of mutual state interests. Allowing shoddy reports, baseless accusations, and deceitful statements about Diab to go unchallenged, it dubbed him a terrorist, deprived him of an opportunity for self-defence, and in the same breath forgave France for its countless transgressions and, not least, for withholding exculpatory evidence.
Diab’s innocence has been demonstrated repeatedly. But in 2012, former Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson remarked that neither guilt nor innocence is “a relevant consideration” in the context of Canada’s extradition law. O Justice: “Where art thou?”
In 2021, Diab’s 2018 release was overturned. Shockingly, on thoroughly discredited evidence, France’s highest court ruled that he stand trial. On April 3, he will be tried in absentia for a crime he did not commit. Scandalized, Canadians from coast to coast are demanding that Canada stand up to France and categorically reject a second extradition for the innocent Hassan Diab. Source
EVENT: Hassan Diab Support Event - March 26 at 2:30 PM
ACTION: Justice for Hassan Diab!
NEW ACTION: Write a letter to Canadian government: No second extradition of Hassan Diab
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Congédiée pour la « sécurité nationale » à cause de son oncle | |
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La Presse 09/03/2023 - Comment se défendre quand on ne sait pas de quoi on est accusé ? C’est la situation intenable dans laquelle se trouve Miriam Ikhlef, congédiée en 2021 du service d’urgence 911 malgré de bonnes évaluations. Pourquoi ? Elle ne le sait pas. En fait, oui, elle le sait : c’est à cause de son nom « radioactif ». Son oncle Mourad Ikhlef, un immigrant algérien, a été expulsé du Canada en 2002 en vertu d’un certificat de sécurité. On le soupçonnait d’activités terroristes.
Mais ça, personne ne le lui a dit officiellement. « Raisons de sécurité », sans autre détail.
La jeune femme a un bac en sécurité publique et études policières de l’Université de Montréal. Elle a d’abord postulé à la Sûreté du Québec, mais a échoué à l’attestation de sécurité. « L’enquêteur me demandait si j’allais à la mosquée (non), pourquoi j’avais choisi le cégep Maisonneuve… » La question, en apparence anodine, était lourde de sous-entendus. C’est en effet à ce cégep que le douteux Adil Charkaoui a fait ses prêches.
« Je ne l’ai jamais rencontré ! Mon père est musulman, mais je ne suis pas de confession musulmane », dit-elle.
Même si elle avait été pratiquante, aux dernières nouvelles, ce n’est pas censé être un enjeu de sécurité de toute manière… Après cet échec, elle postule au service 911. L’enquêteur chargé de son dossier note qu’elle est la nièce de Mourad Ikhlef, mais comprend qu’elle n’a rien à voir avec lui. Elle avait 3 ans quand il a quitté le pays et l’a revu quand elle a visité sa famille à Alger vers l’âge de 10 ans, mais sans plus. « Vous comprendrez que c’est un sujet tabou dans la famille », me dit-elle. Elle passe donc le test de sécurité pour le 911 et commence à y travailler en 2020. Elle n’a pas renoncé à son rêve pour autant. Elle postule donc au Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). Tout semble bien aller, et puisqu’elle a passé le test au 911, qui relève du SPVM, elle n’est pas inquiète.
Ce n’est pas le cas : on la refuse. Pire : quand elle se présente au boulot au 911, on la fait venir dans un bureau pour lui lire sa lettre de congédiement. Pourquoi ? Sécurité. Oui, mais encore ? Le syndicat (SCFP) conteste le congédiement, mais à ce jour, le grief n’a pas été entendu. Une date est fixée à l’automne prochain. Elle est « extrêmement déçue » de la mollesse du syndicat à la défendre. L’avocat du syndicat, Philippe Dufort, explique que les délais, même pour congédiement, ne sont hélas pas inhabituels. Entre-temps, la jeune femme s’est adressée à la Cour supérieure. Le juge Michel Pinsonnault a exprimé sa sympathie devant cette décision « nébuleuse » et « surréaliste »… mais l’affaire est de la compétence exclusive de l’arbitre. Entre-temps, Mme Ikhlef s’est adressée à la Commission d’accès à l’information, pour obtenir le rapport de sécurité à son sujet. Un document de 480 pages et un autre de 31 pages existent. Mais les avocates du SPVM plaident la « sécurité nationale ». Lire plus - Read more
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Harper blocked U.S. move to repatriate Omar Khadr, book says | |
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The Globe and Mail 01/03/2023 - Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton told Omar Khadr’s lawyer over a decade ago that Washington was prepared to repatriate the Canadian citizen and Guantanamo Bay detainee, but then-prime minister Stephen Harper was blocking the move, according to a new book. That would appear to contradict the Harper government’s insistence that it was refusing to request the former child soldier’s return to Canada out of deference to U.S. sovereignty and the American judicial process.
In his account of the Khadr affair, which will be published in French on Wednesday, the Quebec legal scholar Frédéric Bérard writes that Mr. Khadr’s lawyer Dennis Edney had assurances from the highest levels of the U.S. government that it was Canadian reluctance preventing the transfer. A broad spectrum of Canadian political parties and civil society groups were then calling for repatriation, a common move pursued by a host of European countries that had citizens detained at the American prison in Cuba. Mr. Khadr – who later pleaded guilty to terrorism charges based on an accusation that he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15 – could then have been tried as a minor by Canadian courts, instead of as an adult by a U.S. military commission.
