Montreal, 3 February 2011 – A community dinner in Montreal in support of Mohamed Harkat – engaged in an eight-year battle against deportation to torture on the basis of secret suspicions - will have to go ahead without its guest of honour. Mohamed Harkat learned late last week that the Canadian Border Services Agency refused his request to attend the dinner, organized as the closing event of a Montreal conference on national security. CBSA, which is in charge of enforcing the strict bail conditions imposed on Mr. Harkat, stated that Mr. Harkat could not attend because of the “the nature of the proposed event, its anticipated participants, as well as its venue”. The event, a free vegetarian dinner, will take place at a Montreal university. The agency referred specifically to Mr. Harkat’s condition of non-association with “any person whom Mr. Harkat knows, or ought to know, supports terrorism or violent Jihad or [...] who poses a threat to national security.” "The way in which national security can be used as a blanket justification for such abusive, arbitrary decisions is exactly why it is necessary to hold this important forum," stated the People's Commission Network, which is organizing the Whose Security? Our Security! conference.

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