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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

June 18, 2022 - 18 juin 2022

Please attend our international media conference/public event to expose and demand an end to one of the gravest human rights violations currently perpetrated by the Canadian government.


Thursday June 23 at 10am ET. Online via Zoom. Register below.


Canada’s Guantanamo Bay – where Canadian Muslims are off-shored beyond reach of law & rights, respect & dignity – is located in North Eastern Syria. Forty-four Canadians – 8 men, 13 women and 23 children – are illegally detained there under conditions the United Nations and many human rights groups describe as akin to torture.



The Canadian government is violating their Charter Rights by refusing to repatriate them. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations, the US State Department, Save the Children and, in a rare show of cross-party unanimity, a Canadian Parliamentary Committee, have all called for repatriation.

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TAKE ACTION: Canada's Guantanamo Bay: Sign to Free Jack Letts & 43 Canadian Kids, Women & Men in Syria


UN Committee on the Rights of the Child presses Canada to repatriate its nationals from NE Syria detention camps

ICLMG: Senate amendments to electronic device search bill will strengthen privacy, help protect against profiling at the border

ICLMG 15/06/2022 - GOOD NEWS! A Senate committee has adopted important amendments to a new government bill on searching cell phones, laptops and other personal electronic devices at the border. By strengthening the rules around when border officers can search our phones and other devices, they took an important step towards protecting privacy rights and limiting racial, religious and political profiling. ICLMG was one of many groups that campaigned for these amendments, and we'll continue to work to make sure they are supported as Bill S-7 makes its way through Parliament.


In 2020, the Alberta Court of Appeal found the provisions of the Customs Act used to justify the search of personal electronic devices at the border to be unconstitutional because they did not require any legal justification for the search. This placed electronic devices in the same category as the search of a suitcase, wallet or purse. Because travellers carry so much more private information in their phones and other devices, the court ruled there needed to be a higher threshold that justified those searches. A recent Ontario Superior Court ruling in 2022 came to the same conclusion.


In response, Bill S-7, An Act to amend the Customs Act and the Preclearance Act, 2016, proposed an entirely new threshold known as “reasonable general concern.” Multiple civil liberties, legal and human rights experts rejected this new threshold as being overly-broad and creating a way to avoid addressing the specific privacy and rights concerns of searching cell phones and laptops. Such a weak threshold would also mean that those who already face disproportionate levels of searches and interrogation at the border, including Muslim, Indigenous, Black and other racialized people, would continue to be subject to profiling and discrimination. Instead, witnesses proposed that senators amend the bill to adopt a stronger threshold. As Senator Mobina Jaffer, who proposed the amendment to strengthen the bill, pointed out, “We did not have one witness, except the minister and the officials, say that this [new threshold] was a good idea.”


Senators agreed to replace “reasonable general concern” with the more established “reasonable grounds to suspect.” While still lower than “reasonable grounds to believe,” reasonable grounds to suspect provides a stronger, known threshold that is already present in the Customs Act, including for the searching of cross-border mail and for strip searches. Other positive amendments included adding to the bill that network connectivity of devices must be deactivated (moved by Senator David Wells) and that the government may make regulations concerning the treatment of privileged documents during the search of electronic devices (moved by Senator Pierre Dalphond).


At the same time, other worrisome aspects of the bill remained unaddressed, including amendments changing the offense of hindering the work of a border security officer from a summary offence to a hybrid summary/indictable offence, which could have significant consequences for immigrants and asylum seekers coming to Canada. Another amendment would extend the time limit to start proceedings for a summary conviction under the Customs Act from three years to eight years. Neither of these changes were accompanied by explanations, nor addressed by government officials during Senate committee hearings. Read more - Lire plus + Share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram


Bill S-7: An Act to amend the Customs Act and the Preclearance Act, 2016


Media coverage: Senate committee votes to eliminate controversial new standard for cellphone searches at border


CBSA officers caught giving preferential treatment, associating with criminals, documents reveal

Panel: The Supreme Court's Bissonnette Decision: Anti-Racist and Abolitionist Perspectives

ICLMG & Noor Cultural Centre - On May 27, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its ruling in the sentencing case of Quebec mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette. The Court found the imposition of consecutive life sentences without realistic possibility of parole unconstitutional. The ruling has elicited much analysis and discussion.


Watch this great discussion as we look at this decision from anti-racist, abolitionist perspectives. With panelists:


- Atiya Husain, Assistant Professor at the Department of Law and Legal Studies at University Carleton

- El Jones, spoken word poet, educator, journalist, and community activist

- Kent Roach, Professor of Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law

- Yavar Hameed, a human rights lawyer at Hameed Law


Read their full bios here.

ICLMG mourns the horrific murder of members of the Afzaal family and calls for concrete action against Islamophobia

ICLMG & IRC 06/06/2022 - Today the ICLMG mourns the horrific murder of members of the Afzaal family by a violent white supremacist. At the same time, we continue to hear words, but see a lack of action, in addressing the Islamophobia at the root of this attacks and which continues to fuel so much hate.


This especially includes the systemic Islamophobia that has driven so many Canadian policies, particularly since 2001 and throughout the "War on Terror," and that has fostered and helped legitimize to so many their individual acts of hate and violence. Here is ICLMG's non-exhaustive resource list to fight Islamophobia.


Last summer during the National Action Summit on Islamophobia, so many concrete proposals were made, but so little follow-up has occurred. You can read for yourself:

* Noor Cultural Centre & ICLMG joint submission endorsed by 132 groups and individuals

* ICLMG's submission

* NCCM's submission

* Muslim Association of Canada's submission


Islamic Relief Canada's statement on the 1st anniversary of the London attack:


A year ago today, we lost 4 members of the Afzaal family to Islamophobia. We know that hate acts are not isolated incidents but are connected and fueled by silence, lack of action, and stereotypes that continue to be propagated.


Today our team has gone to Ottawa alongside NCCM for Advocacy Day on Parliament Hill to speak to MPs and Ministers about the ongoing and increasing threat of Islamophobia and ways that we can combat it.


Stories of untold Islamophobia surround us, but we don’t always hear them. At Islamic Relief we are committed to getting those stories heard. We’ve put together a report that shares the stories of the struggles that Muslims have faced in Canada. Included in this report are coping mechanisms, as well as action items that Muslims and non-Muslims can do to fight Islamophobia. Click here to read the report.


It is time that we take a stand. We encourage you to check out the Youth Coalition Combating Islamophobia! Their website has educational packages and an extensive reading list to help you get started. Source


Steven Zhou, NCCM: Grief, Remembrance, and Action: the Legacy of #OurLondonFamily

Azeezah Kanji: Thoughts on the current dynamics, contradictions, and limitations of state “anti-Islamophobia”

Facebook 06/06/2022 - On this heavy day, some thoughts on the current dynamics, contradictions, and limitations of state “anti-Islamophobia,” as illustrated by Trudeau’s speech in London and the Supreme Court’s decision on sentencing Quebec mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette: I can understand why it may feel like justice to hear Trudeau call the London attack an act of “terrorism.” But this doesn’t resolve the underlying problem with the concept of “terrorism” – a concept historically rooted in colonial state projects to suppress anti-colonial resistance [1] and that continues to be overwhelmingly deployed to pre-emptively criminalize Muslims and Indigenous peoples [2].


All that labelling the Veltmans and Bissonnettes as “terrorists” does is represent their violence as individual “extremism” disconnected from the racial violence intrinsic to the settler colonial state itself; enabling the promulgation of state measures depicting themselves as the solution to Islamophobia when in fact they are part of the problem (ex the proposed Our London Family Act, which contains provisions for banning protests likely to backfire on Palestine solidarity demonstrations; “terrorist entity” listings that continue to primarily target Muslims including Palestinians and Kashmiris confronting colonial domination; the federal government’s proposed framework to target “online harms,” which threatens to further exacerbate policing and censorship of Indigenous, Black, Palestinian, and Muslim speech, and is only now being reworked because of strong pushback from civil society groups).