The Harper government maintained at the time that it was constrained by the U.S. legal and political process. Even after the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama, who promised to close Guantanamo Bay, Canadian foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon defended inaction in the Khadr case by saying his government intended to “respect the sovereignty of the United States on that question.” In legal arguments before a federal court, meanwhile, the Crown argued that there was a “one in a million” chance that the U.S. would accept Canada’s repatriation request. Around the same time, however, the U.S. secretary of state herself told Mr. Edney that although “Washington was ok with the transfer, it remained impossible as long as Harper was opposed,” Mr. Bérard writes.
The doctor of law and partner at the Montreal law firm Gattuso Bouchard Mazzone interviewed Mr. Edney, who has been reluctant to speak about the case in recent years and did not respond to The Globe’s requests for comment. Ms. Clinton also did not respond to requests for comment. Anna Tomala, Mr. Harper’s chief of staff, wrote in a brief statement: “Former Prime Minister Harper’s opposition is well noted on public record.” She pointed to his statement denouncing the $10.5-million settlement Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government reached with Mr. Khadr in 2017 for the federal government’s violation of his rights. When the issue of Mr. Khadr’s repatriation was most in play, however, the Harper government’s position was consistently one of deference to the U.S., not outright opposition. “We respect the process put in place by the American government and we will await the outcome of that process,” said Mr. Cannon after a meeting with Ms. Clinton in 2009 in which they discussed the Khadr case.
There have been previous indications that the U.S. in fact offered to repatriate Mr. Khadr and that Canada refused. Mr. Edney has said as much in the past. But the apparent assent of an official as senior as Ms. Clinton would make Mr. Harper’s refusal to repatriate especially “outrageous,” said Huda Mukbil, a security consultant, author, and former senior intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. “Canada had an obligation to repatriate him and if he actively blocked it, that’s a shameful, shameful act by Harper.” The book by Mr. Bérard – J’accuse les tortionnaires d’Omar Khadr (I Accuse the Torturers of Omar Khadr), which the author provided to The Globe prior to publication – paints a picture of a government determined to keep Mr. Khadr away from Canadian soil, argued France-Isabelle Langlois, director-general of the francophone branch of Amnesty International Canada. Read more - Lire plus
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Canadian Jews call for action following Israeli pogrom and comment from senior minister that Israel should “wipe out” Palestinian town | |
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IJV Canada 02/03/2023 - Independent Jewish Voices Canada is calling for immediate action by the Canadian government in response to yesterday’s comments by a senior Israeli minister that the Palestinian town of Huwara should be “wiped out”.
Speaking at a conference hosted by news publication The Marker, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also the minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, said he thinks “the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out” and that “the State of Israel should do it” rather than private citizens. Huwara is a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Nablus surrounded by settlements, long subject to violence from Israeli settlers and orchestrated infrastructure shut-downs from the Israeli government.
The Minister’s comments come a few days after Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage in Huwara and neighbouring villages, which has been widely labelled a pogrom, including by the Israeli military general in charge of troops in the West Bank and the former Director of the Anti-Defamation League. 400+ Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Huwara, Zaatara, Burin, and Asira al-Qibliya, burning dozens of homes and killing a 37 year old Palestinian man while wounding hundreds as Israeli forces stood by. The man who was killed, Samih al-Aqtash, had just returned from volunteering in Turkey to help earthquake victims. He was the 67th Palestinian killed by either the Israeli army or vigilante settlers this year alone.
A pogrom is a violent riot with the specific intent to massacre or expel a specific group of people. It emerged as a Yiddish word in the late nineteenth century to describe the attacks on Jews across the Russian empire. We use the word “pogrom” to recognize that Israeli settlers are recreating the kind of targeted, racialized terrorism that targeted Jews in Europe. We use this word to recognize the hypocrisy of claims that Jewish settler riots are protecting Jewish safety.
Many Canadian and Israeli Jews, including many of our members, have ancestors who lived through these horrific, targeted antisemitic riots in Europe. Many of our members are also descended from, or are themselves, survivors of ethnic cleansing and genocide. These atrocities often started with pogroms that were officially ignored or officially enabled. Yesterday’s comments by Smotrich are a clear validation of Sunday’s pogrom and constitute an explicit call for ethnic cleansing if not outright genocide. To this we say loudly and unequivocally: “not in our name.” Read more - Lire plus
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Black activist who became PM of Dominica was target of RCMP dirty tricks: documents | |
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The Canadian Press 26/02/2023 - It has long been known that the RCMP Security Service took a keen interest in Roosevelt “Rosie” Douglas, a Black rights activist who attended school in Canada and would go on to be prime minister of Dominica. But recently released records reveal just how far the Mounties would go in the early 1970s to keep an eye on the young visitor from the Caribbean. Douglas, the son of a wealthy coconut grower in tiny Dominica, came to Ontario to study agriculture before moving on to Sir George Williams University in Montreal.
Initially a supporter of the federal Conservatives, he became an outspoken advocate for the advancement of Black people and forged ties with international movement leaders.
Though he was a master’s student at McGill University by early 1969, Douglas emerged as one of the leaders of a protest at Sir George Williams against alleged racism. As police moved to evict the student demonstrators from the university’s computer centre, a fire broke out and chaos ensued.
Douglas was among the dozens arrested and charged. He served 18 months in jail and was forced to leave Canada in 1976 after fighting to stay. Douglas promoted the push for Dominica’s full independence from Britain and would lead the country as prime minister for a short time before his death in 2000 at age 58. A commission of inquiry into questionable RCMP security activities publicly confirmed more than 40 years ago that Douglas was a target of Security Service surveillance while in Canada. The Mounties recruited an informant who infiltrated the Black activist community and became an associate of Douglas. [...]
