Original author: Jeff Sallot
Source: The Globe and Mail online
URL: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: October 2, 2004




With the Arar inquiry in full swing, jailed grad student, pizza maker and accused Muslim extremist Adil Charkaoui breaks his long silence. The top-secret evidence against him doesn't matter, he tells Jeff Sallot. His problems started when he refused to spy for CSIS

MONTREAL -- The kid wouldn't stop shooting off his mouth, but the guards knew what to do. "They put him in a cell with me for a while . . . to teach him a lesson," Adil Charkaoui says with one of the few laughs he allows himself while describing life behind the razor wire at Rivieres-des-Prairies Detention Centre.

Although solidly built, the 31-year-old grad student doesn't look especially menacing for someone who has a black belt in karate and has kept himself in top shape during his 16 months in the maximum-security prison in Montreal's east end. Then again, he's supposed to be a "dangerous Muslim terrorist," and was kneeling in prayer to Allah when his new cellmate, an Ethiopian Jew, was shoved in.

For an hour, the once-cocky youth trembled in fear, but the alleged national security threat and al-Qaeda sleeper agent barely glanced up at him. Neither the guards nor their victim realized that Mr. Charkaoui has a Jewish grandmother, or that he taught French in a Jewish high school in Montreal, or that he says he has always denounced anti-Semitism.


[ Read the rest ... ]

Original author: Matthew Behrens of The Campaign to Stop Secret
Trials In Canada
Source: TASC Email List
Date: October 4, 2004


When Gandhi Met Hindy:
A Toronto Imam and his Community Take a Page from the Mahatma in pressing for Human Rights in Canada

TORONTO, OCTOBER 3, 2004 -- On the day after the 135th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, a group of 100 Toronto-area Muslims took a page out of the nonviolent apostle's book with a videotaping trip to the CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing structure.

At first glance, such an event should hardly be newsworthy. But because we live in an age where Islam is daily demonized and Muslims are designated a suspect class who are jailed in Canada on secret evidence without charge or bail, this gathering comes with a fair bit of tension.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Original author: noii-montreal at resist dot ca
Source: forwarded to the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui listserv
Date: October 1, 2004



Subject: Bring Mohamed Home! (Update, September 28, 2004)
From: "No One is Illegal Montreal" , noii-montreal at resist dot ca
Date: September 29, 2004

Mohamed Cherfi endured another hearing before an American immigration tribunal this past Monday, September 27, 2004. It was a long and stressful day that ended with yet another long and stressful wait. The judge will not give his decision until October 22. It's a ridiculous and unacceptable delay, which means Mohamed will continue to be detained. He has been in detention in the United States since March 5, 2004, after his sanctuary was violated inside the Saint Pierre Church in Quebec City, and he was immediately deported.

You will find below the press release prepared by the Mohamed Cherfi Solidarity Committee for a press conference that took place on September 28 in Montreal. We will get back in touch in a few days with more news and actions that will be undertaken in support of Mohamed.

For background, we have also included:

1) Mohamed Cherfi's statement on taking sanctuary (February 18, 2004);
2) Text of flyer used in the Montreal-area in suppport of Mohamed Cherfi after his deportation (March 7, 2004).

For more information:

The Mohamed Cherfi Solidarity Committee
Tel: 418-262-0144
E-mail: -email-
Web site: [link]

The No One Is Illegal Campaign of Montreal
Tel: 514-859-9023
E-mail: noii-montreal at resist dot ca


[ Read the rest ... ]

Original author: Kirk Makin
Source: The Globe and Mail online
URL: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: September 18, 2004


A former Canadian Security Intelligence Services agent's detailed notes about his experiences at the spy agency were stolen soon after he went public about his employer's shortcomings in 2000, the ex-agent testified yesterday. Testifying at the deportation hearing of Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel in Toronto, former agent John Farrell said that both his computer and a collection of hard-copy notes disappeared. He said the loss has left him unable to answer many of the questions posed by Mr. Zundel's lawyers.