It is misleading and obscurantist for Trudeau to proclaim that “we are all Muslims” and “Islamophobia is an attack on all Canadians” when the devaluation and disposability of Muslim life – far from being an irrational aberration – is a source of political and economic profit for some Canadians: for example, for the security agencies augmented by billions of dollars in the wake of the “war on terror’s” launch; for the officials complicit in torture (in the Arar, Elmaati, Almalki, and Nureddin cases for instance) who received promotions and awards; for the Canadian arms companies for whom the US and Saudi Arabia are the two biggest export destinations, as recently confirmed again in the Globe and Mail [3].


It rings extremely hollow to hear Trudeau say (yet again) “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” when his government continues to refuse to repatriate those abandoned in the “Gitmo on the Euphrates” of detention camps in Syria, and to protect Muslim Canadians like Hassan Diab from re-extradition to torture. Not to mention all those denied event the most basic protections because they don’t happen to be Canadian citizens – such as security certificate detainee Mohamed Harkat, or Mohamedou Slahi, tortured at Gitmo with Canadian complicity (like Omar Khadr), but initially turned away by the Supreme Court from having his case for redress even heard because he was not a citizen but “just” a resident – demonstrating how the institution of Canadian citizenship itself serves to organize and normalize the distribution of violence.


How disingenuous for Trudeau to ask – “what can we do about Islamophobia?” – when human rights, civil liberties, and anti-racism organizations have been advocating for two decades for the government to address the abusive architecture of counter-“terrorism” laws and policies: remedial measures which the government has largely refused to implement, or only implemented at the most rudimentary level after many years of sustained community effort (for example a redress mechanism for kids wrongfully included on the no-fly list). Trudeau saying “Islamophobia is real” isn’t progress; after two targeted anti-Muslim killings and two decades of hate crimes, hijab/niqab bans, entrapment operations, torture renditions, counter-radicalization programs, etc that should be beyond debate, not a matter to be perpetually re-litigated while meaningful systemic action is indefinitely deferred.


The profound “Muslimization” of the concept of “terrorism” is evident in the Supreme Court’s Bissonnette decision – regarding a devastating act of anti-Muslim violence, yet in which the judges still felt the need to bring the discussion back to the ur-problem of Muslim violence. “Sadly, this case is but one example of the crimes committed by multiple murderers that shock our collective conscience … So, too, is the case of terrorists who seek to destroy Canada’s political order without regard to the devastation and loss of life that may result from their crimes” (para 145). This framing distinguishes White supremacist murders like Bissonnette’s from “terrorism,” preserving “terrorism” as the province of (implicitly) Muslim “others.”


Instead of criticizing the Supreme Court for emphasizing the importance of rehabilitation, even for those who have committed mass murders like Bissonnette – “one of the fundamental moral values that distinguish Canadian society from the societies of many other nations in the world” (para 48) – we should ask why this rehabilitative principle has been vehemently and explicitly discarded by judges when it comes Muslims prosecuted for “terrorism,” who unlike Bissonnette have not (in the vast majority of cases) actually committed any act of violence at all.


Instead of condemning the Court’s rejection of consecutive sentencing without realistic possibility of parole for Bissonnette, we should extend that to also oppose the imposition of mandatory consecutive sentences on Muslims convicted of “terrorism” – who end up with exceedingly long sentences due to the overlapping nature of “terrorism” charges and judges’ circumvention of normal principles preventing multiple convictions for the same underlying act (the Kienapple Principle) [4]. In the European context, the prohibition against imposition of multiple life sentences without parole is also emerging as a possible safeguard against Muslims being extradited to draconian “terrorism” prosecutions in the US; although one disregarded by states that continue to engage in such extraditions despite court orders [5]. Instead of exhorting for Bissonnette to “never see the light of day again,” we should focus on dismantling the state racism that not only flourishes openly in the light of day, but parades itself as law and justice. Source

Behind the Thin Blue Line: Meet a secretive arm of the RCMP in B.C.

APTN 16/06/2022 - The Mountie with the red can of mace bats a guitar away as a colleague flings it past him. The instrument lands in the dirt. Another officer instantly smashes it to bits with a stomp before a fourth officer, with the word “MEDIC” etched on his back, kicks it into the bush. A few metres away, Mounties douse protesters with streams of pepper spray. They rip surgical masks off faces in the crowd, knock off their hats and rub the burning chemical agent in their eyes. The self-styled forest defenders, protesters against old-growth logging on Vancouver Island’s Fairy Creek watershed, absorb dose after dose on this warm August 2021 morning. An observer weeps as Mounties threaten to arrest reporters. “You do one more thing and I’ll dose you, bitch,” a Mountie allegedly told independent media producer Kristy Grear, according to court files. “There was no name tag or badge number displayed on the officer’s uniform,” the documents claim. “However I did observe a so-called ‘thin-blue line’ patch on the officer’s uniform.”


This is how the Mounties of the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), a secretive industry defence arm of the B.C. RCMP arrive to dismantle blockades: armed with guns and mace, name tags ripped off, faces hidden, thin blue line patches emblazoned on their chests. Police arrive with howling dogs, helicopters, drones, chainsaws, axes, an excavator, jackhammers, angle grinders and fancier gadgets like thermal imaging cameras. “I was shocked to see those officers,” said Virginia McNab, a server and mother of three, in an affidavit. She claimed she planned to peacefully protest at Fairy Creek last summer but, instead, ran into a dozen Mounties deployed by the C-IRG. “They were in blue and black, had facemasks, were in full combat gear, wearing sunglasses so you could not see their faces, had guns on their hips and had handcuffs,” she claimed. “It was clear that they were there to enforce an injunction by any means necessary. “We were very clearly peaceful and they seemed not. As a woman facing a number of faceless men, I was terrified.”


Prominent First Nations activists call them “Indian fighters” and “oil and gas mercenaries,” but few know what this outfit is, why it was created, or how it operates. APTN News spent months investigating the C-IRG, obtaining more than 4,000 pages of court files and releases from more than two dozen federal and provincial freedom of information requests. APTN uncovered a broad suite of allegations against the unit that include intimidation, torture, brutality, harassment, racism, theft, destruction of property, arbitrary detention, inhumanity, lying and deceit. The investigation obtained evidence of vast spying — including casual surveillance of law-abiding groups engaged in the democratic process — collusion with private security, collaboration with industry lawyers and wilful violations of RCMP policy. Some of the allegations are backed by evidence and will be tested in court. Others aren’t. Some have already been proven. The unit denies them. These are the fruits of that investigation. These are the Mounties behind the thin blue line.


The pipeline police

The B.C. RCMP website offers only three short paragraphs about the C-IRG, saying it “was created in 2017 to provide strategic oversight addressing energy industry incidents and related public order, national security and crime issues.” But the C-IRG’s foundational policing plans reveal the real reason the outfit was created: to protect pipelines, specifically the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink. These documents, obtained by APTN through access to information, indicate the force did this independently, without briefing or getting approval from politicians, which the province’s then-solicitor general corroborated in an email. [...]


Snooping on democratic groups

Brewer is a nearly 30-year veteran involved in domestic and international policing operations including in Afghanistan, according to court files. He’s a former member of an RCMP Emergency Response Team (ERT), the force’s militarized SWAT units. His silver operational plan begins with a detailed timeline before offering “general comments on TMEP [Trans Mountain expansion project] and CGL opposition.” The section reveals the C-IRG has been casually monitoring the political activity of peaceful law-abiding groups based on fears that unknown extremists, professional protesters and agents provocateurs may use violence to support the cause. “While Police are impartial, it is operationally necessary to have awareness of opposition to the oil and LNG pipeline project,” the plan explains. “It is understood that the majority of individuals and groups will express their opposition through lawful advocacy, protest and dissent. “As noted above, some communities in British Columbia — or in some cases, individuals within those communities — are opposed to any pipeline expansion.”