It is one thing for authorities to take action against individuals who are directly advocating violence, but quite another to silence people who are simply espousing radical views on the basis they might take up weapons in the future, said Steve Hewitt, whose book “Spying 101” examined RCMP surveillance of university campuses. “That strikes me as rather dangerous in a free society.” Researcher Andrea Conte, who has also delved into police operations against activists during the period, doesn’t feel he has a complete picture of the RCMP activities with regard to Douglas. Conte points out that Douglas unsuccessfully appealed to appear at the inquiry into the RCMP in the late 1970s.
In a letter outlining why he should be allowed to testify, Douglas wrote he had been part of an open and democratic struggle against racial injustice that was attracting support from parliamentarians, churches and other prominent organizations. “What did the RCMP fear in me — a non-violent civil libertarian?” Security Service tactics during the era included illegal break-ins, the theft of a Parti Québécois membership list and the burning of a barn to prevent a meeting from taking place.
The RCMP’s deeds led to the disbandment of the Security Service and the 1984 creation of the civilian Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Eight years ago, CSIS received authority to go beyond traditional intelligence gathering and engage in threat reduction measures against targets — legalization of the kind of “dirty tricks” that got the RCMP in trouble. In theory, there is more awareness of these techniques and restrictions in place today, but lingering tensions over allowing a domestic intelligence agency to carry out disruption operations, said Hewitt, a senior lecturer in American and Canadian studies at the University of Birmingham in England. “There’s always the potential for it to be abused.” Read more - Lire plus
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Montreal to pay $6M, apologize publicly to protesters arrested illegally | |
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CBC News 28/02/2023 - A Quebec Superior Court judge has approved a $6-million payout by the City of Montreal to protesters whose rights were violated nearly a decade ago. The city and the lawyers representing the protesters had agreed to the deal in November, but it had to be approved by Quebec's Superior Court. A judge approved it in a decision dated Feb. 22.
It is the end of a nearly 10-year legal process that saw 16 class-action suits brought against the city, stemming from different protests between June 2012 and March 2015, including marches against police brutality and a demonstration on the one-year anniversary of the beginning of student protests against tuition increases.
Protesters who participated in the demonstrations alleged that the Montreal police response was heavy handed and the police used techniques that included "kettling" to contain protesters and arrest them. Those tactics violated their right to freedom of expression and their security, they said.
The City of Montreal will also have to post an apology message on its website for 90 days acknowledging that "certain actions" taken by the police and city administrators infringed on "some" of the fundamental rights of "some" of the protesters. "For this reason, the City of Montreal publicly apologizes to all these people," the apology will read. Liam Mayes, a participants in one of the class-action lawsuits, said in an interview he felt the settlement was a somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion to a long-drawn-out legal process. "I think any opportunity to make effective change is probably long gone," he said, "but it's nice to have some sort of recognition."
Mayes participated in a demonstration on April 5, 2013, in the context of student protests against tuition fee increases. But he recalled how demonstrators had only barely begun gathering in Place Émilie-Gamelin when police declared the protest illegal and demanded everyone disperse. There was nowhere to go — police filled every exit. "It was awful," he recalled. "They all have their visors covering their faces. They all have their little batons and shields. We were just packed together." Officers moved in on the protesters, banging their shields. They had removed their identification badges, Mayes said. They arrested everyone in the square, maybe 80 people, that day, according to Mayes.
Now, he said, he feels little satisfaction knowing he may get a $1,500 payment for his experience that day — his small slice of the $6 million settlement, much of which will go toward lawyers' fees and other costs. He would rather know that police tactics have changed and other protesters won't go through a similar experience in the future but, given the size of the settlement and the length of time that has passed since the protests happened, he isn't sure it will have any effect. "They (the police) ended up 10 years later with a little slap on the wrist," he said. "It's better than no slap on the wrist, but come on, right?" Source
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Atlanta Cop City Protesters Charged With Domestic Terror for Having Mud on Their Shoes | |
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The Intercept 08/03/2023 - In an aggressive and indiscriminate arrest sweep on Sunday, police stormed a music festival held in the Atlanta forest by activists protesting Cop City, a vast police training facility under construction atop forestland. Twenty-three of the activists arrested in the raid now face domestic terrorism charges for their participation in the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. The protesters are alleged to have participated in acts of vandalism and arson at a Cop City construction site over a mile away from the music festival location and over an hour before the arrest raid took place. They have all been charged under Georgia’s domestic terror statute, though none of the arrest warrants tie any of the defendants directly to any illegal acts.
The probable cause stated in the warrants against the activists is extremely weak. Police cited arrestees having mud on their shoes — in a forest. The warrants alleged they had written a legal support phone number on their arms, as is common during mass protests. And, in a few cases, police alleged protesters were holding shields — hardly proof of illegal activity — which a number of defendants even deny. This is just the latest incident of law enforcement and prosecutorial overreach against the abolitionist, environmentalist movement in Atlanta, an absurd attempt to establish guilt by association, as the flimsy arrest warrants make clear. At a hearing for arrestees on Tuesday, 22 activists were denied bond outright. One defendant, a Georgia-based attorney who was arrested while acting as a designated legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild during Sunday’s events, was released on $5,000 bond.
“We haven’t seen a charge for arson or interference with government property,” said Eli Bennett, the attorney for several defendants, describing the arrest warrants during Tuesday’s bond hearing. “The state has no evidence,” he said, adding that Georgia’s domestic terrorism statute is “laughably unconstitutional.” A total of 42 participants in the Stop Cop City struggle now face state domestic terror charges, as 19 individuals were previously hit with the same charges in the last two months on equally weak grounds. At the end of January, during a multi-agency police raid on the forest encampment, cops shot dead 26-year-old Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, marking a grim escalation in repression against a movement that has shown impressive resilience in its two years of mobilizing against Cop City.
