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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

July 8, 2023 - 8 juillet 2023

What we've been up to in the first half of 2023

ICLMG 04/07/23 - Here is what we worked on so far this year thanks to the support of our members and donors:

• Bill C-20, Public Complaints and Review Commission Act
• Bill C-26, An Act respecting cyber security and amending the Telecommunications Act
• Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
• Bill C-41: International assistance and anti-terrorism laws
• Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
• Justice for Dr Hassan Diab & reform of the Extradition Act
• Combatting Islamophobia
• Countering terrorist financing & prejudiced audits of Muslim charities
• National Security and Intelligence Review Agency
• CSIS accountability and duty of candour
• CSE, surveillance and cyberwarfare
• Facial Recognition Technology (FRT)
• “Online harms” proposal
• Canada’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)
• Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism
• UN Counterterrorism Executive Directorate Canada assessment
• UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights global survey on counterterrorism and civic space

For more details on each item, to see all the media articles we were mentioned in or were interviewed for, and to check out what we have planned for the rest of 2023, click here.

Version française: Ce que nous avons fait jusqu'à présent en 2023

Action: The Canadian government is attempting to purchase and deploy its first fleet of armed drones

The ICLMG is a member of the No Armed Drones campaign

CPAC 22/06/23 - The Canadian government is moving quickly to award a contract for remotely piloted armed drones which would be used by the military both for domestic surveillance and in foreign operations. The initial cost estimate is $5 billion with billions more to operate the drones over their 25-year lifespan.

Now is the time to stop this planned purchase before it happens. The Canadian military does not need armed drones. Rather than making the world safer, these weapons of terror are used in extrajudicial executions, surveillance of targeted populations and other violations of human rights.

In the government's proposal seeking bids for its drone program it laid out disturbing scenarios for Canadian military drone use. One scenario concerns domestic surveillance missions, and specifically surveillance of public protest within Canada. Canadian drones are described being used to surveil activists protesting a (theoretical) G20 Summit in Quebec. In this scenario the drone helps the security team intercept and identify the occupants of a vehicle, who are “anti-capitalist radicals” who had been intending to “hang a banner concerning global warming.” Take action and/or endorse as an organization

Civil society under attack: A United Nations global study on counter-terrorism and civic space

The ICLMG contributed input to the Global Study

UN 2023 - Executive Summary: The Global Study centers the daily, lived experiences for civil society from across the globe operating amidst closing civic space and the widespread misuse of counter-terrorism and preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) measures to restrict their exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms and curb their legitimate activities. The Study builds from the ground-up in the collection and collation of data driven by civil society, including through a participatory, civil society-engaged-and-led process— comprising 13 civil society consultations across regions, 108 written inputs, including 76 by civil society, and 2 civil society surveys—alongside a commitment to mainstream gender equality and women’s rights from its inception.

For decades, civil society organizations and UN human rights mechanisms have communicated the persistence and challenge of the misuse of counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures, but in truth such information has remained at the margins of counter-terrorism and security conversations. Previous data points have been dismissed and argued to be a ‘bad-apple’ problem, not a systemic association of counter-terrorism measures with the abuse of human rights and evidenced costs to civil society. The Study is intended to bring together the vast research and evidence bases on the interface of counter-terrorism and P/CVE practice with civil society and civic space, and to draw normative and policy conclusions and recommendations from that collective evidence.

The Special Rapporteur understood that bringing together multiple data sources to ground the analysis provided was a sine qua non to force a reckoning in global, regional, and national conversations about the nature, form, and consequences of human rights abuses perpetrated in the name of ‘fighting’ terrorism and/or (violent) extremism. The Study is grounded in recognizing the enormous benefits that an active, diverse, functional, and vibrant civil society brings to communities and societies. Societies where civil society is absent, afraid, cowed, and unable to emerge are societies made weaker, less participatory, and vulnerable to the conditions conducive to terrorism and violence.

Despite the virtues and benefits of fostering civil society and the civic space that accompanies it, both have experienced significant challenges across the globe in recent decades. The Study provides a comprehensive assessment of these co-relational trends and seeks to understand the full consequences of increasingly layered and cumulative counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures and practices, including the compounded effects when such measures are experienced together or sequentially by civil society actors. The Study also demonstrates the resilience, capacity, and innovation of civil society and their myriad contributions to societies premised on the dignity and equality of the human person despite the immense pressures they face. [...]

Global Study Findings

The Global Study documents the restrictions on civic space across every region, and finds they are directly linked to the regulatory and institutional practices of counter-terrorism and P/CVE. It makes the following findings with regard to the conditions, features, and consequences of such systemic misuse:

• Civil society experiences complex and compounding misuse of counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures and practices, with connection to an ever-growing counter-terrorism, P/CVE, and security architecture and the expansion of related criminalization into the pre-criminal space. Most Global Study respondents do not experience singular direct or indirect counter-terrorism or P/CVE measures in isolation. Rather the Study underscores the layered and multi-dimensional consequences for civil society actors being subject to what the Study finds to be a ‘playbook’ of counter-terrorism and P/CVE misuse, including through judicial harassment, administrative measures, counter-terrorism financing restrictions, listing and sanctions, and the weaponization of new technologies such as spyware and drones. The Study finds that misuse of multiple measures sequentially or together compounds the scale of human rights violations experienced by individuals, their families, and the communities to which they belong.

• While the precise matrix of harm varies by community and country, the Study finds that the multiplicity of measures described are consistent and constant. Moreover, as indicated throughout the Study, certain features of counter-terrorism and P/CVE are regionally concentrated, often stemming from regional partnerships, donor relations, and multilateral technical assistance and capacity-building. These features both build on and repurpose historical regimes of exceptional power including martial law, État de Siége, colonialism, and entrenched legislative, executive, and administrative emergency powers.

• The Study finds that when States deploy counter-terrorism or P/CVE measures they enter a realm of exceptionality where human rights deficits pervade and the normal rules of due process and procedural protections generally do not apply, creating a host of vulnerabilities to further and layered human rights violations. Counter-terrorism is an exceptional legal regime accompanied by exceptional national security rules and practices including secret evidence, surveillance, limits on due process, limited access to legal representation, lack of access to family, extended detention, no access to bail or release prior to trial, exceptional courts, and lengthier prison sentences. Impunity and reprisals are common and often transnational in this regard.

• Counter-terrorism and P/CVE misuse have pervasive and evidenced discriminatory aspects, specifically the misuse of counter-terrorism measures against religious, ethnic and cultural minorities, women, girls, and LGBT and gender-diverse persons,1 indigenous communities, and historically discriminated against groups in society. For many countries, this finding leads to a presumption of discrimination in the exercise of national counter-terrorism and/or P/CVE policy and practice.

• Widespread and systematic practices of abuse of counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures have direct consequence for both derogable and nonderogable rights of civil society actors, yet few adequate remedies exist nationally, regionally, or internationally for such abuse. The Study finds that monitoring and evaluation as well as independent oversight of human rights abuses perpetrated in the name of countering terrorism and/or (violent) extremism remain limited.

General recommendations addressing these findings, tailored to relevant stakeholders are set out in Chapter 5 (Conclusion & Cross-Cutting Recommendations). Detailed technical recommendations are also included at the end of each Part with particular relevance to the specific themes covered. Read more - Lire plus

Global expert hub presentations: Unpacking the tech-security drives; protecting civic space

ICLMG comments on the new defence committee report on cybersecurity and cyberwarfare

The Canadian Press 26/06/23 - A new House of Commons defence committee report calls on the government to:

• Establish an ongoing forum for collaboration and engagement on cybersecurity issues where industry and officials meet to exchange information and best practices.
• Invest in its own network infrastructure cybersecurity and undertake a comprehensive assessment of what's necessary to harden government systems and third-party network infrastructure on which its data is stored.
• Expedite the renewal of Canada's national cybersecurity strategy and establish an ongoing review that can better keep pace with the changing nature of cyberthreats.
• Appoint a cybersecurity ambassador.
• Examine the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to ensure that CSIS has the legislative tools it needs to keep pace with technological advancements, modern digital realities and the ever-evolving cybersecurity threats.