Brewer named the Burnaby Residents Opposed to Kinder Morgan Expansion (BROKE), Coquitlam Residents Opposed to Kinder Morgan Expansion (CROKE), Coastal Protectors, Climate Convergence Metro Vancouver, 350_Vancouver, Wilderness Committee, Greenpeace, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Living Oceans, Pipe Up and Water Wealth. Other known open opposers included the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Kwantlen, Aitchelitz, Cold Water and Upper Nicola First Nations, according to the document. “Although these First Nations opposes [sic] the expansion,” Brewer wrote, “they are pursuing that opposition in the courts and have not advocated unlawful action in defense of their position.” Meanwhile, on the CGL front, he listed Office of the Wet’suwet’en, the Unist’ot’en Camp, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and multiple individual members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. His plan says he expected all these groups to be peaceful. There was a “but” coming.


“However,” the plan adds, “given some past events there could be public order issues arising from radical environmental activists and provacateures [sic] who may attempt to escalate an otherwise peaceful protest.” In addition to radicals and agitators, Brewer argued “some groups and individuals” already pledged to block pipeline expansion, presumably a reference to groups like the Tiny House Warriors and Unist’ot’en Camp. Brewer also worried “a few individuals” expressed “extreme views,” which he claimed included threats of violence “in a couple cases.” Despite that, he noted that “no on-line intelligence has been found which gives specific information on the nature or numbers of potential threat actors for the construction at TMEP or CGL.”


Moreover, both pipelines were designated national critical infrastructure by the federal government, meaning a federal counterterror squad, known as an Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), “is monitoring protest actions related to these projects.” Yet Ottawa had no specific national threat level for the projects because the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC), housed under the country’s top spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), hadn’t probed the topic yet, according to Brewer. With all this in mind, the new unit’s first mission would be to “protect lives and reduce potential for injuries to workers, demonstrators, the general public and police officers; and minimize opportunities for persons to commit criminal acts against persons and property in the area of TMEP and CGL construction and operations.”


But if a federal counterterror squad authorized to conduct disruptive stings was already spying on protests, why set up a secret quick-strike industry defence force to do similar things? The answer comes when Brewer’s plan describes the “end state” the C-IRG hoped to reach. “Any intent of a violent protest will have been discouraged by police planning and preparations,” he wrote. “If a violent protest occurs, it will have been interdicted early and full investigative resources will be brought to bear. Public safety, security of property and public confidence will have been maintained by police planning and preparations.” For the C-IRG, it’s good planning and preparation. Standard police work. Nothing more. For the critics, it’s countersubversion of democratic groups and colonization of unceded Indigenous territory. Read more - Lire plus


Women working with RCMP suffered 'shocking' levels of violence, sex assaults, says report


OPP try and alter figures to manipulate $21M cost of policing occupation in Caledonia


Administrative sabotage: RCMP’s role in the warfare of COINTELPRO

Liberal backbencher pushing bill to make CSIS more forthcoming in its warrant applications

CBC News 06/06/2022 - A Liberal backbencher wants to introduce a bill that would set out new consequences for Canada's spy agency and government lawyers who aren't forthcoming in their requests for judicial warrants to conduct national security investigations. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has been admonished more than once in recent years for falling short on what the courts call the "duty of candour" — by failing to proactively identify and disclose all relevant facts in support of its warrant applications. On Monday, Scarborough Centre MP Salma Zahid announced plans to bring forward a bill that would enshrine lawyers' obligation to exercise the "duty of candour" in their dealings with the courts.


Zahid said requiring public disclosure of breaches and actions taken by CSIS and the public safety minister could also help rebuild public confidence in Canada's security and intelligence institutions. "As a member of the Muslim community who wears a visible symbol of my faith, and as a mother who has raised two boys, my family and I are no stranger to being looked at with suspicion and worry when we go about our daily lives," she told a news conference. "I know how important it is that these institutions be subject to public oversight and held to the highest ethical standards." Zahid also announced her intention to launch public consultations about the proposed bill with policy experts and affected groups over the summer. She said those talks would help to determine the bill's final form.


The Liberal MP was joined at the news conference by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), which has criticized the spy agency's opaqueness in the past. "Actions taken by Canada's national security and public safety bodies have tangible effects on the lives of Canadians, many of them in the Muslim community, which has been scrutinized under the harsh spotlight of national security since 9/11," said the council's CEO Mustafa Farooq.[...] Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, whose portfolio includes CSIS, said he'll have to see the details of the bill before offering comment. "To the extent that Ms. Zahid's private member's bill is an effort to raise awareness about the importance of being transparent, about the importance of duty of candour, I think that is something all Canadians can rally behind," he said Monday.


In a decision released last summer, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown blamed "institutional and systemic negligence" for the latest instance of Canada's spy service failing to explain sufficiently why it needed to intercept the communications of a "group of individuals" deemed to pose a threat to the security of Canada. The specifics of that request were redacted from the public version of the ruling. A similar Federal Court ruling released in July 2020 said CSIS had failed to disclose its reliance on information that probably was collected illegally in support of warrants to probe extremism. "The circumstances raise fundamental questions relating to respect for the rule of law, the oversight of security intelligence activities and the actions of individual decision-makers," Justice Patrick Gleeson wrote in that case. Read more - Lire plus


NSIRA Review arising from Federal Court’s Judgment in 2020 FC 616 to identify systemic, governance and cultural shortcomings and failures that resulted in CSIS engaging in operational activity that it has conceded was illegal and the resultant breach of candour

Ottawa’s anti-terrorism laws hinder efforts to evacuate Afghans loyal to Canada out of Afghanistan

The Globe and Mail 15/06/22 - Humanitarian and veterans’ groups trying to evacuate people who worked for Canada’s military and diplomatic mission in Afghanistan face major hurdles because Ottawa is strictly enforcing anti-terrorism law. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) say because the federal government is considering Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban a terrorist group, laws prohibiting financing of terrorism prevent them from making basic purchases in Afghanistan to get people out of the country. Since the Taliban seized power last year, NGO rescue teams have had to carry canisters of gasoline in their jeeps when they enter Afghanistan because it would be illegal to pay gas taxes to the country’s government under the anti-terrorism law. Humanitarian and veterans’ groups say they also can no longer rent hotel rooms the day before their evacuation operations because room taxes would benefit the Taliban rulers. The groups say their pick-up sorties for evacuees are now done on busy streets in Kabul or other Afghan cities, increasing the danger.


The Anti-terrorism Act, an amendment to the Criminal Code, makes it illegal for Canadian funds to end up in the hands of terrorists. The Taliban is on Canada’s terrorist watch list and outlawed by Ottawa, even though it now runs Afghanistan. The Justice Department and federal security agencies are strictly enforcing the law, putting added pressure on humanitarian and veterans groups to comply as they try to get Afghans in danger of being captured by the Taliban to Pakistan and then to safety in Canada. Brian Macdonald, the executive director of Aman Lara, a veterans’ group that has evacuated thousands of Afghans who worked for the Canadian military, said his organization has had to work around the terrorism laws. “You don’t have to buy gas if you bring jerry cans of gas with you. If need a chocolate bar, bring it into Afghanistan. So there are ways of doing that without bringing any money into Afghanistan,” Mr. Macdonald said.


It hasn’t been easy, Mr. Macdonald said, although he would not discuss all the arrangements being made to get Afghans out without violating Canadian law. “One thing we would do is get everyone in a hotel room the night before and then move to the vehicles when the time comes and move them across the border. Now it’s a lot harder to muster people on a street corner … so it makes our operations harder.” Mr. Macdonald said he and other organizations have been working with the government to understand the anti-terror law, which has no provisions for how to proceed when a terrorist organization governs a country. He said relaxing the federal interpretation or going to Parliament to change the law could improve the chances of helping Canada achieve its goal of accepting 40,000 Afghans fairly quickly. “There are all kinds of things we could do to help … fly them directly out of Afghanistan, which of course you can’t do without paying landing fees, which ultimately end up in the hands of the Taliban,” Mr. Macdonald said.


