http://www.justiceforharkat.com/ en-gb 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 brian@nospam.com hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3606.65 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian by Mohammed AdamSource: The Ottawa CitizenURL: [link]Date: September 4, 2010Experts reflect on the reasonableness of reasonableness hearings[PHOTO: Mohamed Harkat, on bail while being held under a national security certificate, is illuminated by a beam of light while waiting in the foyer of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa February 28, 2007.]It is called "a reasonableness hearing" -- a chance for terror suspects facing deportation to make their case -- but it seemed more like something out of a Kafka novel when Mohamed Harkat tried to do so in an Ottawa courtroom earlier this year. Harkat, 42, an Algerian immigrant who arrived in Canada as a refugee in 1995, was arrested on a security certificate in 2002 on suspicion of being an al-Qaeda sleeper agent. After three-and-half years in detention, he was released on strict conditions. He has always denied any links to terrorism.Since September 2008, Justice Simon Noël has heard much of the evidence in secret. Although government lawyers attended the closed hearings, Harkat and his lawyers were excluded because the information against him is classified. And while the Ottawa man was represented at these sessions by special advocates, they were not allowed to discuss evidence with him or his lawyers because it might breach national security.Noël is expected to deliver his verdict in the fall. In the meantime, the debate continues about the legitimacy of the proceedings. http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3605.33 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian by Matthew Behrens of The Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada and Stop Canadian Involvement in TortureSource: "Homes Not Bombs" BlogURL: [link]Date: September 4, 2010Attack of the Beards: A Reflection on the Hirsute Hysteria Dominating Canadian Media in Latest “Domestic terror” AllegationsSeptember 3, 2010 – Coverage of the alleged Ottawa “terror” plot seems more inspired by Fashion TV or The National Enquirer than the objective, professional standards one would hope undergird established Canadian news outlets. Giant helpings of Islamophobia mixed with repeated references to speculative allegations not even mentioned by police in their end-of-the-world-is-coming-to-Ottawa press conference have done nothing but contribute to an environment of fear and hysteria.A BUNCH OF BEARDSAlmost every article describing the accused men refers to the way they and their loved ones look. The Toronto Star notes one man was “sporting a bushy beard [and] a knitted skull cap.” The Ottawa Citizen reports one young man had a “full, long beard,” and that his wife wore a niqab.The Citizen also reports that, in one case, “[the accused] took an extended vacation more than a year ago and returned having grown a full beard. It wasn’t known where he spent the weeks he was away.” (This is not normally information one shares with an employer or even fellow employees, but here it is clearly painted as suspicious.)We are also informed that the wife of one of the men “dressed modestly”. The same article also references the “full beard often worn by Muslim men of strong faith,” but that during one man’s court appearance, it was a “full but neatly trimmed beard.” Brownie points clearly go to this Muslim! Another article in the same paper (Citizen) references an individual “with a curly beard and a brown skull cap over his long curly brown hair, and [another defendant] sporting a full beard.”Are we to take from this that Muslims apparently “sport” beards, as if they are part of the terrorist tool kit? And can you tell a good Muslim from a bad Muslim by the length and curliness of their facial hair? As the week goes on and another young man is arrested, he is referred to as a “slightly-built bearded man.”What is next? Inquisitorial committees asking men of Muslim faith the $64,000 question: Do you now or have you ever sported a beard? http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3604.33 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian by "abolissons AT gmail.com"Source: The People's Commission NetworkURL: [link]Date: September 1, 2010HALT THE TIDE OF ISLAMOPHOBIAA Call for Solidarity from the People's Commission Network and No One Is Illegal Montreal**See below for what you can do**The People's Commission Network and No One Is Illegal Montreal call for solidarity with Muslim communities and individuals in Canada and Quebec who are experiencing even more intense Islamophobia and racism as a result of the media coverage of last week's "Project Samossa" arrests of Hiva Alizadeh, Khurram Sher and Misbahuddin Ahmed. Journalists have actually visited mosques where the people arrested have prayed, thereby greatly intensifying feelings of being vulnerable, under surveillance, marginalized and profiled simply for being Muslim or being perceived as such.The People's Commission and No One Is Illegal Montreal are also concerned for the well-being of the three men who have been named by media as part of the alleged plot and are currently overseas. In recent years, we have seen similar RCMP and CSIS suspicions - even without intense media attention - result in the overseas detention and torture of Maher Arar, Abousfian Abdelrazik, Abdullah Almalki and others. None of these individuals were ever charged with any crime and their names were later officially cleared. However, their lives continue to be marred by the immediate consequences of CSIS and RCMP actions, consequences that include tarnished reputations, the loss of freedom of movement, and, in one case, a freeze on all assets. http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3603.58 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian By Andy WorthingtonSource: Any Worthington BlogURL: [link]Date: August 25, 2010On August 12, the US administration’s intention to proceed with the war crimes trial of Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was just 15 years old when he was seized after a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, was temporarily delayed when Khadr’s