Now, on the most tenuous claims of vicarious liability, multiple forest defenders face up to 35 years in prison if found guilty of domestic terrorism. “It’s collective punishment. The police are trying to establish a de-facto norm that anyone who associates with a political movement will be attacked and charged for the actions of any other supporter of that movement,” said Marlon Kautz, an Atlanta-based organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides bail funds and legal support to protesters targeted for involvement in social movements, including against Cop City. “As a law enforcement strategy, it’s utterly incompetent and ignorant of how the law works. But as a strategy for repressing a political movement it makes a lot of sense,” Kautz told me. “Convincing activists and prospective activists that they will be held criminally responsible for the actions of other supporters of their movement can have the effect of pitting activists against each other.” Read more - Lire plus
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CounterPunch 27/02/2023 - I wrote the following column ten years ago. Note the absence of any accountability or regret by Bush, Cheney and their co-war criminals. Ten years ago [now 20 years ago, on March 19, 2003] George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as war criminals, launched the sociocide of the people of Iraq – replete with embedded television and newspaper reporters chronicling the invasion through the Bush lens. That illegal war of aggression was, of course, based on recognized lies, propaganda and cover-ups that duped or co-opted leading news institutions such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Wars of aggression – this one blowing apart a country of 25 million people ruled by a weakened despot surrounded by far more powerful adversaries – Israel, Turkey and Iran – are major crimes under international law and the UN Charter. The Bush/Cheney war was also unconstitutional, never declared by Congress, as Senator Robert Byrd eloquently pointed out at the time. Moreover, many of the acts of torture and brutality perpetrated against the Iraqi people are illegal under various federal statutes. Over one million Iraqis died due to the invasion, the occupation and the denial of health and safety necessities for infants, children and adults. Far more Iraqis were injured and sickened. Birth defects and cancers continue to set lethal records. Five million Iraqis became refugees, many fleeing into Jordan, Syria and other countries.
Nearly five thousand U.S. soldiers died. Many other soldiers committed suicide. Well over 150,000 Americans were injured or sickened, far more than the official Pentagon under-estimate which restricts nonfatal casualty counts only to those incurred directly in the line of fire. So far, the Iraq War has monetarily cost taxpayers about $2 trillion. Tens of billions more will be spent for veteran’s disabilities in addition to continuing expenses in Iraq. Taxpayers are paying over $600 million a year to guard the giant U.S. Embassy and its personnel in Baghdad, more than what our government spends for OSHA, whose task is to reduce the number of American workers who die annually from workplace disease and trauma – currently about 58,000.
All for what results? Before the invasion, there was no al-Qaeda in Saddam Hussein’s secular dictatorship. Now a growing al-Qaeda in Iraq is terrorizing the country with ever bolder car bombings, and suicide attacks taking dozens of lives at a time and spilling forcefully over into Syria. Iraq is a police state with sectarian struggles between the dominant Shiites and the insurgent Sunnis who lived together peacefully and intermarried for centuries. There were no sectarian slaughters of this kind before the invasion, except for Saddam Hussein’s bloodbath against rebellious Shiites. The Shiites were egged on by President George H.W. Bush, who promptly abandoned them to the deadly strafing by Saddam’s helicopter gunships at the end of the preventable first Gulf War in 1991.
Iraq is a country in ruins with a political and wealthy upper class raking off profits from the oil industry. The U.S. is now widely hated in that part of Asia. Bush/Cheney ordered the use of cluster bombs, comprised of white phosphorous and depleted uranium, against the people of Fallujah where infant birth deformities have skyrocketed. As Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American analyst observed, “Complete destruction of the Iraqi national identity.” Moreover, the sectarian system introduced by the U.S. invaders in 2003, resulting in Iraqis being favored or excluded based on their sectarian and ethnic affiliations, laid the basis for the current cruel chaos and violence – a nasty, brutish form of divide and rule.
The results back home in our country are soldiers and their extended families suffering in many ways from broken lives. Phil Donahue’s gripping documentary Body of War follows the pain-wracked life of one soldier returning in 2004 from Iraq as a paraplegic. That soldier, Tomas Young, nearing the end of his devastated life, has just written a penetrating letter to George W. Bush, which every American should read. The lessons from this unnecessary quagmire should be: first, how to stop any more wars of aggression by the Washington warmongers – the same neocon draft dodgers are at it again regarding Iran and Syria. And second, the necessity to hold accountable the leading perpetrators of this brutal carnage and financial wreckage who are presently at large – fugitives from justice earning fat lecture and consulting fees.
In the nine months running up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, at least three hundred prominent, retired military officers, diplomats and national security officials publicly spoke out against the Bush/Cheney drumbeats to war. Their warnings were prophetically accurate. They included retired Generals Anthony Zinni and William Odom, and Admiral Shanahan. Even Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, two of President George H.W. Bush’s closest advisors, strongly opposed the invasion. These outspoken truthsayers, notwithstanding their prestige and experience, were overwhelmed by a runaway White House, a disgraceful patsy mainstream media and an abdicatory Congress. [...]
As Senators, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden voted for the Iraq war in 2003. Will President Biden, Congress and other Americans recognize the massive war crimes committed against the Iraqi people with appropriate declarations and actions on March 19, 2023? Read more - Lire plus
Twenty years later, US Senate may finally end authorization for war on Iraq
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Rehabilitation for Torture at Guantanamo is a Moral and Legal Imperative | |
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Just Security 08/03/2023 - On February 18, the Biden administration announced the conclusion of what Secretary of State Antony Blinken called a “careful analysis of the law and available facts”—that Russian forces have committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. This comes on top of its previous assessment that Russian forces are committing extremely grave war crimes in Ukraine. The White House is committed to leading global efforts to hold accountable those responsible for these atrocities, including, if the evidence warrants, Russian President Vladimir Putin, consistent with the dictates of international law.
