Reflections from the Road on the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture

posted on May 12, 2008 | in Category | PermaLink

by Matthew Behrens Source: The Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture URL: N/A Date: May 12, 2008 CSIS Headquarters, Ottawa, May 2008
The Caravan visits CSIS Headquarters in Ottawa, May 2008. Photo by Murray Lumley.

Breaking the Silence: Reflections from the Road on the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture (A selection of photos from the Caravan appear at [link] ) At the bottom of this article are four links to video footage of the Caravan, including an interview with Muayyed Nureddin, as well as information on follow-up actions to end Canadian complicity in torture)

May 10, 2008 -- As members of the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture reached their final stopping point May 7 at the national headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), agitated spies in the massive architorture structure in east-end Ottawa simply pulled the blinds. It was a fitting symbolic gesture consistent with the thematic continuum that greeted Caravan members during their eight day journey through Central and Eastern Ontario as they confronted sites of Canadian complicity in torture. A combination of denial and transfer of responsibility to some other party typified responses of government and corporate officials who refused dialogue and met caravan members with lines of police and RCMP, surveillance cameras, and locked office doors. While not surprising -- who wants to admit that they are complicit in torture? -- the closed-door response seemed to prove one of the points of the Caravan: the hallmarks of openness, transparency, and accountability that serve as the foundation of democracy get shut down when infected by such noxious practices as torture and complicity in human rights abuses. The Caravan sought to break the silence around such complicity, including the training and teaching relationship the Canadian government holds with the U.S.-based “School of the Assassins”, ongoing efforts to deport refugees to torture from Canada, the government’s refusal to condemn the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, Canada’s role in hosting potential CIA rendition to torture flights, the Canadian rendition to torture of Algerian refugee Benamar Benatta on September 12, 2001, and Canada’s subcontracting the torture of Canadian citizens in Syria, Egypt, and Sudan, among many other issues.A SIMPLE CHALLENGE FOR CSIS

At the front gates of CSIS, one of the federal agencies that played a major role in the torture of Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin, a fine rain dampened about 35 members of the Caravan as they held an impromptu teach-in for the line of Ottawa police and RCMP officers who prevented their entry into the facility.

“I have just one question for the people in CSIS,” El Maati said, looking for the first time at the building housing the agents who have targetted him for harassment, interrogation, and overseas torture. “I want someone from CSIS to come down here, look me in the eyes, and explain to me why they rendered me to torture in Egypt and Syria.”

It was an incredibly powerful and fitting moment as the Caravan arrived in Ottawa: three men -- Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin -- seeking to confront those responsible for their torture, both at CSIS, the RCMP, and other agencies of the federal government.

All three men are the subject of the “Internal Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin.” Although their names grace the inquiry, their attendance is prohibited. The doors are also closed to their lawyers, the media, and the public.

This completely secret inquiry is supposed to determine the role of Canadian officials in the torture of these three men, and the last time the inquiry reared its rarely seen public face -- for two days of legal submissions in January of this year -- commissioner Frank Iacobucci confidently told those assembled that he had viewed some 35,000 pages of documents and heard from 40 witnesses, and that things were going well.

THE SECRET TORTURE INQUIRY

But how could things be going well when the men have not been able to see one word from one page of those documents, nor hear the evidence of the witnesses, all in the name of “national security”? But as we have learned from the Arar Inquiry, among many other examples, claims of national security confidentiality are congenitally overbroad. Almost always, such claims are designed not to protect anyone’s security but rather to shield the government from potential public outrage upon exposure of its nefarious dealings.

So rather than creating a safe and secure inquiry space for the men to determine how and why this has happened to them, the government of Canada has completely shut them out of the process. To its shame, the government has literally forced these men out onto the road where they joined the Caravan and took the greatest risk any traumatized individual can take: sharing their most vulnerable selves with total strangers in the hope that people would be moved enough to pressure the government to open up the inquiry as a first step towards eliminating the abuses that led to such a human rights nightmare in the first place.

And so Mssrs. Almalki, Nureddin, and El Maati joined between 30 and 50 people each day of the caravan in confronting Canadian governmental and corporate institutions that are involved in the global torture industry. They also took on the silence that has shrouded the inquiry by taking their case straight to the public, on street corners, at shopping malls, in high schools, in churches, in a variety of other public fora.