Tim Laidler, president of the board of the Veterans Transition Network, which is helping bring Afghans to third countries, said federal officials cited the anti-terrorism legislation among the reasons for rejecting a request his organization sent last August for funds to help with its evacuation efforts. “The last thing any of us want is to be funding terrorists as veterans,” he said. “However, we’re more concerned about getting people who served with us safely out of the country.” He added that “the benefit of saving people’s lives who stood up for us overseas” is greater than the concern that a small amount of money will end up with the Taliban. If the government was not imposing this legislation, he said, it would be significantly easier for his organization. (The government later provided some funding to the group for related projects.) David Taylor, communications director for Justice Minister David Lametti, expressed Ottawa’s gratitude for Canadian NGOs and veterans’ groups who have helped Afghans resettle in Canada over the past year. “We are all focused on finding a solution that will allow our important work in Afghanistan to continue,” he said, noting the Justice Minister is reviewing a recent report from the House of Commons on Afghanistan.


The June 8 report recommended exempting Canadian aid groups from the anti-terrorism law or amending the legislation to “not unduly restrict legitimate humanitarian action that complies with international humanitarian principles and law.” Mr. Taylor said the minister is also considering opinions from the legal community. Sujit Choudhry, a constitutional lawyer in Toronto, is part of a group of four lawyers exploring legal avenues to help refugee claimants come to Canada. They wrote to Mr. Lametti last month, arguing that Ottawa is wrongly interpreting the anti-terrorism legislation. “We came to the conclusion that there is really no firm legal basis for this position,” he said. “We think that the law is being interpreted incorrectly.” The lawyers say that what constitutes a foreign government under the Criminal Code is determined by customary international law, and therefore the Taliban is the government, and taxes or fees paid to it would not violate anti-terrorism provisions.


Secondly, they believe the payment of regular taxes to governing authorities does not violate the anti-terrorism act because it is not financing a terrorist group. Finally, the lawyers say the government’s interpretation of the act would mean that Afghan refugee claimants would also violate the act by going about their lives and paying taxes, and would be inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. “We’d like to try to provide a legal road map for how to navigate around what appears to be some type of roadblock that’s been created by this interpretation of the code that is wrong in law. We quickly concluded that the interpretation of the anti-terrorism act is just absurd, and it’s deeply regrettable that, if this is what’s standing in the way of trying to expedite our efforts to extract individuals from Afghanistan, that’s very worrying and we hope that the government can change course as quickly as possible.” Source


Report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan


9/11 families and others all on Biden to confront Afghan humanitarian crisis

Coalition calls on Canada to stop funding Philippine counter-terrorism campaign

ICHRP & PSAC 08/06/22 - The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines Canada (ICHRP) and 20 organizations including faith-based institutions, non-governmental organizations, PSAC and other unions are calling on the Canadian government to stop funding so called “counter-terrorism measures” in the Philippines. Like many unions, PSAC has a Social Justice Fund to advance union values of solidarity and social justice in Canada and around the world. The SJF’s work includes building solidarity with human rights organizations in the Philippines to protect workers’ rights internationally. 


Extrajudicial killings and human rights violations 

The Philippine government was among recipients of Canada’s $13 million in anti-crime and anti-terrorism funding to Southeast Asian countries between 2017-21. A newly released report from ICHRP-Canada notes the Philippine government is “using [its] counter-terrorism campaign to criminalize dissent, target human rights defenders and critics of the government and constrict democracy. This has resulted in thousands of killings, false charges, arbitrary and irregular searches, arrests and detentions and other severe human rights violations and the vilification of those who challenge them by accusing these individuals of being terrorists or communists.” There are 204 documented cases of extrajudicial killings, along with disappearances and thousands of ordinary citizens falsely labeled by security forces as “suspect.” Of the 424 reported extrajudicial killings since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power in 2016, over half were human rights advocates. Given this troubling context, PSAC supports ICHRP-Canada in its appeal to the Canadian government to stop funding counter-terrorism measures in the Philippines. Source


Philippines designates NDF’s Luis Jalandoni as a terrorist

UN inquiry finds Israel responsible for "root causes" of last year's violence in Palestine

CJPME 07/06/22 - Israeli practices of occupation and discrimination against Palestinians are the “root causes” of last year’s violence, according to the first report by the United Nation’s Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. The UN inquiry found that although both Israel and Palestinian authorities are responsible for human rights violations, Israel nonetheless holds far greater responsibility due to the asymmetrical nature of the occupation and other mechanisms of oppression. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) urges the Canadian government to publicly welcome the findings of the inquiry and take steps to address the root causes of violence in Palestine.


“The UN report warns that peace will remain an impossibility until we dismantle Israel’s structures of oppression, including its military occupation,” said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. “Unfortunately, current Canadian policy aims to maintain the status quo, from exporting weapons to Israel to giving trade benefits to illegal settlement businesses,” added Bueckert. CJPME looks forward to future reports from the inquiry which will include recommendations for accountability measures, and will assess the responsibilities of third States like Canada and private Canadian businesses in the continued policies of occupation. This is the first report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (CoI), which was established by the UN Human Rights Council following Israel’s assault on Gaza in May 2021. CJPME notes that investigators were prevented by the Israeli government from accessing Israel or the occupied territories for the purpose of this probe. Unlike previous inquiries, the CoI has a mandate to investigate historical context and root causes, including discrimination within Israel itself, making its analysis more comprehensive.


Some of its findings include:

  • The report noted that its “findings and recommendations relevant to the underlying root causes were overwhelmingly directed towards Israel,” due to the “asymmetrical nature of the conflict and the reality of one State occupying the other”;
  • The report concluded that “ending the occupation of lands by Israel” remains “essential in ending the persistent cycle of violence,” but that it is also necessary to address discrimination against Palestinians in Israel and elsewhere;
  • The report found that “Israel has no intention of ending the occupation, has clear policies for ensuring complete control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and is acting to alter the demography through the maintenance of a repressive environment for Palestinians and a favourable environment for Israeli settlers.”


CJPME notes that Canada has failed to demonstrate support for the work of the CoI, despite its vocal support for similar mechanisms in Ukraine and elsewhere. Instead, Canada has maintained an ambivalent if not hostile attitude towards the investigation. In December 2021, Canada abstained on an Israeli amendment to defund the inquiry, while expressing “significant concerns” with the inquiry related to Canada’s “long-standing opposition to the disproportionate focus on Israel.” CJPME urges Canada to support this international mechanism of accountability, and to end its practice of protecting Israel from legitimate criticism in international forums. Source


Following Israeli conviction, Canada must demand the release of persecuted aid worker Mohammed El Halabi


How far will Canada go to support the free press? If Canada's leaders are serious about press freedoms, they will demand an impartial investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera's Shireen Abu Akleh


TAKE ACTION: Send a letter to Minister Joly demanding that Canada recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC in investigation of the killing of Shireen Abu Aqla


Samidoun: They can’t silence our voices: Smear campaigns continue — resistance continues!


Event: The Canadian Pension Plan invests at least 7 percent of our public pension in Israeli war crimes

National security agencies' relationship with racialized communities marred by a 'trust gap:' report

CBC News 03/06/22 - The relationship between "racialized" groups and Canada's national security and intelligence institutions — like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency — continues to be bogged down by mistrust, says a new external report prepared for the federal government.


"We frequently heard about the trust gap between the country's national security institutions and Canadians, and in particular with racialized Canadians," says the report drafted by the National Security Transparency Advisory Group (NS-TAG) — an independent and external body first set up in 2019 to advise the deputy minister of Public Safety and the national security and intelligence community. "At times, these relations have been marred by mistrust and suspicion, and by errors of judgment by these institutions, which impacted communities have perceived as discriminatory."


