SHARE:  
Facebook  Instagram  X  Web  YouTube

View as Webpage

Logo_ICLMG_HR NEWS DIGEST.jpg

International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

January 18, 2025 - 18 janvier 2025

ICYMI: What we’ve been up to in 2024 and what we have planned for 2025!

ICLMG 13/12/2014 - Thanks to the support of our members and donors in the second half of 2024 we have been able to work on the following:


  • Bill C-20, the Public Complaints and Review Commission Act - which has been adopted and will finally create an independent watchdog for CBSA
  • Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022 and the very problematic Artificial Intelligence and Data Act
  • Bill C-63: The concerning Online Harms Act
  • Bill C-70: The new and highly controversial Foreign Interference law
  • Bill C-353: The Foreign Hostage Takers Accountability Act
  • Palestine and the right to dissent
  • Canada’s terrorist entities list
  • Monitoring the implementation and review of the authorization regime for international assistance to vulnerable populations in areas controlled by “terrorist” groups
  • Combatting Racism & Islamophobia
  • Repatriation of all Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
  • Justice for Dr Hassan Diab
  • Mohamed Harkat & Security certificates
  • Work with the international Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism
  • The UN Counter-terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) Canada assessment
  • The UN Cybersecurity Treaty & the EU AI Convention


What we have planned for 2025!


The coming year will present many challenges, old and new. Much of our successes from this past year will continue to need follow-up, as we track the establishment of the new CBSA review body, and push back against new foreign interference laws and attempts to silence protest. There are also the challenges we will face with the incoming US government, which is already playing out its promises to increase the securitization of the US-Canada border with more police, drones and facial recognition surveillance. This will place the rights of all travellers, but especially asylum seekers searching for protection and better living conditions, at risk.


We’ll also have our own election in Canada this year, and ICLMG will be working to both make sure the public is aware of the parties’ track records on civil liberties and national security, as well as to secure commitments to protect our rights from candidates and the new government once it is in office.


We will continue our work on these issues and much more in the next year:


  • Pressuring lawmakers and officials to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security as well as opposing the discourse of “countering terrorism” to repress dissent, such as protests in support of Palestinian rights and lives
  • Co-creating a mechanism to monitor how the new Countering Foreign Interference law is used, as well as continue pushing back against xenophobic fear-mongering
  • Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for good privacy law reform
  • Addressing the lack of regulation on the use of AI in national security, including proposed exemptions for national security agencies
  • Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility
  • Fighting for Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law
  • Monitoring the implementation of the authorization regime for organizations that provide international assistance to vulnerable populations in areas controlled by “terrorist” groups
  • Pushing back on the false narrative depicting migrants and refugees as security risks, and advocating for rights protection and accountability for border agencies, including by monitoring the creation of a new CBSA and RCMP watchdog and complaint body
  • The return of the rest of the Canadian citizens and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children indefinitely detained in Syrian camps
  • The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities
  • Greater accountability and transparency for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
  • Advocating for the repeal of the terrorist entities list, the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada
  • Keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest
  • And much more! Read more - Lire plus

ICLMG comments on Justice Committee report on Islamophobia

469960974_961957262634084_6231037479731386435_n image

ICLMG 11/12/2024 - The House of Commons Justice Committee has issued its report on Islamophobia. Pleased to see it firmly addresses systemic Islamophobia in the federal government's counter terrorism policies, especially the impacts of counter terrorist financing laws on Muslim charities, and touches on the problems with the Terrorist Entities List.


It also documents how Canada's post-9/11 anti-terrorism policies continue to exacerbate Islamophobia & anti-Palestinian racism, and the dangerous rise of hateful rhetoric, including by MPs, that paint the Muslim community & Palestinians as terrorists or terror sympathizers, especially in submissions by professor Dr. Nadia Hasan, and Canada's Special Representative on Islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby.


Federal policies that entrench & exacerbate Islamophobia are both a reflection of, and serve to propagate, Islamophobia and racism across society resulting in the violent and lethal attacks we have seen in Quebec City and London, ON, giving Canada the horrific distinction of the least safe country for Muslims in the G7.


We are glad to see that in its recommendations, the Justice committee fully endorsed the recommendations from the Senate Human Rights Committee's seminal report on Islamophobia, including a review of Canada's national security laws, changes to Canada's approach on countering terrorist financing, and addressing problems with the CRA's Review and Analysis Division and the targeting of Muslim charities.


Finally, we also welcome the report's emphasis and call to action to address Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and all forms of hatred, while also ensuring the protection of fundamental rights and civil liberties, including online and on campuses.


Much more needs to be done, and we would have welcomed more concrete recommendations on addressing systemic Islamophobia in Canada's national security and anti-terrorism activities. We will continue to advocate with MPs and officials for action in the coming months. Source


NCCM: Green Square campaign to commemorate the Quebec city Mosque attack

ICLMG comments on the first pilot project for Canadian land border pre-clearance in the United States

630x355 image

ICLMG 02/01/2025 - Announced on Jan. 2, there's been very little coverage of the first pilot project for Canadian land border pre-clearance in the United States.


For the next 2 years, travellers coming to Canada at the Covey Hill, QC/Cannon Corners, NY crossing, will go through the US port of entry at Cannon Corners, where they will be inspected & interviewed by Canadian Border Security Agency officers. Covey Hill will be closed.


Pre-clearance is justified on the grounds that it will increase cooperation at the border, save on resources and make the process more efficient. But it has also raised important civil liberties and human rights concerns:


1. Travellers to Canada are barred from making a Canadian asylum claim at a preclearance area, & need to instead proceed to a Canadian port of entry. While the Safe Third Country Agreement already makes it nearly impossible for travellers from the US to make an asylum claim at the Canadian border, this further denies entry. So far this only applies at a small border crossing, but would have significant implications if it is rolled out at more ports of entry.


2. Permanent residents have a right to enter Canada at ports of entry. However, they will not have that right at a preclearance area. Permanent residents can be turned away on various grounds and forced to travel to a port of entry to enter Canada.


Right now that would mean traveling 15kms to the Hemmingford, QC, POE, but it is a significant change and, if applied to more ports of entry, could force permanent residents to need to travel long distances to return home.


3. Pre-clearance areas, on US soil, are covered by US law. So travelers denied entry into Canada or Canadians facing problems at the border - at times an already stressful situation - could face dealing with US police and US offences/sentences while trying to enter Canada.


So far, this is just for one small land crossing. But preclearance is envisioned to also apply at airports in the future. So a traveller or permanent resident travelling to Canada via the US could be denied entry to Canada at Miami International Airport & then need to find their way to a port of entry at the Canada/US land border to either make an asylum claim or resolve an issue with their permanent residency. In the meantime, they'd be subject to US laws after being denied entry, including immigration enforcement.


These concerns are especially acute for racialized individuals, members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, non-status individuals and others who face greater profiling, unfounded inadmissibility decisions and precarity at the border and may face further discrimination from US law enforcement if denied entry to Canada at a preclearance area.


These issues and more were raised in 2017 when Canada adopted the Preclearance Act. You can read ICLMG's submission here. Source

Civil society groups push to ensure effectiveness of coming border agency watchdog

3d90ab2d031e1207f75692480c1274fe4809874f17860ff4e2d953be5003b7e3 image

The Canadian Press 10/01/2025 - The fight for an independent review body to keep an eye on Canada’s border agency may be over, but there are lingering concerns in civil society circles about how much bite the new watchdog will have.


Travellers, immigration detainees and others who feel they have been mistreated by the Canada Border Services Agency will be able to complain to the Public Complaints and Review Commission once it begins operating.


The border agency’s thousands of employees manage the flow of millions of travellers and commercial shipments entering Canada annually. They collect, analyze and distribute information about people and goods at border points, air terminals and seaports. Border officers can stop travellers for questioning, take blood and breath samples, and search, detain and arrest people without warrants.


Currently, an internal border agency unit handles complaints from the public, while other bodies – including the courts, the federal privacy commissioner and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency – examine various concerns. But the border agency has never been overseen by a dedicated, independent complaints and review body. The new commission, which will also monitor RCMP activities, builds on the existing review body for the national police force.


Members of the public will be able to submit complaints to the commission about the conduct of a border agency or RCMP officer, or the level of service provided. The new body will also review complaints from detainees held in border agency facilities. The commission also will have the power to carry out systemic reviews of border agency and RCMP activities. Organizations that defend civil liberties, human rights and the rights of refugees and migrants can file complaints with the new review body.


Civil society groups welcome the prospect of greater scrutiny of the border agency. They also say they want to ensure the commission investigates complaints about patterns of abuse, and ensure that claims raised by concerned groups are not rejected on baseless grounds. “For both the RCMP and the CBSA, there’s the underlying question of, how do we move beyond just individual complaints to ensuring that systemic issues are reviewed and addressed?” said Tim McSorley, national co-ordinator of the Ottawa-based International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.


The group’s dozens of members include Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Public Service Alliance of Canada. McSorley said he hopes that discussions with federal officials will clarify how the new commission will work with the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, as well as the kinds of complaints that interested third parties will be allowed to make.


The government plans to spend $112 million over five years, and more than $19 million a year ongoing, to establish the new review body. Public Safety Canada says work is underway to get the commission up and running, though no start date has been announced. Source


New tech and ‘people, people, and more people’ on CBSA’s border wish list: New bill would allow aerial patrols by US & Canadian border agencies within 50 km of either side of the border


The U.S. and Canada quietly agreed to share personal data on permanent residents crossing the border

Canada urged not to sign deeply flawed UN Cybercrime Treaty

The General Assembly adopted the treaty without a vote on December 24, 2024. The Convention will open for signature at a formal ceremony in Viet Nam in 2025. It will enter into force 90 days after being ratified by the 40th signatory.

image1170x530cropped image

OpenMedia 12/12/2024 - ICLMG joined twenty other leading organizations and experts in signing a letter calling on the Canadian government to reject the United Nations Convention against cybercrime as it will in fact, despite its name, undermine cybersecurity, undermine human rights on a global scale, and imperil Canadian diaspora communities facing growing threats of transnational repression.