POSITIVE PUBLIC RESPONSE

It is safe to say that Caravan members were pleasantly surprised at the almost overwhelming positive public reaction that greeted them in such settings. Indeed, rather than asking whether the government “had anything” on these three men, as some in the media are wont to do, the common question was an outraged demand -- “how could our government do this?” -- followed by the refrain that no one could trust government anymore.

But there were also those who were upset and anxious when the group set up in each of the dozens of communities it passed through. Especially chilling were the group of black-hooded, orange jumpsuit-wearing “detainees” who knelt in a position of forced submission on street corners, at the entrances to shopping malls, and in front of the constituency offices of Members of Parliament as other Caravan members handed out thousands of information flyers on Canadian connections to torture.

That such imagery proved disturbing speaks both to its power and the calculated use of such techniques by those who torture: the real-life use of the hoods, jumpsuits, and other sensory deprivation techniques are designed as much to humiliate, disturb, degrade, and dehumanize those forced into these outfits as they are meant to silence those who, fearing the same fate, are compelled to silence.

UPSETTING CANADA’S MYTHMAKING

Of course, revealing secrets and the bleak underside of the happy Canadian state face is bound to be upsetting, for Canada is a land built largely on mythmaking: the multicultural paradise built on genocide of First Nations, the peacemaking nation that is home to some of the world’s most profitable war industries, the human rights defender that trades with torturers, the land of “rule of law” that has two-tier justice based on citizenship status, the welcoming nation that deports to torture and other cruel treatment.

While it is impossible in so short a space to sum up the total experience of the Caravan -- such an endeavour, especially distilled through the eyes and hearts of the scores of individuals who gave up their regular schedules to take part would require a book length reflection -- there were a number of moments that struck this writer as particularly memorable, among them:

The May 1 Torture Tour of Toronto, which combined 35 Caravan members with about 25 students and staff from the Caledon East Robert F. Hall high school, where teacher Gary Connally, wearing an orange jumpsuit, had begun a week-long fast to highlight the issues raised by the Caravan. The creativity, passion, and insights of the students provided an immediate community-building impetus for a group of folks who, in many instances, had just met for the first time.

The Torture Tour took in a series of Toronto-area landmarks tied to torture, whether the Canadian Border Services Agency (via deportations to torture and no existing policy on the use of evidence gleaned from torture) and penal institutions where refugees live in a state of limbo and others have spent years in solitary confinement to corporations like L-3 (a military manufacturer whose Titan wing was the subject of a class action lawsuit by torture survivors at Abu Ghraib).

SKYSERVICE: TAXI TO TORTURE?

A particularly telling moment occurred as the groups made their way to the offices of Skyservice, a corporation that provides charter flights to a range of groups, including the Canadian government. For months, members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture have sought through letters, emails and phone calls to arrange a meeting with Skyservice, but have received no response. The group seeks a meeting to discuss concerns regarding Federal Court testimony in a security certificate case in which the CBSA said Skyservice would be the airline used to deport individuals held under Canada’s draconian secret hearing system. All would face torture if removed from Canada, and Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture has sought a meeting to discuss concerns about the role of Skyservice in flying individuals to such a fate.

A man who refused to identify himself did come out and speak with some of the students, but kept insisting that we had come to the wrong office, that this was not the right place to be, etc. When pressed, he eventually did admit that his firm did contract with the Canadian government and did “move prisoners” but was not involved in the “thing” we were protesting. (Torture is the “thing” to which he was referring; perhaps it hit too close to the bone to mention it in the same breath as the corporation that employs him).

He advised us that we should protest at the source of the problem, the Canadian government. We reassured him that the government was on our list of visits and that, indeed, we had just been at the CBSA. He replied that the police would be called shortly to have us removed because we were causing employees to feel “angst”. This was a good thing, we said, because it SHOULD cause angst when serious human rights questions come into play. They are not easily dismissed. (A youtube video of the dialogue is available at: [link] )

The group also stood vigil at the Metro West Detention Centre, where secret trial detainees Hassan Almrei, Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohammad Mahjoub spent years in solitary confinement under the most intolerable conditions, including no heat during the wintertime. Lengthy, life-threatening hunger strikes resulted. Almost immediately guards and supervisors came out and ordered the group to remove itself, even though we were a fair distance from the main entrance.

CONFRONTING THE MOUNTIES

At each stop, students led songs, shared poems and reflections, and expressed outrage upon learning of the nature of the work of certain institutions in their community (see more at [link] ). At the RCMP, they were introduced to Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, and heard of numerous attempts to present the Mounties with personalized copies of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (a gift that was inspired by the way the Mounties often behaved, as if they had lost their copy of the Charter!)

