International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
March 13, 2021
Trudeau signals support for Hassan Diab as advocates demand intervention with France - featuring ICLMG
The Canadian Press 03/03/2020 - Justin Trudeau signalled Wednesday that Canada will stand up for an Ottawa sociology professor facing trial in France as human-rights advocates renewed calls for the Liberal government to intervene. The prime minister’s words left Hassan Diab’s supporters wishing Trudeau had been more forceful in pledging assistance. In late January, France ordered Diab to stand trial for a decades-old synagogue bombing, a move his lawyer called the latest misstep in a long odyssey of injustice.

The Canadian government has been communicating with officials in France about the case and will continue to do so, Trudeau said during a news briefing Wednesday. “It has been a priority for us to make sure that we’re standing up for our citizens all around the world, with countries that are challenging, but also with our allies,” he said. “And those conversations will continue.” Canadians would rightly expect their prime minister and government to stand up for a falsely accused citizen, said Donald Bayne, Diab’s Ottawa lawyer. “But what does that ambiguous phrase mean?” Born in Lebanon, Diab became a Canadian citizen in 1993, working in Ottawa as a university teacher. [...]

"The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group has called on Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau to intervene with their French counterparts “to put a stop to this endless, Kafkaesque affair.” The group, which represents dozens of civil-society voices, also wants the prime minister to commit to not extraditing Diab to France a second time. It also says Canada must reform its extradition laws to ensure no one else is forced to go through what Diab has endured. Tim McSorley the group’s national co-ordinator, said Wednesday that while the prime minister’s words were encouraging, Trudeau missed an opportunity to “clearly and publicly denounce the ongoing miscarriage of justice being faced by Hassan Diab." Read more - Lire plus

Canada’s spy warrant shortcomings stretch back at least 9 years, audit shows - featuring ICLMG
The Canadian Press 06/03/2021 - A newly released audit report shows that difficulties with the judicial warrant process at Canada’s spy agency — an issue that made headlines last summer — stretch back at least nine years. Internal reviewers found several of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service‘s preparatory steps for the execution of warrant powers needed strengthening. Among the shortcomings were insufficient training of personnel and a lack of quality-control measures.

In underscoring the importance of the process, the report notes warrants are authorizations issued by a federal judge that enable CSIS to legally undertake actions, including surveilling people electronically, that would otherwise be illegal. “Failure to properly apply or interpret a warrant at the time of its execution exposes the Service to the risk of its employees committing unlawful actions, and in certain situations, criminal offences,” the report says. “The investigative powers outlined in warrants must be exercised rigorously, consistently and effectively.” Potential misuse of these powers could result in serious ethical, legal or reputational consequences that might compromise the intelligence service’s integrity, the report adds. The Canadian Press requested the 2012 audit under the Access to Information Act shortly after its completion, but CSIS withheld much of the content.

The news agency filed a complaint through the federal information commissioner’s office in July 2013, beginning a process that led to disclosure of a substantial portion of the document more than seven years later. CSIS operates with a high degree of secrecy and is therefore supposed to follow the proper protocols and legal framework, particularly concerning warrants, said Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, which includes dozens of civil society organizations. “Seeing a report like this, it just raises a concern… to what degree they’re really following that framework with the most rigour possible.” Read more - Lire plus

Amira Elghawaby: Renewed spotlight on former Guantanamo detainee raises new questions about Canada’s security agencies
The Toronto Star 09/03/2021 - “Do not harm the iguanas, $10,000 fine.” This sign appears in the new film, “The Mauritanian,” a painfully ironic image considering where it hangs: Guantanamo Bay, where hundreds of men were illegally mistreated and tortured by U.S. forces throughout the decades following 9/11. Among them, Mohamedou Ould Salahi (also spelled Slahi), whose personal experiences he first documented in his bestselling memoir, “Guantánamo Diary” and which are now depicted on the silver screen in a movie widely released in Canada this week. Salahi spent 14 years at the American detention centre in Cuba. It was set up in 2002, holding over 780 people at its peak, most who were never charged or convicted of any crime. Detainees, including Salahi, suffered violations of international law, including illegal and indefinite detention, torture, inhumane conditions, unfair trials (military commissions), and more. Forty detainees remain.

