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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

February 26, 2022 - 26 février 2022

ICLMG statement on use of Emergencies Act

ICLMG 24/02/22 - Despite the federal emergency declaration coming to an end, important questions and issues persist. The invocation of a public order emergency was an extraordinary response to the multiple crises of border blockades and the occupation of downtown Ottawa – on what is already unceded, occupied Algonquin Anishinaabe territory.

As a civil liberties coalition that focuses on the impact of anti-terrorism laws and national security actions in Canada, we recognize how the implementation of extraordinary state and policing powers can have long lasting impacts, and that temporary measures can become permanently entrenched. Further, as these powers persist, the greatest impact is often on marginalized and vulnerable communities that are already over-policed. It is crucial that even as we recognize the severity of the impact and threat posed by far right movements, that these state powers are scrutinized and that those carrying them out – from politicians to police to private institutions – are kept accountable for their actions.

Going forward, there must be a vigorous and in-depth examination of the impact of the Emergencies Act. The mandatory inquiry into circumstances leading to the declaration of emergency, and the actions carried out during the emergency, must be convened as soon as possible. Such a review must be carried out in public, must be independent, and those carrying it out must be granted full access to the information necessary to evaluate all aspects of the actions and decisions of both the federal government and government agencies. Read more - Lire plus + Share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

Canada’s secretive policy on ISIS detainees closes door to repatriation

Global News 22/02/22 - The federal government has quietly adopted a policy that all but closes the door to repatriating Canadians from detention facilities in Syria for captured ISIS members and their families.

The secretive policy document on the detainees obtained by Global News said the government had no obligation to repatriate them and would only assist them under limited circumstances. Those include if a Canadian child was left unaccompanied because of the parents’ death, or if a detainee’s “situation had changed significantly” since the policy was adopted last year. While the policy acknowledged the “unique context” in Syria could prompt Ottawa to help the detainees, it said that would amount to “extraordinary assistance” and would only occur if a list of criteria were met. The policy emphasizes national security concerns over repatriation.

The policy framework has never been publicly disclosed but was recently filed in a Federal Court case against the government brought by 11 families of detainees currently held in Syria. Lawrence Greenspon, the Ottawa lawyer representing the families, said the existence of the policy was unknown until it arose in the case last November, and he only received a copy in January 2022. He said the only Canadian detainee who qualifies under the new policy rules is Kimberly Polman, a middle-aged B.C. woman who left Canada in 2015 and was detained in Syria in 2019. She is eligible because of her deteriorating health. Last week, United Nations experts said in a statement Polman was not receiving treatment for life-threatening health problems.They include hepatitis, kidney inflammation, PTSD and “extremely serious mental health issues,” according to the Feb. 10 statement, which called her an “extremely ill Canadian national.” [...]

The policy was developed without the knowledge or input of any of the key organizations involved in detainees' rights, notably Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, according to a court affidavit by national security law expert Leah West. Read more - Lire plus

Northeast Syria: Fate of Hundreds of Boys Trapped in Siege Unknown Protect and Clarify Conditions of Detainees Recaptured from ISIS

"It's not sustainable": ISIS prison battle shows dangers of indefinite detention

Canada: Let Gravely Ill Canadians Leave Northeast Syria

Human Rights Watch 22/01/2022 - Canada is effectively preventing a Canadian woman and a young Canadian child detained in northeast Syria from coming home for life-saving medical care despite a Canadian policy allowing them to do so, Human Rights Watch said today. That policy allows Canada to repatriate nationals held in northeast Syria as Islamic State (ISIS) suspects and family members if they have potentially fatal medical conditions that cannot be treated in the camps and prisons where they are held.

A former US ambassador who has taken several foreigners out of northeast Syria on behalf of their home countries told Human Rights Watch that in days of exchanges ending on February 15, 2022, Canadian authorities refused his offer to escort the woman and child to a Canadian consulate in neighboring Iraq. The families of the two Canadians, who are not related, have repeatedly implored government authorities to repatriate the woman and child and have sent them medical records attesting to their need for life-saving care.

“How close to death do Canadians have to be for their government to decide they qualify for repatriation?” said Letta Tayler, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “Canada should be helping its citizens unlawfully held in northeast Syria, not obstructing their ability to get life-saving health care.” The two detainees are among an estimated four dozen Canadians who have been held for three or more years as ISIS suspects and family members in life-threatening, deeply degrading, and often inhumane conditions in northeast Syria. None have been brought before a judicial authority to determine the necessity and legality of their detention, as required under international law. More than half of the Canadians are children, most under age 7.

The Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria detaining the Canadians and other foreigners have repeatedly urged home countries to repatriate their nationals. Canada has only allowed three of the detained nationals to come home, a 5-year-old orphaned girl in 2020, a 4-year-old girl in March 2021 and, eight months later, the second girl’s mother, whom it only provided emergency travel documents after a lawyer took the case to court. Canada has said that repatriating its nationals could pose a security risk and that it is too dangerous for its diplomats to travel inside war-torn northeast Syria to extract them.

However, the government has said that if Canadians reach a consulate, it will assist them, including if they request repatriation. In addition, Global Affairs Canada, the foreign ministry, adopted a policy framework in January 2021 that allows Canada to “consider” repatriations of its nationals held in northeast Syria on a case-by-case basis under certain conditions.

Peter Galbraith, the former US ambassador, told Human Rights Watch that while he was in northeast Syria in mid-February, he notified Global Affairs Canada that he was willing to bring out the two gravely ill Canadians, Kimberly Polman, 49, and a child who is younger than 12. That offer meant that no Canadian official would take the risk of entering northeast Syria. Human Rights Watch is withholding further details about the child, including their name and medical condition, to protect their privacy. In 2021, Galbraith had evacuated two of the three detained Canadians now back in Canada, the 4-year-old girl and her mother. Galbraith said all he needed to proceed was for Global Affairs Canada to email a ranking official from the Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria stating that Canada would not object if he took Polman and the child across the border to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where Canada has a consulate. The Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria have told Human Rights Watch and others that they will only release detained foreigners with the permission of their countries of nationality. Global Affairs Canada turned Galbraith down. [...]

Polman’s sister said she was devastated by her government’s intransigence. “It is heartbreaking for me,” she told Human Rights Watch. “Not only as her sister, but as a Canadian.” [...] “Canada has no conceivable reason for obstructing help to its citizens, yet it won’t even send an email that could save their lives,” Tayler said. “If this Canadian woman and child die in locked camps and prisons in northeast Syria, Canada would share the blame.” Read more - Lire plus

Canada: UN experts call for urgent repatriation of seriously ill woman from Syria camp

Friends and families of Canadians detained in Syria gather to call for their immediate repatriation

Canadian Coalition to Free Jack Letts 11/02/2022 - On February 10 in Ottawa, friends and family of some of the 50 Canadian women, men and children illegally detained for years in NE Syria gathered to demand what the International Committee of the Red Cross, a House of Commons Parliamentary Committee, the United Nations, and human rights groups have all called for: immediate repatriation. Leaving them to die and be killed in these concentration camps is a crime. One of those Canadians is torture survivor Jack Letts, who as an idealistic and compassionate 18-year-old, traveled to Syria to assist victims of the Assad regime’s brutal war against its own people, and was caught up in the chaos that followed. He condemned ISIS in messaging from within the IS ‘state’, was prosecuted for opposing their teachings, and after risking his life to escape, was arrested, tortured and been held in brutal conditions for 5 years by those he ran to for safety.

Jack has not been charged with any crime, and no evidence has been presented that he did anything wrong. In fact he has been victimized by the wrongs of others: a victim of a libelous press, slanderous politicians and an Islamophobic political climate under which horrific yet baseless allegations have been thrown against him with no meaningful and safe opportunity to respond; a victim of a cowardly UK government that illegally stripped him of his citizenship, and of a Canadian government that promised to bring him home and has subsequently spent years refusing to do so; a victim of arbitrary detention and conditions tantamount to torture; a victim of direct acts of torture, including extended periods of solitary confinement; a victim of a world that headlines hate and profits from dehumanization. Read more - Lire plus + Watch the short video testimonies

Valentine's Day UK protest for the repatriation of Jack Letts

RCMP inappropriately shares personal information on thousands of individuals with other federal agencies

MobileSyrup 23/02/2022 - The RCMP disclosed the personal information of thousands of foreign individuals based on incomplete information to the Department of Defence – Canadian Armed Forces (DND-CAF). This was revealed after the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) took part in a joint review examining disclosures federal institutions made under the Security of Canada Information Disclosure Act (SCIDA). Approved in 2019, SCIDA allows 17 federal institutions to share information with each other to protect security. This includes sharing personal information.

A two-part test, known as the disclosure test, must be satisfied before any information can be shared under this act. The first is the institution sharing the information is satisfied the information they’re sharing will help the institution that’s receiving the information. The second is personal privacy won’t be impacted “more than is reasonably necessary.”

The review examined 215 disclosures from 2020, 212 of which passed both parts of the test. The three that didn’t were all disclosure made by the RCMP.

