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Mourad Ikhlef |
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URGENT ACTION REQUIRED: NEW "SECURITY CERTIFICATE" SIGNED: OTTAWA MAN IN DETENTION, HELD WITHOUT CHARGE, NOT ALLOWED TO SEE "EVIDENCE" AGAINST HIM AS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MARKS INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY
Mohamed Harkat, accepted in Canada as a refugee in 1997, faces danger to his life if deported to Algeria. Like others before him, Mr. Harkat and his lawyer face a stacked court, not allowed to know the case against him for "security reasons." Please write to the two ministers who signed the certificate, Solicitor General Wayne Easter, and Immigration Minister Denis Coderre, and demand that a full, open, public hearing of all the facts be allowed. Let them know we are following this case and demand that the secret trials of the security certificate process be stopped. It appears that this arrest could be motivated in part by a desire of the Canadian government to prove to the Bush administration that it is "serious" about security issues. For those who sometimes feel (not without justification!) that letters to the government are thrown into the waste basket, remember that CSIS and the security apparatus in Ottawa are very paranoid about any type of oversight, whether governmental or from the public. The act of writing these letters, demanding an end to an unjust process and for full disclosure of whatever facts may or may not exist in the Harkat case, makes the spooks quite jittery and can only have a positive effect. More background follows the addresses below: MINISTERS AND ADDRESSES Wayne Easter, Solicitor General House of Commons 318 Justice Building Ottawa K1A 0A6 (613) 992-2406 Fax: (613) 995-7408 Email: eastew@parl.gc.ca Denis Coderre, Immigration Minister House of Commons Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 (613) 995-6108 Fax: (613) 995-9755 coderre.D@parl.gc.ca Minister@cic.gc.ca Background: Mohamed Harkat, aged 34, is an Algerian refugee who has lived in Canada since 1997, when he was accepted as a convention refugee, having fled persecution in his native Algeria. Amnesty International's 2002 report on Algeria notes "No independent investigations [have been] carried out into the thousands of killings, massacres, 'disappearances', abductions and reports of torture since 1992. Torture continued to be widespread." Mr. Harkat was arrested as police with guns drawn swarmed over him while he was checking his mail last Tuesday, December 10. The irony here, among others, is that Dec. 10 is International Human Rights Day. According to the Ottawa Citizen, "He has no idea why he's been arrested in that manner," says Bruce Engel, the Ottawa defence lawyer who had been helping Mr. Harkat try to obtain permanent-resident status in Canada after months of delays. "He's very, very eager to learn why, and what accusation the government has against him and why they claim he's a terrorist. He knows nothing about it. I know nothing about it. He has no idea how this error could have been made." Mr. Engel said Mr. Harkat first approached him more than a year ago after his bid for permanent residency in Canada was repeatedly delayed. "We made inquiries just to find out what was going on, and we really weren't getting anywhere. Letters back and forth. They said there was security clearance they were waiting for, and verification of certain aspects of his file, et cetera, et cetera. One month turns into three months, three months turns into nine months, nine months turns into over a year. No response to recent letters that I've sent. Then he gets arrested two days ago. I am as surprised as anyone." Mr Harkat held down three part-time, minimum wage jobs in Ottawa, often working upwards of 20 hours per day at two gas bars and a pizza delivery place. As one friend asks in an Ottawa Citizen article, how would Mr. Harkat have time to be a security threat given the fact that he literally struggled round the clock to pay the bills. Sophie Lamarche, who plans to mark her second anniversary of marriage to Mr. Harkat January 2, told the Ottawa Citizen, "I think it's inhuman to go through this whole process," she said. "I'm almost ashamed to be a Canadian right now." Mrs. Harkat said her resolve to see her husband cleared of all accusations was strengthened after she visited him at the Regional Detention Centre on Innes Road. She said it hurt to see the man she loved "tied up" and behind glass. "I'm like a widow," she said. "One day I have a husband and the next day I don't." WHAT IS A SECURITY CERTIFICATE, AND WHO IS CSIS? Imagine that you have been arrested, held without charge, told you are a threat to Canada's national security, and neither you nor your lawyer is allowed to know why. You face deportation back to your country of birth, where you face possible arrest, detention, torture and execution. This is done in the name of defending "democracy." Imagine as well that the spy agency which puts together the document labelling you a threat is a scandal-ridden group that has, according to a recent expose on CSIS (Covert Entry by Andrew Mitrovica), "routinely broken the law, treating the rights and liberties of Canadians as no more than a nuisance...