Earlier this month, Salahi, who now lives in his homeland of Mauritania, once again called on Canada to answer for its role in his detention, raising urgent questions about accountability, as well as reform, within Canada’s national security apparatus. Questions, which if left unanswered, risk further transgressions of human rights at the hands of government agents. Rewind to January 2000. Salahi returned to Mauritania after spending several months living in Montreal as a permanent resident. During his time in Canada, he attended Montreal’s al Sunnah mosque. The mosque was of particular interest to law enforcement agencies, as it had been frequented by Ahmed Ressam. Ressam would later be charged and convicted for plans to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Day in what was widely described as “the Millennium Plot.” The RCMP interrogated Salahi and soon after, his entire life would forever change. “Americans suspected me of being the mastermind of this horrible plot,” Salahi said in a CBC interview, which aired last week. “And the Canadians swallowed every last bit of it and were sold on this very fantastical story of the Americans.” [...]

RCMP and CSIS agents travelled to Guantanamo Bay and interrogated Salehi there.
Furthermore, although Salahi’s circumstances were also reminiscent of those surrounding Canadian Omar Khadr, a 2009 Federal Court of Appeal judgment ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms did not apply to him. “[The ruling] basically says that non-citizens may have their rights violated by Canadian agents abroad with impunity. That’s pretty disturbing in lots of ways,” said lawyer Paul Champ. (Khadr eventually received an apology and compensation from the federal government for Canada’s role in his torture and imprisonment, as did several other Canadian Muslim men who were tortured abroad.) Kent Roach, a University of Ottawa law professor and co-author of the award-winning book, “False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-terrorism,” said Salahi’s case underscores the danger of allowing governments to shield themselves from scrutiny on the basis of government secrecy. Either the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians or the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (both set up in recent years to bolster oversight), should examine how security and law enforcement agencies currently balance respect for human rights with effectiveness in dealing with security threats, and what lessons were learned, suggested Roach. Indeed, the time for a full reckoning is long overdue and mustn’t remain the stuff of movies. Read more - Lire plus

Cyber spies fall short on protecting Canadians' privacy after breaches, says new report
CBC 05/03/2021 - Canada's foreign signals intelligence agency has been falling short when it comes to containing the damage done by privacy breaches, says a new report from the intelligence sector watchdog. The findings are found in a redacted report from the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) looking into reported breaches of Canadians' privacy by the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). The report was made public this week. 

The CSE gathers foreign signals intelligence — or SIGINT, to use the intelligence sector's term for it. Its mandate specifically limits it to monitoring online activity abroad. The agency also has been tasked with protecting critical government infrastructure from hackers and state-sponsored attacks. Given the sensitive nature of its work, CSE has to catalogue every incident of its activities putting the privacy of Canadians, or of any individual in Canada, at risk. The watchdog agency wrote that it understands privacy incidents are unavoidable due to the nature of CSE's work, but it flagged problems with the way CSE treats breaches — and warned that there's nothing stopping systemic incidents from reoccurring unless changes are made.

"The mitigation, documentation and reporting of privacy incidents was inconsistent and did not always meet the transparency and accountability objectives set out in CSE internal policy," said the NSIRA report. "Moreover, incidents were not always assessed with a view to determining the impact on lawfulness and/or the privacy of Canadians." CSE-watcher and Citizen Lab Research fellow Bill Robinson said the report shows that the spy agency isn't doing enough to clean up after it makes a mistake that leads to a privacy breach. "We're talking about when they make mistakes and information about average Canadians ends up getting reported by them, or otherwise gets into people's inboxes or ... where it shouldn't be," he said. "And then, what do they do when they find out about that and how do they try to prevent that from happening? And the report suggests they're not doing a very good job of that. "It's kind of a damning report for CSE."