The convention, which is scheduled for consideration by the United Nations General Assembly next Tuesday, December 17, creates a powerful global policing tool through which any country will be able to request surveillance of Canadians in the absence of sufficient safeguards against abuse. 



Governments around the world are attacking vulnerable diaspora communities, including through abuse of international cooperation tools. In Canada, foreign states have proven increasingly willing to monitor, harass, threaten and even murder political dissidents. 


Canada’s existing framework for handling cross-border requests is not up to the task of restraining inevitable attempts to abuse this powerful new tool. Indeed, the draft Cybercrime Convention will undermine several existing safeguards, increasing the threat of severe repercussions for Canadians.


“Canada is already failing to protect our most vulnerable communities against transnational threats, and this treaty will further tie the government’s hands,” said Matt Hatfield, Executive Director at OpenMedia. “The draft Cybercrime Convention will become a trojan horse for future state abuse, limiting Canada’s ability to defend already beleaguered diaspora communities.”


The draft Convention’s negative impact on cybersecurity could also have far-reaching implications. 

Instead of focusing on developing the deep expertise needed to address cybercrime on a global scale, the draft convention’s exceedingly broad scope requires cooperation on “any serious crime”, diluting already over-loaded cross-border investigative resources


The proposed treaty encodes a number of common cybercrime offences, which further undermine cybersecurity by failing to incorporate clear safeguards for security researchers, who have faced legal threats and prosecution for legitimate, good faith efforts to expose security vulnerabilities. The same cybercrime provisions have also been used to threaten and prosecute whistleblowers and, as a result of this draft Convention, will be subject to a global extradition requirement.


“This treaty threatens to chill external cybersecurity research on a global scale at a time when independent scrutiny of security systems is increasingly vital”, said Kate Robertson, Senior Research Associate at the Citizen Lab. “It is irresponsible to adopt a powerful instrument of this nature without first ensuring sufficient safeguards are in place to ensure it will not be abused.”


The failure to incorporate effective human rights safeguards is indicative of a broader division that shaped negotiations of the draft Convention at the United Nations, and has drawn criticism from a broad array of stakeholders including human rights groups, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rightsmembers of the United States Senate, large tech companies and industry initiatives, and over 120 of the world’s leading cybersecurity researchers. Source


US Senate Unlikely to Ratify Contentious Cybercrime Treaty Amid Mounting Concerns

Matthew Behrens: An Excess of Democracy and the Case for Hope

We launched our 20th anniversary publication "Defending Civil Liberties in an Age of Counter-terrorism and National Security" on Sept 11, 2024. You can read the full PDF or get a physical copy here. Over the next few months, we will be sharing two texts from the publication per News Digest to make sure they all get the attention they deserve.

16195535824_6eb95a765f_k-copy image

ICLMG 2024 - After 20 years of working with the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group on issues reflecting Canada’s insidious role in perpetrating the worst 21st century human rights abuses, I remain optimistic and hopeful. My faith is built on a key lesson that can never be learned enough: “We do,” as the late war resister David Dellinger reminded us, “have more power than we know.”


That scares the hell out of secretive state security.


While we’re rightfully concerned about each new iteration of repressive legislation and their increasingly elastic definitions of legality and morality, we seldom conclude that agents of state terror push such laws because they’re afraid of us inspiring outbreaks of democracy and resistance.


That fear is reflected in huge resources devoted to state security surveillance of social movements. During the early 1980s anti-nuclear and anti-cruise missile resistance, the RCMP was incredulous that spontaneous protests were popping up, and their search for a Soviet cell coordinating the whole movement was as fruitless as it was ridiculous. Fast forward to the pre-pandemic uprisings of 2020, and Jason Kenney, Justin Trudeau and John Horgan parroted the same notion that the Indigenous rights solidarity movement had been “hijacked” by evil outsiders.


The late civil rights leader Ella Baker once reflected that her organizer’s job “was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence.”


In 1973, direct democracy and participatory politics led the planet’s leading power brokers (including members of Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet) to form the Trilateral Commission. Their 1975 report, The Crisis of Democracy, shivered with the conclusion that the social movements forcing real changes in those tumultuous times resulted from an “excess of democracy” that had to be reined in by the elites’ viewpoint that “the effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and non-involvement on the part of some individuals and groups.”


The Trilateral Commission concluded the dangers to “democracy” as they defined it — smooth functioning of Wall Street and Bay Street — come “not primarily from external threats […] but rather from the internal dynamics of democracy itself in a highly educated, mobilized and participant society. […] The problems of governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy. […] Needed, instead, is a greater degree of moderation in democracy.”


The fact that state agencies continually push for more secrecy and repressive tools is a testament to how scared they are of small groups of us who call their bluff, and who question their racism, threat exaggerations and incompetence. State security agencies couldn’t see a threat when a convoy of white supremacists came to overthrow the government because they were too busy trying to find links to Indigenous land defenders or Muslims or pacifists (they were also sharing information with their white supremacist brethren in the streets).


It’s helpful to reflect on our victories, however modest. Security certificates are no longer used because we made it politically impossible to do so: a regime consistently used for decades suddenly dried up. The 2007 Charkaoui Supreme Court of Canada decision was a landmark moment in which stigmatized, demonized, racialized, securitized human beings finally had some of their humanity recognized — they had Charter rights like the rest of us. That was the result of years of organizing and sticking to our principles.


A few years after Charkaoui, the head of CSIS lamented our role in turning these men into “folk heroes.” While this campaign showed we can seriously restrain state power, it also revealed how the hydra drew a few more heads, employing security certificate precedents to systematically integrate secret hearings into the inadmissibility stream for refugees and immigrants.


When we organized an anti-torture caravan in 2008 to support Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, the RCMP went into overdrive. Given that the state monitors our phones, they knew one of the men was unsure about joining. The night before we started, he learned his mother had been called in by secret police overseas and asked why her son might join the caravan. This act of intimidation angered him so much that he joined for a remarkably healing event as a whole community of non-targeted people provided loving support during the weeks we spent on the road. Later, we learned the RCMP opened a major surveillance and investigation project on the caravan labeled “Criminal Act by Terrorists.”


Labeling our work as “terrorist” is a reminder that, despite government, RCMP and CSIS assurances that they would never consider protests to be terrorism under Canada’s anti- terrorism laws, this remains standard operating procedure inside Canada’s state security agencies, as it has been since long before Confederation. Those assurances didn’t stop the RCMP from monitoring Indigenous rights groups, like Idle No More, as alleged security threats under Project Sitka. Indeed, this equation of protest with terrorism is so ingrained within state security culture that no one even thought to redact the phrase from the caravan surveillance documents.


Ultimately, ICLMG and member groups show that principled resistance and a refusal to compromise on what’s right makes a difference. Far too many organizations still deal out members of the communities they are supposed to represent in the Good Muslim/Bad Muslim dichotomy. But the refusal to be afraid has marked ICLMG with Roch, Monia, and now with Xan and Tim.


I fondly recall an introductory meeting with someone who had borne the brunt of a decade of horrific terrorism slander as they related their case to Tim and Xan. Neither batted an extra eyelash. They listened, they asked questions, and they asked what they could do to help. We can learn a lot from that.


Matthew Behrens is a writer and social justice advocate who works with the targets of state security repression. Source


Version française : Un excès de démocratie et des raisons d’espérer

Roger Clark: Loss of Human Rights in the ‘War on Terror’: The Case of Hassan Diab

Le 11 septembre 2024, nous avons lancé notre publication 20e anniversaire « Défendre les libertés civiles à l’ère de la sécurité nationale et de la guerre au terrorisme ». Vous pouvez lire le PDF complet ou obtenir une copie papier ici. Au cours des prochains mois, nous partagerons deux textes de la publication dans chaque Revue de l'actualité pour nous assurer qu'ils reçoivent tous l'attention qu'ils méritent.

43753633_10157232326953115_3138296757390147584_n-copy image

ICLMG 2024 - We tend to see the ‘War on Terror’ largely as a 21st-century phenomenon, inextricably linked to 9/11 and the consequent war in Afghanistan. However, I want to reflect on this in light of a deadly bombing outside a synagogue that took place in Paris some 20 years earlier. Following this attack, Hassan Diab became a convenient target and a timely personification of the terrorist threat, particularly as defined by the West.


This resulted in the outrageous miscarriage of justice of which Hassan Diab remains the victim today. France decided to initiate a trial driven by political convenience in April 2023, and shockingly – despite evidence to the contrary – convicted Hassan Diab in absentia that month.


On August 4, 1978, the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism entered into force. Essentially, in so doing, the member countries of the Council of Europe strived to reinforce cooperation both internally – through national prevention policies – and internationally – by modifying existing extradition and mutual assistance arrangements. Specifically, member countries declared themselves:


Aware of the growing concern caused by the increase in acts of terrorism; wishing to take effective measures to ensure that the perpetrators of such acts do not escape prosecution and punishment; convinced that extradition is a particularly effective measure for achieving this result (emphasis added).


Unsurprisingly, Canada was already actively bringing its old and outdated extradition legislation into line with that of its European allies. The resulting Extradition Act came into force in June 1999. Its flaws and failings are now obvious to all, largely as a result of the experience of those who have been caught up in its ‘rubber-stamping’ mechanisms.


A bright light in this judicial darkness is the decision in September 2022 by the parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to “undertake a comprehensive study on Extradition Law reform,” seeking recommendations on “how to overhaul thecurrent system.”[1] To coin a phrase, “if it’s broke, you’d better fix it.”


