In 2006, Harper introduced a change: an all-party committee empowered to hold a parliamentary screening process during which a candidate – in 2006 it was Marshall Rothstein of Manitoba – could be questioned on his or her rulings and political affiliations.

Rothstein’s was a three-hour pro-forma appearance. The process was as far from the United States’ no-holds-barred confirmation hearings as you could get – by design. Most Canadians recoil from the often-messy American system, which has thrown up such disappointments as Clarence Thomas, who famously did not utter a word from the bench for more than five years.

In 2008, when Harper made his second appointment, Nova Scotian Thomas Cromwell, the prime minister dismissed the idea of hearings before a parliamentary committee as too time-consuming and partisan an exercise. We were back to a name and a province.

Canadians deserve to know more than that about the men and women with the power to make landmark decisions on issues such as aboriginal rights, abortion, the rights of the accused, the right to freedom of expression, matrimonial property and domestic violence.

We need to know what qualities are sought; what kind of experience, knowledge and empathy is required; how the perennial question of bilingualism on the top bench will be dealt with; whether our top jurists have what it takes to withstand partisan pressure.

We should have at least a few hours to get to know the men and women who sit on the country’s highest tribunal.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

She hopes the NDP, in its role as the Official Opposition, will make an issue of security certificates, which have been used against foreign-born terror suspects.

Mohamed Harkat said he hopes his case reaches the Supreme Court of Canada so that he can challenge the current law, which was revised in 2008 after its predecessor was deemed unconstitutional by the high court.

“That’s the only chance left for me,” said the Algerian-born Harkat, 42, who came to Canada in 1995 and claimed refugee status.

Harkat said he has had trouble sleeping and concentrating during the past five months. He sees a doctor every two weeks.

In December, Federal Court Justice Simon Noël branded Harkat a member of the Osama bin Laden terrorist network and a threat to national security.

Noël concluded that Harkat had once operated a Pakistani guest house for Saudi-born terrorist Ibn Khattab; that he had maintained contact with members of the bin Laden network while in Canada; and that he had assisted two Islamic extremists travelling to this country.

Harkat now faces deportation to his native Algeria where he contends he will be tortured or killed.

The federal immigration department is now conducting a “danger assessment” to determine if Harkat can be safely returned. That assessment must consider whether Harkat faces a significant risk of torture in Algeria and whether that possibility is outweighed by the danger he poses to Canada.

Harkat was the first terror suspect to have his security certificate upheld by the court since the revised law was passed.

Two other men, Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei, had their security certificates quashed.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Mohamed Harkat was arrested and thrown in jail on Dec. 10th, 2002. He is the only inmate to ever be detained for 43 long months at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre without ever knowing why or without ever being charged. That day will be engraved in my mind for the rest of my life.

My mom says she’ll always remember the sound and fear in my voice when I called her on her cell phone after Moe was arrested. I was hysterical; terrorism was such a taboo subject after 9/11, and still is. Who on earth wants to be associated with the word terrorism or allegations related to terrorism?

What I was really after was for the truth to come out. I was never afraid of the truth. I had one look into Moe’s eyes on our first visit in jail, I knew then I had to fight. But between you and me, I knew even before looking into his eyes that he had nothing to do with those absurd allegations. Mohamed has always denied all the allegations.

For three-and-a-half years, I visited my husband in an icy cold or burning hot room behind a dirty thick glass window, with rotten food on the floor or big bugs on the walls, while talking through a broken recorded telephone, surrounded by guards who watched us from every angle for every minute of the visit. And let’s not forget the bad treatment and killer looks before even going in. We were only entitled to two visits per week for 20 minutes, and that’s only if we were lucky to get a ”good” guard who would bring him in on time and then start the phone.

We stared and mimed through glass many times without having a working phone. After waiting for hours to see him, he would be brought (the first year) with shackles around his ankles to his waist and to his wrists. His orange suit was so bright he could probably be seen from space. It seems like he was treated worse than the biggest criminal in this country.

They put him in solitary confinement for the first year, and only took him out for one or two showers per week if he was lucky. He did not have access to fresh air or outdoors for the first six months and was kept in isolation from all the other inmates, without anything to read or to do.

I did not sleep for years. I was always worried for his safety and waiting by the phone for his collect call that often never came. He was the one inmate everyone in prison knew and talked about, but that no one had seen. Everyone there saw him in the newspapers and on TV but he did not. He was kept away from the general population.