The NS-TAG group, made up of 10 members from legal, civil society and national security backgrounds, warns that the emergence of artificial intelligence and data-driven intelligence poses a threat to racialized communities. "Systemic biases in Artificial Intelligence (AI) design can have perverse impacts on vulnerable individuals or groups of individuals, notably racialized communities," they found. "These biases reflect not only specific flaws in AI programs and organizations using them, but also underlying societal cleavages and inequalities which are then reinforced and potentially deepened."[...]


The spy agency's director David Vigneault admitted in 2020 that CSIS has an internal racism problem as well. "Yes, systemic racism does exist here, and yes there is a level of harassment and fear of reprisal within the organization," he said, according to a transcript of a 2020 meeting. The agency said it's reviewing the report's section on artificial intelligence and has "taken note of the guiding principles and findings" in the report. The other agencies have yet to issue a public response. Read more - Lire plus

Gar Pardy: Expert report on national security lacks urgency, offers conflicting yet vague advice

Gar Pardy is a former Canadian ambassador and senior official, who frequently dealt with national security issues. His four years in Washington dealing with the CIA and State Department’s provided graphic understanding of the misuse and overuse of national security issues. 

Hill Times 02/06/22 - There is no shortage of threats and problems preoccupying our daily lives: the first major war in Europe since 1945, a virus that refuses to leave our personal and political bodies along with a new one promising a monkey on our backs, and daily decisions about whether we need a bank loan to keep our Fords filled with fuel. And overarching it all, the extreme weather events that presages the menacing enclosing clouds of climate change.


Not content with this full bag of ongoing daily preoccupations, a 13-member group of former foreign policy and national security officials and academics decided there is an urgent need for a new Canadian national security strategy. These experts on the University of Ottawa’s Task Force on National Security declared our “traditional approach to national security was no longer sustainable” with “authoritarianism… on the march.” The May 2022 report, A National Security Strategy for the 2020s, warned that Canada is facing a “host of non-traditional actors and threats” where individuals come into focus, more often than the state.


It might be expected this preparatory analysis would lead to conclusions that reflect these large themes. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Instead, reflecting the authors’ experiences and knowledge, the report turns over the well-used sods and fopperies that a new national security strategy needs to reflect “today’s realities” and one that provides a “holistic approach” that examines our assets in a “co-ordinated fashion.” The report goes on to tell us that we need to “strengthen” our existing tools and “create new ones.” And those new tools? Sharing information within and between governments, and reading what is on the internet and in our fewer, smaller newspapers. In the language of security: this is “open-source intelligence.” The report also stresses the need to “enhance governance” of national security by establishing a “body at the cabinet level” chaired by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to give this “body” the seriousness it deserves.


Then, missing the inherent irony involved in the secrecy of cabinet level discussions, the report goes on to emphasize the need for “increased transparency and engagement” by informing Canadians of what is underway. This, in the hope that many Canadians’ “mistrust” of government could be ameliorated, lessen the traditions of secrecy by the national security community and the acceptance of misinformation and disinformation by the public. The report’s ultimate answer reflects the lack of urgency in any of this: the creation of a “public review of national security” that would “inform the public, highlight priorities, identify the policies and tools required … and point to the required changes to governance.” One does not need to be perceptive to suggest most of the discussions created by the review would be behind closed doors. The dormant shelves of government are filled with such reviews: from the Kellock-Taschereau, Mackenzie, McDonald, and O’Connor commissions, and experts like former Supreme Court justices Frank Iacobucci and John Major, former minister Marie-Lucie Morin, and more contributed knowledge and experience on security issues to governments and Canadians. Few had much greater longevity or impact than a mosquito on the forearm of a northern lake fisher.


Hope is always eternal and so today the experts—themselves well experienced in reviews—returned to that well-established governance technique. But a new review will have little to do with providing greater security for Canadians, and over time will provide the illusion of action. There are two essential problems. First, the analysis and conclusions underpinning a new review will have changed by the time it is completed. And of course, there will be the long-lasting review by the government of the day which may be different than the government that initiated the action, or the surrounding important components will have changed. Already, it is possible to question the analysis and conclusions in the report, including that the future actions of Russia, China, and the United States will be linear from what they are now. Equally important is whether technological changes, including those tied to climate change, will force new parameters on the conduct of our national security policies. The second problem are the references in the report to the legal changes necessary to provide the instruments the agencies of national security require based on today’s analysis and conclusions.


Absent from the analysis are any conclusions of the dangers inherent in such changes. In the aftermath of 9/11, Canada, along with many other countries, rushed to change laws altering the relationship and balance between the citizen and government, especially its security organizations—the most consequential relationship in our democratic society. Sadly, voices of caution were ignored or denounced as those of persons lacking the patriotic fervour demanded by such situations. Again, sadly, the experts’ report reflects a dark world where problems will metathesize and create an even darker world. It ignores completely the commonality of interests reflecting by the progress made since 1945. There are problems, but accentuating fear does nothing for solutions. As usual, there needs to be careful diplomacy, an approach Canada used to be known for. Unfortunately, the report says nothing about the recreation of that ability. Read more - Lire plus

Federal Court says it lacks jurisdiction to hear CSIS employee’s discrimination claim

Canada News Media 07/06/22 - A federal judge has tossed out a Canadian Security Intelligence Service employee’s discrimination lawsuit against the spy service, saying Sameer Ebadi should have followed the internal grievance procedures available to him. In his newly released decision, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown said the court therefore lacks jurisdiction to address the claim filed by Ebadi, who uses a pseudonym due to the sensitive nature of his work. Ebadi, a practising Muslim who fled to Canada from a repressive Middle Eastern country, began working as a CSIS analyst in the Prairie region 22 years ago. He is now on long-term disability leave. His statement of claim, filed in January 2020, says he was passed over for promotion despite an excellent work record, and that he suffered bullying, discrimination, emotional and physical abuse and religious persecution from fellow employees.


Among other things, his claim alleges employees would quickly open his office door when he was at prayer, smashing it into his body or head. “They would then feign surprise that Sameer was at prayer, but would laugh outside the door afterwards.” Ebadi argued that CSIS has a history of protecting harassers from responsibility for their racially or religiously motivated behaviour. He said internal CSIS processes could not be trusted to provide him with a fair hearing and to protect him against reprisals for bringing forward concerns. “I have tried on multiple occasions, with varying levels of CSIS management, to address my well-founded issues of workplace harassment and discrimination,” Ebadi said in an affidavit filed with the court. “With each effort, I was met with resistance and, what is worse, faced increased discriminatory treatment for blowing the whistle on my fellow employees and managers.” Lawyers for the government filed a motion to have the case struck out, arguing the terms of Ebadi’s employment are subject to intelligence service procedures.


The availability of internal resolution processes preclude the Ebadi from initiating a civil action for matters that could be subject to a grievance or harassment complaint, they said. At a hearing last month, counsel for Ebadi asked the judge to reject the government motion, saying CSIS management has created and perpetuated a culture of systemic racism, Islamophobia, harassment and reprisal. Ebadi also contended that because he is challenging the adequacy of the CSIS grievance and harassment processes themselves, his claim is not barred by a section of the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act that could prevent the court from getting involved. In his decision, Brown noted that at no time in his career did Ebadi file a complaint under either the harassment policy or grievance procedure. “He cannot now litigate in this Court the adequacy of procedures he himself chose never to follow.”