But to be an effective leader in these efforts, the United States must honor its own international legal obligations, including under the Convention against Torture, to which it is a State Party. Of particular importance today, the United States must fulfill its obligation under Article 14 of the convention, which states unequivocally: “Each State Party shall ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation, including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible.” As the plain text of the convention makes clear, there is no circumstance in which torture is justified or the obligation to provide rehabilitation services does not apply.
There is an urgent need to meet the United States’ obligation to provide “as full rehabilitation as possible” to those now detained on Guantánamo who are suffering the results of torture inflicted on them by the United States government and who have no real prospect of being set free. Bare statements by the United States in its 2021 submission to the Committee Against Torture that the CIA’s torture program “was ended in 2009” do not change the ongoing CAT obligation to provide full rehabilitation. Nor does the fact that “the law of war does not provide detained persons with a judicially enforceable individual right to a claim for monetary compensation against the detaining power for alleged unlawful conduct” change the nature of the U.S. obligation to rehabilitate those still suffering from the consequences of past torture, which is equally applicable alongside U.S. law of war obligations.
The fact that these men were tortured was established in the 2014 report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as was the fact that they are suffering serious physical and mental health consequences of brutal and harsh treatment. The men exhibit the cumulative impacts of repeated head injuries caused by walling, sleep deprivation, beating and shackling, waterboarding, hooding, isolation, and white noise. Some suffer ongoing effects from rape. And many suffer with an array of symptoms and impairments indicative of posttraumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and comorbidities with sleep disorders, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and cognitive impairment. The United States’ legal as well as moral obligation is to provide appropriate medical treatment now, and not make these men continue to wait until they are free. Indeed, unless the Biden administration prioritizes bringing the long-stalled military commissions cases to a close, some may never be released from their imprisonment: there is no end in sight for their court cases and no evident path to release. Read more - Lire plus
Doctor Describes and Denounces C.I.A. Practice of ‘Rectal Feeding’ of Prisoners
Clive Stafford Smith: Guantánamo: Sorry seems to be the hardest word
Abdul and Ahmed Rabbani freed from Guantanamo Bay after 20 years without charge
Ahmed Rabbani subjected to 62 types of torture: lawyer
Saudi Engineer Released from Guantánamo After More Than 2 Decades Without Charge
Lessons from Majid Khan’s Release from Guantánamo
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Turkey has killed, injured 21 Syrians since February 6 earthquake
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North Press Agency 26/02/2023 - The catastrophic aftermath of the February 6 earthquake did not dampen Turkey’s ability to commit human rights violations. For more than five years, Turkey has attacked the people of northern Syria under the pretext of fighting terrorism, beginning with the invasion of Afrin in 2018, and continuing with the assaults on Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad in 2019. Together, they have caused the forced displacement of more than 700,000 people. Turkey has since then established control over much of northern Syria and built dozens of military bases there. Turkey’s violations against civilians and the bombing of infrastructure have not ceased. It has killed hundreds of people, including women and children, and destroyed hundreds of homes and dozens of vital facilities.
On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Syria and Turkey, killing more than 50,000 people. Many cities in both countries were declared disaster zones. The United Nations called for a ceasefire in Syria to facilitate the delivery of assistance, but Turkey has not adhered to it nor has it ceased its bombing of northern Syria. Since then, the Monitoring and Documentation Department of North Press has recorded 14 strikes against 10 targets in northern Syria by Turkey, including three through drones. The countryside of Ain Issa, Kobani, Tel Rifaat and Qamishli were all targeted. The attacks caused the death of four people, two civilians and two SDF members, and the injury of another person. At the same time that Turkey was targeting sites in the earthquake-affected areas, residents of those areas were sleeping on the street, fearing the collapse of their houses. Turkey, aware of the general situation in Syria, did not consider the humanitarian situation. Read more - Lire plus
Turkey continues its encroachments in Syria
Turkish state-sponsored kidnappings, torture referred to ICC
Turkey unfreezes pro-Kurdish party’s bank accounts following top court ruling
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Starting Bell Rings for U.N. Counterterrorism Negotiations with Big Questions Unanswered | |
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Just Security 28/02/2023 - Yesterday, United Nations (U.N.) Secretary-General António Guterres released the biannual report on the “Activities of the United Nations system in implementing the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.” This report is intended to inform U.N. Member States and other stakeholders on the United Nation’s counterterrorism work – both what it has done and how much it has achieved – and marks the start of a three-month negotiation period to update the U.N. Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) for the next two years.
An updated set of policy responses to transnational terrorism is long overdue. But the report is also crucial for ensuring that the United Nations’ practices are not contributing to growing counterterrorism abuses. Ultimately, bad counterterrorism practices at the United Nations contribute to bad practices and outcomes at the national level, compounding civilian harm. But while the report touches on the right issues, it does not fully address important questions concerning oversight, impact and effectiveness, and the role of technology in U.N. counterterrorism operations.
Chief among these unanswered questions is how to address the issue of oversight of U.N. counterterrorism systems and programming. The previous GCTS asked the Secretary-General to assess the need for an internal advisory or monitoring and evaluation capacity to further integrate the rule of law, human rights, and gender across the counterterrorism system. This represented a step back from an earlier, more ambitious proposal – supported by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism and many civil society groups – for an independent and impartial Human Rights Ombudsperson with a mandate to review the activities of U.N. entities implementing the GCTS.