Nowhere in the report is there discussion of why the CSIS recommendation is needed or that this is even a concern, said Tim McSorley, national co-ordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. "Once again, we're seeing national security creep — recommendations that national security agencies be granted new powers despite the lack of public evidence that they are necessary," he said. There is a "severe transparency deficit" in how Canada approaches cybersecurity, he added. "This kind of recommendation won't do anything to resolve that." McSorley, who testified at the committee, said it's worrisome that human rights issues did not figure more prominently in the resulting report. "Even more stark is that there is not a single recommendation around ensuring that rights protections are explicitly taken into account in the government's response to cyberthreats, whether in regards to Charter rights or to Canada's international human rights and civil liberty obligations." Read more

Version française: La CSILC commente le rapport du Comité de la défense sur la cybersécurité et la guerre informatique

ICYMI: ICLMG's testimony on cybersecurity and cyberwarfare at the defence committee

Government powers under Canada’s proposed cybersecurity law should be limited: Rights groups

IT World Canada 20/06/23 - Parliament must limit government powers over the private sector in the proposed Canadian cybersecurity legislation, say several civil rights groups, arguing the current version risks eroding civil liberties, privacy, and democratic freedoms.

The call came today from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, Ligue des Droits et Libertés, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, OpenMedia, and the Privacy and Access Council of Canada.

“We can address Canada’s cybersecurity needs, while upholding our rights and freedoms,” the group said in a statement accompanying detailed recommendations for fixing the Liberal government’s proposed cybersecurity legislation, Bill C-26. The proposed bill has been referred to the House of Commons Public Safety Committee for testimony from witnesses, but a start date hasn’t been set yet. In an email, Daniel Konikoff, director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s privacy, technology, and surveillance program, said that “our hope is that the remedy package gives MPs some food for thought over the next few months, before the Committee begins reviewing Bill C-26 after the [summer] recess.”

As it stands, the proposed legislation opens to the door new surveillance obligations telcos would have to follow, gives the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) — the government’s electronic spy agency — power without accountability, and allows secret evidence to be heard in courts, the rights groups say. “Allowing elected representatives or unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats the degree of power that Bill C-26 does is an assault on democracy and a clear and present danger to Canadians’ freedom, privacy, and autonomy,” Sharon Polsky, president of the Privacy and Access Council of Canada, said in the statement. Read more - Lire plus

Welcomed by Canada for defying a dictator, Syrian activist now considered a security risk

CTV News 23/06/23 - An activist who has been tortured for defying a dictator has been flagged as a national security risk by Canada’s immigration officials, after she participated in international efforts to hold Syria accountable for human rights violations.

In Syria she understood what she stood for and who she was fighting against, but in Canada, Aljizawi says cannot defend herself if immigration officials refuse to disclose why they consider her a potential threat. After fleeing Syria to Turkey, Aljizawi moved to Canada after being accepted into the University of Toronto’s scholars-at-risk program in 2017. The 35-year old is currently working at Citizen Lab and researching how authoritarian states use digital technology to oppress people across the globe.

After years of living in exile, the initial safety she found in Canada gave her the stability to build her personal life. Aljizawi is now married and has a five-year-old child with much more to lose. She’s concerned that being labelled a security risk will lead to deportation and forced separation from her husband and daughter. The couple had no idea why their permanent residency application was taking so long until they received a cryptic email this past January from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). An agent requested an interview with Aljizawi to “clarify some concerns pertaining to s.34 of the Immigration and Refugee and Protection Act.”

“Section 34 relates to national security concerns but it doesn’t tell us what it is,” said Wennie Lee, Aljizawi’s immigration lawyer. “It could be espionage. It could be subversion of any government. It could be a danger to the security of Canada.” Lee says section 34 interviews are usually conducted by CSIS officers instead of border agents. The address for the interview was a warehouse-like structure near Pearson International Airport that houses detention cells. Lee requested more information from CBSA so Aljizawi could understand the basis for the concerns and properly defend herself. Instead, the interview was abruptly cancelled and has not been rescheduled. The status of Aljizawi’s immigration application has disappeared into a black hole. To get answers, Lee is suing in federal court to make the government turn over information about its security concerns or force it to continue processing Aljizawi’s file.

Meanwhile, a network of women human rights activists are mobilizing to protect Aljizawi as she waits for the legal decision. “Noura is at risk of assassination. She is a female human rights defender who has had a lot of influence,” said Urooj Mian, the CEO of Sustainable Human Empowerment told CTV News. Mian says in early June, Canadian and Dutch government lawyers went to the International Court of Justice to prosecute the Assad regime for war crimes and hold it accountable for gross human rights violations. At the Hague, Canada and the Netherlands called on Syria to stop its alleged campaign of torture against people who opposed Assad during the country’s civil war. Aljizawi’s testimony about her torture was part of the evidence presented in court.

There are concerns about meddling in Aljizawi’s case by people aligned with the Syrian regime. “We have to take her case public to protect her.” Mian points out that other high profile activists Syrian activists have been murdered in Turkey and Germany. Mian’s network has sent letters to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the deputy prime minister and the ministers of foreign affairs, public safety and immigration, alerting them to Aljizawi’s vulnerabilities and has urged them to “protect, not endanger” the human rights defender. Read more - Lire plus

Canada Issues Third Forcible Child Separation Ultimatum to Mothers Detained in NE Syria Prison Camps

Homes Not Bombs 26/06/23 - On June 22, two hours after Senator Kim Pate announced a civil initiative that seeks to open negotiations on the repatriation of Canadians held in NE Syria, Global Affairs Canada issued its third forcible separation ultimatum to a number of mothers who have been illegally detained over four years in Northeast Syrian prison camps.

In a letter to two of the mothers’ legal counsel, Asiya Hirji, Department of Justice lawyers declared that the children could come to Canada on a flight expected to leave in early July, but only if they left their mothers behind, go into provincial care and possibly never see their mothers again. In late January, Global Affairs officials directly contacted the detained mothers with the ultimatum that if they did not give up their children within 10 days, there would be no more flights for Canadians out of the region, and the families would remain indefinitely detained. A second ultimatum was delivered to lawyers for the mothers in late March.

“With this third ultimatum, we have been informed that another Canadian repatriation flight is expected to leave in early July. These mothers have until June 26 to make an impossible choice with respect to their children: keep them imprisoned with their mothers, or free in Canada without their moms, and with virtually no prospect of reunification” Hirji says. “It is truly disheartening to witness Canada's unyielding cruelty in its refusal to display any compassion towards these women and children who have endured prolonged suffering. The actions taken by Global Affairs in maintaining their initial ultimatum are particularly distressing for these mothers and their children. The international community has rightfully criticized the extreme cruelty embedded in this approach, as it directly contradicts Global Affairs' own policy framework. This framework explicitly asserts that children should not be separated from their parents unless truly exceptional circumstances arise. Canada, however, has failed to present any such extraordinary circumstances that would justify pressuring these mothers into effectively rendering their children as orphans”

Hirji filed Temporary Resident Permit applications for two mothers in February, noting that the average processing time for such a permit to come to Canada from Syria is 60 days, and it’s now double that time. As a result, she has filed an emergency mandamus court application seeking a positive decision on the permits so that the mothers and children could remain together. “I am so tired and drained from this emotional rollercoaster of being asked every two months whether I would be OK to never see my children again as the price of their getting out of this horrible place,” says “Zahra,” a mother of three children in the camps, who issued a statement through Hirji. “What is the Canadian government thinking? Are the Global Affairs officials issuing us this ultimatum parents themselves? What would they do in this situation? It’s an impossible choice. The only adult these children have known all their lives, both in a war zone and in prison camps, is me. All of us will fall apart without each other.”

Hirji points out that the United Nations, Save the Children, Medicines Sans Frontieres and other international aid organizations report that conditions in the prison camps are akin to torture, and they have been consistently described as one of the worst places in the world for children to endure. She also notes: “Global Affairs is violating domestic and international human rights commitments to these children and their mothers.” In another statement released through lawyer Hirji, long-time camp detainee “Asiya,” an engineer and mother of three children who all require medical assistance, said: “In January, I was told I have a week and a half to decide whether I give up my children forever or keep them here where life is like a prolonged death sentence. I was also told I could not change my mind at a later date because, in their words, ‘Canada will not be coming here again.’”