We got nothing! The men were basically ”kidnapped” from their sections one day only to be transferred in total secrecy. An inmate from OCDC called me collect to say Moe had never returned to his section – this is how I found out about it. The fear was within me once more.

After three-and-a-half frustrating years in detention, Moe was finally released on bail — but the government appealed his bail, of course! I had him back but both he and I became full-time prisoners in our home for the following four years.

I was a jail guard to my own husband and pretty much cut from the outside world. Moe was released under the toughest bail conditions in Canadian history. He could never be left alone in the house or in our yard. We were together every minute of every day, unless another court-appointed surety could ”release” me of my duties for a few minutes or hours.

There were surveillance cameras in our home, our phone was tapped and every conversation was open for CSIS and CBSA to listen to, all our mail was intercepted. We only had three outings per week of four hours each, Moe to this day still wears a GPS electronic tag around his ankle at all times, my computer room is under lock and key, and no cell phones or similar communications devices are allowed in our home.

While out on pre-approved outings, we were followed by between two and six CBSA officers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying guns. Every location and person we were in contact with had to be pre-approved at least 48 hours in advance. This included our newborn nephew and my 80-year-old grandmother.

Many friends and outings were denied, including his own 40th birthday party and our wedding anniversary outing. I took Moe with me when I went to pre-approved pap tests, into changing rooms, and we were forced to use shared family washrooms in public buildings since he could never be left alone.

That was our life for almost four years until, suddenly, the government ordered almost all restrictions lifted in Sept. 2009. Apparently, Moe was no longer a threat. For four years, we were humiliated, degraded and dehumanized in every way possible. Needless to say, when the conditions changed, it was about time, because I was very close to exploding! Many conditions still remain, including the GPS tag and ban on use of a computer and cell phone, but life is different. That’s the price of freedom in Canada!

Life has been a real soap opera for us the past eight years. Many would not believe some of my many stories. Some could not care less. But I always ask them “if you were in my husband’s shoes and you were detained without charge or access to the evidence… would you accept the process???”

No honest Canadian has ever agreed to that. Why should refugees or immigrants be treated differently?

In Sept. 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously found the Security Certificate process unconstitutional. One for us, zero for CSIS! They had one year to draft a new law that ended up being just as bad the second time around.

The main difference was a cosmetic changed created by adding the position of special advocates who can see some secret evidence, but can never talk with public counsels unless permitted by the court or the accused.

Same old thing, nothing new. The new process is very frustrating and remains as secretive. When the second security certificate was re-issued to Moe in Feb. 2008, the cover letter was addressed to Hassan Almrei.

Mistake number one! Wrong guy? Wrong allegations? Imagine what goes on in the back. Imagine what kind of evidence is presented in secret?

For the record, we know the special advocates do not have access to all material, only what CSIS chooses to release. They also don’t have access for cross-examination of some human sources and informants, only their files. You call that fair? Not only did we lose the reasonableness in Dec. 2010, but also on legal arguments on the constitutionality and abuse of process. Both applications for stay of proceedings were denied. Zero for us, one for CSIS!!!

Before we end this article, let’s talk about the abuse of process done by the hands of CSIS.

They use evidence that comes or derives from torture, their main informant failed a lie detector test, and CSIS failed to tell the court, they listened to solicitor/clients calls for months until they were caught, they destroyed every piece of original material in our case (notes, tapes, intercepts, interviews… everything).

If it were a criminal case, it would not stand a chance.

They raided our home in May 2008, two week before our hearing, in order to find so-called evidence. They sent 16 CBSA officers, three sniffer dogs (normally used for locating currency, drugs and explosives), two OPP and two RCMP officers to guide the dogs. The search lasted over six hours and they took out over 20 boxes of material including my computer, which is in a locked basement and contained all my communications with public counsels.

They searched every inch of our house for evidence, when they already knew or approved everything we ever did (GPS, surveillance cameras, tapped phone, intercepted mail and followed during outings), our house was probably safer than Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s residence.

If that’s not abuse… what is??? If you are still doubtful, may I remind you that the evidence is kept secret for national security reasons and on numerous counts, CSIS was found guilty of deporting people to torture based on baseless evidence.

