Liberals unveil security plan

posted on April 09, 2005 | in Category Bill C-36 | PermaLink

Original author: Tonda MacCharle
Source: The Toronto Star
URL: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: April 5, 2005

OTTAWA - The Liberal government is moving to establish a new National Security Committee of parliamentarians that would give MPs unprecedented access to secret information collected by Canada's intelligence agencies and a role in reviewing their operations.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan tabled the proposal yesterday, not long after being officially sworn in as minister of public safety and emergency preparedness after the bill to create her department finally became law.

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[TASC] Secret Trial Detainees Demand Contact Visits with Families

posted on April 06, 2005 | in Category Security Certificates | PermaLink

Original author: "TASC", tasc at web dot ca Source: TASC Email List Date: April 6, 2005 (please forward far and wide) Human Contact is a Human Right: Demand Monthly Contact Visits for Canada's Secret Trial Detainees:

Mohammad Mahjoub has been able to hug his 2 young children only once in 5 years. Mahmoud Jaballah has six children he is not allowed to kiss or hug. Write or call Ontario's Minister of Community Safety & Correctional Services, Monte Kwinter (see address below), and tell him "Let the children and wives of Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohammad Mahjoub hug their dads and husbands." WHAT'S GOING ON?

Imagine being locked up for years without charge or bail, held on secret evidence, unable to touch, hug or kiss your loved ones. The effect on you is devastating; the effect on your husband or wife and, especially, your young children, is beyond description. Add to this the daily existence of solitary confinement and the threat of deportation to torture, and you have the makings of real, sustained, psychological and emotional torture, both for the detainees and their families. FEDERAL DETAINEES IN PROVINCIAL DETENTION CENTRES

This is the reality for Canada's secret trial detainees and their families. Although the men are federal detainees, they are held in provincial institutions not designed for long-term incarceration.

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'Kafkaesque' Trials Decried

posted on April 06, 2005 | in Category Security Certificates | PermaLink

Original author: Colin Freeze and Rebecca Caldwell Source: The Globe and Mail URL: [link] Date: April 2, 2005 Pinsent, MacDonald among those raising money for families of alleged terrorists

On Monday night, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Gordon Pinsent and others will take to a downtown Toronto venue and read selections from Franz Kafka's The Trial to raise money for the families of five alleged terrorists. By doing so, these crusaders of Canadian culture will draw a direct parallel between the process used to deport the accused men and the 1925 book chronicling the ordeals of the guiltless Josef K., who in The Trial is arrested, interrogated and finally executed for an alleged crime that is never revealed to him. The Trial helped establish "Kafkaesque" as a synonym for impenetrably oppressive and nightmarish -- and critics have applied the term many times in relation to Canada's controversial security-certificate process. "There's no trial, no evidence; they are there at the minister's pleasure. Their families, meanwhile, are abandoned and living in limbo," said MacDonald in an interview. "There's a very good argument that says that's against Canadian law, that they are being detained illegally, and the security certificate is a bit of a boondoggle. And that's Kafkaesque."

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Editorial: Suppress terror not civil rights

posted on April 05, 2005 | in Category Canada's Immigration Policy | PermaLink

Source: The Toronto Star URL: N/A Date: April 4, 2005 Editorial: Suppress terror not civil rights

How far is Prime Minister Paul Martin's government prepared to go to fight terror? Too far, if recent signals from Ottawa are any indication. As Canada's anti-terror laws undergo Parliamentary review, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has mused about expanding the federal government's power to slap draconian "control measures" on people suspected of terrorist ties. Cotler has suggested that anyone in Canada, citizen and non-citizen alike, should be subject to the controls. Right now they are applied only to non-Canadians who arrive here, and are found ineligible to stay because they threaten public safety. They can be held in detention until deported, or are held under a kind of house arrest. Consider the case of Adil Charkaoui, one of a handful of such cases. The Morocco-born man came here in 2003, but was deemed a security risk because of his ties to a banned Moroccan terror group that sympathized with Al Qaeda. Charkaoui was denied entry and ordered deported. Rather than go, he chose to spend 21 months in voluntary detention in Montreal, fighting the ruling. These cases take an unreasonably long time to wend their way through the courts.

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Amnesty.ca (again) urges action on security certificates

posted on March 30, 2005 | in Category Security Certificates | PermaLink

Amesty

We have been informed by Hilary Homes of Amnesty International Canada that they have written another statement condemning Canada's security certificate process. It is front page news on their Web site. Take a look: ~~ link expired ~~


In the name of national security

posted on March 30, 2005 | in Category Security Certificates | PermaLink

Original author: Colin Perkel (Canadian Press) Source: The Ottawa Sun URL: [link] Date: March 27, 2005 In the name of national security Anti-terror measures draw fire
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'We both had faith in the system'

posted on March 30, 2005 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLink

Original author: Andrew Duffy Source: The Ottawa Citizen URL: [link] (subscribers only) Date: March 24, 2005 Harkat's wife says 'Oh my God. Oh my God,' Mohamed Harkat repeated upon hearing a judge had labelled him a terrorist based on evidence he was never allowed to see. As he waits to learn his fate, the Algerian native and wife, Sophie, now feel let down by that system, she tells Andrew Duffy.

When told that a Federal Court judge had labelled him a terrorist, Mohamed Harkat banged his head against the glass partition that separated him from his wife, Sophie, at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre. "Oh my God. Oh my God," he repeated as he absorbed the meaning of the judgment. Tuesday's decision by Judge Eleanor Dawson means Mr. Harkat will likely remain in custody while government officials decide whether he can be deported to Algeria, where he believes he will be tortured or killed. Sophie Harkat told the Citizen in an interview yesterday that Tuesday's meeting with her husband was more difficult than the one after his sudden arrest in December 2002. "It was horrible ... for me to face him and tell him he's a terrorist in the eyes of the government," she said yesterday. "We both had faith in the court system; we both believed he could finally be getting out. That was the biggest disappointment."

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`Open custody' considered

posted on March 30, 2005 | in Category Security Certificates | PermaLink

Original author: Sean Gordon, Ottawa Bureau
Source: The Toronto Star
URL: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: March 24, 2005


OTTAWA-The federal government is willing to amend its controversial security certificate process to allow the "controlled release" of terrorism suspects who currently face either indefinite detention or deportation to countries where they may be tortured.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said the certificate law, which currently applies only to asylum-seekers and permanent residents, could eventually cover Canadian citizens.

In response to questions from opposition members, Cotler said he would examine changing the security certificate statutes to allow judges to order house arrest, curfews, electronic monitoring and other forms of open custody.

Testifying before Parliament's justice committee, Cotler indicated he is also open to providing for the appointment of independent counsel in security certificate cases.

Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved.

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Terror suspect's backers vow to continue fight

posted on March 30, 2005 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLink

Original author: Canadian Press (CP)
URL: [link]
Source: The Globe and Mail
Date: March 24, 2005


Ottawa -- Supporters of terror suspect Mohamed Harkat vowed yesterday to keep battling federal security certificates such as the one that has kept Mr. Harkat in prison for more than two years.

A Federal Court judge on Tuesday upheld a security certificate issued against Mr. Harkat, setting the stage for his deportation to Algeria.

Madam Justice Eleanor Dawson concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe Mr. Harkat had "supported terrorist activity" as a member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, based on her assessment of secret evidence against him.

Mr. Harkat's supporters denounced the decision as another step in an unjust process.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

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More coverage of Montreal Rally

posted on March 29, 2005 | in Category Mohamed Harkat | PermaLink

Photo and comments by Ron Saba of Montreal Planet Magazine. Thanks Ron. Click to Enlarge


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