“Asiya” asks, “Other countries have taken back mixed-nationality mothers and children, so why not Canada, which everyone knows has a reputation for supporting families? I also question why I am being asked by Global Affairs to not only give up my children, but also to return to my country of birth despite the obvious risk that I would face detention, torture or worse.” Indeed, it is not uncommon for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to issue permits to allow mixed nationality families to remain together. It’s also part of IRCC’s mandate according to its own domestic legislation and its commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Advocates for the detainees are calling on Global Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to immediately issue temporary resident permits so the mothers can come to Canada with their kids. “Canada led a 57-nation effort to denounce and end arbitrary detention, and yet its policy regarding these Muslim women, kids, and men in northeast Syria has perpetuated that very human rights violation,” explains Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, an organization which has led a campaign for repatriation. “Canada has fought for years to prevent their return, despite knowing the brutality of their conditions as well as the long-standing Syrian Kurdish authorities’ request to come and collect their citizens. This is child abuse and woman abuse all rolled into one, the very crimes this government repeatedly says must be ended." Source

Syria camps: Canada accused of cruelty over 'ultimatum' to mothers to give up children

Fire damages Syrian tent home of detained Canadian mother and children: advocate

Mother of Canadian detained in Syria asks why others ‘are receiving the justice my son is being denied’ (video)

Humanitarian mission headed to Syria — but it won't repatriate detained Canadians

Humanitarian delegation confident in security despite feds discouraging travel to Syria

France Repatriates 35 People From Syria

ACTION: Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!

Constitutional Rights and Wrongs: Why We Must Stop Hassan Diab’s Extradition

Hameed Law 30/06/23 - On November 13, 2008, Carleton University professor, Dr. Hassan Diab, was arrested pursuant to a request from France for an investigative hearing to determine whether or not he should stand trial for a terrorist bombing in Paris that occurred in 1980. Twenty-eight years after the fact, without any charges in the Canadian system, without eyewitnesses and without any material evidence, he was jailed in Ottawa for 140 days in the notorious Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre before he was even extradited to France. That was just the beginning of an ordeal that has continued for Hassan Diab until today. 

A French investigative judge established that he was not even in France at the time of the 1980 bombing. There is no material evidence to contradict this. Moreover, the flagrancy of the injustice in the case against Diab has led Amnesty International to strongly criticize France’s attempt to criminalize Hassan Diab as undermining justice for those victims of the 1980 synagogue attack. In essence, Dr. Diab has been made a scapegoat because of the political need to hold someone to account for a heinous unsolved crime.

In Canada’s justice system one can only be prosecuted if there is a reasonable prospect of conviction. In Dr. Diab’s case, an Ontario Judge found that the case against him was “weak”. In France, two investigative judges found that his case did not meet the evidentiary threshold to be sent to trial. As a result, in 2018, Hassan Diab was liberated from prison and allowed to return to Canada.

However, French prosecutors appealed the dismissal of Diab’s case, and in January 2021 an appeal court ordered him to be tried. France’s legal system features a concept of “intime conviction”, where a judge may convict someone based on personal belief as opposed to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Intime conviction is a concept that contradicts norms of fundamental justice in Canada.

At his trial this year (2023), which was held in Dr. Diab’s absence, journalists who were not present at the scene of the crime were summoned to give their opinions Hassan Diab’s guilt. Unsourced secret intelligence was tendered by the prosecution, and no new evidence was introduced. No official transcript exists from Dr. Diab’s trial, and a guilty verdict against Diab was entered hastily on April 21, 2023. 

Despite the fact that two investigative French judges found no evidence on which to base a trial, a French trial court (Assize Court) entered a conviction against Dr. Diab – based merely on its subjective belief of his guilt (intime conviction) and not based upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt. A criminal conviction based on the mere subjective view of a judge without regard to lack of evidence, effectively amounts to a conviction cemented on suspicion. Such an intellectually frail deliberative process is repugnant to Canada’s own established principles of criminal justice and constitutional protections for the accused. In other words, Hassan Diab’s French conviction is inimical to the values of the system of administration of justice in Canada.

In 2018 when Hassan Diab returned to Canada from France, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “what happened to [Dr. Diab] never should have happened… and [Canada should] make sure it never happens again”. Five years later, Dr. Diab’s unjust extradition to France is at serious risk of happening again.

Canada now has a choice to prevent an extradition that would render a serious miscarriage of justice.

Watch Tyler Lett’s film “Constitutional Rights and Wrongs: Why We Must Stop the Unjust Extradition of Hassan Diab” to learn more about Dr. Diab’s case and what you can do to help prevent his extradition to France. Source

Supporters of Hassan Diab say extradition must not be 'instrument of persecution'

CALL Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Urging Him to Protect Hassan Diab

LETTER: Canada must protect Hassan Diab!

Lettre: Le Canada doit protéger Hassan Diab!

Take Action to Prevent Another Wrongful Extradition of Hassan Diab! (all actions, one link)

Bill to create watchdog for border agency still in limbo as travel season picks up

CBC News 22/06/23 - Canadians, immigrants, tourists and other travellers who feel they've been mistreated by a border agent won't have many options this travel season after a bill to establish an independent complaint review body failed to become law before the House of Commons rose for the summer.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino sounded optimistic last month about the odds of Bill C-20 finally crossing the finish line. The bill would create a Public Complaints and Review Commission to give the existing RCMP watchdog the additional responsibility of handling public complaints about the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). But the bill was still being reviewed at the committee level when the House adjourned for a three-month summer recess late Wednesday. Mendicino is the third Liberal minister in seven years to promise a watchdog body to oversee the border agency. Previous versions of the legislation got multi-party support but died on the order paper.

"Every day that goes by without effective oversight is very concerning," said Julia Sande, a human rights lawyer with Amnesty International. "It's disappointing to see how long it's taken. Not for lack of attempts, I suppose." The border agency remains the only public safety department without an outside civilian review body, despite the power border officers wield. Border officers can carry firearms and are empowered to search, detain and arrest travellers. Access to information requests show that, behind the scenes, Canadian border officers have been reprimanded for hundreds of acts of misconduct over the past two years — including preferential treatment, harassment and abuse of powers.

Bill C-20 has received multi-party support but MPs on the committee also heard calls for amendments — such as a change to the process so that RCMP officers aren't tied up investigating their colleagues, and an increase in the Public Complaints and Review Commission's budget to allow it to take on more reviews. A spokesperson for Mendicino said the government hopes the standing committee on public safety and national security will begin its clause-by-clause review of the bill "as soon as Parliament returns in the fall."

Amnesty International and a handful of other human rights group wrote an open letter earlier this month condemning the government's approach to Bill C-20, including its failure to consult them. Sande said she would like to see the bill amended so that Mounties and CBSA officers aren't investigating themselves. "People might be very reluctant to complain to a body that has the power to, for example... detain you or to deport you. People are understandably fearful," said Sande. "I think it's important to consider the groups that CBSA and RCMP interact with, they both disproportionately interact with marginalized groups, including Indigenous, Black and other racialized groups."

Sande also said she'd like to see the legislation updated so that third parties can lodge complaints. If passed, Bill C-20 would also require the heads of the RCMP and the CBSA to report annually to the public safety minister on progress in implementing commission recommendations. The bill also promises to codify deadlines and would require the RCMP to respond to complaints within six months. The RCMP sometimes takes years to properly respond to complaints lodged by members of the public with the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission. "When you think about who comes into contact the most with CBSA, and the RCMP, and the fact that this has just been allowed to kind of fall off or slide is concerning," said Sande. "I think it needs to be a priority for the government." Read more - Lire plus

ICYMI: ICLMG's brief on Bill C-20

ICYMI: Civil society statement on Bill C-20

Review of Departmental Implementation of the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act for 2020

NSIRA 04/07/23 - Executive summary:

1. The Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act (ACA or Act) and its associated directions seek to prevent the mistreatment of any individual as a result of information exchanged between a Government of Canada department and a foreign entity. At the heart of the directions is the consideration of substantial risk, and whether that risk, if present, can be mitigated.

To do this, the Act and the directions lay out a series of requirements that need to be met or implemented when handling information. This review covers the implementation of the directions sent to 12 departments and agencies from their date of issuance, January 1, 2020, to the end of the previous calendar year, December 31, 2020. It was conducted under subsection 8(2.2) of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Act (NSIRA Act), which requires NSIRA to review, each calendar year, the implementation of all directions issued under ACA.

2. This was the first ACA review to cover a full calendar year. Many of the reviewed departments noted that the pandemic impacted their information sharing activities, thus impacting the number of cases requiring further review as per the ACA. As such, NISIRA found that from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020, no cases under the ACA were escalated to deputy heads in any department.