I see as no coincidence that the investigation into the deadly bombing of October 3, 1980, outside the synagogue on rue Copernic in Paris, was suddenly reactivated in 1999. It had lain dormant for almost twenty years. Unsourced and unverified secret intelligence mentioned the name ‘Hassan Diab’. Eight years went by before France requested Hassan’s arrest and extradition.


Now is neither the time nor place to analyze the five-year legal struggle which ended with Hassan Diab being put on a plane to Paris on November 14, 2014. He spent thirty-eight months in the Fleury-Mérogis prison, mostly in solitary confinement. The two anti-terrorist investigating judges in charge of the case concluded that there was no evidence to justify bringing Hassan to trial. He was unconditionally released and returned to Canada on January 15, 2018. Throughout all this, he was never charged and he was never tried. 15 years later, the nightmare continues with his conviction in France.


I’ll close with a brief quote from Justice Robert Maranger’s 2011 decision approving Hassan’s extradition: “…the case presented by the Republic of France against Mr. Diab is a weak case; the prospects of conviction in the context of a fair trial seem unlikely.”


That says it all.


I’d like to thank the ICLMG for its outstanding work over so many years. Tim and Xan continually earn our collective gratitude for building and growing this essential space where collaboration, partnerships and courage in the defence of human rights can thrive and become more effective.


More information & ways to take action at justiceforhassandiab.org & iclmg.ca/diab‑letter


Roger Clark is the former director of Amnesty International (Canada), a longtime activist working for the promotion, protection, and observation of international human rights. Source


Version française : La perte des droits de la personne dans la «guerre au terrorisme» : le cas de Hassan Diab


NEW Two Actions to Counter Unjust and Hateful Attacks Against Dr. Hassan Diab

16 Canadians believed to be still detained in Syrian jails

CTV News 14/12/2024 - Amidst the jubilation at the end of the Assad regime & with a rapidly evolving political, military & security situation in Syria, it is urgent that Canadians unlawfully detained in the northeast be repatriated without delay. Alex Neve comments. Source


Trump's terror chief urges UK to bring its Islamic State members back from Syria


Successful Repatriation of 33 Greek Citizens and Their Families from Syria


ACTION Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria + Initiate an independent investigation into the death of Canadian citizen FJ now!


ACTION “Canadians are dying": Free Jack Letts & 19 Canadian Kids, Women & Men in Syria

Speculation, not facts, used against terrorism suspect Harkat, his lawyer tells judge

674f6b78afb6e image

The Canadian Press 03/12/2024 - A lawyer for terrorism suspect Mohamed Harkat told a Federal Court judge Tuesday the Algerian-born refugee has been linked to extremists through speculation, not hard evidence.


Harkat, 56, was arrested in Ottawa in December 2002 on suspicion of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent. Harkat says he fled strife-ridden Algeria and worked with an aid agency in Pakistan before he arrived in Canada in 1995 using a false Saudi passport. He denies any involvement in terrorism.


The federal government has long been trying to deport the former gas-station attendant using a security certificate — a legal tool for removing non-citizens suspected of ties to extremism or espionage. A Federal Court judge who reviewed the certificate ruled in 2010 there were grounds to believe Harkat is a security threat who maintained ties to Osama bin Laden’s terror network after coming to Canada.


The judge found Harkat operated a guesthouse for Ibn Khattab and his organization for at least 15 months in Pakistan, demonstrating active membership in an organization involved in terrorist activities. Harkat is back in Federal Court challenging a 2018 decision by a federal delegate that he should not be allowed to remain in Canada. He argues he faces a risk of torture if returned to Algeria.


In a written submission to the court, federal lawyers note the delegate found that Harkat’s role as the operator of Khattab’s guesthouse made the recruitment, vetting, preparation and training of jihadists and terrorists possible. This allowed the Khattab organization, and the broader bin Laden network with which it was linked, to commit various terrorist acts, the submission adds.


In their own submission, counsel for Harkat question the evidence that Khattab was indeed a terrorist. Lawyer Barbara Jackman, representing Harkat, told the hearing Tuesday the federal conclusions were not only unreasonable, but “also it’s taking facts and speculating to fill in the blanks.” Jackman said operating a guesthouse is not a crime.


“Doesn’t it depend on the knowledge and intent of the person who’s operating the guesthouse?” asked Justice John Norris. The judge suggested the government would need to establish that Harkat knew the purpose of the place. Jackman said Harkat denies even working at the guesthouse.


Even so, she took issue with the evidentiary reasoning. “You have to show a connection to the crime or the criminal organization in some kind of real way,” she said. “He’s a passive actor running a hotel that people come in and out of.”

At the end of the hearing, Norris said he would make a ruling on Harkat’s challenge at a later date.


Civil libertarians have criticized the security certificate process as fundamentally unjust because the detainee sees only a summary of the accusations, making them difficult to challenge. Source


ACTION Stop Mohamed Harkat's deportation to torture!


Human Rights Watch: Algeria Events of 2024

Abdelrazik's lawyer accuses former minister of exiling him by denying him a passport

Screenshot-2024-11-21-at-11 image

The Canadian Press 02/12/2024 - A lawyer for Abousfian Abdelrazik has accused former foreign minister Lawrence Cannon of exiling the Montreal man by denying him a passport to return to Canada. Cannon told a Federal Court hearing Wednesday he did not exile Abdelrazik, but refused him an emergency travel document in 2009 on national security grounds in the best interests of Canada.


Lawyer Paul Champ, representing Abdelrazik in his lawsuit against Ottawa, pressed Cannon about the stress that the decision would have caused his client, a Canadian who had been stranded in Sudan for years. "So it was your view, Mr. Cannon, that an individual Minister of the Crown could effectively exile or banish a Canadian citizen from Canada," Champ said during cross-examination. Cannon replied: "I didn't exile Mr. Abdelrazik." The Sudanese-born Abdelrazik, now 62, settled in Montreal as a refugee and became a Canadian citizen in the 1990s.


During a 2003 visit to his native country to see his ailing mother, he was arrested, imprisoned and questioned about suspected extremist connections. Abdelrazik, who denies involvement in terrorism, says he was tortured by Sudanese authorities during two periods of detention. He is suing the Canadian government, claiming officials arranged for his arbitrary imprisonment, encouraged his detention by Sudanese authorities and obstructed his repatriation to Canada for several years.


The suit also names Cannon, the Conservative foreign affairs minister from October 2008 to May 2011. Federal lawyers say Canada did not urge Sudan to keep Abdelrazik in detention or mistreat him, or create a risk that these things might happen. Abdelrazik's presence on security lists complicated his efforts to fly home to Canada, even once freed from Sudanese custody.


In April 2008, fearful of being arrested again, he sought safe haven at the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum and lived in makeshift accommodations for more than a year. Canadian officials stated on several occasions the federal government would issue him an emergency passport if he was able to arrange air passage to Canada. In March 2009, Abdelrazik obtained a ticket to Canada for the following month.


In early April 2009, Cannon refused Abdelrazik an emergency travel document under a section of the Canadian Passport Order that said he could deny or revoke a passport if "such action is necessary for the national security of Canada or another country." During the cross-examination Wednesday, Champ put to Cannon that "by denying [Abdelrazik's] right to return to Canada, isn't that effectively exiling him?" "I denied a passport," Cannon responded. "In my view, it was more important to the safety and security of Canada that I render that decision."


Cannon said he took the decision after reflecting on the circumstances, including information from department officials and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. CSIS, which considered Abdelrazik a security threat, sent officers to Sudan to interrogate him in October 2003 about his association in Montreal with people linked to terrorist activity.


However, the CSIS official who briefed Cannon in early 2009 to help inform his passport decision has told the court the spy service did not have new or significant intelligence at that time to determine if Abdelrazik remained a threat to national security.


Champ questioned Cannon about the limits of his authority under the Passport Order and whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms posed a boundary to his decision-making. Cannon indicated he had been advised that the Charter did not limit his authority. Source


Lawyer Paul Champ: Final arguments for Abdelrazik trial scheduled for Jan 28-30

Former diplomat alleges Canadian Forces were involved in disappearances of hundreds of Afghan detainees in Kandahar

Screenshot-2025-01-16-at-11 image

The Globe and Mail 30/12/2024 - A recently retired Canadian diplomat who served in Afghanistan is accusing Ottawa of the disappearances of hundreds of Afghan detainees under an undeclared military detention program during the Kandahar mission in the mid-2000s, covering up the full extent of its participation in alleged war crimes that spawned parliamentary hearings and political upheaval during the Harper era.


The former diplomat, Richard Colvin, sparked national headlines as a whistle-blower in 2009 when he told a parliamentary committee that Canadian soldiers had transferred detainees to Afghan authorities who used torture as standard operating procedure. But his new allegations, based on more than a decade of research, go far beyond his earlier statements by giving new estimates of a much larger number of detainees who disappeared from any monitoring.


He includes the estimates in an unpublished document of more than 1,000 pages on Canada’s deployment in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, from 2005 to 2011. The document, seen by The Globe and Mail, is an in-depth account of the military mission and its aftermath of incomplete investigations. Over a period of six years during the Canadian deployment, Mr. Colvin held a series of key diplomatic roles: He was the senior Foreign Affairs officer in Kandahar, the second-ranking diplomat at the Canadian embassy in Kabul and the lead Canadian intelligence-liaison official on Afghanistan at the Canadian embassy in Washington. (Foreign Affairs is now called Global Affairs).


Shortly before his retirement in May, Mr. Colvin wrote to the deputy Global Affairs minister, David Morrison, and submitted a summary of his document. He also sought a meeting to discuss his findings, including the lessons that Canada should learn from Afghanistan. Mr. Colvin told The Globe that the deputy minister has not agreed to a meeting so far. In his submission, Mr. Colvin identified nine lessons that Canada should take from the Afghan detainee affair to prevent its recurrence, including steps to improve the transparency of Canada’s military missions, greater civilian oversight of the military, reforms to the military justice system and a new law to require the vetting of the legality of Canada’s policies and practices abroad.