[it is] riddled by waste, extravagance, laziness, nepotism, incompetence, corruption and law-breaking." There is a culture of impunity at CSIS, whose agents often refer to a Ways and Means Act: "if you have a way to get things done, the means -- legal or not -- are justified." CSIS, RACIAL PROFILING, AND THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY When all civilian flights were rerouted to Canada on September 11, 2001, hundreds of individuals of Middle Eastern and Arabic heritage were seized from those planes and forced into Canadian jails. After spending sometimes weeks behind bars, most were released, but we still have not been told who was jailed, why they were jailed, how many were swept away, and how many are still there. That such an act of mass disappearing can take place in a "democracy" is frightening. That we are not told details of this round-up shows the extent to which a democratic system is not working. The "Security Certificate" But such abuses of democratic process, especially when they relate to people who do not enjoy the privileges of white skin, are logical outcomes of a system which engages in the medieval-style "security certificate" process, begun in 1990 with the help of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS. (CSIS is a Canadian secret police agency, what one journalist calls a Canadian combination of CIA and FBI. It was founded in 1984 after the disbanding of the RCMP Security Service, an organization riddled with massive corruption, criminal scandals, and a long record of civil rights violations. Billed as a "civilian" spy agency, CSIS essentially recruited many of the members of the discredited RCMP Security Service.) On the word of CSIS, individuals can be declared a security threat, arrested and held without bail, denied an opportunity to see evidence against them (or to have their lawyers see that evidence), and deported to a country where they could face prison, torture and execution. There is no judicial check against the formidable power the "security" agencies have in such situations, making the courts an investigative tool of CSIS without any judicial balancing to protect the rights of the individual in question. CSIS: Incompetence, Bias and Abuse The flimsy nature of the information that grounds the security certificate is reflected in criticisms of CSIS made by its oversight committee, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which is traditionally a committee that tries its best not to be too critical of CSIS. Nevertheless: * SIRC's 1999-2000 report raises questions "about some beliefs the Service has about the nature of the threat. We are of the opinion that these beliefs are sometimes overdrawn." * The SIRC report points out one instance, likely illustrative of many more, in which a CSIS application for warrant powers contained "a number of overstatements." * In another case, "information put forward was more than a decade old and the information adduced was derived from one source's 'feelings.' * "One source's speculation was quoted. Some assertions that the target engaged in 'suspicious activities' appeared to us to be misleading or exaggerated." * "For another person targeted, [CSIS] failed to include in the affidavit significant information of which it was aware which contradicts its own position on the person." * In yet another case, a hyperactive CSIS treated as a threat activity that "seemed to be routine diplomatic behaviour," while in another case, "with little corroborating information, CSIS ascribed intelligence gathering motives to apparently normal consular contacts." * SIRC concludes we need the best possible national security advice "unencumbered by unfounded speculation." Finding Someone to Blame CSIS is a Cold War relic which must produce threats to justify its existence. It operates in an alarming vacuum with little or no oversight, yet its often faulty, incompetent, and biased word is used as the basis for the signing of security certificates that can destroy the lives of the victims and their families, and place more nails in the coffin of democracy. Torture and secret detention in Algeria (from Amnesty International's 2002 report) Torture remained widespread. Cases of secret and unacknowledged detention continued to be reported. The government and judicial authorities systematically denied all knowledge of the detainees until after they were brought to court or released. Many of those detained in this manner were subjected to torture or ill-treatment. Dozens of civilians, including children as young as 15, were reported to have been tortured or ill-treated following arrest by members of the security forces in the context of demonstrations during April, May and June in Kabylia. Beatings with fists, batons and rifle butts appear to have been common at the time of arrest and in detention. Some detainees alleged that, while in the custody of the gendarmerie, they were undressed, tied up with wire and threatened with sexual violence; others alleged that they were whipped or slashed with sharp implements. * FayÁal Khoumissi spent some 10 months in secret detention before his family learned that he was being held in El-Harrach Prison in Algiers. He had been arrested in November 2000 in the centre of the district of El-Harrach by four armed men in civilian clothes and travelling in an unmarked car. He was taken to a security force base, where he alleged that he was shot in both legs, given electric shocks to his ears and genitals, beaten with an iron bar on his back and genitals, and forced to swallow large amounts of dirty water through a cloth placed in his mouth. He was then treated in hospital before being presented before the judicial authorities and remanded in custody on charges related to ''terrorism''. His family only found out about his detention when they were contacted in September by a former detainee who had met FayÁal Khoumissi in prison and was subsequently released. |