3. While NSIRA was pleased with the considerable efforts made by many departments new to ACA in building their frameworks, Canada Boarder Services Agency (CBSA) and Public Safety did not finalize their policy frameworks in support of the Directions received under the ACA for the review period.

4. As part of the review, NSIRA examined the case triage process of all twelve departments. NSIRA found that even when departments employ similar methodologies and sources of information to inform their determination of whether or not a case involving the same country of concern should be escalated, significant divergences in the evaluation of risk and the required level of approval emerge.

5. A case sent to both GAC and CSIS was reviewed by NSIRA for its implications under the ACA. While the information was ultimately not shared with the requesting foreign entity, nonetheless, NSIRA found that the risk of mistreatment was substantial and the decision should have been referred to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs as the accountable deputy minister for this request.

6.Mitigation measures used by departments were also reviewed this year, since they are an integral part in the information sharing process for departments. NSIRA observed that there are gaps in departments’ ability to verify whether a country or entity has actually complied with caveats or assurances because of the difficulty in tracking compliance to mitigation measures.

7. NSIRA believes that it is now in a position to conduct in-depth case study assessments of individual departments’ adherence to the ACA and Directions, irrespective of whether or not a department reported any cases to its deputy head. Finally, future reviews will follow up on the ongoing implementation of NSIRA’s past recommendations.

8. In keeping with NSIRA’s 2020 Annual Report which emphasized the implementation of a “trust but verify” approach for assessing information provided over the course of a review, NSIRA continues to work on various verification strategies with the Canadian intelligence community. However, due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, implementation of verification processes was not possible across all twelve departments which fall under the ACA. Notwithstanding, the information provided by departments has been independently verified by NSIRA through documentation analysis and meetings with department subject matter experts, as warranted. Further work is underway to continue developing an access model for the independent verification of information relevant to ACA considerations. Read more - Lire plus

Under Fire: Report from Jenin Refugee Camp on Israel’s Largest West Bank Attack in 20 Years

DemocracyNow! 05/07/23 - Israel attacked the Jenin refugee camp this weekend in what some are calling the largest military operation in the occupied West Bank in 20 years. Israel claims to have attacked militants in the camp, but camp residents say they were targeted by airstrikes and ground troops. Palestinian health officials say the massive two-day military offensive killed 12 Palestinians and injured at least 140 more.

This continues a pattern of escalating violence by Israel against Palestinians, including attacks by settlers against residents of the occupied West Bank. We speak with Mustafa Sheta, general manager of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, who shares his firsthand account of the attack and describes it as an effort “to end the concept and the idea of resistance in Palestine.” Amjad Iraqi, senior editor at +972 Magazine, describes Israel’s doctrine of “mowing the lawn” in Palestine and calls this weekend’s events part of “the maintenance of an apartheid regime.” Read more - Lire plus

ACTION: Canada must denounce Israel’s attack on the Jenin refugee camp

ACTION: Tell Scotiabank to Divest Now from Elbit Systems

Parliamentary event on targeted human rights sanctions with a focus on Turkey

TALI 30/06/2023 - On Monday 26th June 2023, as a part of Turkey Human Rights Accountability Project, the Arrested Lawyers Initiative organised an event in collaboration with IBAHRI, REDRESS and Human Rights Solidarity which was hosted by Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws in the UK Parliament.

The event covered ‘The Deterrence Potential of Multilateral Sanctions for Human Rights Abuses in Turkey’ to discuss impunity, torture, and ill-treatment in Turkey in relation to Magnitsky Sanctions from the United Kingdom.

The state of emergency in Turkey marked the beginning of gross human rights violations, including widespread torture facilitated by the adoption of impunity provisions, enforced disappearances and mass detention on an industrial scale.

According to official figures, more than 600,000 people have been detained by the police on overly broad terrorism charges, while more than 100,000 have been remanded in custody. Between 2016 and 2021, more than 310,000 people were convicted of membership of an armed terrorist organisation.

Since 2016, more than 1600 lawyers have been detained, and so far, 551 lawyers have been sentenced to 3356 years in prison on terrorism-related charges, mostly for membership in terrorist organisations.

In September 2020, The Arrested Lawyers launched the Turkey Human Rights Accountability Project in response to the ongoing rule of law violations and imprisonment of lawyers, activists, journalists and academics on trumped-up charges. Prominent British barristers Kevin Dent KC and Michael Polak joined the project.

After months of research, the Turkey Human Rights Accountability Project submitted its first submission, prepared by Kevin Dent KC and Michael Polak, to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office in May 2021, seeking to place notable human rights abusers in Turkey on the UK sanctions list. REDRESS also contributed to this submission and the project by reviewing the submission and supporting our training activities.

As a second step, a similar submission was made to the US government. The US submission was again made possible with the support of Mr Dent and Mr Polak, as well as the US-based NGOs Human Rights First and Human Rights Foundation. Finally, the Turkey Human Rights Accountability Project recently made its third submission to the Canadian government, authored by Mr Dent, Mr Polak and Ms Sarah Teich.



In the event, panelist underlined that the case of Turkey demonstrates that even established democracies face the risk of sliding into authoritarianism and instability if they fail to confront emerging abuses and allies do not hold them to account. Read more - Lire plus

Turkey's Erdogan says Sweden's NATO steps towards membership undermined by protests

Expert welcomes historic visit to United States and Guantánamo detention facility and affirms rights of victims of terrorism and victims of counter-terrorism

UN 26/06/2023 - On the Guantánamo site visit, the Special Rapporteur received all requested access to detention facilities and detainees, including “high value” and “non-high value” detainees. She identified significant improvements to the conditions of confinement but expressed “serious concerns about the continued detention of 30 men and the systematic arbitrariness that pervades their day-to-day, bringing severe insecurity, suffering, and anxiety to all, without exception.”

Every detainee she met lives with unrelenting, ongoing harms following from systematic practices of rendition, torture, and arbitrary detention. She explained, “for many, the dividing line between past and present is exceptionally thin and past experiences of torture live in the present, without any obvious end in sight, including because they have received no independent, holistic, or adequate torture rehabilitation.”

Despite the depth, severity, and evident nature of many detainees’ current physical and psychological harms, the detention infrastructure entails near-constant surveillance, forced cell extractions, undue use of restraints, and other arbitrary, non-human rights compliant operating procedures stemming from inadequate training; structural healthcare deficiencies; inadequate access to family, including the failure to facilitate meaningful communication; and arbitrary detention characterized by sustained fair trial violations. “The totality of these practices and omissions have cumulative, compounding effects on detainees’ dignity and fundamental rights, and amounts to ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,” she concluded. “Closure of the facility remains a priority.”

The Special Rapporteur also met with repatriated and resettled detainees and their families, as well as government personnel in other countries. She identified serious shortcomings in the provision of the essential means that former detainees need to live a dignified life, including legal identity, health care, education, housing, family reunification, and freedom of movement. She found that these shortcomings contravened U.S. international law obligations, engaged before, during, and after transfer, including as regards non-refoulement—obligations of a more specific and compelling form when the individual has been tortured in its custody, requiring guarantee of adequate torture rehabilitation.

“The vast majority of former detainees continues to experience sustained human rights violations. Once transferred they have been left to fend for themselves, vulnerable to penury, social exclusion, stigma, and governmental inference. The U.S. Government does not have an adequate system to address the well-being of those transferred, or the failure of governments to respect their rights,” she found. The Special Rapporteur made specific recommendations and concluded that the U.S. Government must ensure accountability for all international law violations, for victims of counter-terrorism and victims of terrorism. She concluded, “The time is now to undo the legacies of exceptionalism, discrimination, and securitization perpetuated by Guantánamo’s continuing existence.” Read more - Lire plus

UN: Other documents pertaining to the UN's visit of the Guantanamo detention facility

Guantanamo detainees tell first independent visitor about scars from torture and hopes to leave

Released Guantanamo detainees are still being denied human rights, UN report warns

The US government must provide care to its torture victims

U.N.: U.S. Must 'Make Full Reparation For The Injuries Caused' by Gitmo

Remembering Guantánamo’s Dead On 17th Anniversary Of An Implausible ‘Triple Suicide’

Eurasia Review 11/06/2023 - 17 years ago, on June 10, 2006, the world awoke to the shocking news that three men had died at Guantánamo, allegedly through a coordinated suicide pact. The three men were Yasser al-Zahrani, a Saudi who was just 17 years old when he was seized in Afghanistan, Mani al-Utaybi, another Saudi, who was around 30 years of age, and Ali al-Salami (also known as Ali Abdullah Ahmed), a Yemeni, who was around 23 years old.