In the letter to Mr. Morrison, Mr. Colvin said he wrote his lengthy document in his spare time, but with the knowledge and approval of senior managers at Global Affairs Canada, who told him they would welcome the material and act on its findings. The document was pieced together from hundreds of public and private sources, including reports from public inquiries, official military statements and memoirs by former soldiers. At the peak of the Kandahar mission in 2006 and 2007, as many as 90 per cent of the Afghans detained by Canadian soldiers simply disappeared from any official monitoring, Mr. Colvin says in his document.


During its first year of operations in Kandahar, from April, 2006, to April, 2007, Canada secretly detained and transferred about 1,000 people to the Afghan security forces, and possibly as many as 1,200, according to his estimates. During this same period, it officially transferred only 129 detainees to the Afghan forces. This meant that the vast majority of detentions and transfers were unrecorded. They were classified only as “Persons Under Control” (PUCs) – rather than prisoners – to evade any controls on their processing, and then they disappeared into the custody of Afghan security forces that had a well-known history of torture, abuse and even murder, he said.


He described it as an “unauthorized and undeclared” policy on a “massive scale” that ran parallel to the official transfers. This secrecy allowed the Canadian military to bypass the normal rules that were intended to ensure monitoring of detainees by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he said.


Under a treaty signed between Canadian and Afghan officials in 2005, Canada pledged to notify the ICRC whenever Canadian soldiers transferred a detainee to Afghan forces. But by labelling most detainees as PUCs, the military was able to avoid informing the ICRC of their existence, Mr. Colvin said. Many detainees were local farmers with no connection to the insurgency, but were transferred so fast that Canadian soldiers had no idea who they were, he said.


The departments of Global Affairs and National Defence said they are studying his document and are unwilling to comment on it or respond to any specific questions about Mr. Colvin’s allegations. “Global Affairs Canada received Mr. Colvin’s extensive report in June of this year,” said Jean-Pierre Godbout, a spokesperson for the department. “Given the length of the document and the complexity of some of the issues raised, the department continues to review all of the statements and recommendations,” he said in an e-mailed response to questions. Kened Sadiku, a spokesperson for National Defence, said: “We have received the document and are reviewing the contents.” Read more - Lire plus

The Citizen Lab’s submission on Bill C-26 to the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs

citlablogo image

The Citizen Lab 10/12/2024 - Kate Robertson, Senior Researcher at the Citizen Lab provided a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence, and Veterans Affairs, that contributes to the ongoing consideration of Bill C-26, which seeks to give the federal government the power to impose cybersecurity regulations on telecom and critical infrastructure providers in Canada. 


Drawing from the analysis presented in a 2022 Citizen Lab research report titled, Cybersecurity Will Not Thrive in Darkness: A Critical Analysis of Proposed Amendments in Bill C-26 to the Telecommunications Act,” Robertson’s submission addresses key vulnerabilities in mobile communications networks, the unprecedented impact Bill C-26 would have on constitutional rights, and its potential to undermine encryption standards in Canada’s telecommunication landscape. 


With a series of recommendations, Robertson’s submission to the Senate Standing Committee addresses these concerns and urges that Bill C-26 be amended to prohibit any action that will compel telecom providers to compromise security protocols and encryption standards. She emphasizes further that the bill proposes to create a broad and warrantless power to collect personal and de-identified information from telecommunication companies, and to disclose that information to federal agencies including national security bodies. The absence of any federal court oversight of this proposed power is a significant gap and constitutional deficiency in the bill.


The Citizen Lab’s full submission to the Standing Committee is available as a PDF. You can also watch Kate’s testimony here. Source

Canada must champion peace and human rights in the Philippines

MixCollage-06-Dec-2024-11-09-AM-7061 image

Hill Times 09/12/2024 - This year marks the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and the Philippines. It’s an opportune moment for Canada to reaffirm its commitment to peace, human rights, and justice by supporting the resumption of peace talks between the Government of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).


Recently, Canadian organizations—including KAIROS and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP-Canada)—urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take this critical step. Their appeal underscores a pressing need for Canada to prioritize peacebuilding over militarization—particularly as concerns grow about Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, which heavily emphasizes defence and military engagement. This strategy risks implicating Canada in systemic human rights abuses, as detailed in a recent ICHRP-Canada briefing paper.


In testimony before the House Standing Committee on National Defence on Nov. 7, ICHRP-Canada emphasized that the Indo-Pacific Strategy risks undermining the country’s reputation as a global defender of human rights.  “Human rights must be a precondition for trade and security co-operation with the Philippines,” we stated, warning that anything less risks damaging Canada’s credibility.


The decades-long conflict between the GRP and NDFP is rooted in profound social and economic inequities. In 1992, the Hague Joint Declaration provided a foundation for peace negotiations, focusing on human rights, international humanitarian law, and systemic reforms. While the peace process made progress, talks were abruptly halted in 2017 under then-president Rodrigo Duterte. His administration abandoned prior agreements, intensified counterinsurgency campaigns, and institutionalized “red-tagging,” labelling activists, journalists, and human rights defenders as terrorists.


These repressive policies persist under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Militarized counterinsurgency has led to extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and targeted attacks on civil society. Filipino human rights defenders and church leaders—partners of Canadian churches and KAIROS—are among those most at risk. According to Karapatan, a Philippine human rights alliance, between July 2022 and June 2024, there were 105 extrajudicial killings, 145 illegal arrests, 44,065 bombings, and 755 political prisoners.


The Philippine Anti-Terrorism Act has been weaponized to stifle dissent, causing widespread violations. In her testimony to the National Defence Committee, Karapatan’s secretary general Cristina Palabay warned that Canada’s increasing defence collaboration with the Philippines—including Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA) negotiations—could make Canada complicit in these abuses. Palabay cautioned that Canadian troops could become entangled in counterinsurgency operations, and linked to frequent Philippine military-related abuses.


Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy—launched in 2022—commits $2.3-billion to enhance regional engagement, prioritizing defence partnerships, naval deployments, and security capacity-building. While these measures aim to bolster Canada’s presence in the region, they mark a troubling shift away from the country’s historical role as a peacekeeper and humanitarian actor. Instead, they align Canada with militarized policies that undermine its commitments to human rights and democracy.


Canada’s foreign policy must align with the “Voices at Risk” guidelines, which emphasize protecting human rights defenders and advancing women’s participation in peace processes. Economic and military interests cannot take precedence over human dignity and peace. Supporting the resumption of GRP-NDFP peace talks—reaffirmed by both parties in October 2023—is a crucial step.


We, along with other civil society organizations, Canadian churches, and human rights advocates call on Canada to align its actions with its stated values, and demand that the Philippine government address ongoing human rights violations. Canada must ensure its financial, programmatic, and technical support adheres to international human rights standards. Additionally, it must suspend negotiations on the SOVFA and halt the Memorandum of Understanding on Enhanced Defence Co-operation until conditions improve.


These calls are grounded in deep ties with our partners in the Philippines. They remind us of decades of violence, displacement, and repression endured by Filipinos. Supporting peace talks is not merely a strategic choice; it is a moral imperative.


As Canada and the Philippines celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations, this milestone presents a critical choice. A foreign policy rooted in militarization risks perpetuating human rights violations and undermining Canada’s credibility as a global defender of democracy and human dignity. Championing peace and justice strengthens bilateral ties and affirms Canadian values. Canada must seize this moment to prioritize human rights and peace. Anything less risks eroding decades of goodwill—a backward step in Canada’s relationship with the Philippines. Source

Le soutien aux réfugiés de la Palestine, une obligation morale, une affaire de dignité, un devoir d’humanité

image image

Le Devoir 04/01/2025 - Nous sommes témoins depuis des décennies des tentatives multiples de la part de l’État d’Israël de mettre un terme aux opérations de l’agence des Nations unies pour les réfugiés palestiniens (UNRWA) dans les territoires palestiniens occupés. Le 28 octobre 2024, la Knesset a voté deux lois allant dans ce sens. Des États membres de l’ONU ont décidé de mettre fin à tout financement et au travail de cette agence, alors que d’autres ont rétabli leur financement après l’avoir suspendu temporairement.


Créée par la résolution 302 adoptée par l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies en 1949, l’UNRWA a été mise sur pied par les États membres de l’ONU, qui étaient fort conscients que leur volonté de procéder à la partition de la Palestine avait entraîné l’expulsion de ses habitants originaux et leur réduction au statut de réfugié.


Même si l’Assemblée générale avait décidé quelques mois plus tôt, dans sa résolution 194 du 11 décembre 1948, qu’« il y a[vait] lieu de permettre aux réfugiés qui le désir[aient] de rentrer dans leurs foyers le plus tôt possible et de vivre en paix avec leurs voisins », les membres les plus influents des Nations unies en position de faire pression sur Israël pour que les réfugiés soient rapatriés ne l’ont jamais fait. En conséquence, ils ont cherché à résoudre en partie le problème qu’ils avaient eux-mêmes créé en fondant l’UNRWA et en lui assurant un financement récurrent.


L’UNRWA est une nécessité existentielle. Pour des millions de civils palestiniens, elle assume des fonctions d’éducation, offre des services de santé et fournit des services administratifs, non seulement en Cisjordanie et à Gaza, mais aussi en Syrie, en Jordanie et au Liban. Elle a permis à des millions de Palestiniens et Palestiniennes d’aller à l’école, de recevoir des soins médicaux essentiels et de disposer de documents de voyage leur permettant de survivre à cette terrible catastrophe qu’a été leur expulsion de leurs foyers.


Démantèlement



Depuis l’attaque du Hamas du 7 octobre 2023, qui inclut des crimes de guerre que nous condamnons, et la guerre livrée contre la population palestinienne par l’armée israélienne, l’État d’Israël n’a de cesse de vouloir démanteler l’UNRWA. Or, aucune des grandes organisations internationales ni aucune ONG n’ont la possibilité de remplacer l’UNRWA, ni les moyens et l’expertise pour le faire.


