Enough secrecy! Allow news media to interview Harkat
From: Brian O'Connor, admin@zerra.net
To: Bruce.oneill@jus.gov.on.ca
CC: sophielamarche@hotmail.com, carolyn_dunn@cbc.ca
Subject: Enough secrecy! Allow news media to interview Harkat
Dear Mr. Bruce O'Neill (spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services) and Mr. Monte Kwinter (the minister responsible),
As a citizen of Ontario I ask that Minister Monte Kwinter reconsider his decision to bar CBC News from interviewing Mohamed Harkat.
If you are at all familiar with Mr. Harkat's case you know that secrecy and non-disclosure of evidence has been its defining features. The Canadian justice system is not meant to operate in secrecy. Your refusal to allow media into the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Detention Centre only compounds this malignancy on our justice system.
Your decision does not serve security. It serves only to hide the facts and protect those in positions of power who care only about appearing "tough on terrorists". But doesn't the Canadian public have a right to know whether Harkat is in fact a terrorist? These and other questions are important. And the CBC (and their lawyers) will no doubt tell you that such issues are also newsworthy and deserve to be heard.
Stephen Truscott, Guy Paul Morin, Gregory Parsons, David Milgaard, Donald Marshall, James Driskell. These were wrongfully convicted Canadians whose convictions were overturned in no small part as a result of media scrutiny involving access to prison interviews with the convicts.
Mr. Harkat has not been CHARGED with a crime much less CONVICTED! And he has not been convicted of any crime anywhere in the world. Why do you refuse him the same access to the news media as these "convicted" murderers and rapists?
Your decision is unreasonable and in the spirit of fairness I urge you to reconsider it.
Respectfully,
Brian O'Connor
North Bay, Ontario
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