While many details are blacked out in the report, NSIRA said it observed incidents of data containing Canadian identity information being incorrectly shared, and of foreign intelligence products created through inadvertent targeting of Canadians. CSE would cancel or delete the information without checking to see of the information had been used, said the report. "Cancelling a SIGINT product, in NSIRA's opinion, is insufficient to mitigate the potential harm arising from inadvertently including Canadian information within a report," said the report. 'While the potential harm is limited from the moment the report is cancelled, information with a Canadian privacy interest might still have been used prior to the product's cancellation." That failure to follow up could have real consequences, said Robinson. "They don't check on asking what they've done with the information, which could be putting somebody on a no-fly list. Or it could be putting them on a 'kill them with a drone' list in the worst case," he said. [...]

Leah West, a former federal lawyer turned assistant professor on national security issues at Carleton University, said cases involving allies instead of adversaries do not absolve CSE of responsibility. West cited the case of Maher Arar. The engineer was detained by the U.S. in 2002 and deported to Syria, where he was tortured and interrogated on false terrorism allegations. A judicial inquiry found the RCMP had given misleading information to U.S. authorities. "We just have to look at the Maher Arar incident to see where information can be shared with an ally about a Canadian that has significant implications for that Canadian once they're outside our jurisdiction. So it's not that this stuff doesn't matter," she said. Read more - Lire plus

MSF denounces unsafe environment in Al-Hol camp in wake of staff killing
MSF 02/03/2021 - In the wake of the killing of one of its staff members and the injury of three others in Al-Hol camp for displaced people in northeast Syria, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) expresses our shock and sadness at the incidents, and our profound concerns about the insecurity facing camp residents, two-thirds of whom are children.
 
During the night of 24 February, a member of our team was killed in the tent in which they lived. Three days later, the child of another staff member died in an accidental fire at a wedding in the camp, in which three staff members were also injured. “During the night of 24 February, our colleague was off-duty with their family when they were killed,” says Will Turner, MSF emergency manager for Syria. “We are trying to better understand the situation and circumstances around their death. MSF is providing support to the family during this difficult time and we offer our sincerest condolences to our colleague’s family and friends.” 
 
The second incident occurred on the evening of 27 February when a fire broke out in a tent, where people were gathered to celebrate a wedding, after a child knocked over a diesel heater by accident. The recent tragic incidents demonstrate the human toll of the violence and unsafe living conditions experienced by camp residents. Al-Hol is under the control of local authorities and security forces who prevent most residents from leaving the camp’s perimeters.
 
“People are being killed with a brutal frequency, often in the tents where they live,” says Turner. “Many of those killed leave behind children who have no one else to take care of them. The authorities have a responsibility to provide people with safety and security at all times,” Turner continues. “This is not a safe environment and certainly not a suitable place for children to grow up in. This nightmare must stop.” 
 
MSF calls on the international community and countries with citizens in Al-Hol camp to take responsibility to find longer-term solutions for people living there – solutions which must be voluntary and in line with international legal norms, including international humanitarian and human rights laws. Read more - Lire plus
Philippines: Killings Highlight Need for International Action
OCCRP 12/03/2021 - Human Rights Watch urged on Wednesday the United Nations to do something about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines after government forces killed nine human rights defenders on Sunday March 7, 2021 claiming they were communists.

“The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights should consider deploying a “rapid response unit” to investigate the recent spate of killings of activists,” the HRW said. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the victims advocated for labor rights, housing rights and represented fishing communities and Indigenous people. Another six activists were arrested. Among the victims were husband and wife Chai Lemita Evangelista and Ariel Evangelista who were both shot inside their home on Sunday. They left behind a ten-year-old child, Rappler reported.