The group proceeded to walk right into the main entrance of the building which, normally locked up, was made accessible when an angry Mountie came out to remove a flyer someone had placed on his windshield, forgetting to slam the door behind him.

A group of about 30 crowded into the reception area and asked to speak to someone, seeking answers to questions that were not forthcoming from the secret inquiry. Through the main window we could see Mounties scurrying behind their desks, peeking out from time to time from their office dividers, a sight we found quite curious given the nonviolent, laid back nature of our gathering. Then again, perhaps it was quite understandable, since many of us seemed to fit the common profile of security threats in past RCMP memos, which have labelled as high risk the United Church, the Anglican Church, Raging Grannies, peace and social justice organizations, and other civil society representatives.

El Maati and Nureddin both held placards with quotes from the Arar Inquiry explaining the complicity of the RCMP in their overseas torture, something which the Mounties’ designated spokesperson failed to understand when she informed us that the role of the RCMP is to protect the interests of Canadians. It certainly did not protect the interests of these Canadians, we pointed out, with one quote on the placard reading:

“On January 10, [RCMP] Staff Sergeant Callaghan advised Staff Sergeant Fiorido that in an interview held in Egypt. Mr. El Maati had stated that the Syrians had tortured him. These allegations did not raise a red flag for Staff Sergeant Fiorido with respect to the questions being sent for Mr. Almalki. “[i]t was never a concern because it was never considered.” (The RCMP had been told in an interdepartmental meeting that sending questions to the Syrians who were holding Mr. Almalki might cause him to be tortured, but the RCMP sent them anyway).

As Skyservice told us we were at the wrong place, so the RCMP chimed in as well, saying we should visit their London office and speak to their media relations person. We responded that we would be at their national headquarters a week later, and asked them to pass that message on with a request to have documents ready so that the men could peruse what they were unable to see at the secret inquiry.

At one point, we were asked to provide a phone number where the RCMP could contact us with a response. We provided the number for Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, but then added they probably knew it already, since they would need it in order to tap our line. “Of course,” she smiled, with no trace of irony.

TORONTO’S REFUGEE JAIL

Always shocking is the nondescript building behind the barbed wire on Toronto’s Rexdale Boulevard that houses the refugee jail, a former hotel whose windows are now criss-crossed by metal bars. Students had an immediate visceral reaction to seeing people their own age and younger waving at them from the windows, and detainees cheered for those cheering from the outside. We sang “Away in Detention” (to the tune Away in a Manger) among other solidarity songs. Students began an impromptu “Freedom” chant as they boarded their bus for their next destinations. Other stops included CFB Downsview -- making the connections between the Canadian occupation of Afghanistan and complicity in transfer of detainees to torture, as well as the military reltionship with the School of the Assassins -- and heard from Erika Horvath and her 13-year-old son Adam, who discussed the fear they felt for the planned forced removal their loved one, protected person Adolf Horvath, to Hungary where, as a Roma, he faces persecution and violence.

After winding up at the Hungarian consulate, the Caravan began preparations for its journey north and east of Toronto. On Day 2, a steady rain failed to dampen the spirits of the caravan members, who started at a Canadian Forces recruiting centre and made various stops at malls along Yonge Street heading north to Richmond Hill United Church, which provided a warm lunch break, and then on to Aurora, where the group was met by torture survivor and author Marina Nemat (Prisoner of Tehran), who spoke from the steps of the mysteriously closed office of MP Belinda Stronach. Nemat added her name to the voices calling for an open inquiry.

The group was met by closed MP offices throughout York Region, no doubt courtesy of the York Regional Police Intelligence squad, which offered to “facilitate the caravan’s passage through the region” but whose communications with MPs’ offices no doubt led to their early closings. Nevertheless, vigils in Holland Landing and Bradford drew lots of inquiring stares and questions as the group made their way to Barrie, where the office of Conservative MP Patrick Brown received an unexpected visit.

STUNNED STAFF GREETED BY HOODED DETAINEES

Indeed, staff were stunned to see hooded detainees in their reception area. We explained what was going on, and after we were told the MP could not meet with us, a red-faced office worker, who appeared visibly moved hearing the experiences being shared by Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati, came out and said he would in fact be able to meet. Two police officers showed up, though, and took notes as the group met with the MP in the open area. We called on Brown to communicate the need for an open inquiry to his Tory colleagues and asked that he facilitate a meeting with the prime minister’s office. He promised to do this and said that a meeting would be easy to arrange since the PMO has 120 staff (yet no one was available the following Thursday in Ottawa!)