La situation sanitaire et alimentaire désastreuse qui touche 2,2 millions de personnes nécessite une aide urgente que seule l’UNRWA a la capacité de fournir. La fin de l’UNRWA signifierait la fin de l’institution qui encadre le statut de réfugiés et aurait pour conséquence de mettre en péril le droit au retour garanti par la résolution 194 de 1948.

Des accusations formulées par le gouvernement israélien, voulant que des employés de l’UNRWA aient participé aux attaques meurtrières du 7 octobre 2023, ont été démenties par le Groupe d’examen indépendant de l’ONU chargé de clarifier la situation. Le rapport final de ce groupe de l’ONU affirme qu’il n’existe aucune preuve de complicité avec le Hamas.


La bataille pour la survie de l’UNRWA se déroule actuellement au sein même de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU, 137 États membres des Nations unies ayant voté en faveur d’une résolution déposée par la Norvège. Adoptée le 19 décembre 2024, la résolution 79/332 y formule à l’intention de la Cour internationale de justice une « [d]emande d’avis consultatif […] sur les obligations d’Israël en ce qui concerne la présence et les activités de l’Organisation des Nations unies, d’autres organisations internationales et d’États tiers ».


Abstention honteuse


Le Canada s’est honteusement abstenu de voter en faveur de cette résolution. Alors qu’il défend sur toutes les tribunes l’importance de la règle de droit, le Canada fait preuve d’un réel manque de courage et de solidarité en refusant de s’allier à une demande d’avis consultatif destiné à permettre que soit clarifié l’état du droit sur la question des obligations d’Israël à l’égard des Nations unies et de l’UNRWA. Dans une ordonnance du 23 décembre 2024, le président de la Cour internationale de justice a fixé au 28 février 2025 la date d’expiration du délai dans lequel des exposés écrits sur la question pourront être présentés à la Cour.


L’abstention du Canada et les positions prises par plusieurs États qui ont coupé les vivres à l’UNRWA s’inscrivent dans un contexte de destruction totale des institutions qui permettent de soutenir la vie à Gaza. Selon le site de statistiques de l’ONU Statista, on comptait au 3 décembre 2024, depuis le 7 octobre 2023, 1200 morts et 5431 blessés en Israël, une centaine d’otages encore prisonniers, alors qu’on compte pour le peuple de Palestine 44 502 morts et 105 454 blessés à Gaza, ainsi que 737 morts et 6699 blessés en Cisjordanie. L’âge moyen des enfants tués est de 5 ans.


Plus de 20 000 enfants palestiniens sont orphelins, sans compter ceux qui sont désormais handicapés, Gaza abritant le plus grand nombre d’enfants amputés par habitant au monde. Les enfants qui ont survécu sont profondément traumatisés. En outre, près de 19 000 enfants ont été hospitalisés au cours des quatre derniers mois pour cause de malnutrition aiguë.


L’UNRWA est le dernier refuge pour une population désespérée devant cette catastrophe humanitaire. Elle est notamment, comme l’a affirmé son commissaire général, Philippe Lazzarini, la « colonne vertébrale des opérations humanitaires » dans la bande de Gaza, lui qui dénonce aussi la campagne « insidieuse » pour mettre fin à son existence et procéder à son « démantèlement », ajoutant : « La situation à Gaza est “postapocalyptique”. Au-delà des bombardements brutaux et féroces, en moyenne, les gens se sont déplacés plus d’une dizaine de fois. La population est concentrée sur 10 % du territoire. Il n’y a pas une journée sans une annonce de destruction d’abris et d’écoles. » Concernant la situation alimentaire, il a ajouté que « Gaza n’[avait] jamais connu la faim auparavant ». Soutenir l’UNRWA est une obligation morale absolue, une affaire de dignité, un devoir d’humanité. Source


CMLA denounces rights infringement by Toronto police in the policing of protests in support of Palestinian rights & calls for investigations into police conduct


Academic Freedom at Canadian Universities Threatened as Schools Police Speech on Gaza, Canadian Organization for Faculty Associations Warns


All charges withdrawn against Palestinian rights protester Adam Melanson


NEW End Canada’s military mission assisting Israeli occupation


NEW Israel is at war with healthcare in Gaza: Demand Canada act


Gaza v. Blinken: Palestinians Sue Secretary of State Over 'Failure' to Follow US Law on Sending Military Aid to Israel

'No Civilians. Everyone's a Terrorist': IDF Soldiers Expose Arbitrary Killings and Rampant Lawlessness in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor

haaretz image

Twitter/Haaretz 18/12/2024 - 'Of 200 bodies, only 10 were confirmed as Hamas members': IDF soldiers who served in Gaza tell Haaretz that anyone who crosses an imaginary line in the contested Neztarim corridor is shot to death, with every Palestinian casualty counting as a terrorist – even if they were just a child.


The line appears on no map and exists in no official military order. While senior Israel Defense Forces officials might deny its existence, in the heart of the Gaza Strip, north of the Netzarim corridor, nothing is more real.


"The forces in the field call it 'the line of dead bodies'" a commander in Division 252 tells Haaretz. "After shootings, bodies are not collected, attracting packs of dogs who come to eat them. In Gaza, people know that wherever you see these dogs, that's where you must not go."


The Netzarim corridor, a seven-kilometer-wide strip of land, stretches from near Kibbutz Be'eri to the Mediterranean coast. The IDF has emptied this area of Palestinian residents and demolished their homes to construct military roads and military positions.


While Palestinians are officially prohibited from entering, the reality is more severe than a simple exclusion zone. "It's military whitewashing," explains a senior officer in Division 252, who has served three reserve rotations in Gaza. "The division commander designated this area as a 'kill zone.' Anyone who enters is shot."


A recently discharged Division 252 officer describes the arbitrary nature of this boundary: "For the division, the kill zone extends as far as a sniper can see." But the issue goes beyond geography. "We're killing civilians there who are then counted as terrorists," he says. "The IDF spokesperson's announcements about casualty numbers have turned this into a competition between units. If Division 99 kills 150 [people], the next unit aims for 200."


"Calling ourselves the world's most moral army absolves soldiers who know exactly what we're doing," says a senior reserve commander who has recently returned from the Netzarim corridor. "It means ignoring that for over a year, we've operated in a lawless space where human life holds no value. Yes, we commanders and combatants are participating in the atrocity unfolding in Gaza. Now everyone must face this reality." [...]


These invisible boundaries north and south of the corridor appear frequently in testimonies. Even soldiers manning ambush positions say they weren't always clear where these lines were drawn. "Anyone approaching whatever line was decided at that moment is considered a threat – no permission needed to shoot."


This approach isn't limited to Division 252. A Division 99 reservist describes watching a drone feed showing "an adult with two children crossing the forbidden line." They were walking unarmed, seemingly searching for something. "We had them under complete surveillance with the drone and weapons aimed at them – they couldn't do anything," he says. "Suddenly we heard a massive explosion. A combat helicopter had fired a missile at them. Who thinks it's legitimate to fire a missile at children? And with a helicopter? This is pure evil." Source


Human Rights Watch: Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza


Gaza war toll likely significantly undercounts deaths, says study in The Lancet journal


A Deal Too Late: Israel Agrees to the Ceasefire It Rejected Months Ago, Thousands More Died


NEW Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory: Release Paediatrician and Hospital Director: Dr Hussam Abu Safiya

The Many Afterlives of the Sept. 11 Attacks

Iraq_Veterans_Against_the_War_National_March_for_Peace_Justice_and_Democracy_New_York_City_51066379308-1920x1277 image

InkStick 11/01/2025 - t has become trite to point out that the war on terror is difficult to define. A conflict with no identifiable enemy that spanned two decades and four continents cannot be easily shoehorned into a single narrative. 


Journalist Richard Beck’s sprawling new book, Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life, is an ambitious attempt to grapple with this complexity. Where others have attended to the political and military consequences of the conflict, Beck’s innovation is to foreground the war’s cultural dimension. Under Beck’s discerning eye, everything deserves a second glance: hate crimes and drone strikes, but also Batman and Ironman, Ford Explorers and Super Bowl halftime ads, helicopter parents and tactical baby bags. 


Over 500 pages, Beck unravels the twisted knots of innocence, trauma, shame, and aggression that have tied the United States to forever wars abroad and ever-deepening crises at home. In doing so, he provides a gripping account, not just of the myriad transformations of the past quarter century, but of “what it felt like to live through those changes.”


Sept. 11 and American Mythology

Born in 2000, I have no memory of 9/11. Beck provides the closest thing to a substitute for my generation, skillfully evoking the helplessness Americans experienced on that day, as they watched the same clips of dark billowing ash play across their screens on endless repeat. This experience marked a terrifying departure from the relative security of the Nineties, but as Beck demonstrates, the anxieties it triggered were far from new. 


Drawing on Susan Faludi’s mostly forgotten work, The Terror Dream, Beck shows how America’s traumatic response to 9/11 followed patterns and myths buried deep in the nation’s past. During the Indian Wars of the late 17th century, Native Americans raided settlements up and down the Atlantic seaboard and captured dozens of colonists. One of these prisoners, Mary Rowlandson, wrote about her experience, and soon a genre was born: the captivity narrative, in which helpless women endure physical dangers and spiritual trials at the hands of an uncivilized other. When Americans watched, as al-Qaeda held the nation’s attention hostage on 9/11, they may not have had these narratives in mind, but the ghosts of Rowlandson and her fellow captives were not far off. 


Frenzy of Xenophobia

In the weeks and months that followed, Americans descended into a frenzy of militarization, xenophobia, and nativism. This story is familiar by now, but Beck’s telling is always fresh and often surprisingly funny. Recounting the rise of the Minutemen, a brigade of self-appointed guardians of the southern border that sprung up after 9/11, Beck relays that “one volunteer mistook cows for migrants so many times that someone else put up a sign at camp: a picture of a cow below the words ‘To all people on the line: this is bovine in nature, and not to be confused with Illegal Aliens.’” 