The murders occurred two days after President Rodrigo Duterte encouraged, during a speech, police and military to kill communists - which is how his government often labels human rights defenders and political dissidents. “I’ve told the military and the police that if they find themselves in an armed encounter with the communist rebels, kill them, make sure you really kill them, and finish them off if they are alive,” Duterte said. “Ignore human rights,” he said. “That’s my order.”

Officials in the Philippines later told the OHCHR that they were executing search warrants issued for people connected to the New People’s Army, a communist rebel group. The U.N. agency pointed out that the execution of search warrants also turned deadly in late December 2020, when nine Indigenous rights leaders were killed in what some Indigenous organizations have labeled a massacre. Similarly, activists were quick to condemn the latest killings. “No amount of lies by the government can whitewash the accountability of Duterte and state forces in the ‘Bloody Sunday’ raids,” the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said.

An anti-terrorism law passed last summer uses broad language to define communists and terrorists, which allows the government to impose severe punishments and bypass due process in the name of national security. Since the law was introduced, activists and journalists in the Philippines have reportedly been labeled “communists,” and “terrorists,” have been threatened, jailed on trumped up charges with planted evidence, tortured, and killed during the execution of “search warrants,” according to activists. Read more - Lire plus


UN urged to take action against France over 'entrenching Islamophobia'
MEE 18/01/2021 - A coalition of civil society organisations has written to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to request that it opens formal infringement procedures against France’s government for entrenching Islamophobia and structural discrimination against Muslims.

In a 28-page document seen by Middle East Eye, 36 organisations from 13 countries have submitted a complaint to the UNHRC in which they outline “clear violation of a number of basic rights that are protected in legislation that is ratified by Paris”. The document alleged that France's actions and policies in relation to Muslim communities violated international and European laws, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. [...]

"These policies are not only counter-productive, but they are open to abuse, and have been abused - while also being completely out of touch with reality.” The document concluded by accusing France of acting “out of proportion” and “unreasonably” applying exceptions to restrictions on fundamental freedoms in order to protect national security. It said that there was no effective remedy within the French legal system to stop structural Islamophobia, and therefore a formal infringement procedure against the government was necessary. 

“France has seen shocking levels of state-sanctioned Islamophobia in recent months. This has precipitated the closure of mosques, Muslim schools, Muslim-led charities and civil society organisations,” said Muhammad Rabbani, managing director of Cage, which co-signed the complaint. “As a signatory to the UN, France cannot be allowed to infringe upon its international rights obligations so openly, and yet present itself as the land of ‘liberte, egalite, fraternite’.” Read more - Lire plus


Dozens of countries urge Egypt to end crackdown on critics
PressTV 12/03/2021 - Dozens of countries have told the United Nations (UN) that Egypt must stop using anti-terror laws to gag human rights and civil society activism. In a joint statement issued on Friday at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), 31 Western countries expressed concern about the restrictions on political opponents, rights activists, and journalists in Egypt.

The statement — whose signatories were mainly European countries in addition to the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — marked a rare oral rebuke of Egypt since 2014. They expressed alarm at “the application of terrorism legislation against peaceful critics,” urging Cairo to stop using terrorism charges to keep activists in pre-trial detention indefinitely. “We urge Egypt to guarantee space for civil society — including human rights defenders — to work without fear of intimidation, harassment, arrest, detention or any other form of reprisal,” Finland’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Kirsti Kauppi said via video link, reading out the joint statement. “That includes lifting travel bans and asset freezes against human rights defenders — including EIPR staff,” she added, referring to the case of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a rights organization that saw three staffers arrested last November and was charged with terrorism after a meeting with foreign diplomats in Cairo. The EIPR’s activists were released following a global outcry.