Will we learn from the past? What is my husband to do? If he does not testify, he will be considered to be the one hiding something. When he does testify, he is called a liar, a terrorist. It’s his word versus the secret evidence, secret files. Goliath versus the whale. His word against a machine, a secret informant, our own Canadian government and CSIS. It’s a loss, loss situation.

What happens next for us? The appeal process is just as unfair and biased as the hearing itself since the very same judge who found the certificate ”reasonable” has to certify a question to allow for an appeal to his decision.

We hope to appeal all the way back to the Supreme Court of Canada so that the whole process is found unconstitutional once again. How many more years of this nightmare? Our plans for the future (kids, work, and a home) have been put on hold again — for how long? An entire family is devastated.

In the meantime, Moe and I live with a huge cloud over our heads every day that reminds us of the possibility of deportation to face imprisonment, torture or death. Canada wants to return him, if they do, they will have his blood on their hands.

On January 21st, 2011 Moe was issued his deportation papers. The letter said he was inadmissible to stay in Canada because he was a threat to the safety of Canadians and for National security reasons. Proceedings are in place. Another big blow. Moe, who has been devastated since December, is having difficulty sleeping, eating and doing day-to-day things without having to worry constantly. He has been seeing a professional for years. He’s in the dark, just like the secret evidence. The battle ahead of us is long and painful. We are grateful to the many supporters who came out on a cold winter day to the building of CBSA to protest their anger and disapproval. Canadian Border Services Agency was so scared of a couple of ragging grannies and tons of media, that they had locked themselves up in their offices and closed all the blinds!

How long will this last, how long will my family be submitted to psychological torture, imprisonment. My country has failed me. I’m ashamed at how my husband and the other men are being treated by the Canadian government.

We continue to fight because of your support. You give us the strength and motivation to go on. We thank our supporters for their love, friendship, dedication and unconditional support.

If you believe in due process, please sign our new statement at

www.harkatstatement.com

Contact your MP and demand that these men get a fair and open trial so the evidence is made public for all Canadians to see and for the truth to finally come out. We are not afraid of the truth.

Pity and Fear will not get us anywhere. Don’t say silent in the face of injustice. One day it could be you.

Take a stand.

We CAN make a difference!

May justice prevail!

See also: Justice for Mohamed Harkat

Copyright © 2012 Peace Alliance Winnipeg News. All Rights Reserved.

Et les choses ne font qu'empirer dans un document distinct, version expurgée d'une annexe anciennement « top secret » de ce jugement.

Aucun devoir de franchise et de bonne foi

Ce qui est révélé dans cette annexe est vraiment troublant, car est discutée une motion présentée par les avocats spéciaux (des avocats qui ont la plus haute cote de sécurité) qui ont fait valoir que les ministres du gouvernement qui ont déposé le certificat de sécurité « avaient manqué à leur devoir de franchise et bonne foi absolue, car ils n'ont pas fait leurs meilleurs efforts pour recueillir l'information pour la Cour afin que celle-ci puisse arriver à une décision éclairée ». (Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas le terme, « franchise » signifie « la qualité d'être ouvert et honnête ; franchise, l'équité ; impartialité »)

Que les avocats spéciaux aient déposé une telle motion n'a rien de surprenant. Le SCRS, l'agence d'espionnage derrière les certificats, a une longue histoire de ne pas fournir toutes les informations dans son dossier dans les chambres secrètes où les audiences secrètes se tiennent. Cela comprend retenir des informations qui seraient favorables à la personne visée, comme ne pas dire aux juges que leurs informateurs ont échoué leur test au détecteur de mensonges et utiliser des informations obtenues sous la torture.

En effet, dans un jugement précédent en 2010 dans l'affaire Harkat, le juge Noël a écrit que de tels comportements et « l'incapacité du SCRS, et de ses témoins, d'agir en conformité avec l'obligation de bonne foi absolue ont porté atteinte à l'intégrité de la procédure de cette Cour .... La preuve d'une omission de divulguer des preuves pertinentes qui peuvent affecter négativement la décision de la Cour quant à la fiabilité d'une source humaine a été faite devant la Cour.... de l'information déposée par les ministres pour soutenir le certificat a été ‘filtrée' et que les promesses faites à la Cour n'ont pas été remplies. »