The first part of the test was not satisfied in two of the disclosures. Made on a proactive basis, one went to Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the other to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The review notes the RCMP failed to show they considered how each disclosure would help the recipient deliver on national security.

The information was shared “based on a mistaken belief that disclosed information fell within the recipient’s jurisdiction.” The review notes the RCMP acknowledged to the NSIRA the information they shared was not compliant under SCIDA. The RCMP said it was also in the process of updating its SCIDA policy. In its third disclosure, the RCMP failed to meet the second part of the disclosure test. According to the review, the RCMP received information on thousands of men, women, and children who an unknown third party detained for their alleged involvement in terrorist organizations. The information was sent by a “trusted foreign partner,” along with detailed notes indicating how the information was obtained. The RCMP shared the initial data set with the DND – CAF because of its counter-terrorism mandate and their operations in the regions where the named individuals were detained. But the RCMP failed to share the additional detailed information on how the information was collected. It also didn’t have any record of receiving this information. DND – CAF said the information was not integrated into its system but the information has to be held onto for “force protection and to rapidly identify threats.”

The review led to two recommendations relevant to this case. The first asks the RCMP to finish updating its SCIDA policy, update decision-makers on the requirements of the disclosure test, and make sure all information is appropriately documented. The second is that the RCMP provides the remaining information to the armed forces, and DND-CAF assesses whether or not keeping the personal information they have on hand is necessary. In a response to MobileSyrup, the RCMP says they welcome the review through which they remained open and transparent. “The RCMP is committed to implementing process-related improvements recommended by NSIRA-OPC, and much of this work is already underway. However, the RCMP stands firmly behind its actions in relation to our disclosure to DND-CAF and believes Canadians would expect nothing less.” Read more - Lire plus

NSIRA and the OPC’s review of federal institutions’ disclosures of information under the Security of Canada Information Disclosure Act in 2020

Here's what it's like to try to report on the RCMP

Ottawa launches long-awaited competition for armed military drones

The Canadian Press 11/02/2022 - The federal government has officially launched a competition for the purchase of armed drones after nearly two decades of delays and discussion around whether Canada should buy the controversial weapons. A formal request for proposals was released Friday to the two companies shortlisted to bid on the $5-billion contract, which could see the Canadian Armed Forces launch a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles in the next few years. A formal contract is not expected for another year or two, while the first drone isn’t scheduled for delivery until at least 2025, with the last to arrive in the early 2030s.

The request does not say how many vehicles the government plans to buy, and instead leaves it up to the two companies to say how their bids will satisfy the military’s needs while benefiting the Canadian economy. It does reveal the aircraft will be based at 14 Wing Greenwood in Nova Scotia and 19 Wing Comox in British Columbia, while the main control centre will be in the Ottawa area. Yellowknife is also identified as a forward operating location. The drone force will include around 240 air force members, with 55 in Greenwood, 25 in Comox and 160 in Ottawa.

Aside from purchasing a small number of temporary, unarmed drones for the war in Afghanistan — all of which have since been retired — the military has never been able to make much progress on a permanent fleet. That was despite drones taking on an increasingly important role in militaries around the world. A report in the Royal Canadian Air Force Journal in late 2015 said 76 foreign militaries were using drones and another 50 were developing them. One major reason: no federal government had authorized adding drones as a permanent fixture within the military in the same vein as fighter-jet or helicopter squadrons until the Liberal government included them in its 2017 defence policy. The government and military say the unmanned aircraft will be used for surveillance and intelligence gathering as well as delivering pinpoint strikes from the air on enemy forces in places where the use of force has been approved.

Some have previously criticized the decision to buy armed drones given concerns about their potential use in Canada and numerous reports of airstrikes by other nations, particularly the United States and Russia, causing unintended damage and civilian casualties. The government has also said little about the scenarios in which force might be used, including whether drones could be deployed for assassinations. Officials have suggested they would be used in the same way as conventional weapons such as fighter jets and artillery. Read more - Lire plus

Follow World Beyond War and Rachel Small for upcoming actions opposing the drone purchase

Video: Why Canada Shouldn't Buy the F-35: Harms and Risks

Killer Robots: Moving beyond the UN process

The Intercept 11/02/2022 - Biden is crushing the Afghan economy by seizing $3.5 billion of its people’s money and diverting the other $3.5 billion for a trust fund “to benefit the Afghan people.” After making the initially brave decision last summer to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the Biden administration announced on Friday that it intends to split the Afghan central bank’s assets — which are held in the possession of the New York Federal Reserve Bank — between the families of 9/11 victims and unspecified efforts “for the benefit of the Afghan people.” The decision puts Biden on track to cause more death and destruction in Afghanistan than was caused by the 20 years of war that he ended.