The countries also called on Egyptian authorities to “lift restrictions on media and digital freedom,” and to release all the journalists who have been detained in the course of practicing their profession. The statement was welcomed by rights groups, which described it as long overdue. The statement “ends years of a lack of collective action at the UN Human Rights Council on Egypt, despite the sharply deteriorating human rights situation,” Bahey Hassan, head of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said in a joint statement with nine other national and international rights groups.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi came to power in June 2014, one year after he led the military to oust President Mohamed Morsi in a coup. He served as the defense minister in Morsi’s government before orchestrating the coup. Human rights groups and activists have constantly accused Sisi of violating public freedoms and suppressing opponents. According to rights groups, an estimated 60,000 political prisoners are being held in Egyptian jails. Despite Sisi’s bleak human rights record, France awarded the Egyptian president with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor last year, and the administration of US President Joe Biden approved an arms sale worth nearly $200 million to the North African country. Read more - Lire plus
Lebanon: Authorities step up repression through use of terrorism charges against protesters
Amnesty International 08/03/2021 - Lebanese authorities must immediately stop the use of terrorism-related charges to prosecute protesters, which marks a worrying new turn in the ongoing repression of activists and demonstrators, said Amnesty International. The organization further reiterates its call that the authorities must immediately cease the practice of summoning civilians before military courts.

On 19 February, Lebanon’s military prosecutor filed terrorism-related charges against at least 23 detainees, including two minors, involved in heated protests in the northern city of Tripoli - during which both Internal Security Forces (ISF) officers and civilians were injured and one civilian killed - citing articles from the Law on Terrorism. If convicted, these protesters could face the death penalty.

"The Lebanese authorities’ oppressive and disproportionate use of terrorism-related charges to prosecute protesters marks an alarming escalation in their repression and is clearly intended to instil fear and deter protests. This only serves to punish people who are suffering a relentless stream of hardships as a result of the soaring cost of food in the midst of an economic and financial meltdown, strict lockdown measures and worsening shortages in basic services including electricity and medical supplies,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“By resorting to the use of the anti-terror law and summoning protesters to military courts, Lebanese authorities are stepping up a pattern of harassment of activists that has been steadily escalating since a wave of anti-government protests first began in October 2019. Instead of protecting people’s rights to protest, the Lebanese judiciary is complicit in the ongoing repression of protesters and efforts to crush dissent.” Read more - Lire plus
21 Hong Kong activists to remain in custody after bail requests denied, withdrawn
Reuters 12/03/2021 - Twenty-one Hong Kong activists will remain in custody after a court on Friday rejected requests by some for bail and others withdrew their applications in a widely monitored case where they are charged with conspiracy to subvert the government. The charges against a total of 47 opposition figures represent the most sweeping use yet of Hong Kong’s new security law, which punishes what it broadly defines as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.

The case offers an insight into how the mainland-style justice drafted by Beijing into the security law clashes with the global financial hub’s common-law traditions, and is being closely watched by foreign diplomats and rights groups. In contrast with past practice, the new security law puts the onus on defendants to prove they will not pose a security threat if released on bail. Since the group of 47 were charged around two weeks ago, the court has heard a series of requests for bail. While most requests were rejected, the court approved some applications, prompting immediate appeals from prosecutors to overturn some of those approvals. Just five of the group are currently out on bail.

Of the 21 defendants in court on Friday, Judge Victor So rejected 11 applications while the rest were withdrawn by the defendants. The rejected defendants have the right to file for another review in eight days, although most indicated they did not intend to do so.
The 47 activists are accused of organizing and participating in an unofficial, non-binding primary poll in July 2020 that authorities said was part of a “vicious plot” to “overthrow” the government. The vote was aimed at selecting the strongest opposition candidates for a legislative council election that the government later postponed, citing the coronavirus. Read more - Lire plus



The FBI Should Stop Attacking Encryption and Tell Congress About All the Encrypted Phones It’s Already Hacking Into
EFF 08/03/2021 - Federal law enforcement has been asking for a backdoor to read Americans’ encrypted communications for years now. FBI Director Christopher Wray did it again last week in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As usual, the FBI’s complaints involved end-to-end encryption employed by popular messaging platforms, as well as the at-rest encryption of digital devices, which Wray described as offering “user-only access.” 