I mark the anniversary of the deaths of these men every year, and many of us who remember that day also remember being shocked when Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the prison’s commander, told the world, “This was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us.” However, while Harris was rightly condemned for suggesting that committing suicide — taking your own life, with no harm to others — could be considered “an act of asymmetric warfare,” not enough scrutiny has been given to the fact that there was a “war” taking place in Guantánamo, but it was not the “war” that Harris envisaged.

As Harris saw it, Al-Qaeda members, held at Guantánamo, were waging war on the brave forces of the US military, most persistently by engaging in hunger strikes, and, on the night of June 9-10, 2006, apparently though taking their own lives. However, a much more accurate way of viewing the situation at Guantánamo is as a war by the US military on hundreds of men — most of whom had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda — who were held indefinitely without charge or trial, in an experimental prison sealed shut from the outside world, in which torture and other forms of abuse were, or had been routinely practiced, and in which the prisoners ’only means of resistance was through putting their bodies on the line to disrupt the prison’s operations.

For this perspective, hunger strikes are, and always have been the most powerful way in which prisoners held in particularly brutal and isolated conditions — as was the case at Guantánamo — can exercise any control. The three men who died at Guantánamo on the night of June 9-10, 2006 were all long-term hunger strikers, and while that course of action can pose significant health risks in the long-term, engaging in hunger strikes is, more often than not, a triumph of the will against intolerable circumstances, in which death is not the purpose; it is, instead, a cry for life and for justice.



The suicide story therefore makes no sense, especially as the men who died had a history of persistent non-compliance at odds with the notion that they would take their own lives, and two of them had actually been approved for release at the time of their deaths, although it was unclear whether one of them had been informed of this development.

Only one of the three men could be placed in Afghanistan. [...] Noticeably, many of the three men’s fellow prisoners have expressed incredulity about the official narrative about their deaths, and in 2010 Joseph Hickman, a former Staff Sergeant who was in charge of the watch towers on the night of the deaths, reported seeing vehicles traveling to and from the block where the men supposedly died, leading him to conclude that they had been taken to a secret facility on the base where they had been either deliberately or accidentally killed.

Nothing came of Hickman’s revelations (via a Harper’s Magazine article, “The Guantánamo Suicides,” by Scott Horton, published in 2010, and his book Murder at Camp Delta, published in 2015), but it remained inexplicable — and still is today — that, for the official story to be true, the three men had, as I described it in 2019, “managed to stuff rags down their own throats, tie their feet together, tie their hands together, create a noose, climb up onto the cell’s sinks, put the noose around their neck, and then jump with sufficient force to die by self-inflicted strangulation, all while shielding their activities from the guards, who were supposed to persistently keep a watch on the cells.”

In addition, in 2015 a Newsweek reporter, Alexander Nazaryan, noted that a “highly placed source in the Department of Defense who deals with detainees’ affairs, and who asked to remain anonymous because he is not permitted to speak to the media without receiving prior clearance,” had written to to him in an email, “After reviewing the information concerning the three deaths at Camp Delta on June 9, 2006, it is painfully apparent the personnel involved in fact created an illusion of an investigation. When you consider the missing documents, the lack of key interviews, and the questionable evidence found on the bodies, it is blatantly obvious there was something that occurred that night that is not documented.”

Other deaths at Guantánamo

Noticeably, the three deaths on the night of June 9-10, 2006 were not the only deaths at Guantánamo. On May 30, 2007, a Saudi prisoner, Abdul Rahman al-Amri, also died, reportedly by committing suicide, on June 1, 2009 another alleged suicide took place when Mohammed al-Hanashi (Muhammed Salih), a Yemeni, also died, followed, in September 2012, by Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, another Yemeni.

In 2021, when former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi’s compelling memoir, Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo, was published, I was shocked to discover that five of these men — all except Abdul Rahman al-Amri — had been part of a group of around a dozen prisoners (mostly young Yemenis, and including Adayfi himself), who had persistently resisted the injustice of Guantánamo, through hunger strikes and incessant non-compliance. Adayfi called them the “Redeyes,” repeatedly dealt with violently, and who spent much of their time in isolation cells.

Perhaps the truth will never be known, but it still strikes me as unbelievably coincidental that five of the dozen men who had so persistently fought against Guantánamo’s injustices, and had been such a thorn in the side of the authorities, conveniently took their own lives rather than continuing to make their captors lives as difficult as possible.

I hope you will join with me today in remembering these men, and for further information about the deaths of Mohammed al-Hanashi and Abdul Rahman al-Amri, I recommend Jeffrey Kaye’s book, Cover-up at Guantanamo: The NCIS Investigation into the “Suicides” of Mohammed al Hanashi and Abdul Rahman Al Amri, with additional documents that can be found here.

Jeffrey also investigated one of the three other deaths that took place at Guantánamo — that of Inayatullah (aka Haji Naseem), a mentally troubled Afghan who died in May 2011 — and as we’re remembering those killed at or by Guantánamo, I’d also like to remember Awal Gul, an Afghan who died after taking exercise in February 2011, and to recommend the front-page New York Times story that I wrote with Carlotta Gall in February 2008 about Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, who died of cancer in December 2007, presumably though medical neglect on the part of the authorities. Our story revealed, crucially, how the authorities had failed to take any interest in his mistaken imprisonment. Accused of being a Taliban supporter, he had actually been involved in organizing a jailbreak to free three prominent anti-Taliban individuals from prison. Read more - Lire plus

Judge to Decide Whether Taint of C.I.A. Torture Extended to Guantánamo: Can an alleged confession made at the naval base but after years in C.I.A. black sites be used against a man accused of bombing the U.S.S. Cole?

Domestic terrorism charges in Georgia are prompting concern over political repression

GPB 29/06/2023 - According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, Georgia, New York and Vermont are the only states with laws about "domestic terrorism" or a "domestic act of terrorism." But many more states have terrorism statutes that further criminalize acts that are intended to "influence the policy of government" by "intimidation or coercion." To some, these statutes leave too much room for abuse.

"They really are a political instrument," said Lauren Regan, an attorney and executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. "There are already numerous criminal statutes that would adequately prosecute the alleged criminal act, [such as] murder, assault, battery, menacing. There's already a ton of crimes that could cover this."

But Regan and others who have handled terrorism cases in various jurisdictions say state anti-terrorism statutes have, to date, been largely untested.

This may change with the allegations against defendants in Georgia. One defendant, Ariel Ebaugh, has filed a writ of habeas corpus directly challenging the constitutionality of Georgia's domestic terrorism statute. The attorney behind the writ, Stanley Cohen, said he believes the language of the law runs afoul of federal First Amendment rights, as well as Georgia's constitution. "Speech is protected, assembly is protected, association is protected. Yes, there can be a line that is crossed. It wasn't crossed here," Cohen said. "And even if it was crossed, prosecution under this statute would be impermissible because it's vague, overly broad and ambiguous."

At a January press conference following Terán's killing, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Michael Register said that Terán had fired the shot that injured an officer. Five months later, however, the GBI still has not released results of its investigation. Register and the head of Atlanta's Police Department have also claimed that activists have committed crimes including arson, assault, intimidation, using explosives, throwing rocks at officers and setting booby traps. The GBI declined requests for an interview, and APD referred questions about the domestic terrorism charges to the GBI.

But so far, none of the 42 defendants have seen evidence or specific charges alleging that they engaged in those acts. While they were accused of domestic terrorism in their arrest warrants, indictments are still forthcoming. This is true even for individuals who were detained in December. "I don't think they really had a lot of focus in getting a conviction under that [domestic terrorism] statute," said Regan. "I think they were using it to scare people into submission." [...]

To Alex Papali, another defendant in this case, the way that law enforcement agencies have targeted mostly non-Georgia residents with the domestic terrorism label has felt clearly political. Papali was at the music festival in the forest in March. He said when word got around that police had arrived, panic set in. He said officers detained anyone they were able to catch.

"It was just totally arbitrary and random," Papali said." But at one point they asked people where they're from and they separated all the Georgia residents from all the out of town folks... and then they let them leave." Papali, a Massachusetts resident, was among those taken to DeKalb County Jail and labeled as a domestic terrorist. "It couldn't have been more transparent that they were trying to create this narrative of 'outside agitators' coming in to disrupt the peaceful community," he said, "when the reality was there was a lot of local residents who also were supporting this event."