For months, the administration has been debating how the future of economic relations with a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will look. The assets, which were initially frozen when the Taliban seized control of the country in August, are essential for the liquidity and basic functionality of the economy. With the administration’s lack of firm commitment to return the assets to the central bank — which American economists who helped design, and still help to run, say is still independent from the Taliban — the Afghan people will be reliant on humanitarian aid for the foreseeable future. Already, reports say that aid is not enough to prevent the precipitous decline in living conditions the Afghan people are facing.

The problem is one of basic economics: Seizing the central bank funds has brought economic activity to a standstill. People have lost access to money held in banks. Government workers and teachers are going without paychecks. Importers have no access to capital to front the imports. Exporters similarly can’t access capital to keep their businesses operating. The currency, the afghani, has collapsed in value, and inflation is much steeper in Afghanistan than the rest of the world as a result.

“All of the foreign exchange reserves that are in the U.S. and Europe belong to the Afghan people,” said Shah Mehrabi, an economics professor at Montgomery College who serves on the central bank’s supreme council. “The decision to release only part of the funds will continue to hurt the millions of Afghan children, women, and families who are suffering one of the worst humanitarian and economic crises around the world.”

While the Biden administration has offered $308 million in humanitarian assistance and implemented policies to streamline the delivery of that assistance, this seizure of billions of dollars in assets rightfully owned by the Afghan people — who are readjusting to life under the harsh rule of the Taliban — has left them with no avenue toward building a sustainable economy capable of importing the food and fuel necessary for survival in the country’s inhospitable landscape. Read more - Lire plus

“Adding Insult to Injury”: Afghan Activist & 9/11 Mother Condemn Biden’s Seizure of Afghan Funds

Afghans Demand Truth About Kabul Airport Massacre as U.S. Continues to Deny Soldiers Shot Civilians

Fears Afghans in ‘desperate need’ will miss out as one-third of resettlement places filled by people already in UK

Why Half of Guantanamo's Prisoners Could Get Out

NBC Chicago 18/02/2022 - The Biden administration has been quietly laying the groundwork to release prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center and at least move closer to being able to shut it down.

A review board that includes military and intelligence officials has now determined more than half of the 39 men held indefinitely without charge at the U.S. base in Cuba can now be safely released to their homelands or sent to another country.

Decisions about several of these prisoners, including some denied under previous reviews, have come in recent weeks as the administration faced criticism from human rights groups for not doing more to close Guantanamo, releasing only a single prisoner over the past year. [...] This is what the Biden administration considers a "deliberate and thorough process focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and closing of the Guantanamo facility,” according to said Pentagon deputy press secretary J. Todd Breasseale. Among the factors they consider, Breasseale said, are the age and health of the detainees. Read more - Lire plus

Mother of Guantánamo detainee ‘still waiting’ for US and German apologies

20 years and no good Malay translators? Ridiculous, lawyer tells US govt

Israel revives assassination tactics not seen for 15 years in the West Bank

The Intercept 15/02/2022 - Palestinians were shocked last week by a brazen midday Israeli military assault that employed tactics not seen in the West Bank in over 15 years. Human rights advocates said the Israeli killings of three Palestinian men constituted brutal and coordinated assassinations. The ambush targeted three fighters belonging to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group, who were wanted for allegedly shooting at members of the Israeli army and settlers in recent weeks, though no specifics were offered. The men were driving through Nablus’s winding streets when Israeli security forces in cars with Palestinian license plates shot Ashraf al-Mabsalt, Adham Mabrouka, and Muhammad al-Dakhil dead, leaving local residents to deal with the gruesome fallout of the assault.

Israeli security forces claimed that the killings, carried out by the Border Police’s National Counter-Terrorism Unit, known colloquially as Yamam, were intended as an arrest raid and that the officers fired in self-defense. A joint Intercept, Local Call, and +972 Magazine investigation, however, points to a planned assassination in an area under Palestinian Authority control, a widely condemned tactic. For Shawan Jabarin, the general director of Al-Haq, a West Bank-based Palestinian human rights group, the killings amount to war crimes. Al-Haq — which was recently labeled a terror group by the Israeli government, an attempt, the group says, to halt its probes — collected witness testimonials from the scene of the Nablus shooting.