The FBI wants these terms to sound scary, but they actually describe security best practices. End-to-end encryption is what allows users to exchange messages without having them intercepted and read by repressive governments, corporations, and other bad actors. And “user-only access” is actually a perfect encapsulation of how device encryption should work; otherwise, anyone who got their hands on your phone or laptop—a thief, an abusive partner, or an employer—could access its most sensitive data. When you intentionally weaken these systems, it hurts our security and privacy, because there’s no magical kind of access that only works for the good guys. If Wray gets his special pass to listen in on our conversations and access our devices, corporations, criminals, and authoritarians will be able to get the same access. 

It’s remarkable that Wray keeps getting invited to Congress to sing the same song. Notably, Wray was invited there to talk, in part, about the January 6th insurrection, a serious domestic attack in which the attackers—far from being concerned about secrecy—proudly broadcast many of their crimes, resulting in hundreds of arrests. It’s also remarkable what Wray, once more, chose to leave out of this narrative. While Wray continues to express frustration about what his agents can’t get access to, he fails to brief Senators about the shocking frequency with which his agency already accesses Americans’ smartphones. Nevertheless, the scope of police snooping on Americans’ mobile phones is becoming clear, and it’s not just the FBI who is doing it. Instead of inviting Wray up to Capitol Hill to ask for special ways to invade our privacy and security, Senators should be asking Wray about the private data his agents are already trawling through. [...]

Rather than listening to a litany of requests for special access to personal data from federal agencies like the FBI, Congress should assert oversight over the inappropriate types of access that are already taking place. The first step is to start keeping track of what’s happening. Congress should require that federal law enforcement agencies create detailed audit logs and screen recordings of digital searches. And we agree with Upturn that agencies nationwide should collect and publish aggregated information about how many phones were searched, and whether those searches involved warrants (with published warrant numbers), or so-called consent searches. Agencies should also disclose what tools were used for data extraction and analysis. Congress should also consider placing sharp limits on when consent searches can take place at all. In our January blog post, we suggest that such searches be banned entirely in high-coercion settings like traffic stops, and suggest some specific limits that should be set in less-coercive settings. Read more - Lire plus
ACTIONS & EVENTS
NEW Stop arms shipments to Saudi Arabia now!
Sign this parliamentary petition to call upon the Government of Canada to:

1) Halt arms shipments to Saudi Arabia immediately and ensure that any future arms transfers fully comply with Canada’s int'l legal obligations under the UN Arms Trade Treaty;

2) Participate in international efforts to bring an immediate end to the deliberate Saudi-led attacks on civilians which constitute war crimes;

3) Demand and support international partners in lifting the siege on Sana’a Airport and Hudaydah Port in order to deliver humanitarian assistance.
Tell Transport Minister to cancel Canada's drone contract now!
Canada’s Transportation Ministry recently approved a $36M contract for drone technology from Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company. The money will purchase a “civilian” version of Elbit’s lethal military drone, the same one which was used to kill civilians during Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2014.

Click below to message the Transport Minister, the Prime Minister, federal political leaders, and your MP.
NEW Tell President Biden to close Guantanamo!
The military prison at Guantánamo Bay is a glaring, longstanding stain on the human rights record of the United States. Today, it continues to hold 40 Muslim men, most without charge, and none having received a fair trial. Many, like Toffiq al-Bihani, were tortured by the U.S. government. And al-Bihani, along with five other prisoners, has been cleared for transfer to other countries, yet remains behind bars without charge or trial.