Some Republican elected leaders in Georgia are amplifying the narrative that the opposition movement is highly organized and from other states. In an interview on WANF-TV, Attorney General Christopher Carr stated without a trace of doubt: "If you come to this state, engage in acts of violence to destroy infrastructure and property with the intended effect of changing public policy, it is a domestic terrorism charge." Carr's office did not respond to requests for interview. But in Atlanta, a city that considers itself the cradle of the Civil Rights movement, this framing feels familiar.

"Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] was labeled an outside agitator at some point and he was born right here in the city of Atlanta, just like I am," said Rev. Keyanna Jones, an organizer with Community Movement Builders and the Faith Coalition to Stop Cop City.

Until recently, Jones lived right next to the proposed training facility site, but moved away because the Atlanta Police Department currently uses part of it for target practice. Jones said the sound of gunfire throughout the day was taking a toll on her young son. But even though she has left the city of Atlanta, she continues her activism on behalf of her neighbors and allies in the movement. [...]

Even if the charges are dropped, or a grand jury fails to indict, some defendants worry that the toxic label of "domestic terrorist" may stick. "The first weight of that came to me when... my mug shot was posted up on some fascist Twitter [account], and I had to have the conversation with my parents that they might start receiving death threats," said Vienna Forrest, who was arrested in December. "That's going to be something that'll follow me for a long time." Read more - Lire plus

Civil society urges UK to protect global digital security and safeguard private communication

Open letter to the UK government from over 80 national and international civil society organisations, academics and cyberexperts raising concerns about the serious threat to the security of private and encrypted messaging posed by the Online Safety Bill

ORG 26/06/2023 - The Online Safety Bill is a deeply troubling legislative proposal. If passed in its present form, the UK could become the first liberal democracy to require the routine scanning of people’s private chat messages, including chats that are secured by end-to-end encryption. As over 40 million UK citizens and 2 billion people worldwide rely on these services, this poses a significant risk to the security of digital communication services not only in the UK, but also internationally.

End-to-end encryption ensures the security of communications for everyone on a network. It is designed so that no-one, including the platform provider, can read or alter the messages. The confidentiality between sender and recipient is completely preserved. That’s why the United Nations, several human rights groups, and anti-human trafficking organisations alike have emphasised that encryption is a vital human rights tool. In order to comply with the Online Safety Bill, platform providers would have to break that protection either by removing it or by developing work-arounds. Any form of work-around risks compromising the security of the messaging platform, creating back-doors, and other dangerous ways and means for malicious actors and hostile states to corrupt the system. This would put all users in danger.

The UK government has indicated its intention for providers to use a technology that would scan chats on people’s phone and devices – known as client-side scanning. The UK government’s assertion that client-side scanning will not compromise the privacy of messages contradicts the significant evidence of cyber-security experts around the world. This software intercepts chat messages before they are encrypted, and as the user is uploading their images or text, and therefore confidentiality of messages cannot be guaranteed. It would most likely breach human rights law in the UK and internationally.

Serious concerns have also been raised about similar provisions in the EU’s proposed ‘Child Sexual Abuse Regulation’, which an independent expert study warns is in contradiction to human rights rules. French, Irish and Austrian parliamentarians have all also warned of severe threats to human rights and of undermining encryption.

Moreover, the scanning software would have to be pre-installed on people’s phones, without their permission or full awareness of the severe privacy and security implications. The underlying databases can be corrupted by hostile actors, meaning that individual phones would become vulnerable to attack. The breadth of the measures proposed in the Online Safety Bill – which would infringe the rights to privacy to the same extent for the internet’s majority of legitimate law-abiding users as it would for potential criminals – means that the measures cannot be considered either necessary or proportionate.

The inconvenient truth is that it is not possible to scan messages for bad things without infringing on the privacy of lawful messages. It is not possible to create a backdoor that only works for “good people” and that cannot be exploited by “bad people”. Privacy and free expression rights are vital for all citizens everywhere, in every country, to do their jobs, raise their voices, and hold power to account without arbitrary intrusion, persecution or repression. End-to-end encryption provides vital security that allows them to do that without arbitrary interference. People in conflict zones who rely on secure encrypted communications to be able to speak safely to friends and family as well as for national security. Journalists around the world who rely on the confidential channels of encrypted chat, can communicate to sources and upload their stories in safety. Read more - Lire plus

Online Safety Bill: WhatsApp, Signal issue stark final warning against mass snooping of messages

Apple joins opposition to encrypted message app scanning

Security researchers latest to blast UK’s Online Safety Bill as encryption risk

Met police admit downloading sim of French publisher, lawyer claims

The Guardian 27/06/2023 - The Metropolitan police have admitted downloading the sim card from the phone of a radical French publisher who was arrested by counter-terrorism police at St Pancras station in April, his lawyer has claimed.

Officers returned the iPhone and laptop it had seized from Ernest Moret, 28, to his London lawyer on Tuesday after the Met announced late on Friday that no further action would be taken against him. He had been arrested on his way to the London book fair and held for almost 24 hours under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The treatment of Moret – who was interrogated about his support for the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and participation in anti-government protests – is the subject of review by Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. Moret’s lawyer, Richard Parry, confirmed that officers returned his laptop and phone on Tuesday, more than 10 weeks after they were confiscated when Moret refused to provide passwords for the devices. Police told Parry the information on the devices had not been downloaded, but that the sim card on the phone had been downloaded, although the information on it had not been reviewed by counter-terrorism police.

Parry said Moret, who is the foreign rights manager for the radical publisher Éditions la Fabrique, was seeking assurances his data would not be stored or shared with other intelligence agencies. He said: “Our principal concern is whether or not any data will be transmitted to third parties, and whether it goes on an intelligence database or is used in any form. Police have not said that nothing has been passed on.” He added: “In our view, any attempt to transfer or utilise any of the data downloaded in any jurisdiction would be unlawful.”

Moret was also seeking an explanation from the French authorities on their role in his arrest. Parry said: “We believe that his targeting by the British police was as a result of an unwarranted request by the French authorities, particularly in view of the fact that the interrogation of our client focused almost exclusively on French politics. “In our view, this line of questioning was unjustified and an abuse of the schedule 7 powers.” Read more - Lire plus

Ernest Moret: Arrested French publisher faces no further action

Tunisia: Crackdown on media freedoms

UN 23/06/2023 - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Friday expressed deep concern at the increasing restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and press freedom in Tunisia, noting that vague legislation is being used to criminalize independent journalism and stifle criticism of the authorities.

“It is troubling to see Tunisia, a country that once held so much hope, regressing and losing the human rights gains of the last decade,” said Türk “The crackdown earlier this year against judges, politicians, labour leaders, businesspeople and civil society actors has now spread to target independent journalists, who are increasingly being harassed and stopped from doing their work,” he said. “I urge Tunisia to change course.

Over the last three months, the Tunisian authorities have on five occasions used vaguely worded legislation to question, arrest and convict six journalists. This includes security and counter-terrorism legislation and the presidential decree Nº 2022-54 on cybercrimes, which contains ambiguous provisions that carry punitive fines and lengthy prison sentences for publishing or spreading alleged false news, information or rumours, and authorises law enforcement officers to access any information system or device, for inspection and collection of stored data.

Since July 2021, the UN Human Rights Office in Tunisia has documented 21 cases of alleged human rights violations against journalists, including prosecutions before civilian and military courts. There are grounds to believe that these prosecutions were initiated to counter public criticism against the President of the Republic or the authorities. Under international human rights law all public figures including heads of State may legitimately be subject to criticism.

On 15 June, the Parliament Bureau decided to ban journalists from covering the parliamentary committee meetings. On 17 June, a judge banned media from covering two cases of alleged “conspiracy against State security affairs” in which dozens of people have been prosecuted and detained since mid-February. Read more - Lire plus

Anti-terrorism court extends judicial remand of 17 women leaders of Imran's party

Le Monde 14/06/2023 - An anti-terrorism court on Thursday extended the judicial remand of 17 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) women leaders and workers, Pakistan-based Dawn reported. The women leaders included PTI's Punjab President Yasmin Rashid and fashion designer Khadija Shah in the Jinnah House attack case.