“It’s an extrajudicial execution,” said Jabarin. He said his group had found no evidence that the Palestinian fighters ever fired or attempted to fire a shot: “The three persons were known by the Israelis, and they came merely to kill them.” The killings conjured bitter memories of the extrajudicial assassinations that marked the darkest days of the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising of 2000 to 2005, and the attendant Israeli reprisals. Across Palestinian society, a level of outrage not seen in recent months spurred a one-day general strike and checkpoint riots across the West Bank. The families of those killed said the carnage was the horrific realization of threats made against them in recent months by Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet. Read more - Lire plus

Israeli Law & Torture: From Detained Minors to a Prison “Torture Room”

500 Palestinian administrative detainees declare boycott of Israeli military courts: No To Preventive Detention: From Palestine, to Guantánamo, to U.S. Jails!

ICYMI: Amnesty International report: Isreal's Apartheid Against Palestinians

Take action: Canada: Acknowledge and Sanction Israeli Apartheid + CJPME's action

Just Security 19/01/2022 - Civil society, rights defenders, media workers, and activists are reporting globally – from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Yemen, Iraq, Colombia and elsewhere – that they are facing increased instability and increased direct targeting, with near-zero resources available to help them to cope with shrinking safe space for their work. Rhetorically, the willingness and ability of governments to protect women rights defenders is at the heart of the WPS agenda, yet, in practice, governments are frequently the actors targeting women rights defenders for their work. For 22 years, States have been making pledges in support of the WPS agenda while simultaneously consolidating their security and counterterrorism infrastructures, building multilateral institutions that decentralize sharing of security technology, and using counterterrorism against human rights defenders, media workers, activists, and others.

This begs the question: how do we move beyond a rhetoric of protection to a practice of prevention, protection, and empowerment in national settings, particularly for human rights defenders calling out governmental abuses in counterterrorism and conflict contexts? If the international community will not advance the WPS protection agenda meaningfully, and if States continue on the current trajectory of talking about protection while building up a counterterrorism infrastructure that can be – and often is – turned against human rights defenders, then the WPS agenda really means little in practice.

This reality leads us to the role of the United Nations. The U.N. counterterrorism architecture is now at the helm of large-scale proliferation of counterterrorism technical assistance, capacity building, and technology transfer. This work has grown with little to no investment in human rights oversight and architecture, or complementary investments in the critical work of the OHCHR. Given the regular use of counterterrorism measures to conduct reprisals, further support and investment in human rights protections are a necessity to balance the lived experience of harm from counterterrorism practices on the ground.

Since 2019, the Special Rapporteur has intervened in over 119 cases in 20 countries on behalf of women human rights defenders targeted under the guise of counterterrorism. More broadly, 66 percent of all communications sent by Special Procedure mandate-holders since 2005 have dealt with the use of counterterrorism measures against civil society actors. And, despite evidence that legal restrictions on civil society undermine long-term counterterrorism and prevention strategies, between 2001 and 2018, 140 countries adopted counterterrorism legislation. Fifty-eight per cent of cases against rights defenders in those countries were charged under security legislation. The dark truth is that the international community knows without a doubt that counterterrorism and related policies and practices have negatively and disproportionately impacted civil society organizations and rights defenders, including their rights to life, assembly, opinion and expression, association, and more.

As the WPS community tracks the Secretary-General’s  2021 commitment to focus his forthcoming 2022 WPS report on this issue, the existing work on demilitarization and reducing military spending must be translated to the terms of the day – counterterrorism. Today, States have turned towards amorphous “security” or counterterrorism spending and are engaging in robust campaigns that proliferate and diffuse counterterrorism norms that only cement State practices of targeting human rights defenders, women and men alike. Reform of counterterrorism practices, protection from its misuse, and independent oversight of the U.N.’s counterterrorism work is sorely needed and long overdue. The United Nations urgently needs to increase political and financial support to document the pervasive use of reprisals, including through misuse of counterterrorism against rights defenders and civil society. To date, the data have captured only a fraction of the problem and the full extent of the issue continues to fly under the radar. As a result, the U.N. continues to provide technical and capacity building assistance to States engaged in gross violations of human rights under the mantle of counterterrorism. Read more - Lire plus

Jacobin 23/02/2022 - The crimes of the War on Terror are an assault on justice and democracy across the planet. The Belmarsh Tribunal, inspired by the Vietnam War tribunals organized by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre, is demanding accountability for those crimes.

In November 2019, I arrived at the gates of Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in South East London. Since 2001, the UK government has run Belmarsh as the “British Guantanamo Bay,” detaining prisoners without charge on trial on the basis of extraordinary anti-terror laws passed in the course of the “war on terror.” Two decades later, neither Guantanamo nor Belmarsh have closed. On the contrary, it is at Belmarsh that the UK government today imprisons the man who dared to reveal the crimes of the war on terror, the man I came to meet on that late autumn day in 2019: Julian Assange.