The material disappeared from a friend's home where he had left it for safekeeping, Mr. Farrell said. At the time, Mr. Farrell testified, he was working with former Globe and Mail reporter Andrew Mitrovica to write articles about CSIS not having paid him $72,000 in overtime pay, as well as about dubious practices at the agency. Mr. Farrell eventually collaborated with Mr. Mitrovica on a book -- Covert Entry -- which details alleged underhandedness, incompetence and illegal activity by CSIS.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Original author: Colin Freeze
Source: The Globe and Mail online
URL: [link]
Date: September 16, 2004

Harkat requests 'friend of court' to dispute secret evidence against him

A terrorism suspect is asking that he be allowed a court-appointed representative who can get behind closed doors and dispute the secret evidence being levied against him.

Mohamed Harkat, an Algerian refugee claimant, is asking for an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, so that he can stave off attempts to deport him.

He is one of five immigrants currently being detained as a potential al-Qaeda sleeper agent. Ottawa is moving to deport them, and Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, by using a rarely used and highly controversial process.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Original author: Colin Freeze
Source: The Globe and Mail online
URL: [link]
Date: September 14, 2004

But watchdog criticizes spy agency for how it shared intelligence with RCMP

Canada's spy-service watchdog has cleared this country's intelligence agents of direct involvement in the 2002 U.S. decision to deport Maher Arar to Syria as a suspected terrorist.

But in a heavily censored report, the watchdog also criticizes CSIS for not being careful enough about how it passes intelligence on to the Mounties, especially ones chatting with U.S. law-enforcement agencies.

The findings add further flesh to a skeleton laid out by a public commission during the summer, which explored whether the RCMP could have leaked sensitive intelligence information about Mr. Arar to the United States. When the Ottawa software developer returned to Canada last year, he said Canadian agencies were complicit in the torture he suffered during a 10-month captivity in his native country.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Source: TASC email list
Date: September 8, 2004


Here is another great courtroom report by Matthew Behrens of The Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada. Click the file name below:

Behrens_on_Mahjoub_Sept2004.php

It details the events of the past two days in Toronto federal court, where Justice Eleanor Dawson gave temporary reprieve to Mohammad Mahjoub so that he wouldn't be deported to Egypt. (CIC) had already chartered a jet to whisk him away immediately had Dawson decided differently.)

Sadly, Mahjoub seems to be experiencing Canadian-style torture at Metro West. Justice Dawson had no problem sending Mahjoub back to that prison described by Mohammad as four years of "living hell."

Original author: CP (CANADIAN PRESS)
Source: The Toronto Star online
URL: [link]
Date: September 8, 2004

A Federal Court judge granted a temporary reprieve today to an Egyptian refugee who's spent the last four years in a Canadian jail because of a suspected link to terrorist financier Osama bin Laden. Judge Eleanor Dawson stayed a deportation order against Mohammad Zeki Mahjoub, 44, who has been in jail in Toronto since June 2000, when he was accused of being involved with a militant organization that wants to overthrow the Egyptian government.

In granting the stay, which temporarily keeps Mahjoub in Canada, Dawson said she was convinced Mahjoub faced serious danger if returned to his native Egypt, where his lawyers feared he would be tortured.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Original author: Canadian Press
Source: The Globe and Mail online
URL: [link]
Date: September 7, 2004


Toronto - An Egyptian refugee suspected of being a terrorist with links to Osama bin Laden said Tuesday that his human rights have been violated repeatedly by jail guards during the four years he has been behind bars in Canada.

Mohammad Mahjoub told a Federal Court bail hearing that his time at the Toronto West Detention Centre has been spent in constant fear, especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Original author: Michelle Shephard
Source: The Toronto Star online
URL: [link]
Date: September 4, 2004

Terrorism suspect must go: Ottawa
Fear of torture no defence, court told
Deportation looms for Egyptian man

The federal government has concluded that the risk an Egyptian refugee poses to Canada outweighs the concern that he will likely be tortured if deported to his birth country.

As a high-ranking member of a suspected Egyptian terrorist group, Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub poses a "substantial danger to the security of Canada," the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration wrote in a decision filed with the federal court yesterday.

[ Read the rest ... ]