Homes not Bombs
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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

(This e-mail contains one suggestion for immediate action, background on this case, background on the security certificate and CSIS)

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 federal ministers responsible 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:

Paul Martin
Prime Minister of Canada

Judy Sgro
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Anne McLellan
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (the Solicitor General's portfolio has been consolidated into this new one)

Full contact info below:

Prime-Minister of Canada
Paul Martin
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A2
(no postage required)

Fax: 613-941-6900
Email: pm@pm.gc.ca

===========================

The Honourable Judy Sgro
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Rm 239, Confederation Bldg
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6
(no postage required)

Tel: 613-992-7774
Fax: 613-947-8319
Email: sgroj@parl.gc.ca

=========================

The Honourable Anne McLellan
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister
of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
306 Justice Building
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6
(no postage required)

Tel: (613) 992-4524
Fax: (613) 943-0044
Email: McLellan.A@parl.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. * Fayçal 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 Fayçal Khoumissi in prison and was subsequently released.

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Homes not Bombs has been working on a number of security certificate cases, organizing public education, jail vigils, long-distance walks, and personal support for families whose loved ones have been targetted by a hyperactive CSIS. After a Hamilton-Scarborough week-long walk in July, vigils were held in five cities on August 14 calling for an end to this draconian, medieval process.