It has been ten years since WikiLeaks began publishing the “Guantanamo Files,” documenting the detention and torture of prisoners by the United States government at its prison on Cuba’s occupied east coast. But the architects and administrators of the Guantanamo Bay torture camp today walk free. Instead, the journalists, whistleblowers, and publishers have been sent to prison. Assange has now spent over a thousand days in solitary confinement at Belmarsh as the UK courts debate his extradition to face a 175-year prison sentence in the United States. The Belmarsh Tribunal — which sits today for its third session — turns the tables on the Assange extradition case. On the twentieth anniversary of Guantanamo Bay’s opening, the Progressive International is bringing witnesses from around the world to give testimony to the crimes of the war on terror when no court of law will hear them.

In this way, the Belmarsh Tribunal takes up the tradition of the people’s tribunal. A half-century ago, philosopher Bertrand Russell and French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre established the International War Crimes Tribunal to examine the Vietnam War, as the United States sought to sweep its atrocities away from public view. “Our purpose is to establish, without fear or favor, the full truth about this war. We sincerely hope that our efforts will contribute to the world’s justice, to the re-establishment of peace and the liberation of oppressed peoples,” they wrote in 1966. The Russell-Sartre Tribunal was not mere political theater, as the fierce opposition it faced among US allies attests. [...]

Why were they afraid of the Russell-Sartre Tribunal? “Because we are bringing up a problem — the problem of war crimes — which no Western government wants to see brought up; because they all want, once again, to reserve the right to commit them.”

Fifty years later, Western governments still reserve the right to commit war crimes. Some of these crimes have been committed in plain sight: newly declassified footage shows a drone strike in Afghanistan killing ten innocent civilians, including seven children. Others have been unearthed by brave journalists and whistleblowers: Collateral Murder, published by WikiLeaks in 2012, shows the brutal murder of two Reuters journalists and a number of Iraqis killed by a US military helicopter’s heedless fire. The sum total of these crimes is the devastation of an entire region. According to a recent report, at least 38 million people have been displaced from eight countries where the US military has engaged its war on terror: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya, and Syria.

But there has been no justice for this devastation. De Gaulle wanted us to believe that “all justice in its inception and in its execution belongs only to the State.” In the case of the war on terror, however, the state has used its authority to prosecute only those brave journalists and whistleblowers that have sought justice in its absence. It is against this inversion of justice that the Belmarsh Tribunal sits now, bringing together whistleblowers like Steven Donziger, diplomats like Guillaume Long, and former Guantanamo detainees like Mohamedou Ould Slahi. Slahi spent fifteen years in Guantanamo without charge or trial, tortured by the notorious “enhanced interrogation techniques” approved by Donald Rumsfeld. “American people deserve better than Guantanamo Bay,” Slahi told the tribunal. [...] As the world once again prepares for war, this sunlight has never been more necessary. Because the crimes of the war on terror — from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay — are not just crimes against the individual victims targeted by their perpetrators. They are an attack on the concept of justice itself: a thin thread that gives meaning to democracy in the United States as everywhere around the world. Today, on the twentieth anniversary of Guantanamo, we demand: Close Guantanamo. Free Assange. Justice to all victims of the war machine. Read more - Lire plus

Looks Are Deceiving: The Rebranding and Perpetuation of Counterterrorism Watchlisting in Multilateral Spaces

Just Security 28/01/2022 - The use of global and national counterterrorism lists, or watchlisting, has become the tool of choice for states. In parallel, human rights and rule of law concerns about the operation and practices of establishing and maintaining such lists have been significant and growing. There is an urgent need to regulate this legal and political practice and the pernicious human rights consequences it has in multiple countries.

As previously documented at Just Security, in October 2021, through a process co-led by the United States and the United Nations (U.N.) Office of Counter-Terrorism and the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate, the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum (GCTF) released its Counterterrorism Watchlisting Toolkit, which purports to “provide good practices or possible options for states in their efforts to establish, implement, and maintain integrated counterterrorism national-level watchlists.” The Toolkit was affirmed last month in the preamble of U.N. Security Council resolution 2617, the mandate renewal resolution of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate.

