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."The planned reading, at the Lula Lounge on Dundas Street at 7:30 p.m., follows on the heels of similar rallies in Quebec, where filmmaker Denys Arcand and others have rallied against security certificates. Despite the criticisms, security certificates are more complex tools than often described. The legal procedure in question has existed since the late 1980s, but has drawn ire as critics have come to see it as part of the excesses of the U.S.-led war on terror.

Trials do happen: In fact, the processes tend to be marked by lengthy legal hearings before Canadian judges, who have always upheld the process as constitutional. Suspects, who are all non-citizens whom the government wants to deport, do get summaries of the evidence disclosed to them. They never learn the full extent of the allegations, however, as they are blocked out in the name of national security, leaving their lawyers to complain they are essentially fighting in the dark.

There has been a lot of activity involving security certificates in the past month. Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel -- not among the five men for whose families the fundraiser is being held -- was removed to Germany under the procedure. In Ottawa, a Federal Court judge ruled that Algerian Mohamed Harkat lied about his connections to top al-Qaeda figures, and is a deportable threat. Another suspect got a temporary reprieve when a judge told Ottawa to better consider the welfare of the six children of Mahmoud Jaballah, a man CSIS alleges has links to Islamic extremists, before sending him back to Egypt.

The other men deemed security threats to Canada include an Egyptian who once operated a farm for Osama bin Laden; a Syrian who says he trained in Afghanistan; and a recently freed-on-bail Moroccan who the government alleges trained as a terrorist.

All of the men entered Canada as refugee claimants, and the government contends they should not have glossed over checkered pasts to gain a toehold in Canada. Deporting has been tricky, however. Each man has complained that he might be tortured if sent back home. Each of the men has spent two to five years in Canadian jails.

Whether Kafkaesque is the suitable term for what the men have gone through, less controversial is the raising of funds for the families. Wives of the jailed Muslim men have testified about having to save up to visit their husbands in jail. Young children of the suspects have complained of growing up never being hugged by their fathers.

MacDonald said she was largely motivated to take part in the reading by the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen deported by the U.S. to his native Syria. Arar says Canadian agencies leaked intelligence about him to the U.S., resulting in his spending a year in a Syrian jail, where he says he was tortured. "The poster issue is Arar, but the larger issue is the secret security certificates whereby five men have been held for a total of 188 months," said MacDonald.

She said the artists don't buy arguments that information can't be divulged for reasons of national security: "It's a way of hiding incompetence, disorganization and a lot of toadying to the Americans. I don't think that there is never a time when . . . it is a matter of genuine security, but I am skeptical about it."

She added: "I say, let's have a trial, let's do something out in the open. If they deserve deportation, let's get rid of them, but let's know why we are doing that, and have it be a matter of public record."

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