This call for independent oversight emerged for two reasons. First, Member States, civil society, and even some U.N. entities perceived there was a lack of transparency within the U.N. counterterrorism architecture. This was a particular concern for states that were unable to assess the effectiveness of their financial contributions to counterterrorism programs. Second, and perhaps most importantly, the lack of effective oversight generated significant reputational risks for the United Nations itself. The risk of potential human rights violations and civilian harm resulting from counterterrorism operations is high; the United Nations’ failure to establish a mechanism to guard against such abuses is a serious oversight.
The report, to its credit, notes the support of the Special Rapporteur and other stakeholders for an independent oversight body (para 38, Annex II), but beyond that makes no effort to offer states a reasonable option to implement this recommendation. On the contrary, much of its analysis focuses on existing (and fairly dated) approaches to oversight across a range of U.N. entities. There is no mention at all of the reputational risk to the United Nations. The report unsurprisingly concludes with a proposal for the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism (OCT) to “strengthen existing internal accountability frameworks” (para 38, Annex II) to deliver effective oversight – frameworks that have failed to deliver meaningful accountability for nearly two decades. For Member States and others desiring a more effective and accountable U.N. counterterrorism system, this recommendation falls short. Read more - Lire plus
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New technologies having devastating impact on rights in counter-terrorism policy, says UN Special Rapporteur | |
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statewatch 02/03/2023 - In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, addresses the human rights challenges and consequences of the development, use and transfer of new technologies in the context of counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism. The Special Rapporteur acknowledges the capacity of new technologies to positively transform lives and enhance the full realization of human rights, equality and dignity for human beings, and the significant potential new technologies have for addressing human rights lacunae for the most marginalized and vulnerable. Regrettably, at the same time, new technologies are being misused worldwide to restrict and violate human rights.
The present report illuminates the ways in which counter-terrorism and security are frequently used to provide political and legal justifications for the adoption of high-risk and highly intrusive technologies on the basis of exceptional threats and with the promise of strictly limited application. The report demonstrates that such rationales and limitations rarely hold, and that the claim of exceptional use to respond to security crises is a chimera, when the reality is broad and wholesale use which lacks adequate human rights or rule of law restraints. Such technologies, including biometric, surveillance and drone technology, have serious negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights across the globe. The Special Rapporteur highlights the human rights risks inherent in the development, deployment and transfer of such technologies internationally.
She is also deeply concerned about the discriminatory elements built into the development and deployment of such technologies. Negative consequences include direct violations of non-derogable rights, the integrity of which is being undermined by new technologies lacking any meaningful legal oversight, and impunity for both State and non-State actors whose use and transfer of such technologies involves systemic rights-violative practice. The impact on human rights across the globe is devastating, particularly the exercise of the rights to privacy, expression, association and political participation. The Special Rapporteur’s key point is that abusive practices are hardwired into the counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism arena, precisely because in the absence of an agreed international definition of those phenomena, States define them to advance a variety of interests, few of which engage human rights and the rule of law.
She calls for a moratorium on the use of certain technologies, including a global prohibition of lethal autonomous weapons systems. She specifically demands a cease-and-desist policy by Member States on the transfer of such technologies to States that have a demonstrated history of human rights violations, as confirmed in the resolutions of the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly and the findings of United Nations human rights treaty bodies. In alignment with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, she calls for a moratorium on the transfer of surveillance technology. She also provides a template for a global regulatory framework on the use of surveillance technologies. Source
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ACLU Obtains Docs Detailing FBI, Pentagon Development of Facial Recognition Tech | |
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Common Dreams 08/03/2023 - "The continued proliferation of surveillance tools like facial recognition technologies in our society is deeply disturbing," said Sen. Ed Markey, reintroducing a federal ban. Thousands of records about U.S. government involvement in the research and development of facial recognition technology—unveiled due to an ACLU lawsuit and first reported on Tuesday by The Washington Post—fueled fresh calls for a federal ban on such tools.
"Americans' ability to navigate our communities without constant tracking and surveillance is being chipped away at an alarming pace," Sen. Ed Markey(D-Mass.) told the Post. "We cannot stand by as the tentacles of the surveillance state dig deeper into our private lives, treating every one of us like suspects in an unbridled investigation that undermines our rights and freedom." While some cities and states have taken action, there is currently no federal law restricting the use of facial recognition tools. However, Markey pledged to reintroduce his proposed ban on government use of the technology—which he did, alongside Rep. Pramila Jayapal(D-Wash.) and other Democrats, within hours of the reporting.
"The year is 2023, but we are living through 1984. The continued proliferation of surveillance tools like facial recognition technologies in our society is deeply disturbing," declared Markey, reintroducing the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which is backed by various groups including the ACLU.
"Biometric data collection poses serious risks of privacy invasion and discrimination, and Americans know they should not have to forgo personal privacy for safety," the senator said. "As we work to make our country more equitable, we cannot ignore the technologies that stand in the way of progress and perpetuate injustice."
Despite concerns about accuracy and bias—bolstered by examples of misidentified Black men being arrested for crimes they did not commit—the U.S. Defense Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were more closely involved in work on facial recognition software to identify people from drone and street camera footage than was previously known, according to the documents revealed as a result of the ACLU's public records lawsuit filed in late 2019.