Pendant que sont en jeu la vie et la liberté d'une personne, le gouvernement a essayé d'en passer une petite vite et il s'est fait prendre. Le plus remarquable est que le juge Noël lui a permis de s'essayer encore et que la deuxième fois il l'a cru, même s'il n'avait aucun moyen de savoir si le SCRS et les ministres disaient vraiment la vérité cette fois-là. Pourtant, comme nous l'avons appris dans un jugement de la Cour fédérale de décembre dernier dans une autre affaire de certificat de sécurité, le SCRS, qui avait reçu l'ordre de cesser d'écouter les communications entre l'avocat et son client dans cette affaire, a continué de le faire pendant deux ans au mépris manifeste de l'ordre de la cour. Par quelle magie le juge Noël a-t-il pu en arriver à la conclusion que le SCRS et ses laquais n'étaient pas en train de lui en passer une autre et ne continuaient pas d'agir de manière illégale et malhonnête ?

Il y a quelques années, la Cour suprême du Canada a statué que le devoir de franchise et de bonne foi absolue était particulièrement important lors des audiences secrètes (notez le contresens), parce que la personne qui n'était pas dans la salle ne pouvait pas se défendre elle-même. Mais selon l'annexe rendue publique dans l'affaire Harkat, en réponse à la motion de l'avocat spécial disant que cette bonne foi faisait manifestement défaut, « les ministres ont répondu que le devoir bonne foi absolue ne s'applique pas à la procédure des certificats de sécurité ».

Un aller simple vers la torture

Noël dit que tout cela importe peu puisque, à son avis, les ministres lui ont fourni suffisamment d'information pour condamner Mohamed Harkat in absentia. Par conséquent, il écrit qu'il ne souhaite pas « se prononcer quant à la portée du devoir de bonne foi » lors des audiences secrètes, une déclaration qui laisse supposer qu'il y a une marge de manoeuvre pour justifier, par exemple, 50 %, voire 30 % de bonne foi au lieu des 100 % à laquelle on est en droit de s'attendre. Son approche particulièrement sévère envers Mohamed Harkat, surtout après les malversations du gouvernement, en dit long, encore une fois, sur l'injustice inhérente et le danger des audiences secrètes : le manque de transparence fait qu'il nous est impossible de savoir exactement ce qui s'est passé et, en conséquence, Mohamed Harkat se voit remettre un billet aller simple vers la torture à moins que les gens à travers le continent n'interviennent et ne manifestent leur opposition.

Cette intervention, pour commencer, serait d'ajouter votre nom à la liste de ceux qui condamnent les procès secrets au Canada à : www.harkatstatement.com où vous pouvez signer la déclaration en ligne contre les procès secrets au Canada.

Campagne pour arrêter les procès secrets au Canada, PO Box 2020, 57 rue Foster, Perth, ON K7H 1R0
Note

1. Homesnotbombs.blogspot.com/2010/12/harkat-condemed-by-secret-allegations.html

(Traduction : LML)

X-Ray talked to Mohamed Harkat about his case, what it means for democracy in Canada, and what average Canadians can do to stop the use of secret trials and security certificates.

What do you think is the main motivation for the government to use secret trials and security certificates?

“They do that because they don’t have a case against the accused. They don’t have solid evidence. Like with me, just allegation, and they don’t want to bring the informant to testify. They don’t have credible information from overseas, from places were there is torture of people to gather information. That’s why they use the security certificate. Basically they use the lowest standard to put in front of the judge to decide. The judge has to weigh the evidence from the government side and use that to deport people like me to torture.”

What does this mean for “democracy” in Canada?

“A trial like that is normally used in places controlled by the military, like Algeria, Egypt, places like that. With democracy, basically, you have the whole truth in front of you and people judge you. And there’s nothing to hide in democracy. Truth is truth.”

How does it feel to be tried in secret, without knowing exactly what the evidence is against you?

“Frustrated. When you know Canada is a democratic country and you find yourself fighting. When I came to Canada the first time I got protected and I had a beautiful life and I’m going to build my future in this country. And now I find the judge behind the doors with the special advocate or government to decide in my fate and my family’s future and I don’t have a full picture to defend myself. Basically they tie your hands behind your back and put you in the ring to fight. You don’t have the whole case to defend yourself. It’s a lose-lose situation.”

Most Canadians are not aware of the situation in Algeria. What do you fear most about being deported back to that country?

“Algeria is still a military state, a police state. The government of Algeria and the media doesn’t want to expose themselves to the West. All they show of the government is that it’s a democratic country but it’s not. That’s why all the protests are going on around the world. Algeria is part of that. We have people in prison. We have people disappeared since 1992. And we had the army before that, with people tortured and disappeared, kidnapped and killed without trial.