The Sarwar Road police presented the women suspects before the court. The investigating officer requested the court to give more time to present investigation report (challan) against the suspects. Judge Abher Gul Khan agreed to the request and sent the suspects back to judicial lockup until July 20, according to Dawn. Sarwar Road police had lodged a case of the attack on Jinnah House, which is also the residence of Lahore's corps commander. Meanwhile, Judge Abher Gul Khan extended the judicial remand of former governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema in the Askari Tower attack case, as per the Dawn report.

Earlier on May 9, PTI Chairman Imran Khan was arrested from inside the High Court in Islamabad by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the charges of corruption in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust, which he owns alongside his wife, Bushra Bibi. Following Khan's arrest, his party called for demonstrations, which turned violent at many places. The administration resorted to a crackdown and many arrests were made across the country. Read more - Lire plus

Pakistan's law minister defends putting protesters on trial in military courts

Pakistan Aims to Try Blasphemy Cases under Anti-Terror Law

Tajikistan: UN experts deplore criminal proceedings against human rights defenders

UN 04/07/2023 - UN experts* today urged Tajikistan to show genuine commitment to improving the situation of human rights defenders in the country and expressed concern about convictions.

“We would like to remind the Government that criminalising the legitimate peaceful work of human rights defenders is incompatible with Tajikistan’s international human rights obligations. Conflating human rights defenders with extremists and terrorists is a very dangerous practice,” the experts said.

The human rights defenders whose cases UN experts raised with the Government, including Daler Imomali, Abdulloh Ghurbati, Zavqibek Saidamini, Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda, Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva, Manuchekhr Kholiknazarov, Faromuz Irgashov, and Khushom Guliam, were allegedly sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven to 29 years between October and December 2022 “While the charges against human rights defenders varied, eight out of nine were allegedly accused of extremism and terrorism-related offences. We express grave concern about the apparent use of anti-terrorism legislation to silence critical voices,” the experts said

Daler Imomali, Abdulloh Ghurbati, Zavqibek Saidamini, and Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda are journalists and bloggers who were arrested in June and July 2022. Their arrests appear to be linked to their coverage of social issues and alleged human rights abuses. Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva, a civil society representative of the Pamiri minority and journalist, Pamiri lawyers Manuchekhr Kholiknazarov and Faromuz Irgashov, as well as Khushom Guliam, a journalist and blogger who popularised Pamiri culture, were all involved in defending human rights in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. They were arrested in May 2022 during a crackdown on protesters in the GBAO and human rights defenders working on the region.

The UN experts were appalled by reports that Zavqibek Saidamini, Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda, and Khushom Guliam were subjected to enforced disappearance and that Daler Imomali, Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda, and Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva were ill-treated and tortured, including to extract false confessions. “All these allegations must be promptly, impartially, and effectively investigated, and those responsible brought to justice,” they said. Read more - Lire plus

National security law: Hong Kong Authorities arrest 4 men and offer HK$1 million bounty for 8 activists abroad

HKFP 06/07/2023 - Hong Kong police arrested four men on Wednesday for allegedly supporting people living abroad who “endanger national security”, according to a statement. The arrests came two days after authorities announced million-dollar bounties for the capture of eight prominent pro-democracy activists living overseas.

The eight include former pro-democracy lawmakers, activists and a unionist. They were put on a wanted list by Hong Kong police over various alleged national security crimes, sparking an international outcry. The four men arrested Wednesday were accused of profiting from operating companies, social platforms and mobile applications to “support people who have fled overseas and continue to engage in activities that endanger national security”, the police statement said. Authorities on Monday offered a HK$1 million (US$127,800) reward for each of the eight activists abroad to anyone providing information leading to their arrest or prosecution.

The bounties have been criticised by the United States, Britain and Australia, countries where the wanted activists reportedly reside. On Wednesday, the four men aged 26 to 28 were arrested by national security officials over suspicion of “conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security” and “conspiracy to doing acts with seditious intent”, the police statement said. The collusion offence carries a sentence of up to life in prison under the sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on the financial hub in 2020 to quell dissent. They also allegedly published “seditious” social media posts to provoke hatred against the authorities and advocate for Hong Kong independence. Read more - Lire plus

Exclusive: ‘Dozens of Hong Kong residents’ on police national security ‘wanted’ list, including for crowdfunding drives

Hong Kong pro-democracy radio station closed down under National Security Law

Hongkongers who moved to UK after national security law was implemented say they are ‘living in fear’ of Beijing

Myanmar junta sentences LGBTQ activist to 10 years in prison

RFA 29/06/2023 - Myanmar’s military junta this week sentenced a male LGBTQ activist to 10 years in prison on Wednesday on charges of terrorism, activists and students told Radio free Asia.

Justin Min Hein, president of the LGBTQ Union in the country’s central Mandalay region, was a leader of several anti-junta activities including a strike, flash protests, and other organized campaigns in Mandalay prior to his arrest. He was convicted of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act, said activist Saw Han Nway Oo. Justin Min Hein was arrested by the junta on September 24, 2022 and had been detained in Yay Kyi Ai Interrogation Center for almost a year awaiting his trial, she said. 

On Tuesday, a military court sentenced Wuttyi Aung, a student at Dagon University in Myanmar's former capital Yangon to a total of seven years. She was arrested with five other activists during a night raid. RFA was not able determine which crime she was accused of, but she was sentenced to three years in prison for violating section 505 (A) of the penal code and four years for violating section 52 (a) of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The Dagon University Student Union announced Wednesday that she was in a critical health condition while detained at Yangon’s Insein prison and not allowed to receive medical treatment for the pain she incurred in the torture during her interrogation. According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, since the 2021 coup a total of 19,279 pro-democracy activists and citizens are in detention of which 6,599 have been sentenced to prison terms as of Wednesday. Source

UN report calls on Saudi Arabia to release 2 women jailed over tweets, alleging rights abuses

The Associated Press 07/07/2023 - U.N. human rights experts on Friday called for the release of two Saudi Arabian women they say were arbitrarily detained and denied basic rights after tweeting criticism of the kingdom's policies.

Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison and Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani was sentenced to 45 years last summer after they were arrested in separate cases in 2021. They were found guilty by a special court originally established to try terror suspects but which has broadened its mandate in recent years amid a heavy crackdown on dissent. The kingdom's human rights record has come under heightened scrutiny as it has made major inroads into international sports, attracting some of the world's top soccer stars and entering into a surprise merger with golf's PGA Tour.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a panel of independent experts tasked by the U.N. Human Rights Council with investigating possible violations, said in its report that the two women had been denied due process. The working group said there were “credible” allegations that al-Shehab was “subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” when she was held incommunicado for nearly two weeks after her arrest. It said the Specialized Criminal Court, in which both women were convicted, "cannot be considered an independent and impartial tribunal," and that the government applied vague and overly broad provisions of its anti-terrorism and cybercrime laws.

“The arrests, treatment and lengthy sentences of Ms. al-Shehab and Ms. al-Qahtani indicate that they were discriminated against for their human rights activism and for sharing their views peacefully on social media," it said. “The appropriate remedy would be to release (them) immediately and accord them an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations." Read more - Lire plus

After 63 Days In Jail Under Anti-Terrorism Law For Poem On Defiance, Assam Poet Now Writes Odes To Love

Article 14 28/06/2023 - “Swadhin xurujor dixe akou ekhuj, akou korim rashta druh (One more step in the direction of the sun of liberty, I will commit treason once more).”

When maths student Barshashree Buragohain, then 18, casually wrote this verse in a poem she posted on her Facebook page on 3 May 2022, she did not imagine the consequences. Fifteen days later, the Assam police arrested her for writing an “anti-national poem” and booked her under the provisions of India’s draconian anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, or the UAPA.

The rising sun is the symbol of the United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I)—a banned insurgent outfit in Assam. In the FIR against her, these lines were construed as a “criminal conspiracy” and “intent to wage war against the Indian government”. 

She spent 63 days in prison before being granted bail on 22 July 2022. On 16 March 2023, Buragohain, now 20, was “acquitted of all charges”.  The memories of her incarceration frequently consume her, she said, and her current state of mind provided an indication of the chilling effect of her arrest and incarceration under an anti-terror law.

“I kept thinking to myself I didn’t do anything wrong to be in jail,” Buragohain told Article 14, explaining how she “loved reading and writing poetry”. Now a fourth semester student at the Debi Charan Baruah (DCB) Girls’ College in upper Assam’s Jorhat town, Buragohain concentrates on mathematics, the subject she hopes to graduate in. Buragohain said she was interested in both maths and poetry, and she couldn’t pick one over the other. Her desire was to continue with maths, “pursue a master’s and then try for the civil services.”