The Post reported that documents including internal emails and presentations expose how intimately officials at the FBI—which is part of the Justice Department—and Pentagon "worked with academic researchers to refine artificial intelligence techniques that could help in the identification or tracking of Americans without their awareness or consent." Read more - Lire plus
AI ‘wild west’ raises national security concerns
U.S. Special Forces want to use deepfakes for spy-ops although the U.S. government spent years warning deepfakes could destabilize democratic societies
Why We Must Resist AI w/ Dan McQuillan - Tech Won't Save Us Podcast
The lobbying ghost in the machine: Big Tech’s covert defanging of Europe’s AI Act
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German Constitutional Court strikes down predictive algorithms for policing | |
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Euractiv 20/02/2023 - The German Federal Constitutional Court declared the use of Palantir surveillance software by police in Hesse and Hamburg unconstitutional in a landmark ruling on Thursday (16 February). The ruling concludes a case brought by the German Society for Civil Rights (GFF) last year, hearings for which began in December. The plaintiffs argued that the software could be used for predictive policing, raising the risk of mistakes and discrimination by law enforcement.
The German state of Hesse has been using the software since 2017, though it is not yet in place in Hamburg. The technology is provided by Palantir, a US data analytics firm which received early backing from intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI and NSA.
The case was brought on behalf of 11 plaintiffs and rested on the argument that the software programme – named ‘Hessendata’ – facilitates predictive policing by using data to create profiles of suspects before any crime has been committed. The legal basis of the acts authorising these systems was questioned by the GFF, which said that Hesse and Hamburg had not made clear the sources police could use for obtaining data or how much and on what grounds data mining could be conducted by law enforcement. According to the court, the powers granted to the police in Hesse have been used thousands of times per year via the Hessendata platform. [...]
On Thursday, however, the constitutional court in Karlsruhe struck down acts which provided a statutory basis for police to process stored personal data through automated data analysis, in the case of Hesse, or automated data interpretation, in Hamburg. The systems were deemed unconstitutional as they violated the right to informational self-determination. “Given the particularly broad wording of the powers, in terms of both the data and the methods concerned, the grounds for interference fall far short of the constitutionally required threshold of an identifiable danger”, the Court said in a statement. The use of automated measures that interfere with people’s rights in this way, it was added, “is only permissible to protect particularly weighty legal interests – such as life, limb or liberty of the person.”
The ruling voids the Hamburg act, meaning the system will not be installed. The state of Hesse, however, where the tech is already in use, now has until 30 September to reform its legislation. In the meantime, it will remain in place with restrictions. The case will also have broader implications, said Bijan Moini, head of GFF’s legal team: “Today, the Federal Constitutional Court prohibited the police from looking into the crystal ball and formulated strict guidelines for the use of intelligent software in police work. This was important because the automation of policing is just the beginning.” Read more - Lire plus
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Exclusive Excerpt: Inside The Hidden World Of Incarcerated Indians Accused Of Terrorism | |
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Article 14 04/03/2023 - For 14 months between December 2011 and March 2013, Mayur Suresh followed 18 cases of men arrested on charges of terrorism, attending trial every day, almost all in New Delhi’s Tis Hazari courts. His experiences and their lives are laid bare in his new book, Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi's Courts, published by Fordham University Press and OrientBlackswan.
Mayur Suresh, PhD, a senior lecturer in law at the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, narrates how trials of those accused of terrorism under India’s draconian anti-terrorism law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 1967 grind on with little chance for bail and, often, years before cases come to trial. Suresh’s book is replete with stories of torture, illegal detention and fabricated charges, accused of terrorism in India schooled themselves in legal procedures, became adept petition writers, had friendships with police officials, cultivated cautious faith in the courts and expressed a deep sense of betrayal when this trust was belied. Suresh said he started the research project to understand two things: how the terrorism 'emergency' manifests itself through everyday aspects of trial; and how Hindu majoritarianism has segued with national security legislation and rhetoric. Read more - Lire plus
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Colombian State Responsible for ‘Extermination’ of UP Political Party | |
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Progressive International 06/03/2023 - For more than two decades, the Colombian state participated in intense human rights abuses against the leftwing Patriotic Union (UP) party in a campaign of ‘extermination,’ a landmark ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has declared. From 1984, more than 6,000 UP activists, members and supporters were targeted. The ruling reaffirms the state’s role in atrocities committed against civil society during the armed conflict.
The UP was founded in 1985 under the terms of a peace agreement between the then-government of Belisario Betancur and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It brought together former guerrillas and other leftist groups as they pursued political change through electoral means, a major shift from the armed struggle that the FARC had previously enacted. However, after the UP made electoral gains at regional and local levels, state forces colluded with paramilitaries, politicians and business groups to carry out brutal violence against the party, in a campaign commonly referred to as a ‘political genocide’ in Colombia. The objective was simple: to prevent the UP’s emergence as a credible alternative to long established power structures and, as the ruling finds, ‘to counteract the UP’s rise in the political arena.’
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is an autonomous tribunal tasked with carrying out investigations into human rights violations across the Americas. Some of these investigations cannot easily be held in the countries where they are alleged to have taken place. The ruling says that among the acts of ‘systematic violence’ suffered by victims and carried out on a nationwide scale were forced disappearances, massacres, extrajudicial executions and murders, threats, physical attacks, stigmatisation, legal persecutions, torture, forced displacement and others. This was facilitated by investigations which, if carried out at all, were woefully ineffective and characterised by ‘high levels of impunity which operated as forms of tolerance on the part of authorities.’ Aligned with the active collusion of authorities in the violence, the absence of repercussion enabled the killings and other abuses to continue unimpeded.