military lawyer, Army Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, collapsed in the courtroom in Guantánamo while cross-questioning a prosecution witness on the first full day of Khadr’s trial by Military Commission.Lt. Col. Jackson’s collapse was attributed to complications resulting from a gall-bladder operation six weeks previously, but as he was airlifted off the island, and deputy chief defense counsel Brian Broyles acknowledged that Khadr’s trial would be suspended for at least a month, no one in a position of authority — either in the United States or Canada — appeared willing to take the opportunity to find a last-minute way to avoid proceeding with a trial that, to critics, demonstrates only that the Obama administration is incapable of resisting the kind of sweeping and often indiscriminate desire for vengeance that fueled the Bush administration in its response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3601.31 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian by REPORT-BACKSource: No One Is Illegal - VancouverURL: [link]Date: August 25, 2010Vancouver, August 21, 2010* For more PHOTOS from across the country (courtesy NOII groups, VMC, AW@L) visit [link]On Saturday August 21st, close to 250 people gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Coast Salish Territories as part of a National Day of Action todemand the release of detained Tamil asylum seekers and an end to racist and restrictive refugee policies.The march opened with a traditional opening as Indigenous Elders welcomed the Tamil asylum seekers to their territories and condemned the governmentand Jason Kenney. Speakers underscored the history of racist exclusion in Canadian immigration policy, the daily violence of detentions and deportations justified under the guise of ‘criminality’ and ‘security threats’, the commodification of migrants as exploitable labour in order to be deemed worthy, and how the hollow rhetoric of multiculturalism and inclusion unravels every time a boat of migrants challenges the Canadian state and its fortified border. http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3599.1 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian -Source: The Montreal Gazette, August 7, 2010. http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3598.58 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian Source: Agence France Presse InternationalURL: [link]Date: August 13, 2010US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The Guantanamo trial of a Canadian captured by US forces in Afghanistan at age 15 has been postponed by 30 days so his lawyer can seek medical treatment in the United States, a US military official said Friday.Omar Khadr's US military defense lawyer Jon Jackson collapsed Thursday at the end of court proceedings -- the first full prosecution at Guantanamo since President Barack Obama took office -- and was rushed to hospital on the US naval base.The official said it was determined that Jackson has to be evacuated from the base to get medical treatment and will be on "convalescent leave" in the United States for 30 days.On Thursday Jackson was rushed by ambulance to a medical facility on the base where he was placed on a morphine drip, according to Bryan Broyles, an official with the military defense lawyers' office.Broyles said the incident was thought to be related to gall bladder surgery that Jackson underwent six weeks ago. http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3597.31 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian by Oakland RossSource: The Toronto StarURL: [link]Date: August 3, 2010Jorge Sanabria did not come to Canada, after all.The 45-year-old Peruvian development expert had been expected to deliver the keynote speech at a gala dinner June 26 at Wilfrid Laurier University.Instead, Sanabria spent that evening at his home in Cusco, Peru, along with his wife, Jenny, and their 5-year-old daughter, Gabriela — just one more victim of a notoriously opaque piece of bureaucratese that has Canada written all over it.You've heard of Catch-22? Meet Regulation 179.It's vague, it's arbitrary, and it is giving this country a bad name.“I think Canada is becoming more difficult to visit,” Sanabria said from Cusco. “It think its image with foreigners is becoming more and more difficult.”He is not alone.“It's completely arbitrary,” said Toronto immigration lawyer Barbara Jackman, referring to the edict. “It affects us on so many levels — social, humanitarian, cultural, and business.”Regulation 179 is a section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that authorizes this country's visa officers abroad to reject potential visitors if they believe the applicant might try to stay in Canada. http://www.justiceforharkat.com/news.php?item.3596.34 2010-09-06T21:42:04-05:00 Brian by Michelle Shephard, National Security ReporterSource: The Toronto StarURL: [link]Date: August 4, 2010Human rights violations over terrorism charges ‘shocking,’ judge decidesAbdullah Khadr walked out of a Toronto courtroom a free man Wednesday after an Ontario judge refused to extradite him to the United States to face terrorism charges.“I think this is going to be a new beginning for me in life,” Khadr told reporters outside the court as his lawyers and family looked on.Extradition orders to the U.S. are rarely denied, but Superior Court Justice Christopher Speyer ruled Wednesday that “this was an exceptional case on many levels.”The 29-year-old Canadian has been held in Toronto jail since a Boston court indicted him on terrorism charges in December 2005. He is accused of supplying weapons to Al Qaeda when he lived in Pakistan following the 9/11 attacks.The surprise decision focused on the fact that the U.S. paid Pakistan a $500,000 (U.S.) bounty for the Canadian’s arrest in Islamabad in 2004 and that Khadr was held for 14 months in what Speyer called an “illegal and arbitrary” detention.Speyer wrote in his 62-page ruling that the human rights violations suffered by Khadr were “both shocking and unjustifiable.”“The United States was the driving force behind Khadr’s capture and detention,” Speyer wrote. “The payment of the bounty heavily influenced the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency) to act in accordance with the United States agency’s wishes.”