On Day 3 of the Caravan, the group was joined by fasting teacher Gary Connally for a noon hour vigil in downtown Orillia with a local Quaker peace group that has maintained a five-year weekly vigil against war. Despite heavy rains, the group moved on to Lindsay, where they walked through town and vigilled at the Central East Correctional Centre, an imposing concrete and barbed wire complex housing First Nations leader Bob Lovelace, serving six months for resisting the torture of the earth via proposed uranium mining on Ardoch Algonquin lands.

The Lindsay press failed to show up, so, employing a trick we learned from our 2006 Freedom caravan through the area, we unfurled our banners at the jail’s entrance, to be greeted within minutes by jail staff and then four squad cars. Turns out the media’s main interest on weekends is monitoring police radio for any interesting activity and, as in 2006, they did show up after hearing the cops chatting us up on their radio system.

ON TO OTTAWA

The Caravan continued on in a similar fashion all the way to Ottawa, with public events and dinners hosted in Peterborough by Kawartha Ploughshares and in Cobourg by members of the Christ the Servant congregation. The latter took place in the Cold Springs Community Hall, which each Sunday served as their church ever since they had followed their priest after he was removed from the diocese for having the temerity to think freely and question rigid dogma.

The audiences for talks on Canadian complicity in torture were quite varied, from an Amnesty International group in Napanee celebrating 25 years of struggling for human rights to an amazing group of students and teachers at St. Mary’s Catholic High School in Cobourg, which hosted a major presentation from Almalki, Nureddin, and El Maati. Students sat attentively through a two hour talk and power point presentation, asking many questions and expressing their shame and disgust for the criminal behaviour of the Canadian government. (Significantly, students from this school were among the first group of people in Canada to hold a public vigil in support of the rights of Omar Khadr, the Canadian teenager still held at Guantanamo Bay. Many of them went on the next day to join Quebec students for a Parliament Hill rally calling for the repetriation of Khadr).

Other stops included smaller communities like Brighton (where students leaving high school for the day eagerly received information, signed petitions, and denounced complicity in torture while waiting for their school buses) and Colborne, where a group of elderly gentlemen enjoying the first “beer on a patio” day of the spring expressed their support and told us to give heck to “those [expletives] in Ottawa.”

Along the way, the community of Caravaners continued to grow, with many who had originally planned to be on it for a short time deciding to go the whole route. Among those were a wonderful film crew from Ramz Media, an independent production company that makes documentaries and short films that address social and political issues in creative and insightful ways, contributing to enhanced awareness and positive action. (See a selection from their filmography at [link] )

VIGIL AT GITMO NORTH

Before heading in to Kingston, the Caravan made a stop at Millhaven Penitentiary (aka Gitmo North), where secret trial detainee Hassan Almrei remains held in the most expensive solitary confinement cell in Canada, the $3.2 million Kingston Immigration Holding Centre. His 153-day hunger strike in 2007 for better conditions was one in a string that Hassan has undertaken for basic rights denied him under the secretive “security certificate” regime which, though declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada, was reintroduced handily and passed by a combined Conservative-Liberal vote earlier this year. Again, the group was subject to photo surveillance, yet guards protested when our film crew began taking pictures.

“How would you feel if you were having your photo taken at work?” asked one guard.

“We are working for justice, and you are taking our photos,” came the response.

MPS: SO OUT OF TOUCH

Being on the road with the Caravan was a wonderful reminder of how completely out of touch many Members of Parliament can be. Indeed, when one meets with Parliamentarians on such issues as torture and secret hearings, we are often told that, of course, THEY are against such atrocities, but they cannot speak out because how are they to face “Joe on the Street” in their constituencies who have “concerns about terrorism, etc.” The response is that they likely never do meet the “Joe on the Street,” for it was rare that we encountered serious opposition to what we were doing. Rather, a little bit of dialogue on the street goes a long way to understanding of what is wrong and what needs to be done to right that wrong. Thousands of postcards were signed and petitions filled out by that “person on the street” along the way, with more coming in by the day.