This misidentification was as amusing as it was darkly telling: after 9/11, the US needed an enemy, and, as Beck demonstrates, it went looking for one everywhere. The first hate crime after 9/11 was the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man mistaken for an Arab at a gas station. In years that followed, the US targeted its own citizens at will, transforming public spaces into security zones and making everyone a possible suspect. In this climate of paranoia, gun sales surged and SUVs — the chosen automobile of the era’s proverbial “security mom” — increasingly resembled combat vehicles. Surveying these trends, Beck concludes: “The war on terror did not come home. It started there.” 


Superheroes, Unbound

When the US did go abroad, its misadventures were mirrored in film and pop culture. Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was among the most successful franchises of the early 2000s, pulling in over $1.2 billion in box-office revenue alone. Nolan would always claim that his work was apolitical, but as with so many other pieces of media from the era, one did not have to squint hard to see the outlines of the war on terror behind Batman’s stark silhouette. As US special forces scoured the mountains of Afghanistan for the last remnants of al-Qaeda, Bruce Wayne clad himself in an armored suit and set out to save Gotham from a terrorist who aimed to destroy it. 


If the US experience of 9/11 was assimilated through tropes of vulnerability buried deep in the nation’s past, its hyper-militarized response was inflected by images of the lone frontiersman, setting off to conquer the wilderness. Figures like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett conjure notions of adventure and flint-eyed determination, but, as Beck reminds us, they made their name by killing and displacing Native Americans. In the 21st century, the media could make heroes out of snipers like Chris Kyle because they conformed to this familiar model of rough and tumble masculinity.  

No Consequences


The frontiersman who slaughtered the Native American did not face consequences, and, as Beck points out, his willingness to act outside the law was always part of his appeal. After 9/11, the prosecutors of Washington’s war on terror also escaped accountability. In 2005, when eight Marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqis and then lied to cover it up, none of them faced charges worse than a demotion. This was perhaps typical fare for a nation whose folk heroes were outlaws, but it was also part of a culture of impunity that extended to the highest echelons of American politics. None of the decision-makers who launched Washington’s disastrous wars in the Middle East after 9/11 ever faced consequences for their actions.


As the body count grew, Americans turned to Hollywood to ease their conscience. In the wake of Sept. 11, depictions of torture on primetime television skyrocketed, from “fewer than four scenes of torture each year” before 2001, to over 100 scenes by 2007. Television series like 24 were ingenious at devising new scenarios that presented torture as the only available recourse. These shows were wish fulfillment, not because the good guys always won or because bad things didn’t happen, but because bad things done by good people were proven to be necessary, and therefore permissible. 


What America? 

If Homeland is a sweeping work of social and cultural history, it is also a kind of bildungsroman. Beck was a wide-eyed 14-year-old when the attacks occurred, and by the book’s end, he has seen too much of the country to have much faith in it. Reflecting on the myths of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and generations of Cowboys and Indians, Beck writes that “we find a people for whom violence is not just a duty but a pleasure, a means of spiritual renewal, a bloody wellspring of national genius.” 


Disavowing this violence, the prospects for renewal appear bleak to Beck. He champions protest movements that challenge American militarism from the outside, but downplays the possibility of reform from within. To advocate such reforms, he argues, “you have to believe that the government is capable, or could be capable in the future, of actually enacting the necessary reforms. I don’t.”


But this pessimism about the American project, which is widespread among Beck’s generation (and mine), is itself another symptom of the long war on terror. Those of us who came of age amid the war on terror do not know any other United States, but we will have to try to imagine one. Source


America Gets a Taste of Its Own Medicine: Drone Terror


Nonprofits Are at the Core of American Democracy. Now They’re Under Threat

Biden Has Time and Authority to Finally Close Guantánamo

HL7-guantanamoprison image

DemocracyNow! 09/01/2025 - The time has come to shutter the prison at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where men are held far offshore the mainland U.S. in an extrajudicial hell. There, men imprisoned for over 20 years, without charge, without trial, and who have been cleared for release, remain caged, virtually forgotten.


President Biden, thankfully, hasn’t forgotten. Eleven long-term Guantánamo prisoners were recently released, transferred to Oman to live free. Fifteen men remain imprisoned in Guantánamo. Of those 15, six have never been charged with a crime, and three have been cleared for release. Biden can deliver a measure of justice to all those remaining in Guantánamo. He should release those who’ve been cleared, and transfer those who remain charged or convicted to a facility inside the U.S. He should then order the notorious Guantánamo Bay prison to be shut down, once and for all.


Overall, 780 men were imprisoned at Guantánamo since 2002, most without charge. A handful of U.S. attorneys have advocated for them, some for almost a quarter century. Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York, is one of these lawyers.


“Moath al-Alwi is a Yemeni national,” Ramzi Kassem said on the Democracy Now! news hour, describing one of his clients who was just released to Oman. “He’s one of the very first prisoners who arrived at Guantánamo. The prison was opened on January 11th, 2002. He was on the second or the third plane. You could tell by his low internment serial number, 028. He was never charged with any crime. He was, like the majority of prisoners at Guantánamo, sold for a bounty, $5,000 to $15,000, that the U.S. government was paying to tribes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region for so-called Arabs out of place. By the government’s own allegations, Mr. al-Alwi never so much as fired a shot at U.S. forces or their allies. Still, he spent 23 years, over half of his life, at Guantánamo.”


Ramzi Kassem described another of those prisoners recently released from Guantánamo:

“Sanad al-Kazimi survived the CIA black sites. He was disappeared in the United Arab Emirates, survived severe forms of physical and psychological torture at a prison that the prisoners who survived it called ‘the prison of darkness’ or ‘the dark prison.’ The CIA called it the ‘Salt Pit’ or ‘Cobalt’ in the Senate’s report about the torture that happened there. He was brought to Guantánamo in 2004. He was also never charged with a crime. He has four kids that he hasn’t seen for the better part of their lives.”

Multiply these stories hundreds of times, and you begin to grasp the scale of injustice that has dominated the 20-plus year stain of Guantánamo on the U.S. justice system. Sharqawi Al Hajj is another of the Yemeni prisoners just released to Oman. He has long been represented by Pardiss Kebriaei, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

“Sharqawi is 51. He’s been inside since he was captured when he was 28, 29,” Kebriaei said on Democracy Now! “Guantánamo was set up as an intelligence-gathering operation. The point of it was to establish a place offshore where people could be held outside the bounds of the law, without access to courts, incommunicado, and where they could be interrogated.”

Despite years of interrogation, including two years before Guantánamo, when Sharqawi Al Hajj was imprisoned at a CIA dark site in Jordan and at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, which was dubbed “Gitmo East” as the brutality inflicted on prisoners there paralleled that suffered at Guantánamo itself. “The release of these people and their freedom for the first time after all of this time, the chance to reunify with their families and begin to recover and rebuild, it’s hard to overstate the enormity of that for them,” CCR attorney Pardiss Kebriaei said.


It seems at best unlikely that the remaining prisoners would see anything under the incoming Trump administration other than a continuation of their lives in the legal black hole that is Guantánamo Bay. For example, Moath al-Alwi became an accomplished artist while imprisoned. Following a 2017 New York exhibit of art by him and other Guantánamo prisoners, the first Trump administration declared their artwork “government property,” telling lawyers it would be destroyed. The policy was reversed under President Biden.


Perhaps, if Trump’s federal budget-cutting duo of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were to consider Guantánamo, it would be closed. After all, the government spends half a billion dollars a year keeping the prison and the court at Guantánamo open – now, for just these 15 men. President Barack Obama pledged to close Guantánamo as far back as 2009, but failed to do so. President Biden still has the power to close it, he has the authority, and he still has the time. But does he have the will? Read more - Lire plus


ACTION Tell President Biden: CLOSE GUANTÁNAMO


11 Men Freed After 20+ Years of “Extreme Deprivation.” Will Biden Close Guantánamo for Good?


Maha Hilal: After 23 years, Guantanamo remains an omnipresent threat to Muslims


Federal Court Blocks Transfer of Guantánamo Convict to Prison in Iraq: The Iraqi prisoner had sued the Biden administration, saying he would be at risk for abuse at a prison in his homeland


The Biden administration succeeds in temporarily blocking a plea deal for accused 9/11 mastermind


UN Experts call for release of Guantánamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaydah, arbitrarily detained for over two decades


10 years later: The CIA ‘Torture Report’ and America’s accountability deficit

Nigeria’s Military Gets Billions in U.S. Aid. On Christmas Day, It Bombed Its Own Civilians Again.

7766903-e1736183944684 image

The Intercept 06/01/2025 - On Christmas day, a Nigerian military aircraft bombed two villages, killing at least 10 civilians and wounding many more. The airstrike in Nigeria’s northwest is the latest in a long-running series of lethal errant attacks by the government of Nigeria, one of the United States’ closest allies in Africa and the recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. weaponry, including warplanes and bombs.


American lawmakers have called out the U.S. and Nigerian governments for the frequent noncombatant deaths, urging increased accountability, stronger protections for civilians, and limitations on American arms sales. Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., has been one of the leading voices, repeatedly calling on the Biden administration to, for instance, scuttle a nearly $1 billion attack helicopter deal with Nigeria.

“For millions of Nigerians, Christmas marks a special time for joy, festivities, and coming together with family and loved ones. It’s devastating that this year nearly a dozen families in Nigeria were mourning their loved ones instead of celebrating on Christmas Day,” Jacobs, a founding member of Congress’s Protection of Civilians in Conflict Caucus, told The Intercept. “I continue to be deeply concerned by the trend of civilian harm from Nigerian military operations. With the right guardrails in place, these tragedies can be prevented.”