And they want to send me back with this allegation against me? The government of Canada is accusing me of being a part of a terror network, and the United States is going all around the world to arrest people. I’m going to get disappeared, killed or jailed. Nobody knows what’s going to happen to me if I’m sent back to Algeria. That’s why I’m fearing for my life. I’m worried all the time. Basically I’m living day by day these days. It’s a nightmare for me.”

If you were given a chance to address Canadians at large, about your experience of secret trials and security certificates, what would you say?

“I would like to say that if Canadian people really want to protect their democracy and open trials they should not let these kinds of injustice go on. Today it’s me. The government says they’re deporting a national security threat. But the reality is it’s not a fair trial for me. Today it’s me. Another day it’s somebody else. You never know the case against you and you’re labeled for life and sent to a place for torture.

I would like to say for people: don’t let this injustice go on. I still have lots of supporters and I have faith ultimately that they won’t deport me to a place where I’m going to be tortured or killed. If I have evidence against me just try me in an open trial and let me defend myself. Give me the whole evidence and let me question the informant, or let me question the evidence or where they collected it from and the reliability of the evidence or allegation against me.

I have lots of supporters and people calling for justice from coast to coast, people who are unhappy with this kind of trial in Canada. And people are connected to each other. The case goes from one person to another and they support me. I go sometimes to the mall and people come up to me, I’ve never seen them before, and all they want is justice, all they want is a fair and open trial. That’s why I have faith in Canadians. Any place I go people come to me and that’s what I get. I never, ever get negative comments. That’s what keeps me going forward.” (X)

--

What next? Sign the Statement Against Security Certificates:

We, the undersigned, have grave concerns regarding the continued use of sections 9, 76-87 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which allow for the imprisonment in Canada of refugees and permanent residents under the authority of a “Security Certificate”... Sign the statement here, and read more about Mohamed Harkat's case.

Source: XRay Magazine

“The security certificate is really the showcase of everything oppressive, everything ideologically coercive about CSIS and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration,” said Hameed. “In some instances, that individual is not even a legitimate target of concern.”

Hameed said the use of security certificates against the Muslim and Arab community post-9/11 was largely based on “guilt by association,” which includes CSIS’ ideological targeting of people with religious ties, community leaders, people active in their Mosque and charitable organizations.

“These communities are targeted for their marginality because they live on the cusp, in situations of precariousness,” he said. “This is something that CSIS knows and that the Canadian Border Service is aware of.”

Nicholas, who was involved in the 1990 Oka crisis, experienced first-hand the way CSIS targets vulnerable communities. He said he was interrogated and blackmailed, received threatening phone calls, and claims there have been many police operatives in his community.

“Immediately after 1990, we had a lot of people coming into the community as infiltrators, disguising themselves as non-native supporters, trying very hard to get into the community,” he said. “I remember one individual who we had caught. We ransacked his vehicle and found RCMP accreditation and different passes, recording devices, phone numbers and a whole slew of pictures. This was a recurring thing.”

These “dirty tricks,” says Kingsman, who spoke about the historical foundation of CSIS, are at the core of the Service’s tactics. CSIS emerged in the mid-eighties after the RCMP’s secret surveillance and infiltration tactics—which included planting bombs, stealing subscription lists and burning down buildings—came under extreme public scrutiny. When the RCMP’s intelligence service started losing its legitimacy in the 1970s, CSIS was created to replace it.

According to Kingsman, most of the initial employees of CSIS were, in fact, former members of the RCMP who continued to target the same groups of “subversives,” including lesbians and gay men, unions, women’s activists and solidarity movements with struggling people in the developing world.

“The ideological practice of national security is based on identifying certain groups of people as being national security risks or enemies of the state and thereby expelling them from the fabric of the nation,” he said. “Once people are successfully identified as a national security risk, they lose all of their democratic and human rights and are basically cut out of the fabric of the nation state.

“Basically what the notion of subversion does is criminalizes and mandates surveillance against completely legal activity, which the state believes might, down the road, lead to illegal activity,” said Kingsman.

Sauvé attested to this, stating that she wasn’t the only one targeted by CSIS around anti-Olympics and G20 organizing, but her friends, family and colleagues were targeted as well. She argued for a response of absolute non-cooperation with CSIS officials.