As the Caravan rolled in to Ottawa, the skies opened up and poured down rain, but spirits were high as we gathered at the entrance to CSIS at 1941 Ogilvie Road. The imposing concrete structure, someone remarked, looked exactly like the kind of place that housed torture cells in the Middle East. As usual, we were lectured by the RCMP on what we could and could not do, but we went ahead and did what we planned on: walking as close as we could to the front of the massive structure, only to be met by a line of police and Mounties in front of an electronic fence.

Courtesy of an excellent sound system brought by a local organizer, we were able to broadcast our message loud and clear to the many people listening both in front of and behind that fence. As the two groups stared down one another, we engaged in teach-in on Nuremberg Principles, the Convention Against Torture, and Canada’s international and domestic responsibilities with respect to the absolute prohibition on torture. It was an interesting site: the RCMP, clearly complicit in torture (as documented by the Arar Inquiry) preventing our entry to CSIS, an agency that uses information gleaned from torture.

TORTURE: A CANCER ON THE BODY POLITIC

We asked why the RCMP was “protecting” CSIS from the people instead of protecting the people from CSIS. Caravan members movingly explained why they were here, from one young teenager who asked what the Mounties would do if they were in the shoes of Mssrs. Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin, to a senior citizen who called for an end to the harassment, surveillance, and intimidation against Canada’s Arabic and Muslim communities.

Direct eye contact was limited, a fact picked up on by one Caravan member who asked why some police officers smirked at us and others could not look us in the eye. We explained that torture and complicity in torture are like a disease that infects and damages the body politic, and that as members of these institutions, the RCMP and CSIS officers watching had a responsibility to put an end to the practice and become whistleblowers.

All during this time, no one got in or out of CSIS, and eager bureaucrats behind the fence could not leave for the day. As one group stayed at the main entrance, another walked around to one of the sides of the building, singing freedom songs and climbing one hill, where hooded detainees knelt in the spring grass in clear view of the hundreds of windows on the west side of the CSIS complex.

The following day, the group met at the foot of the Prime Minister’s Office, delivering thousands of cards and petition signatures calling for a public inquiry. Despite having 120 staff, no one in the PMO could grant a few minutes to the three men.

During one part of the trek, El Maati pointed out that we were passing through an area, Tunney’s Pasture, which was on a tourist map that was part of the “rationale” for his torture. The group then continued on its torture tour of Ottawa, from the Ottawa offices of L-3 and the CBSA to the Supreme Court of Canada (whose 2002 Suresh ruling left open the door to removal to torture) and the Justice Dept. (whose lawyers sat in on the meetings about the targetting of Mssrs. Arar, Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin), the War Dept. Department of Foreign Affairs and international Trade, and finally, the national headquarters of the RCMP.

RCMP FILMS THOSE IT HAD A HAND IN TORTURING

At one stop, a group of students touring Ottawa were told by their teacher not to take our flyers, because of fears over parental reactions when the kids got home. When asked whether students were allowed to pick up government propaganda in the House of Commons praising our system of governance, he said of course, that was not a problem. So why the difference in approach when it came to our flyers? Was it another case of the blinds coming down when a controversial issue is raised?

At the RCMP we were again met by a heavy police presence, lights flashing on the police cars, and a video surveillance officer filming the gathering. That the RCMP, after all the evidence of the role its faulty “intelligence” played in the torture of Mr. Arar and the role its questions had played in the torture of Mssrs. Almalki and El Maati, would have the nerve to so openly film us engaged in Charter-protected peaceful protest was truly outrageous, and we challenged them to stop, asking whether film of us protesting there would end up being used in some future overseas act of torture.

Questioned about the surveillance, one RCMP officer explained it was for “the investigation.” When queried about the nature of said investigation, we were informed it was too protect us from potential acts of violence should our gathering be “infiltrated.”

After speaking to the RCMP in a manner similar to the address we made at CSIS, Mssrs. El Maati and Nureddin again asked the same questions that had informed the Caravan route: Why were they tortured in Syria? Why did this happen? Why?

The group ended the caravan on a hill in front of the large RCMP sign singing We Shall Overcome, and added in the verse “One Day Mike will join us,” a reference to the RCMP liaison officer who followed us throughout our Ottawa journey.