The Toolkit serves as a stark reminder that counterterrorism watchlisting practices may continue to erode the fundamental principles of due process, human rights, and rule of law around the world. This concern is particularly acute with respect to the role of the United States in pressing the adoption of the Toolkit and the export of its own watchlisting model, thus disseminating its flawed use to other states. We have deep concerns about this Toolkit, including its lack of human rights mainstreaming, as well as the way in which it undermines certain non-negotiable rights in the rush to support watchlisting globally.

Perhaps most troubling is the politically savvy use and appropriation of international human rights law rhetoric without any reform, guidance, or limits to back it up. Given the many references to human rights throughout the Toolkit, it may be hard at first to identify what ultimately becomes a glaring gap: the failure to integrate well-settled international law norms offers an off-ramp to states seeking to sidestep their international human rights, humanitarian, and refugee law obligations.

The Toolkit accomplishes this by starting with the fallacy that “there has been limited consideration to date of the specific challenges that implementing watchlisting systems may pose with respect to international human rights law.” This statement is simply not true and undermines decades of analyses by human rights advocates, lawyers, scholars, and courts documenting the ineffective, rights violative, and discriminatory nature of most existing watchlisting systems. The Toolkit goes on to stipulate that States “may need to take into account…the rights of members of protected groups, the right to freedom from arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, data protection, and legal and procedural safeguards, including oversight and access to an effective remedy.” This framing fails to recognize states’ binding legal obligations to do so under international law.

At most, the Toolkit recognizes in formulaic and decorative text that watchlisting measures must “comply with” or be implemented “in accordance with” state “obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law, and international humanitarian law.” But read line-by-line, the document lacks specificity about the precise legal parameters and obligations of states under international law frameworks applicable to the technical aspects of watchlisting, such as nomination criteria, remedies and redress for improper listing, interoperability and international sharing of watchlist data, and more. Passing reference to treaties like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as “relevant resources” is plainly insufficient and a far cry from “providing guidelines for integrating human rights safeguards into the design and operation of national watchlisting systems” as the Toolkit purports. The chimera of human rights hides a deeper attack on acutely needed human rights mainstreaming in watchlisting practices.

While a full human rights audit of the Toolkit is beyond the scope of this piece, the following categories emerge as fundamentally problematic: (1) the rights protective principles of legality, necessity, and proportionality; (2) the principle of non-refoulement; (3) the rights of the child; (4) the rights of women and girls; and (5) the right to an effective remedy. Read more - Lire plus

Philippines Brands 16 Groups as Communist Party ‘Terrorist’ Affiliates

ACTIONS & EVENTS

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!

NOUVEAU Regardez la vidéo avec les sous-titres en français + Agir

Reform Canada's extradition law + Justice for Hassan Diab!

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!

Phone PM Justin Trudeau

TAKE ACTION: Justice for Hassan Diab!

NEW Just Peace Advocates' action: Write a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau: Say “No" to a second extradition of Hassan Diab

NEW PM Trudeau: Stop CBSA's Treatment of Egyptian Refugee Families

Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers officers, based in Vancouver, have targeted Egyptian refugee families and denied them an opportunity to seek refugee protection in Canada because of their affiliations with political organisations in Egypt. Egyptian asylum seekers are not only denied protections but also facing risk of deportation to torture and cruel and unusual punishments. We are writing to you as a group to demand that the Minister of Public Safety intervenes and directs CBSA to withdraw these unfounded accusations against these families. 

NEW Parliamentary petition against the purchase of fighter jets

We call upon the House of Commons to:

1. Cancel the competition to purchase new combat aircraft;

2. Include all of the emissions from the military vehicles and operations in the government’s emission reduction plan and net-zero plan; and

3. Invest in a conversion plan to create thousands of jobs in the green, care economy to transition Canada away from fossil fuel and armed forces.

Also sign: NDP must oppose F-35 purchase + Stop Killer Robots

+ NEW Halt weapons sales to Saudi Arabia

Tell President Biden: Close Guantanamo

Now, with growing support in Congress, President Biden has an opportunity to end these ongoing abuses by closing the detention center. Help us close Guantánamo and ensure the transfer of all cleared detainees to countries where their human rights will be respected. 

Act Now to tell President Biden to shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention facility!

Canada: Condemn Israeli Silencing of Palestinian Groups

Send an email urging Canada to:

1) Condemn Israel’s wrongful designation of these human rights groups, and

2) Demand Israel rescind such labels over the Palestinian organizations

Protect Human Rights Defenders in Palestine!

Free Cihan Erdal

Cihan Erdal is a Canadian permanent resident, queer youth activist, doctoral student, and coordinator of the Centre for Urban Youth Research at Carleton University in Ottawa. He was unjustly detained in Turkey on unfounded charges in September 2020, after being swept up in a mass arrest of politicians, activists, and academics in Istanbul. Send a message to Canadian officials now the Canadian government can take to help bring Cihan safely home.