During the court hearing, John Kingman Phillips, co-counsel for Ebadi, pointed to remarks CSIS director David Vigneault made at a December 2020 meeting of the federal National Security Transparency Advisory Group. Vigneault said he had acknowledged publicly and privately to employees “that, yes, systemic racism does exist here, and yes there is a level of harassment and fear of reprisal within the organization.” Brown said in his decision that the statement — neither alone nor in tandem with the rest of the court record — constitutes an admission that CSIS is systemically racist, or that Ebadi is or was unable to obtain relief by way of grieving or complaining about the matters he alleges. Further, Brown said, he is not persuaded the statement by Vigneault supports the notion the court should exercise any residual discretion it might have to accept jurisdiction over Ebadi’s action, notwithstanding the effect of the public sector labour law. Counsel for Ebadi had no immediate comment on the decision. Source

ACLU files lawsuit for more information on DHS’s new domestic violent extremism initiatives

ACLU 16/06/22 - The government has long infringed on Americans’ fundamental rights and liberties under the guise of national security. From the FBI’s surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the round-up of innocent people simply because they were perceived to be Muslim after 9/11, new initiatives to address real or perceived national security concerns have inevitably and disproportionately impacted communities of color and immigrants. Over the past two decades especially, we’ve seen how domestic counterterrorism policies target Black, Brown, and Muslim communities for unmerited surveillance and investigation, trampling their freedoms of expression and association. Now the government is at it again — under a new name and a new bureaucracy — and is stonewalling our attempt to learn more about what it is up to this time around. So we’re suing.


Last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced new measures to address domestic violent extremism, with a focus on violent white supremacy. It established a Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships and a domestic terrorism branch within the Office of Intelligence and Analysis. In its press statement, DHS described this effort as a “whole-of-society” approach, including collaboration across every level of government, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and communities. We’ve previously explained that in responsibly addressing white supremacist violence, policymakers need to ensure that the broad powers federal agencies already have (or claim to have) do not violate the civil rights, liberties, and privacy — of all of us. DHS and other agencies have consistently viewed American communities through a threat-based security lens, targeting and harming Black, Brown, and Muslim people, as well as other marginalized communities, in the name of “national security.”


For example, the Obama administration launched a program that cast unwarranted suspicion on Muslims by utilizing a deeply flawed approach: it called on social service providers and community members to identify potentially “extremist” individuals based on vague and broad criteria that encompassed lawful speech and association. They targeted young people and schools, giving recommendations to schools on how to police for signs of radicalization, all of which undermined young people’s ability to express themselves and encouraged teachers and other students to view their peers as inherently suspicious. Under the guise of community outreach, the Federal Bureau of Investigations also targeted mosques for intelligence gathering and pressured law-abiding American Muslims to become informants against their own communities.


These programs flagged innocent behavior — such as religiosity, political activism, and mistrust of law enforcement — as indicators of radicalization. The Trump administration followed this model and created the Office of Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention, raising the same acute concerns for communities of color and immigrants who were targets of that administration’s xenophobic and racist policies. DHS’s latest efforts appear to continue these harmful programs and use similar frameworks and methods such as “threat assessments” intended to detect “risk factors for radicalization to violence,” without clear guidelines, definitions, or safeguards to protect civil rights and civil liberties. We’ve seen this story before. Two months ago, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information about these initiatives. We wanted to know DHS’s plan to safeguard civil liberties, rights, and privacy, or whether they even had one. But we’ve been met with silence. We know that further expansion of national security systems can harm the very communities they say they’re trying to help, which is why we’re asking for details.


Our concerns are heightened by the fact that DHS still uses guidance that pretends to prohibit bias, but includes loopholes permitting bias-based profiling in the context of national security and immigration. This gives law enforcement express permission to discriminate on the basis of race and disproportionately target marginalized communities. In fact, DHS has been the first to admit that its own ability to address domestic violent extremism is hampered by the fact that it has not formulated an official definition of “domestic violent extremist,” offered guidance about what constitutes domestic violent extremism, or provided training for those tasked with identifying violent extremism. This, to say the least, is a problem. Even if the government is engaging in a good-faith effort to stanch white supremacist violence inside the United States, recycling the same abusive frameworks that have been used against communities of color for decades is not the solution. Without more insight about what DHS intends to do and why, it is difficult for the public to put stock into strategies that are all too familiar. We deserve to know more. Source

Secret photos of first Guantanamo Bay detainees revealed

DailyMail 12/06/2022 -A series of secret, never-before-released photos of the original detainees at the US' prison at Guantanamo Bay detention camp have been published. The photos, posted by the New York Times Sunday, show scenes of men in shackles, blindfolds and ear protectors as they arrived at the controversial prison facility in 2002. The Times points out that the only images ever leaked from the prison on the coast of Cuba were put out by WikiLeaks in 2011.  


Through a Freedom of Information Act request, we are now seeing some of the first photos of the first prisoners to arrive on site, just a few months after the attacks on September 11, 2001. The photos were taken to give Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other leaders in Washington a look at the start of the wartime detention and interrogation.


The detainees are seen not only blindfolded, but some with their hands duct taped together, trying to move around in an attempt to see anything past their blindfolds. The photographed include David Hicks, an Australian man captured while fighting for the Taliban, as he was led down the ramp of a cargo plane. The prisoners were given shackles so that the soldiers could move them around more easily. Soldiers at the time noted the prisoners were fairly easy to lift because they may have been malnourished. One of the photos shows a detainee getting on his knees and maneuvering away from the door to his cell just so a guard could give him his meal, which are shown as everything from oranges to sliced carrots to beans.  


None of the soldiers have been identified, although a caption from back in 2002 suggests two soldiers were in the 115th Military Police Battalion, which was later assigned to the equally controversial Abu Ghraib prison. On January 11, 2002, the military banned photographers who were on site from CNN and the Miami Herald from taking any pictures. Instead, a Naval photographer sent out a photo of the first 20 prisoners on their knees at Camp X-Ray, an early prison mini-camp. Read more - Lire plus


Gina Haspel observed waterboarding at CIA black site, psychologist testifies


The Truth Never Mattered at Guantánamo The deceit and lies and cover-ups of the worst moments in post-9/11 history have created an endless stage of hypocrisy for all the world to see


69 Senators And Representatives Urge Congress To Lift Restrictions On Transferring Guantánamo Prisoners To US Mainland – OpEd


Majid Khan Challenges Imprisonment at Guantánamo Beyond Completion of Sentence


Ex-Guantanamo detainee wins back passport after eight years

Right-Wing Judges Say It’s “Harmless” to Label Climate Activist a Terrorist

The Intercept 08/06/2022 - A panel of three Trump-appointed judges this week upheld an excessive eight-year prison sentence handed down to climate activist Jessica Reznicek, ruling that a terrorism enhancement attached to her sentence was “harmless.”


The terror enhancement, which dramatically increased Reznicek’s sentence from its original recommended range, set a troubling precedent. Decided by a lower court in 2021, it contends that Reznicek’s acts against private property were “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government.” The appellate justices’ decision to uphold her sentence, callously dismissing the challenge to her terrorism enhancement, doubles down on a chilling message: Those who take direct action against rapacious energy corporations can be treated as enemies of the state.


Reznicek, an Iowa-based member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a participant in the Indigenous-led climate struggle, engaged in acts of property damage in an attempt to stop the completion of the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017. Along with fellow activist Ruby Montoya, Reznicek took credit for various acts of sabotage, which harmed no humans or animals but burnt a bulldozer and damaged valves of the pipeline. The damaged equipment was property not of the U.S. government, but of private pipeline and energy companies.


Following Reznicek’s guilty plea to a single charge of conspiracy to damage an energy facility — which brought a recommended sentencing range of 37 to 46 months — Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, in allegiance with prosecutors, added the terrorism enhancement. This increased her sentencing range to 210 to 240 months, making the eight-year sentence Reznicek ultimately received fit comfortably below the accepted range, though it’s more than double the previous recommendation. (Montoya, who also pleaded guilty, has filed a motion to withdraw her plea, claiming that it was coerced.)