Help us close Guantánamo and ensure the transfer of all cleared detainees to countries that will respect their human rights.
Act Now to tell President Biden to shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention facility once and for all!
NEW The Use of Torture and Race: North Carolina’s Role
March 23, 2021 @ 7:00 - 8:30 PM

For over a decade, we have known that North Carolina has played a major role in the CIA’s use of torture but have been unable to get details about the program from officials. 
One of our panelists, Nancy Hollander, was an attorney for Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian who was detained at Guantanamo Bay without charge from 2002 to 2016 and was brutally tortured.
The virtual panel discussion will feature experts on the history of U.S. torture, the role NC has played in its use, and the intersection of race and carceral abuse. Click below to register for the zoom event.
Two recent court decisions revealed the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) engaged in potentially illegal activities and lied to the courts. This is utterly unacceptable, especially given that this is not the first time these serious problems have been raised. CSIS cannot be allowed to act as though they are above the law.

Send a message to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable. Your message will also be sent to your MP and to Minister of Justice David Lametti.
Read our full statement on the issue here for more information. Please share it on:
Protect Encryption in Canada
Our ability to use the Internet safely, securely and privately is under threat. Canada wants to create 'back doors' into encryption like some of our partner countries in the Five Eyes Alliance have already done. This weakens Internet safety for all of us. If we don’t act, Canada could be next. We need a policy that explicitly protects our right to encryption.
Repatriate Canadian Children from Syria
Official Parliamentary petition to the Canadian government:

We, the undersigned citizens of Canada , call upon the Government of Canada to immediately repatriate the 25 innocent Canadian children living in inhumane conditions in the camps of northeast Syria.
Reject Dr. Carvin's Offensive Actions and Promote Anti-Racism
On September 3, 2020, Dr. Stephanie Carvin, Assistant Professor at Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton University, proudly shared on her Twitter account gruesome depictions of killings of Muslim and Brown bodies as terrorists on cakes. As members and allies of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) community, we are denouncing her actions and we are calling on Carleton University and NPSIA to publicly denounce Dr. Carvin's actions and to commit to an anti-racist environment by offering the necessary training and resources to its faculty members.
#FreeCihanErdal #LiberezCihanErdal
Cihan Erdal, a queer youth activist and a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, was detained in Istanbul, Turkey on September 25, 2020 along with 81 other politicians, academics and activists.

We call on Canadian and Turkish authorities to take urgent action and demand Cihan’s immediate release and Cihan’s safe return to Canada!
Pardon Edward Snowden for exposing the government's illegal surveillance
Edward Snowden exposed the U.S. government’s illegal mass surveillance programs, along with shocking collusion between large technology companies and spy agencies. He risked everything to blow the whistle and help protect all of our basic human rights. He’s been in exile for long enough. It’s time to bring him home. Everyone from the ACLU to Senator Rand Paul has spoken out in support of the embattled whistleblower, and now even President Trump has indicated his potential support for a pardon. The administration is testing the waters. If we show overwhelming support to #PardonSnowden right now, we could finally get justice for him, and set a precedent that protects whistleblowers, journalists, and defenders of human rights in the future.
Reunite Ayub, Khalil, and Salahidin with their families
Ayub Mohammed, Salahidin Abdulahad, and Khalil Mamut are three Uyghur men who left China after childhoods of discrimination, persecution, and hopelessness.

They were sold by Pakistani bounty hunters to the US military in 2001 and taken with 19 other Uyghurs to Guantanamo Bay. Despite being exonerated as early as 2003, they were kept in Guantanamo for years.

Now in forced exile - Ayub in Albania, and Salahidin and Khalil in Bermuda - their families are here in Canada; and their kids growing up without their fathers.

Despite posing no threat to Canadian national security, these men have been waiting over five years to reunite with their families and find a safe place to live.
China: Free Canadian Huseyin Celil
The Chinese authorities accused Huseyin of offences related to his activities in support of Uighur rights. They held Huseyin in a secret place. They gave him no access to a lawyer, to his family, or to Canadian officials. They threatened him and forced him to sign a confession. They refused to recognize Huseyin’s status as a Canadian citizen, and they did not allow Canadian officials to attend his trial. It was not conducted fairly, and resulted in a sentence of life in prison in China. His life sentence was reduced to 20 years in February 2016. Huseyin has spent much of his time in solitary confinement. He lacks healthy food and is in poor health. Kamila needs her husband, and the boys need their father back.
Canada must act to end Islamophobia in Xinjiang, China
There is credible evidence that up to one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other mainly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are being detained in secret internment camps. Detainees are brainwashed, tortured and are forced to renounce their religion and culture.