How to Help Afghans in Afghanistan and Canada

Muslim Link - The people of Afghanistan are in dire need of humanitarian aid and Canada has committed to accepting 20,000 Afghan refugees.

How can you help? Click below for a list of ways you can support the people of Afghanistan at home and abroad.

Demand action from Canada in response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan

Protect our rights from facial recognition!

ICLMG - 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.

+ Take action to ban biometric recognition technologies

Trudeau: 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.

Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture

No one should be deported to torture. Ever. For nearly 19 years, Mohamed Harkat has faced the ordeal of being place under a kafkaesque security certificate based on secret evidence and accusations he cannot challenge, and facing deportation to torture in Algeria.

Please join us and send the letter below to Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino, urging them to stop the deportation to torture of Mr. Harkat.



• Your letter will also go to your Member of Parliament, along with the ministers of Justice & of Immigration.
• And don't hesitate to also sign and share this petition!

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

+ Urge China to stop targeting Uyghurs in China and abroad

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Anti-terrorism laws

Législation antiterroriste

Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission calls for abolition of anti-terror law PTA

Kabylie : Algeria Taken To Task Over "Anti-Terrorism" Legislation by UN Special Rapporteurs

Philippines Supreme Court: Petitioners constantly red-tagged alleged 'credible threat of injury' vs anti-terror law

Criminalization of dissent

Criminalisation de la dissidence

Human Rights Watch: India: Biased Investigations 2 Years After Delhi Riot; Drop Fabricated Charges Against Activists, Peaceful Protesters

AUPE looks to Supreme Court in fight against Alberta's critical infrastructure defence law

Freedom of the press, of speech and of association

Liberté de la presse, d'expression et d'association

Outrageous new French state assault on Palestine and free expression: Interior Minister claims he will dissolve Collectif Palestine Vaincra

Ethiopia ends emergency, but pursues new cases against 3 detained journalists

Pakistan: Senior Pakistani journalist arrested after police raid

Pakistan: Court slams federal Investigation agency for invoking Anti-Terrorism Act against journalist

Myanmar junta urges ASEAN envoy not to engage with 'terrorist' groups

Hong Kong

The shadowy messengers delivering threats to Hong Kong civil society

National security: how stifling political dissent became part of Hong Kong’s rule of law

Singer Tommy Yuen arrested by national security police of Hong Kong

Islamophobia

Islamophobie

The Government of Canada Intends to Appoint a Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia

Oversight and review

Contrôle et examen

Conservatives end boycott of Parliament's national security committee

Police

Horizon Ottawa decries last minute cancellation of Police Services Board Meeting as “insulting breach of democracy”

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance

France under EU pressure for surveillance sales to Egypt

USA: Facial recognition technology reinforcing racist stop-and-frisk policing in New York – new research

Facial recognition firm Clearview AI tells investors it’s seeking massive expansion beyond law enforcement

Quebec lawmakers raise the alarm over police use of facial recognition

EU privacy watchdog wants Pegasus spyware banned

Miscellaneous

Divers

UK Home Secretary meeting with ‘Five Countries’ counterparts

UK Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner: police should ‘shoot terrorists and ask questions second’

Why ‘Trust Us’ Is Often Reason Enough Not to Trust the Government

India - Can state use ‘national security’ as a ground to limit judicial review — a question common in Pegasus and MediaOne cases

Azeezah Kanji: The mission to civilise (colonial) international law

RightsCon 2022 Registration

From July to Dec - De juillet à décembre 2021

Check out our biannual summary of activities: What We've Been Up To from July to December 2021.

In 2022, we plan to continue our work on the following issues:

- The Canadian government's concerning "online harms" legislative proposal, including its approach on "terrorist content," mandatory reporting to law enforcement and new powers for CSIS;

- Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for privacy law reform;

- Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, addressing problems in security inadmissibility and establishing a long overdue independent review and complaint body for the CBSA;

- Justice for Hassan Diab and launching a video on extradition law reform;

- Greater transparency and accountability for CSIS;

- The return of the 40+ Canadian citizens indefinitely detained in Syrian camps, including 26 children;

- The end to the CRA's prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities, revealed in our June 2021 report;

- Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), including the establishment of a strong, effective and independent review mechanism;

- Monitoring the implementation of the National Security Act, 2017 (Bill C-59);

- 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 for flights that do not land in or fly over the US;

- 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;

- And much more!

Read more - Lire plus and share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

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