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WITHOUT DUE
PROCESS HOW CANADIAN SECURITY CERTIFICATES MAKE A MOCKERY OF JUSTICE STUART TREW
Harkat's trial begins in Montreal on Monday, April 28. He is not accused of any crime, but must prove to the Federal Court of Canada that he does not pose a security threat to this country. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Citizenship and Immigration Canada have branded him a member of Osama bin Laden's network - a "sleeper-cell" agent, living an ordinary life until he can be of use to the world's most wanted terrorist - and therefore a danger to Canada. But rather than trying him on terrorism charges, the government wants to deport Harkat back to Algeria. They can do this by employing a rarely used "security certificate," based on secret CSIS intelligence and then signed by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Denis Coderre and Solicitor General Wayne Easter if they feel the intelligence proves the subject is guilty of "being a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in [terrorism]," as stated in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (italics added). The certificate is deplored by lawyers and civil liberties organizations because it denies its subject, Harkat in this case, the right to see any of the evidence against him. All Harkat or his lawyers are aware of is a summary of the charges provided by the Federal Court, which conclude "Harkat is an Islamic extremist; a supporter of Afghani, Pakistani, and Chechen extremists; was and is a member of the Bin Laden Network; and, that Harkat's role in this terrorist network is exemplified by his actions and intentions." How the Service came to their conclusions is left out because, well, they're pretty sure Harkat knows what they're talking about. Bruce Engel, Harkat's lawyer, is not impressed: "He's being threatened to be removed from the country unless he can prove that this certificate is unreasonable, and we're to do so without receiving all the information on which the certificate's based. "It's an unfair procedure because they can technically, summarily remove someone from the country without presenting any information to them and we're left to have to trust the authorities," he said over the phone. Harkat came to Canada in 1995 using a falsified Saudi passport and was granted refugee status in '97 because, he said, his life was in danger if he remained in Algeria. He told CSIS during one of several interrogations that he was once a member of the Groupe Islamique Armée before they became militant in 1992. He applied for permanent residency in March1997 but heard nothing about his application until his arrest. Last month, the judge in Harkat's case ruled that releasing the evidence against him would hurt national security, so Engel's been left to scrape around for just about anything to protect his client. Firstly, Engel hopes to prove to the judge that CSIS has screwed up in the past on cases like Harkat's so its word should be treated with skepticism. He also has a hunch that he knows who has either wrongly fingered Harkat or lied to the authorities. "Our theory is that there are some individuals that may have reported him and he will comment on that," said Engel. Harkat's situation is almost identical to that of Mahmoud Jaballah, an Egyptian refugee claimant with alleged links to bin Laden. He was accused of "crimes against humanity," had a security certificate slapped on him 22 months ago, and has been in solitary confinement in Toronto ever since. Two weeks ago, the federal Immigration and Refugee Board denied Jaballah's refugee claim. But the federal judge, horrified by the harsh confinement, is mulling over a time limit on deportation. "It's almost a circumstance that, in this great city of Toronto, we have the equivalent of Guantanamo Bay," said Judge W. Andrew MacKay. Amnesty International's position on both the Jaballah and Harkat cases is that deporting the men to Egypt and Algeria, respectively, could mean torture. Until 2001, Canada had a policy of not allowing successful refugee claimants from Algeria to be sent back. But in April of that year Coderre said that country is now safe and about 1,000 Algerians living in Canada face deportation. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was in Algeria promoting Canadian exports around the same time the moratorium was lifted. Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty Canada, said because of the hostile environment in Algeria, "the immigration route" of dealing with Harkat should be dropped. Instead, "If they do feel there is evidence to support the allegation that he has in some way, shape or form been involved in supporting terrorist activities, then legal proceedings should be launched in Canada." If Harkat loses his federal case, Engel said he'll tell a deportation hearing about the consequences of being sent back to Algeria. Regardless of the outcome, Engel condemns the entire security certificate process. "I certainly appreciate the need to protect the citizens of our country, and nobody wants to be endangered by terrorism ... but we have rights and freedoms pursuant to our Charter. We're supposed to be living in a democratic society, and if you're accused of something, you ought to be given a full opportunity to properly respond." Sophie Harkat is holding a vigil on Saturday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Human Rights Monument at the corner of Elgin and Lisgar streets in support of her husband.
taken from the Ottawa Xpress, 03/04/24 |