The Nigerian military has a long history of killing civilians in its battle against militants and “bandits,” and has repeatedly denied responsibility for airstrikes that have killed innocent people. It has frequently been accused of covering up civilian deaths, as well, including running what a 2023 investigation by Nigeria’s Premium Times called “a systemic propaganda scheme to keep the atrocities of its troops under wraps.” Read more - Lire plus


Amnesty International demands Tehran halt execution of Kurdish activist

Azizi image

Iran Intl 14/01/2025 - Amnesty International has condemned Iran's Supreme Court for upholding the conviction and death sentence of Kurdish activist Pakhshan Azizi, calling her trial and punishment unjust.

"Iran's authorities must halt any plans to carry out her execution and release her immediately," Amnesty said in a post on X Tuesday, adding that Azizi was sentenced in connection with her peaceful humanitarian and human rights work.


Azizi’s lawyer, Amir Raeisian, criticized the judicial process, saying the Supreme Court failed to address critical flaws in her case “We filed an appeal, but ... the Supreme Court reviewed the appeal and unfortunately rejected it without addressing the numerous flaws in the case, thereby confirming the death sentence,” Raeisian told Tehran-based newspaper Sharq Daily on Wednesday.


Azizi was arrested at her home in Tehran in August 2023, by state security forces who allegedly held a gun to her head.

She asserts that she was denied legal counsel during detention and was tortured to confess to things she had not done---something rights groups say is a routine tactic used by Iranian authorities against activists.


Azizi was sentence to death in July 2024 for “armed rebellion against the state” and imposed an additional four-year prison sentence for alleged membership in the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), accusations her lawyers have denied.

In a letter from prison right after her sentence, Azizi described instances of torture and harassment, including mock executions.


At least 54 political prisoners including Azizi are currently facing execution across various prisons in Iran, according to US-based rights group HRANA. Iran has faced mounting international criticism for its use of the death penalty, particularly against political prisoners and activists. Iran executed 901 people in 2024, including 31 women, marking a rise in capital punishment cases, the United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday. Source

Police Use of Face Recognition Continues to Wrack Up Real-World Harms

face-recognition-banner_0_0 image

EFF 15/01/2025 - Police have shown, time and time again, that they cannot be trusted with face recognition technology (FRT). It is too dangerous, invasive, and in the hands of law enforcement, a perpetual liability. EFF has long argued that face recognition, whether it is fully accurate or not, is too dangerous for police use, and such use ought to be banned.


Now, The Washington Post has proved one more reason for this ban: police claim to use FRT just as an investigatory lead, but in practice officers routinely ignore protocol and immediately arrest the most likely match spit out by the computer without first doing their own investigation.


The report also tells the stories of two men who were unknown to the public until now: Christopher Galtin and Jason Vernau. They were wrongfully arrested in St. Louis and Miami, respectively, after being misidentified by face recognition. In both cases, the men were jailed despite readily available evidence that would have shown that, despite the apparent match found by the computer, they in fact were not the correct match.


This is infuriating. Just last year, the Assistant Chief of Police for the Miami Police Department, the department that wrongfully arrested Jason Vernau, testified before Congress that his department does not arrest people based solely on face recognition and without proper followup investigations. “Matches are treated like an anonymous tip,” he said during the hearing. Apparently not all officers got the memo.


We’ve seen this before. Many times. Galtin and Vernau join a growing list of those known to have been wrongfully arrested around the United States based on police use of face recognition. They include Michael Oliver, Nijeer Parks, Randal ReidAlonzo SawyerRobert Williams, and Porcha Woodruff. It is no coincidence that all six of these people, and now adding Christopher Galtin to that list, are Black. Scholars and activists have been raising the alarm for years that, in addition to a huge amount of police surveillance generally being directed at Black communities, face recognition specifically has a long history of having a lower rate of accuracy when it comes to identifying people with darker complexions. The case of Robert Williams in Detroit resulted in a lawsuit which ended in the Detroit police department, which had used FRT to justify a number of wrongful arrests, instituting strict new guidelines about the use of face recognition technology.


Cities across the United States have decided to join the growing movement to ban police use of face recognition because this technology is simply too dangerous in the hands of police. Even in a world where the technology is 100% accurate, police still should not be trusted with it. The temptation for police to fly a drone over a protest and use face recognition to identify the crowd would be too great and the risks to civil liberties too high. After all, we already see that police are cutting corners and using their technology in ways that violate their own departmental policies.


We continue to urge cities, states, and Congress to ban police use of face recognition technology. We stand ready to assist. As intrepid tech journalists and researchers continue to do their jobs, increased evidence of these harms will only increase the urgency of our movement. Source


ACTION Protect our rights from facial recognition


UK - PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE: New Report on the Expansion of Biometric Policing Technology


UK police continue to hold millions of custody images unlawfully

UN expert expresses concern over ‘continued misuse’ of Türkiye counter-terrorism law

turkey_flag_1616616752 image

Jurist News 16/01/2025 - A UN expert expressed concern Thursday over Türkiye’s “misuse” of counter-terrorism laws to detain nine prominent human rights defenders and lawyers.


UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor noted arbitrary arrests, unfair trials, and lengthy sentences handed to the nine activists and lawyers, emphasizing that these practices undermine fundamental freedoms and violate international human rights standards.


Among the detained are eight members of the rights-focused Progressive Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD). Arrested between 2018 and 2019, the lawyers were convicted under the Turkish Anti-Terror Code for “membership in a terrorist organization” and, in some cases, “propaganda for a terrorist organization”. Their sentences, finalized in 2020, range up to 13 years. One member, Oya Aslan, was separately convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 11 years, a decision upheld in November last year.


The organization has been targeted by the Turkish government. In 2018, 17 ÇHD lawyers were arrested and charged with membership in an armed terrorist organization. The indictment cited their representation of clients accused of terrorism as evidence against them. International observers criticized the trial as violating the right to a fair defense.


The UN Special Rapporteur reported that the conviction of lawyer Turan Canpolat from the Malatya Bar Association relied on coerced testimony that was later recanted. Canpolat was sentenced to ten years and has endured nearly three years of solitary confinement without disciplinary orders.


Türkiye’s counter-terrorism framework, including Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code and the Anti-Terror Code, defines terrorism broadly, encompassing any acts by individuals or organizations aimed at altering Türkiye’s constitutional characteristics or systems; undermining state unity’ threatening state existence; weakening authority; eliminating rights and freedoms; or harming state security, public order, or heath. Critics have argued that such a broad definition has allowed the Turkish state to weaponize its anti-terrorism law to target civil rights groups and suppress domestic dissent.


The UN Special Rapporteur has engaged with the Turkish government, urging it to abide by international human rights laws, cease ill-treatment of detainees, and ensure fair hearings. Lawlor also expressed her intention to discuss these issues further with Turkish authorities. Source

Egypt: Special Rapporteur concerned about use of anti-terrorism legislation against human rights defenders

UN OHCHR 15/01/2025 - An independent human rights expert today expressed concern about the continued application of anti-terrorism legislation in Egypt to imprison human rights defenders.


“Although there has been some progress with the release of some detainees and the development of a national human rights strategy, Egypt persists in routinely misusing counter-terrorism legislation and recycling criminal charges against human rights defenders,” said Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.


“What is particularly striking is the continued detention of human rights defenders past their release date by repeatedly charging them with similar, if not identical, terrorism-related accusations, in a practice commonly known as “rotation” or “recycling”,” Lawlor said.


The Special Rapporteur previously raised concerns in this regard in 22 communications sent to the Government of Egypt since May 2020. The practice of “rotation” was also highlighted by the UN Human Rights Committee in its concluding observations on Egypt’s last review in March 2023. In particular, the Special Rapporteur expressed concern over the use of this practice to detain three human rights defenders for lengthy periods of time.


“It is shocking that instead of being released at the end of her five-year sentence on 1 November 2023, human rights lawyer Ms. Hoda Abdel Moneim was detained again under new charges. And one year later, a third set of charges was brought against her. She is now facing two new trials, with one of the new charges - ‘joining an unnamed terrorist organisation’ - being identical to that for which she had completed her sentence in 2023, in violation of the principle of double jeopardy”, Lawlor said.


In November 2024, the same terrorism-related charge was brought against another woman human rights defender, Aisha al-Shater, who was tried in the same case with Abdel Moneim. This charge is also identical to that for which she is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence.


In a third case, human rights defender and lawyer Ibrahim Metwally has been arbitrarily detained without trial for over four years. He was arrested in 2017 at Cairo Airport, while he was on his way to Geneva to meet with the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Although the Cairo Criminal Court has ordered his conditional release twice, he was repeatedly charged with new terrorism-related offences, one of which he supposedly committed in prison. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention previously found Metwally’s detention to be arbitrary and noted that it amounts to an act of retaliation for cooperation with the UN.


“It is outrageous that Mr Metwally is facing trial in three cases, including that of ‘conspiring with foreign entities’, which appear to be in relation to his cooperation with the UN and his peaceful human rights work in Egypt prior to his detention,” Lawlor said.


The Special Rapporteur noted that the poor prison conditions in which the three human rights defenders are held were equally alarming. The human rights defenders have had health problems from the start of their arrest and have reportedly been denied adequate medical treatment despite the severity of their conditions, which may amount to physical and psychological ill-treatment.


“It is unacceptable for prison authorities to deny recommended surgery, bar the transfer of a detainee to a hospital, or withhold medical records from the detainee’s family and lawyer,” Lawlor said. The Special Rapporteur is in contact with the authorities of Egypt on this issue and has urged them to meet their international human rights obligations, by which they must abide. Source

Swansea mother ‘traumatised’ by arrest under Terrorism Act

5008 image

The Guardian 02/12/2024 - Swansea woman has said she was left traumatised after being arrested under the Terrorism Act and held incommunicado for five days because her daughter was allegedly involved in an action against an Israeli arms company.