And send a message to Chrystia Freeland demanding that Canada actively support an independent and unrestricted international fact-finding initiative to Xinjiang.

Stop CSIS from targeting everyday citizens & community groups
A recent report revealed that CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, collected over 8,000 pages of documents, spying on citizens like you, people who exercise their democratic rights by attending a community meeting at a local church or taking peaceful action for what they believe in. And CSIS shared this info with Big Oil corporations. Sign this petition to tell the govt to stop using taxpayer money to unconstitutionally spy on Canadians part of peaceful community groups.
All-in-one action page: Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture
Call PM Trudeau, write a letter to Public Safety Minister & your MP, and sign Sophie Harkat's petition to stop the deportation of Moe Harkat.

If sent back to Algeria, Moe faces detention, torture and death.

No one should be deported to torture. Ever.
Defund the police & the RCMP
More and more people are calling on their city councils to reduce and eliminate budgets for policing. We are no longer going to pay for police to harm our communities. These funds can be re-directed to support the recovery and provide much need improvements to public housing, transit, and food security programs among other basic needs. Please use this e-mail tool to tell your City Councillor to act now to defund the police in your communities. Together we keep each other safe.


Philippines: Junk the terror bill and uphold human rights!
The Anti-Terrorism bill is a clear and direct attack against our academic freedom, right to organize, and freedom of expression to air out our grievances towards the inefficiencies and deficiencies of the government's mandate to serve its people through government services.

This positions the government to silence the any dissenter or organizer and given the rich history of harassment of law enforcement agencies and military personnel, harassment and terror-tagging has been a step further for even more killings and silencing.
Call on Justin Trudeau to ensure justice for Abousfian Abdelrazik
In September 2003, Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan, while he was back in the country visiting his ailing mother. Over the next three years he was imprisoned for nearly 20 months and was held under house arrest for 12 months. He was denied a lawyer, and was never charged or brought before a judge. During that time he was badly tortured in three different prisons.

Not only did Canada fail to take steps to protect him, CSIS officials frequently obstructed efforts to secure his release.
Your phone is not safe at the border
Canada’s border agents can search your phone and laptop at borders and airports, including looking through your private photos, personal messages, and call history.

These ‘digital strip searches’ are allowed because our laws are incredibly out of date. But politicians are refusing to update them for our digital age.

Fight back with us: demand updated laws, learn more about your rights, and make a complaint if your privacy has been violated at the border.
MORE NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES
Criminalization of dissent
Criminalisation de la dissidence

From July to December 2020
ICLMG - 2020 has been BUSY! Click below to see what we’ve accomplished in the second half of 2020, but first here is our plan for the next year.

In 2021, we will continue fighting:
  • against facial recognition technology, governments' attacks on encryption, and online mass surveillance
  • for a review mechanism for the Canada Border Services Agency
  • to abolish security certificates and end deportation to torture
  • to repeal of the Canadian No Fly List
  • for justice for Hassan Diab & the reform of the Extradition Act

and much more! Find out how you can help here and see what we did in 2020 below:


Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG.
THANK YOU
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!

Mary Ann Higgs
Kevin Malseed
Brian Murphy
Colin Stuart
Bob Thomson
James Turk
John & Rosemary Williams
Jo Wood
The late Bob Stevenson

Nous tenons à remercier nos organisations membres ainsi que les centaines de personnes qui ont soutenu notre travail à travers les années, y compris sur Patreon! En récompense, nous nommons ci-dessus nos mécènes qui donnent 10$ ou plus par mois et voulaient être mentionné.es directement dans la Revue de l'actualité. Sans vous tous et toutes, notre travail ne serait pas possible!
Merci!