Both courts’ decisions on Reznicek’s sentence reflect unsurprising but deeply troubling priorities in our criminal legal system. It would be unempirical to the point of foolishness to expect the courts, stacked as they are with right-wing justices, to side with individuals taking risks to stop environmental devastation rather than those corporations making millions on the back of it. Yet Reznicek’s appeal was on a point of law: Terrorism enhancements are only supposed to be applicable to crimes that target governmental conduct; Reznicek’s targets were private corporations.


The collapsing of government and corporate interests signified by Reznicek’s terrorism enhancement is worthy of profound challenge, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges did not even address the substance of the activist’s appeal. In a short, unsigned opinion, the court wrote that even if there had been an “error” in applying a terrorism enhancement, it was “harmless,” because Ebinger had stated on the record that she would have imposed an eight-year sentence with or without the terrorism enhancement.



It is a cynical move indeed to sidestep the chilling effect of labeling such acts as “terrorism,” as if it carries no material consequences for the future of water and Indigenous land protection and other social movements. As Reznicek’s support team wrote in a statement Monday, “Federal prosecutors only pursued terrorism enhancements against Reznicek after 84 Congressional representatives wrote a letter in 2017 to Attorney General Jeff Sessions requesting that Reznicek and other protesters who tamper with pipelines be prosecuted as domestic terrorists.” These members of Congress, note Reznicek’s supporters, have together received a combined $36 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. Read more - Lire plus

Punished for Exposing War Crimes? U.K. Approves Assange Extradition to U.S., Faces 175 Years in Prison

DemocracyNow! 17/06/2022 - In a blow to press freedom, the United Kingdom has approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face espionage charges related to the publication of classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes.


Home Secretary Priti Patel signed off on the transfer after the U.K. Supreme Court denied Assange’s appeals earlier this year, part of a years-long legal battle that rights groups have decried as an attack on journalism and free speech. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison if convicted for violations of the Espionage Act, and his case represents a “once-in-a-lifetime fight for press freedom,” says Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s half-brother. Read more - Lire plus


Mike Pompeo summoned by Spanish court to explain alleged US government plot to assassinate Julian Assange

Amnesty International: Myanmar's plans to carry out arbitrary executions must halt immediately

This statement was co-signed by 112 organizations.

Amnesty International 17/06/2022 - The undersigned organizations are gravely concerned at the recent announcement by the military authorities of Myanmar that the death sentences imposed on four people after grossly unfair proceedings have been approved for implementation. We urge the military authorities to immediately halt plans to carry out the executions, which would violate the prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life set out under international human rights and customary laws; establish an official moratorium on executions, following more than three decades without any; and end the crackdown on large segments of the population that has swept the country since February 2021.


On 3 June, Zaw Min Tun, spokesperson of the military, announced that the convictions and death sentences imposed on four men had been approved by the State Administration Council, paving the way for the executions to be carried out in a matter of weeks. Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former member of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, and prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Ko Jimmy, were convicted of and sentenced to death by a military tribunal in January 2022 for offenses involving explosives, bombings and financing terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Law – charges that our organizations believe to be politically motivated. Two other men, convicted of the murder of a woman believed to act as an informer for the military in Hlaing Tharyar Township in Yangon, also had their death sentences confirmed. The proceedings against all men were secretive and grossly unfair, before a military-controlled court. Following the issuing of Martial Law Order 3/2021, 1 the military transferred the authority from civilian courts to special or existing military tribunals to try cases of civilians. These tribunals have been overseeing trials involving a wide range of offences including those punishable with the death penalty, through summary proceedings and without right to appeal.


The right to a fair trial, the key elements of which are set out in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), is a fundamental human right and one of the universally applicable guarantees proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has become legally binding on all states as part of customary international law.2 Under international law and standards, executions carried out following unfair trials violate the prohibition against arbitrary deprivation of life, as well as the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.3 Since February 2021, an alarming increase in the resort to the death penalty is being recorded in Myanmar, where the military is using the death penalty as a tool for ongoing and widespread persecution, intimidation and harassment of and violence against the population, including protesters and journalists.


According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) documentation, at least 114 death sentences have been imposed since February 2021. All these death sentences were imposed by military tribunals or, in one case, a juvenile court on referral from a military tribunal. The reports indicated that at least 41 defendants were tried and convicted while not being present; some were imposed on people who were below 18 years of age at the time of the alleged offence or had a severe psycho-social disability, 4 in violation of a prohibition set out under international human rights and customary law.Available information indicates that the proceedings were summary, with the defendants unable to access legal representation.


It is alarming that the military authorities are taking steps to carry out Myanmar’s first known executions since the late 1980s. The resumption of executions in Myanmar, after more than three decades without any, would constitute a significant setback for the country’s death penalty and deeply concerning human rights record, and would be contrary to the stated goal of abolition of the death penalty set out in Article 6(6) of the ICCPR. Over the decades, the UN system has worked to limit the use of the death penalty and has repeatedly urged UN member states to remove it from national legislation. Among other instruments, since 2007 the UN General Assembly has adopted – with increased cross-regional support – eight resolutions calling for the establishment of a “moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty”. As of today, 144 countries, including Myanmar, are considered abolitionist in law or practice and the number of those repealing this punishment from national legislation has continued to grow – with Kazakhstan and Papua New Guinea completely abolishing the death penalty in 2022.


We oppose the death penalty unconditionally and we ask Myanmar’s military authorities to uphold their international obligations to promote and protect human rights, including by protecting the right to life, in all cases, and releasing immediately all those detained in relation to the exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Read more - Lire plus

World Organization Against Torture: Turkey weaponizes anti-terror laws to silence human rights defenders'

bianet 13/06/2022 - The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) published a briefing about Turkey titled "Anti Terrorism Law and Human Rights Defenders" today (Jun 13). Announcing the briefing with a press release, OMCT said, " Turkey has been employing counter-terrorism and national security legislation to restrict rights and freedoms and silence the voices of human rights defenders." "In the last three months of 2021 alone, no less than 1,220 human rights defenders suffered judicial harassment or reprisals."


"The women and men who monitor respect for our rights and freedoms also play a crucial role in protecting societies from terrorist acts", said Gerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary-General. "It is ironic that these are the very people that the Turkish authorities target by subverting the fight against terrorism to quash any form of dissent, including the defense of human rights." "With Turkish courts becoming willing executioners of State policy, we see an increase in the arbitrary sentencing of human rights activists." Underlying that since 2016, Turkey has been governed by a "State of Emergency" regime, the statement included the following: "Although officially abolished on 19 July 2018, this regime was in fact made permanent via a raft of regulations." "Key to the government's strategy is Anti-Terrorism Law No. 3713, which is used to fully restrict rights and freedoms and silence the voices of human rights defenders." "The excessively vague and broad definition of terrorism in the law allows to label peaceful human rights defenders as 'terrorist offenders'"


OMCT noted that only in 2020, 6551 people were prosecuted under the anti-terrorism law, while a staggering 208,833 were investigated for "membership in an armed organization", including thousands of human rights defenders in Turkey. "Targets include the Human Rights Association (İHD/HRA) – a member of OMCT's global SOS-Torture Network - and the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (THİV/HRFT), whose leadership have at least 30 investigations and prosecutions pending against them. The OMCT has documented the ongoing intimidation and criminalization of Eren Keskin and Öztürk Türkdoğan, HRA co-chairs." OMCT said. OMCT also drew attention to the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions on Turkey's failure to respect human rights and the rule of law. "The Council of Europe has also recently launched proceedings against Turkey following its refusal to comply with decisions by the European Court of Human Rights." Read more - Lire plus


Turkish police raids on pro-Kurdish media, detains 21 journalists


European Parliament calls for official suspension of Turkey’s EU accession bid


Sweden to introduce anti-terrorism law amid Turkish concerns over NATO bid

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ACTIONS & EVENTS

NEW LeadNow petition: Protect Hassan Diab from further injustice. Say NO to any future request for Hassan's extradition!