Historically, there has been important mobilization contesting the legitimacy of the existence of CSIS based on concerns of democratic accountability. In 1996, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers was successful in getting the Canadian Labour Congress to adopt a resolution calling for the abolition of CSIS. Kingman said Canadians need to return to these types of measures.

“I think we have to realize that we absolutely have to abolish CSIS now,” said Kingsman. “We can see that national security and CSIS systematically deny people democratic and human rights. They have become and they have always been a threat to our security, a threat to people’s security.”

- Meagan Wohlberg

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rewriting Canadian Identity

Addressing Canada’s history of human rights violations, panelists spoke to Concordia students at the Hall Building Friday for “Whose Security? Our Security!” a three day conference on the relationship between national security and civil liberties.

Friday’s speakers discussed the discrimination of racial minorities within Canada, and what they refered to as the Harper government’s attempts to exclude these minorities from main-stream society and from treatment allotted to regular citizens.

“[Neo-conservatives] are rewriting the core script of what it is to be Canadian,” said Ian Mackay, professor of Canadian history at Queen’s University, and one of the panel’s speakers. “Canada used to have free speech and right of assembly.”

Mackay continued his brief lecture in saying that the parliamentary democracy has been reduced to a pale shadow of what it once was. He referred to the G-20 summer, meek media responses to systematic intolerance of visible minorities, and named Omar Khadr as an example of discrimination when describing “the scope of the ominous campaign of the right-wing takeover.”

“This country was once known romantically and idealistically, perhaps even unrealistically, as the peaceable kingdom; it will henceforth be called a warrior nation,” he said.

Ellen Gabriel, president of the Native Women’s Associations of Canada, was another one of the panellists on Friday.

Gabriel touched briefly on the fight against residential schools and named the Oka Crisis as a historical rallying point by which Native Americans were to model resistance against the government.

“We have been demonized by the church, demonized by the state; we have been demonized by the media. We have had our human rights violated, and that is state terrorism,” she said.

Gabriel named the “fear and greed” of our society, and specifically our need for energy security, as the ultimate catalysts in the perceived downfall of our country.

“When you can no longer feed yourself because you have destroyed the earth so much, only then will you realize that you can’t eat money,” she said.

Mona Oikawa, Associate Professor in the Race, Ethnicity and Indigeneity Program at York University, was another of the speakers.

She discussed the mistreatment and internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII, as well as the dispossession of their lands and the incentives provided by the Canadian government for deportation. “The treatment of the three groups was based on a relational racial hierarchy,” she said.

“The internment of Japanese Canadians was a security regime that relied upon the prior idea of Orientals as racially inferior to Europeans,” she continued, pointing to the fact that neither Italian nor German Canadians were sent to work camps in Canada during WWII.

All four speakers opined that with many of the national security policies adopted by the Harper Government, Canada is drifting further and further away from its reputation as a peaceful nation.

- Jasmine Papillon-Smith

This article originally appeared in The Link volume 31, Issue 22, published February 8, 2011.

All content © 2011 The Link Publication Society Inc.

Matthew Behrens, a community organizer with the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, deemed the amount of money the Canadian government spends on immigration security as unnecessary.

A recent federal study reports that a sum of $45 million dollars was spent to detain immigrants and refugees from 2008 to 2009.

Behrens noted the decreasing number of persons administered security certificates in recent years to encourage more support for his and the other campaigns.

“[The Canadian Security Intelligence Service] has been restrained from using one of its most draconian [measures],” he said.

But Mostafa Henaway, of the Immigrant Workers’ Centre, pointed out that CSIS still has the power to deport immigrants it deems as risks to national security.

“How long [immigrants] are here for or allowed to stay rests in the hands of CSIS,” he said.

Ottawa resident Mohamed Harkat is currently living under house arrest after being subject to a federal court decision to issue him a second security certificate in December of last year.

Like Almrei, he also spent part of his detention in solitary confinement. Harkat was denied travel to Montreal for the event held by the People’s Commission, but his wife Sophie Lamarche-Harkat was present.
She has been acting as a human rights campaigner since her husband was arrested in 2002.

“We will have to fight this battle, which will be long and painful,” she said, noting that her husband received his deportation papers in January.

This article originally appeared in The Link volume 31, Issue 22, published February 8, 2011.

All content © 2011 The Link Publication Society Inc.