The UAPA allows detention without trial for six months and turns the burden of proof on the accused. Though Buragohain was released on bail after being incarcerated for two months, her case reflects the chilling effect that the use of UAPA has on free speech and expression. Indeed, while Buragohain said her love for poetry endured, its content had changed. Buragohain smiled as she said she has now transitioned to writing and sharing poems about “love and romance”. She was more mindful of what she posted on her social media, afraid that she might be under watch and could be arrested again. 

According to a September 2022 report by the People’s Union of Civil Liberties, which cites data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), less than 3% of arrests made under the UAPA Act between 2015 and 2020 resulted in convictions. Read more - Lire plus

Council of Europe must not water down their human rights standards in Convention on AI

ECNL 04/07/2023 - In a joint statement, civil society calls for a broad scope and definition of AI systems and no blanket exemptions for AI systems for national defence/national security.

The Council of Europe Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) was tasked by the CoE Committee of Ministers to negotiate a Framework Convention on AI, rule of law, human rights and democracy. The European Center for Not-for-Profit Law is the expert representative of the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe (CINGO) in CAI.

Ahead of start of negotiations in CAI in January 2023, CINGO and a group of other civil society observers already urged CAI to include broad scope and definition of AI systems, and ensure meaningful participation of civil society organisations, in particular those representing marginalised groups, in the negotiating process. 

What are the next steps?

The CAI negotiations are now intensifying: a Consolidated Working Draft of the Convention is expected to be imminently published on the CAI’s website. That's why on July 4, 2023, the undersigned CSOs participating in the CAI sent a letter to the CAI Chair and Secretariat.

In the letter we underscore the urgency of this Convention as the challenges arising from the design, development and deployment of AI systems increase. We deeply regret that the negotiating States have chosen to exclude both civil society observers and Council of Europe member participants from the drafting group of the Convention and call on the drafting group to ensure, among other priorities: 

1. A transversal, binding legal instrument with a broad definition of AI and without blanket exemptions (e.g., excluding AI systems for national defence and/or national security).
2. Mandatory and publicly accessible impact assessments on human rights, democracy and rule of law for AI systems deployed by public entities or otherwise presenting a high level of risk.
3. Clear guidelines and criteria for prohibitions of unacceptable AI systems.
4. Effective redress mechanisms, independent oversight and enforcement mechanisms for the Convention implementation. Read more - Lire plus

US must manage AI risks to society and national security, Biden says as he pushes for privacy protections

ICLMG ACTIONS & EVENTS

CSIS isn't above the law!

In recent years, at least three court decisions revealed the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) engaged in potentially illegal activities and lied to the courts. This is utterly unacceptable, especially given that this is not the first time these serious problems have been raised. CSIS cannot be allowed to act as though they are above the law.



Send a message to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable, and for parliament to support Bill C-331, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (duty of candour). Your message will also be sent to your MP and to Minister of Justice David Lametti.

Canada must protect Hassan Diab!

Send an email using ICLMG’s one-click tool and share widely!

Letter in English + Lettre en français

Sign and share the LeadNow petitions to protect Hassan from further injustice

Petition in English + Pétition en français

For more information on the case of Hassan Diab, read our webcomic, watch our animated version of the comic, or visit justiceforhassandiab.org.

Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!

On January 20, 2023, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled that Canada must repatriate Canadians illegally and arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria. On February 6, 2023, the Canadian government filed an appeal and asked that the Brown ruling be set aside and placed on hold while the appeal plays out. This is unacceptable. 

Every day the government fails to bring these Canadians home, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing military conflicts, including bombing by Turkey’s military. United Nations officials have even found that the conditions faced by Canadians in prison are akin to torture. Please click below to urge the federal government to repatriate all Canadians illegally & arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria without delay.

Please share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

20 years of fighting deportation to torture: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Now!

December 10, 2022 - ironically Human Rights Day - marked the 20th "anniversary" of the arrest of Mohamed Harkat under Canada's rights-violating security certificate regime. For Mr. Harkat, it's been two decades of fighting deportation to torture, 16 years of harassment and intrusive surveillance, arbitrary detention, solitary confinement, secret trials, PTSD: enough is enough! We call for justice for Moe Harkat now! Watch - Visionnez

TAKE ACTION: Stop Moe Harkat's deportation to torture!

ACTION: Arrêtez la déportation vers la torture de Mohamed Harkat!

Reform Canada's extradition law now!

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

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

Protect our rights from facial recognition!

Facial recognition surveillance is invasive and inaccurate. This unregulated tech poses a threat to the fundamental rights of people across Canada. Federal intelligence agencies refuse to disclose whether they use facial recognition technology. The RCMP has admitted (after lying about it) to using facial recognition for 18 years without regulation, let alone a public debate regarding whether it should have been allowed in the first place. Send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for a ban now.

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Access to information

Accès à l'information

Canada’s Access to Information System Must Adapt for AI

Charities and not-for profit grousp

Organismes de bienfaisance et à but non lucratif

New Zealand: Banks make not-for-profits clear 'hurdles' that are 'onerous', study finds

Facial recognition

Reconnaissance faciale

Victory! New Jersey Court Rules Police Must Give Defendant the Facial Recognition Algorithms Used to Identify Him

Freedom of expression

Liberté d'expression

157 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 2000: The Delicate Race to Archive the Work of Murdered Journalists—Before It Disappears

UN: Step up calls to release Nasta Loika

Ireland: Statement of condemnation by European Digital Rights on the proposed ministerial amendment to gag critics

India: Karnataka High Court's Twitter verdict sparks debate on free speech

Migrant and refugee rights

Droits des migrant.es et réfugié.es

Migrants behind bars longer as feds extend immigration detention contracts

Life under 24/7 GPS surveillance - A GPS ankle tag experiment

UK: Rights-destroying clause in Illegal Migration Bill must be removed

Webinar on July 10: Surveillance technology and artificial intelligence in migration

Police

Il est urgent d’interdire les interpellations policières – Publication d’un second rapport accablant sur le profilage au SPVM

Researching police misconduct: Ricochet teams up with Tracking (In)justice

Policing our way to safety: when inequality devolves to civic collapse

UK: Police spies, sex and lies: report finds undercover tactics unjustified

New police data exchange rules will expand Europol's databases

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance

Illinois expands use of police surveillance drones

CIA used image of Hajj pilgrims to showcase surveillance and AI capabilities

Air travel data: Council adopts position on EU laws about data collection and processing

Miscellaneous

Divers

FBI, Homeland Security had ‘massive amount’ of intel before Jan. 6: Senate report

Syria’s Missing: New U.N. Body Will Investigate Disappearance of 130,000 People in 12-Year Civil War

ACTION: Urge PM Trudeau to reduce military spending

ACTION: Stop Deporting Russian War Resisters

July to December 2022 - Juillet à décembre 2022

In case you missed it, we've published our biannual summary of activities last month. Here are the legislation and issues we worked on from July to December 2022:

• Bill C-20, Public Complaints and Review Commission Act
• Bill C-26, An Act respecting cyber security & amending the Telecommunications Act
• Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
• "Online harms" proposal
• Countering terrorist financing & prejudiced audits of Muslim charities
• International Assistance and anti-terrorism laws
• Justice for Dr Hassan Diab & reform of the Extradition Act
• CSIS accountability and duty of candour
• Facial Recognition Technology (FRT)
• Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
• Justice for Moe Harkat and abolish security certificates
• Canada’s armed drone purchase
• Listing of Iranian Canadians
• Ongoing No Fly List problems

For more details on each issue, click here. And here are the issues we plan to work on in the first half of 2023:

• Advocating for changes to anti-terror laws that prohibit Canadian organizations from providing international assistance in Afghanistan and other regions in need;
• Ensuring that the Canadian government’s proposals on “online harms” do not violate fundamental freedoms, or exacerbate the silencing of racialized and marginalized voices;
• Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for privacy law reform;
• Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility;
• Ensuring Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law;
• The return of the 40+ Canadian citizens indefinitely detained in Syrian camps, including more than 20 children;
• The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities;
• Pushing for Canadian government action on behalf of Iranian Canadians negatively and unjustly impacted by the US terror listing of the IRGC;
• Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency;
• Greater transparency and accountability for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service;
• Advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada;
• Pressuring lawmakers to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and the “war on terror”, as well as keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest;
• And much more! Read more - Lire plus

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