Petition organized by the Hassan Diab Support Committee - Following the return of Dr. Diab to Canada in 2018, PM Trudeau said: “I think for Hassan Diab we have to recognise first of all that what happened to him never should have happened […] and make sure it never happens again.”


Mr. Trudeau must honor his own words and protect Hassan. The unfair political trial of an innocent Canadian citizen cannot be tolerated. PM Trudeau and the Canadian government must:

(a) Put an end to this continuing miscarriage of justice, and

(b) Refuse any future request for Hassan Diab’s extradition.

ACTION

Please share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram


NOUVELLE pétition de LeadNow: Protégez Hassan Diab de toute nouvelle injustice. Dites NON à toute future demande d'extradition!

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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!


Version française: Le Canada doit réformer la loi sur l'extradition! + Partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram


Phone PM Justin Trudeau


TAKE ACTION: Justice for Hassan Diab!


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

ACTION
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Free Jack Letts and all Canadian Detainees in NE Syria

Canada must immediately act to free four dozen Canadian men, women and children left to rot in one of a series of notorious Northeastern Syrian prisons and detention camps described as “Guantanamo on the Euphrates.” 

The longest held detainee is Jack Letts, 26, who has been imprisoned for almost 5 years without charge under conditions the United Nations has described as meeting the “threshold for torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international law.”


Send an email and call!


Mother’s Day to Father’s Day Chain Fast to Free the Canadian Captives

ACTION

Write a Letter: Stop the Smear Campaigns against Palestinian Advocacy

Recently, we have witnessed an intensified campaign by the pro-Israel lobby in Canada to smear Palestinian activists and their supporters. Last week, the National Post (NP) ran an online article about Palestinian-Canadian writer Khaled Barakat and the advocacy organization Samidoun. On April 30, the same article was splashed across their front page of their paper and has since been referenced in the Canadian Senate and the Jerusalem Post.


Send your letter to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to tell them that you join with the 80 organizations that have called to “Stop the Smear Campaigns against Palestinian Advocacy”.

ACTION
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Urgent Action to Stop the Deportation of Mohamed Ibrahim and his Family

Mohamed Ibrahim, an Egyptian national, alongside his wife, Shaimaa, and 5 children - the youngest of whom a toddler who was born in Canada - have been given a removal order by the CBSA and are facing deportation back to Egypt where Mohamed will be facing a high risk of human rights abuses by the current Egyptian regime as a result of his peaceful political activism in Egypt. Mohamed and his family arrived in Canada in 2017 and applied for asylum. However, his claim was rejected due to a legal error of his lawyer.


We call on the Minister of Immigration to give Mohammed Ibrahim and his family protection on humanitarian and compassionate grounds pursuant to section 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

ACTION

Tell Trudeau: Stop Arming Apartheid!

As revealed in CJPME's "Arming Apartheid" analysis, Canada is selling almost $20 million in arms to Israel each year – its highest level in 30 years! At the same time, Israeli forces continue to violently raid Al-Aqsa and across occupied Palestine, and human rights organizations – including Amnesty International – have all recently concluded that Israel imposes an apartheid regime against Palestinians!



There is no excuse for Canada to continue exporting arms to a country practicing apartheid and other abuses. Help us push the Canadian government to suspend arms exports to Israel, and investigate whether Canadian-made weapons have been used against Palestinian civilians! Canada must end its complicity now!

ACTION

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

ACTION
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Email your MP – No more weapons to Saudi Arabia

Canada has blood on its hands. Now approaching its seventh year, the war in Yemen has killed over a quarter of a million people. Over 4 million people have been displaced because of the war, and 70% of the population, including 11.3 million children, are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. The Saudi-led coalition has bombed Yemeni markets, hospitals, and civilians, and yet Canada has exported over $8 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia since 2015, the year the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen began. Send a letter now calling on the Canadian government to stop sending weapons to Saudi Arabia and stop arming the horrific war in Yemen.


+ Write letter: Canada’s silence on Saudi mass executions deeply troubling

ACTION

Canada: End the Safe Third Country Agreement

The Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) between Canada and the United States puts refugees at risk. Under the STCA, refugees who arrive at official ports of entry to seek protection in Canada are sent back to the US, where some have suffered serious rights violations in detention. This encourages refugee claimants to cross the border into Canada between ports of entry, sometimes in perilous conditions.

Despite the constitutionality of the STCA being in question, reports suggest that the government is attempting to expand this agreement. 



Take Action now and send a message to Minister Fraser to respect refugee rights by rescinding the Safe Third Country Agreement.

ACTION
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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!

ACTION
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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!

ACTION
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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.

ACTION
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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

ACTION
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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

ACTION
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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.

ACTION
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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!
ACTION
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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

ACTION

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Anti-terror legislation

Législation antiterroriste


UK - Journalists could risk imprisonment under new National Security Bill


CPJ: Proposed amendment to Mozambique’s anti-terror law threatens press freedom

Citizenship

Citoyenneté


Court rules minister can’t strip dual nationals of Australian citizenship for suspected terrorism

Criminalization of dissent

Criminalisation de la dissidence


National Security Trial Begins for 47 Hong Kong Pro-democracy Activists


Anti-Terror Act In Pakistan Raises Human Rights Violation Concern


Pakistan’s anti-terror court issues arrest warrants against dozen PTI leaders


‘It’s a war on the people’: El Salvador’s mass arrests send thousands into despair

Freedom of expression and the press

Liberté d'expression et de la presse


As El Salvador’s president tries to silence free press, journalist brothers expose his ties to street gangs


EVENT: How IHRA Harms Us: An Anti-Racist Conversation on Weaponized Antisemitism


Media should consciously defend national security: Carrie Lam


China offers citizens cash and ‘spiritual rewards’ for spying tipoffs


Speech-related offences should be excluded from the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty

Islamophobia

Islamophobie


Toxic Tiles: How Vinyl Flooring Made with Uyghur Forced Labor Ends Up at Big Box Stores

Migrant and refugee rights

Droits des migrant.es et des réfugié.es


ICE searched LexisNexis database over 1 million times in just seven months


TAKE ACTION: "I Live in Fear": Take 2 Minutes to Write/Call to Save Afghan Women's Rights Defender Farzana Adell

Police


‘There is systemic discrimination in our policing’: New Toronto police data confirms officers use more force against Black people


'We do not accept your apology,' activist tells Toronto's police chief after race-based data released


Edmonton’s Police Commission is in Chaos After Letter Claiming Police are ‘Investigating’ a Journalist

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance


Therrien says 'uncertainty' clouds Canadian privacy, urges thoughtful reform


‘Rights-based’ approach needed to modernize privacy laws, says next privacy commissioner Dufresne


Big Tech points finger to governments for driving surveillance technology demand


EU: Policing: Council close to approving position on extended biometric data-sharing network


Facial Recognition Is Out of Control in India


Stop the deal: U.S. defense contractor to buy NSO Group


EU: Inquiry must examine use of spyware against human rights activists worldwide, MEPs told


Google's AI Isn’t Sentient, But It Is Biased and Terrible

Transparency

Transparence


Federal watchdog flooded with record complaints about access to information

Miscellaneous

Divers


London Eye: Countering terror is a rapidly growing business


Key enterprises could face penalties under federal bill to bolster cybersecurity


The Director of CSIS has been reappointed for another term


Ligue des droits et libertés: Lancement | Le capitalisme de surveillance : menaces à la démocratie et aux droits! (vidéo)


Évènement: Webinaire/discussion : Pourquoi continuer à dénoncer l’OTAN?


Biden Administration Weighs Changes to Classification of National Security Secrets


Military should give up control of sexual assault cases permanently: former Supreme Court justice


EVENT: 24 Hour Peace Wave: No to Militarization – Yes to Cooperation


When Being Gay Was Considered a National Security Threat

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

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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!


Bill Ewanick

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!