RUNNING INTO HARPER IN TORONTO

Once back in Toronto, one group of Caravan members found themselves trapped in a traffic jam created by the passage of a police escort for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was being sped in his limo to a pro-Israel rally. How ironic, someone commented. We went all the way to Ottawa to see Harper to talk about ending Canadian complicity in torture and here he was where we started, heading to an event to celebrate an allied nation that is also complicit in torture. Indeed, Canada’s foreign affairs department listed Israel as a site of torture in an internal training manual which, when made public by accident, was rewritten to exclude the reference. And so the blinds come down again and again.

In the end, the Caravan represented many things. It is hard to explain the kind of bond one develops in an 8-day period when involved in such an intensely personal journey, meeting and getting to know individuals who have endured, and continue to suffer from, the effects of torture, men whose rights continue to be denied them here in Canada. The Caravan becomes a community on wheels, with folks taking care of one another, working to get the message out, enduring difficult weather, sleeping on church floors, and sorting through the tangled emotions of love, grief, and rage we were all feeling as we grew closer and coalesced around the courage and simple demands for truth from Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin.

The Caravan was a forum not just for discussing the crimes, but also ways of resisting those crimes. The individual and collective creativity of the group, their sense of humour despite the difficult subject matter, and their commitment to see justice done was a rare inspiration. As was, of course, the courage and of three men to speak the truth even as the government admits “investigations” of the men are ongoing.

All of this could not have happened without the amazing contributions of time and energy of folks in all the towns we visited, who went out of their way to provide food, billeting, advertising for public events, and a warm welcome for the road weary.

CSIS INSPECTOR GENERAL FAULTS AGENCY SLOPPINESS LEADING TO “GRAVE” CONSEQUENCES

At a number of points, Mr. Almalki commented that through the Caravan he saw a side of Canada that he had not seen for many years. The outpouring of support was a revelation that at heart, the people of this land, when properly informed, will respond to the challenges posed by government criminality.

As the Caravan members made their way home, the CSIS Inspector General released her annual report. Eva Plunkett noted that she is disturbed by the sloppiness of CSIS, and in a chilling comment that spoke directly to the heart of the caravan, concluded,

“In my Certificate last year, I shared ... concerns about information handling by the Service. I must report that the matter of information reporting and holdings by the Service, and the accuracy of information, continue to be an area of concern....A transcription error could have potentially profound impacts. The potential consequences, if action is taken by the Service, their interlocutors or the government based on these inaccuracies, could be grave. In view of this potential, accuracy is essential."

Needless to say, it goes beyond what the consequences “could” be to what they already have been, for Mssrs. Almalki, Arar, El Maati, Nureddin, and no doubt many others.

Much of the Inspector General’s report is redacted for reasons of “national security.” Report is available at [link]

WHAT’S NEXT TO END CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE

Each week from May 1 to June 26, Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture is asking people across the country to take part in anti-torture actions. Week one’s action was to sign the petition calling for an open inquiry into the role of Canadian officials in the torture (see [link] ). The petition is still up and signatures are needed!

Week Two’s Action: For an End to Solitary Confinement in Canada: On May 14 in Toronto, Six Hours Against Solitary Confinement is a day-long vigil to protest the government’s detention of three young men, arrested in June, 2006, and held in continuous solitary confinement ever since. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that one year in solitary would likely not withstand a Charter challenge as cruel and unusual punishment. These young men have been in segregation TWICE as long.

Call and email Rick Bartolucci, Ontario Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, and demand the end of solitary confinement for Fahim Ahmad, Zakaria Amara, and Mohammad Dirie Email: [email] Phone: (416) 325-0408, (866) 517-0571 If you are in Toronto, join us for part or all of the vigil at 25 Grosvenor St. (north and west of College and Yonge)

Watch for weekly actions in your email box.

Also mark August 26 as the day “Dark Days,” a new book about the cases of Mssrs. Arar, Almalki, El Maati, and Nureddin, written by Kerry Pither and published by Penguin Canada, hits the bookstores.

View Video of the first few days of the caravan: RF Hall Joins Caravan Against Torture
[link]

Caravan Against Torture & Interview with Muayyed Nureddin
[link]

Interview with Gary Connally, on a week-long fast
[link]

Confronting Skyservice - who provide rendition flights to Torture
[link]

(Report from Matthew Behrens of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture. The Caravan was a major project involving a lot of expenses. Folks wishing to contribute to our costs can mail cheques to Homes not Bombs at PO Box 73620, 509 St. Clair Ave. West, Toronto, ON M6C 1C0. We can issue charitable receipts for donations over a certain amount, but contact us at [email] first to get more information)