Emma Kamio, 57, who runs her own homeopathy and pilates business, was led away in handcuffs from her home in front of her son and neighbours and had three laptops and mobile phones seized, after a Palestine Action protest at an Elbit Systems UK building near Patchway on the outskirts of Bristol.


She was so traumatised by the incident in August that she has only recently been able to talk about it. Kamio said she was denied a duty solicitor for the first two days, and when she was transferred into the custody of counter-terrorism police she was held in a filthy cell, was searched repeatedly and the lights were left on all night, which she described it as “psychological torture”.


The former nurse, who also has a younger daughter aged 16, said: “I disappeared from my family for five days due to the abuse of the Terrorism Act. I’m an ordinary, hard-working, middle-class single parent whose life will never be the same. My story can happen to anyone due to the overpolicing and the repression that is happening right now in the UK.”

Kamio said she was initially taken to Swansea police station on 6 August and then to Bristol. She said her daughter Leona, 29, who lives in London, was brought from a different police station in Bristol and both were put in cages in the back of van, from which they could not see each other, for a high-speed blue-lights journey.


“I can’t tell you how terrifying that was,” Kamio said. “I just had one hand on the panel and my foot up against the front to brace myself, because there was no lap strap or seatbelt, and all I kept thinking was one wrong move and my [other] children lose their mother and sister in one hit. Just hearing a blue light and a siren [now], my whole stomach is back to that 120mph down the motorway.” She said the cell in Newbury that she was initially placed in for two days had “the last occupant’s old dried faeces encrusted around the toilet”, and she was searched every time she left the cell (as was the cell) and again when she re-entered.


Kamio spent her time in custody worrying about her family, her clients and the impact on her business, which she had struggled to rebuild after the coronavirus pandemic. “I knew I was going into shock,” she said. “I was fine for a couple of days and then I noticed I was shaking, I couldn’t stand. You feel like an animal in a cage once they take your belongings off you, that’s the only way I could describe it. “They took five days to ascertain that I was innocent. I was eventually released without charge, without my belongings and without an apology, left on the streets of Newbury in my scrubs.”


Kamio said police had not returned the electronic devices – only one of which, a laptop, belonged to Leona – her clothes and expensive sandals she was wearing when arrested, or her jewellery, including platinum earrings her late mother had had made for her. South Wales police said a complaint against officers was being investigated. Counter Terrorism Policing South East said Kamio was “held in conjunction with the relevant legislation and codes of practice for arrest and detention whilst in custody”. Thames Valley police said their cells were cleaned regularly and any concerns raised were addressed.


Leona Kamio has been charged with criminal damage, violent disorder and aggravated burglary in relation to the protest, which the Crown Prosecution Service said had a “terrorist connection”. They are not offences under the Terrorism Act. In total, 18 people have been charged in relation to the 6 August incident. Source


NEW Stop the persecution of Kurdish political activists in the UK


Independent reviewer asked to examine abuse of UK anti-terror laws

Italian security decree "most serious attack on right to protest in recent decades"

it-security-bill image

Statewatch 12/12/2024 - A bill under discussion in the Italian senate is "the most serious attack to the freedom of protest ever waged in recent decades," says a joint statement signed by 26 organisations from across Europe, including Statewatch.


The bill, targeted at the climate and environmental movements, would criminalise protest roadblocks. Other measures would increase punishments for resisting major infrastructure projects.


The bill would "further criminalise and marginalise vulnerable communities, including immigrants, beggars, the homeless, Roma people, those residing in squats, and detainees," says the statement. Read the full joint statement - Lisez la déclaration conjointe

LinkedIn Share This Email

OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Artificial intelligence

Intelligence artificielle


Human rights and justice must be at the heart of the upcoming Commission guidelines on the AI Act implementation

Attacks on dissent

Attaques contre la dissidence


100+ Organizations Voice Deep Concern Over Violence to Advance Canada’s Atico Mining Project in Ecuador


Leaked Information Reveals Pakistan Army Planned Its Brutal Crackdown on Protests, Including Live Fire and Subsequent Cover-up

Criminalization of dissent

Criminalisation de la dissidence


Closing arguments begin in Wet'suwet'en abuse of process hearing over B.C. pipeline blockade


Britain leads the world in cracking down on climate activism, study finds


Will Biden Grant Leonard Peltier Clemency? Indigenous Leaders Plead, “Don’t Let Him Die in Prison”


Explainer: Hong Kong’s national security crackdown – month 54


NEW Niger: Free human rights defender Moussa Tchangari

Criminalization of opposition

Criminalisation de l'opposition


Over 150 workers of Imran Khan's party granted bail by anti-terrorism court in Pakistan


Supreme Court judge asks why May 9 accused ‘specifically’ tried in military courts against precedent

Freedom of speech

Liberté d'expression


The Uhuru Three sentenced to probation and community service, no prison


Jacqueline Sweet: My Ban From X Is About One Simple Thing: Elon Musk Controlling the Flow of Information

Freedom of the press

Liberté de la presse


A powerful former U.S. contractor is silencing critical press coverage


This Is How Trump’s Department of Justice Spied on Journalists


Trump Escalates War on Press & Some Outlets Are “Capitulating Preemptively” to Pressure


Report: 67 journalists jailed for their work across Africa

Migrant and refugee rights

Droits des migrant.es et réfugié.es


How Trump is banking on 18th-century laws for his border and citizenship promises


Afghans evacuated by US in chaos of withdrawal are languishing in foreign camps, documents reveal


Activists' stories facilitating migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean sea

Police


Inquest jury calls Abdi's death a homicide


Des organisations s’unissent contre les profilages racial et social à Montréal | Il est temps d’interdire les interpellations policières


BCCLA reacts to Supreme Court of Canada decision to uphold privacy rights but expand police search power


UK - Abuse in undercover policing: Bob Lambert: A Wake Up Call


Ohio Puts Police Bodycam Footage Behind a Paywall


EU police data plans pose "substantial security and privacy threats"

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance


Podcast: How to keep your data safe when protesting


The ACLU of Oregon Seeks Records About the Use of Portland JTTF, TITAN Fusion Center, and Portland FBI Field Office to Target Protesters and Racial Justice Advocates


UN Security Council members meet on spyware for first time


Access Now Statement on the historic decision in the WhatsApp v NSO case


Serbia: “A Digital Prison”: Surveillance and the suppression of civil society in Serbia


Webinar: Whose Security Are We Talking About Anyway? The Case of Amazon Ring

Terror lists

Listes d'entités terroristes


Biden’s move to remove Cuba from terror list continues ‘yo-yo’ policy likely to be reversed by Trump

Miscellaneous

Divers


CSIS to brief Conservative Leader Poilievre on national security threats despite his lack of special clearance


64 civil society organizations call on Canada to respond to crisis in Sudan


NEW Hands Off Sudan!


Watchdog slams Canadian military police for failing to review sexual assault investigation


Nippon Steel rejection shows US national security means whatever you want


Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, Biden stays execution — but broad power now lies with Trump


Incoming Trump team is asking White House National Security Council civil servants about their loyalty


Macron’s claim that Africans failed to say ‘thank you’ for French military aid sparks outrage

ICLMG ACTIONS DE LA CSILC

Screenshot-2024-10-23-at-3 image

Canada: Abolish rights-violating terrorist entities list!

On October 15, 2024, the Canadian government placed the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network on Canada’s terrorist entities list. While ostensibly a tool to protect the safety and security of people in Canada and internationally, the list is an arbitrary political tool that undermines freedom of association, of expression and due process in the courts. Its effectiveness as a national security tool has never been demonstrated in a manner that justifies its use.


Due to these deep flaws, and more, the ICLMG has consistently called for the list to be abolished since the Canadian coalition’s founding in 2002. Please join us in urging the Canadian government to abolish the rights-violating terrorist entities list once and for all. Thank you!

ACTION

Share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram


Le Canada doit abolir la liste des entités terroristes! & partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

image image

Uphold rights and liberties at protests and encampments across Canada!

Please join us in calling for the following:

  • Officials must stop equating Charter-protected expression and dissent with “support for terrorism,” and refrain from calling for law enforcement to forcibly end or prevent protest activities.
  • Law enforcement agencies must refrain from acting against protesters exercising their Charter-protected rights, including at encampments.
  • The Ontario legislature must immediately reverse the keffiyeh ban.
  • Canada must call for a permanent ceasefire and to halt all arms sales, transfers and military aid to Israel.
ACTION
narrow-horizontal-AI-image image

Canada: Remove the national security exemptions from Bill C-27!

Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, has been introduced by the federal government with the promise that it would enhance privacy protections, adequately regulate artificial intelligence (AI) and protect human rights. The bill, however, is not up to the task. Please join us in denouncing the dangerous national security related exemptions in the bill.

ACTION
Screenshot-2023-06-23-at-4 image

Canada: Do not purchase armed drones

The ICLMG is a member of the No Armed Drones campaign

In the government's proposal seeking bids for its drone program it laid out disturbing scenarios for Canadian military drone use: One scenario described drones being used to surveil activists protesting a (theoretical) G20 Summit in Quebec, helping the security team intercept and identify the occupants of a vehicle, who are “anti-capitalist radicals” intending to “hang a banner concerning global warming.” Another scenario modeled after US drone strike programs features a drone bombing “Fighting Age Males” in the Middle East after spotting one of them “holding a small radio or cell phone." The initial cost estimate is $5 billion with billions more to operate the drones over their 25-year lifespan.

ACTION
CSIS-ABOVE-THE-LAW-2_1 image

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.

ACTION

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 EnglishPétition 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.

ACTION

Please share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

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

December 10, 2023 - ironically Human Rights Day - marked the 21st "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!

Screen Shot 2021-08-26 at 5.55.05 PM.png

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

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
FR_frontpage_slider.png

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.

ACTION
Help post it.png
Contribution post it.png
long border agent website.jpg
Archives.jpg

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!


James Deutsch

Bill Ewanick

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!