Additionally, the Court found the state responsible for violating victims’ rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association. This manifested through ongoing stigmatisation of a party depicted as an ‘internal enemy,’ a discourse which legitimised persecution against the UP. High-ranking state officials were most prominent in feeding the climate of aggression through political discourse, which had the effect, in the words of the Court, of ‘aggravating the situation of vulnerability … and generating a motive to promote attacks against them.’ As well as impacting their physical safety, this generated a severe psychological impact on many UP members and supporters.
Victims’ rights remain violated today, as the state has failed to properly investigate the violence, to prosecute those responsible or to uphold the right of victims to the truth.
In its ruling the Court issued several forms of state reparation:
- Ensure rigorous investigations and conclusions, to take no longer than two years, that will establish the truth around what took place, determine the punitive measures that perpetrators should face and ensure an end to impunity
- Locate the remains of victims of forced disappearance whose whereabouts are still unknown
- Provide medical, psychological or psychiatric treatment to victims
- Distribute and promote the Court’s ruling
- Organise a public act of recognition of the state’s responsibility
- Create a national commemorative day for victims and conduct activities to raise awareness of this, including in schools and colleges
- Construct a monument to the memory of victims and their legacy
- Install plaques in at least five public spaces to commemorate victims
- Produce and release a documentary about the campaign against the UP
- Launch a public campaign to raise public awareness about the violence, persecution and stigmatisation suffered by the UP
- Organise academic forums in at least five universities around the country
- Produce a report in collaboration with the UP which addresses ways to improve and strengthen security for party members
- Pay compensation as determined in the Court’s ruling
Read more - Lire plus
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Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now! | |
On January 20, 2023, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled that Canada must repatriate Canadians illegally and arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria. On February 6, 2023, the Canadian government filed an appeal and asked that the Brown ruling be set aside and placed on hold while the appeal plays out. This is unacceptable.
Every day the government fails to bring these Canadians home, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing military conflicts, including bombing by Turkey’s military. United Nations officials have even found that the conditions faced by Canadians in prison are akin to torture. Please click below to urge the federal government to repatriate all Canadians illegally & arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria without delay.
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20 years of fighting deportation to torture: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Now! | |
Take Action for Justice for Hassan Diab! | |
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Since the Taliban takeover of a year ago, Canadian aid organizations have faced barriers in sending aid to Afghanistan due to Canadian sanctions and a restrictive interpretation of the Canadian Criminal Code’s anti-terrorism provisions. This is despite the US, the UK, the EU countries and even the UN taking action to ensure sanctions do not interfere with crucial humanitarian assistance.
ICLMG has teamed up with other Canadian organizations to call on Prime Minister Trudeau and the Canadian government to act immediately to remove barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance. This includes ensuring that sanctions and counter-terror finance and criminal law restrictions do not impede the provision of lifesaving humanitarian aid. This issue isn’t limited to Afghanistan, either, which is why we are also asking the government to address the long-standing issue of ensuring that anti-terrorism laws and sanctions do not interfere with humanitarian assistance. Version française
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Canada must protect encryption! | |
Canada’s extradition system is broken. One leading legal expert calls it “the least fair law in Canada.” It has led to grave harms and rights violations, as we’ve seen in the case of Canadian citizen Dr Hassan Diab. It needs to be reformed now.
Click below to send a message to urge Prime Minister Trudeau, the Minister of Justice and your Member of Parliament to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. And share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram. Thank you!
Regardez la vidéo avec les sous-titres en français + Agir
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Protect our rights from facial recognition! | Facial recognition surveillance is invasive and inaccurate. This unregulated tech poses a threat to the fundamental rights of people across Canada. Federal intelligence agencies refuse to disclose whether they use facial recognition technology. The RCMP has admitted (after lying about it) to using facial recognition for 18 years without regulation, let alone a public debate regarding whether it should have been allowed in the first place. Send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for a ban now. | |
OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES | |
July to December 2022 - Juillet à décembre 2022 | |
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In case you missed it, we've published our biannual summary of activities last month. Here are the legislation and issues we worked on from July to December 2022:
- Bill C-20, Public Complaints and Review Commission Act
- Bill C-26, An Act respecting cyber security & amending the Telecommunications Act
- Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
- "Online harms" proposal
- Countering terrorist financing & prejudiced audits of Muslim charities
- International Assistance and anti-terrorism laws
- Justice for Dr Hassan Diab & reform of the Extradition Act
- CSIS accountability and duty of candour
- Facial Recognition Technology (FRT)
- Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
- Justice for Moe Harkat and abolish security certificates
- Canada’s armed drone purchase
- Listing of Iranian Canadians
- Ongoing No Fly List problems
For more details on each issue, click here. And here are the issues we plan to work on in the first half of 2023:
- Advocating for changes to anti-terror laws that prohibit Canadian organizations from providing international assistance in Afghanistan and other regions in need;
- Ensuring that the Canadian government’s proposals on “online harms” do not violate fundamental freedoms, or exacerbate the silencing of racialized and marginalized voices;
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Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for privacy law reform;
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Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility;
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Ensuring Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law;
- The return of the 40+ Canadian citizens indefinitely detained in Syrian camps, including more than 20 children;
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The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities;
- Pushing for Canadian government action on behalf of Iranian Canadians negatively and unjustly impacted by the US terror listing of the IRGC;
- Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency;
- Greater transparency and accountability for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service;
- Advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada;
- Pressuring lawmakers to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and the “war on terror”, as well as keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest;
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And much more! Read more - Lire plus
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to our amazing supporters!
We would like to thank all our member organizations, and the hundreds of people who have supported us over the years, including on Patreon! As a reward, we are listing below our patrons who give $10 or more per month (and wanted to be listed) directly in the News Digest. Without all of you, our work wouldn't be possible!
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