Source: The Agenda - TVO website
URL: [link]
Date: November 27, 2014
Click on the image below to watch the 32 minute television show online.
[link]
About the video:
The Canadian government can use a legal tool called a 'security certificate' to detain and deport non-citizens suspected of terrorist activities using secret evidence the accused and their lawyers cannot see. Over the last decade, five Muslim men - dubbed the Secret Trial Five - have been detained in Canadian prisons without charges under security certificates. The Agenda convenes a panel to discuss the security and civil liberty issues surrounding this legal tool.
by Lucy Scholey
Source: MetroNews
URL: [link]
Date: November 9, 2014
Five men who were jailed without trial and never shown the evidence against them — it sounds like something from Soviet-era Russia, but it happened here and it’s still happening.
Filmmaker Amar Wala said he was shocked, as were many Canadians, to hear that five men men were detained in this country without due process.
In his first feature-length film, The Secret Trial 5, being screened in Ottawa next weekend, Wala tells the stories of Adil Charkaoui, Hassan Almrei, Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohamed Harkat and Mohammad Zeki Mahjoub. Each man each spent anywhere from three to seven years in jail, plus time in strict house arrest under the country’s controversial security certificates.
The law allows the government to detain and deport non-citizens if they are considered a threat to national security.
Under that law, these five men were never charged and never saw the evidence against them, said Wala.
“A person should never be held in prison without being charged with a crime,” he said. “That’s something we believe in, very deeply, in Canada. We believe in the right to a fair trial and we’ve abandoned that principle here. So I really hope that the film makes them understand just how these things effect people, not just the men but their wives, their children, their communities, us as a country.”
Sophie Harkat, wife of former pizza deliveryman Mohamed Harkat, said they are starting to feel a sense of freedom now that her husband’s strict house arrest conditions have been relaxed. The Algerian immigrant was issued a security certificate in 2002 and spent 43 months in prison, both at the Ottawa-Carleton District Detention Centre and the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (dubbed “Guantanamo North”). After his release, he spent three and a half years under house arrest in Ottawa.
In a Supreme Court ruling, security certificates were deemed unconstitutional in 2007, but the law was amended the following year. Harkat has challenged the new law, but it was upheld in the spring. The government is now able to deport him.
Sophie Harkat said she hopes The Secret Trial 5 will shed light on his story and security certificates, in general.
“His family believes in him, we all believe in his innocence, but that’s not the important thing here,” she said. “Due process is the important thing. Due process for him, for the others and for anybody that will come after us.”
Wala raised about $50,000 through Kickstarter to fund the making of The Secret Trial 5. Now he and his fellow producers have started another campaign to fund a cross-country tour of the film.
The Secret Trial 5 will be at the ByTowne Cinema Nov. 16-18.
Copyright 2001-2014, Free Daily News Group Inc.
Independent Jewish Voices Appalled by Court Rulings on Hassan Diab and Mohamed Harkat
by Press Release
Source: Independent Jewish Voices
URL: [link]
Date: May 15, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 15, 2014
Independent Jewish Voices Appalled by Court Rulings on Hassan Diab and Mohamed Harkat
OTTAWA – With the decision to extradite Hassan Diab to France affirmed by the Ontario Court of Appeal, human rights supporters across the country are appalled by the decision, and fearful of the precedent this sets for Canadian citizens.
“Independent Jewish Voices is stunned by the Kafkaesque trial against Dr. Diab, who has been wrongly accused of a heinous crime committed decades ago,” says IJV spokesperson Sid Shniad.
“Despite the fact that Dr. Diab’s fingerprints, palm prints, handwriting and physical description do not match those of the suspect, he still faces extradition to a foreign country. What kind of democracy are we living in?”
Due to Canada’s extradition laws, it makes no difference that according to an Ontario judge, the evidence levelled against Dr. Diab is “confusing,” “weak,” and “suspect.” The request — however unreasonable — of a foreign country, takes priority over the rights of a Canadian citizen.
Dr Diab’s extradition is opposed by countless civil society organizations that support human rights. There is, however, one organization in particular that has been publicly supportive of Dr. Diab’s extradition: The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).
“Independent Jewish Voices is deeply disturbed that the pro-Israel lobby group CIJA — which falsely claims to represent Canada’s diverse Jewish communities — has been supportive of Dr. Diab’s extradition,” says Shniad. “It is an affront to the Jewish tradition of support for universal human rights, including due process under the law, to support the extradition of a man accused of a crime despite the absence of any valid evidence against him.”
This decision directly follows the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Security Certificate process in the case of Mohamed Harkat.
“Canada’s treatment of Dr. Diab and Mr. Harkat are reflective of the same systemic flaws,” says Shniad. “Our government and judicial system are in the business of violating international law, demonizing Arabs and Muslims, and branding them terrorists while denying them the right to a fair trial. All those who believe in justice should be outraged. We should demand that Parliament intervene immediately to abolish Security Certificates and end unjust practices like the extradition proceedings against Dr. Diab.”
For more information contact:
Sid Shniad, Steering Committee member of Independent Jewish Voices – Canada
604-314-5589, ijv-vancouver AT ijvcanada.org
by Alma Norman
Source: The Ottawa Citizen, letter to the editor
URL: [link]
Date: May 17, 2014
Re: Harkat promises fight 'to the end,' May 16.
Where has my Canada gone now that Mohamed and his wife, Sophie, have lost their struggle for justice? As a result of secret trials where he saw neither the evidence nor his accuser, Harkat is to be deported to Algeria, where he may face possible torture and death.
Do we really feel safer because their battle for justice has been lost? Is democracy more secure in Canada because secret trials have been Ok'd? Or has democracy been sacrificed to the so-called "war" on terrorism? Oh Canada, my shameful chosen land.
Alma Norman
by Michelle Zilio
Source: iPolitics
URL: [link]
Date: May 14, 2014
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the security certificate issued against accused al-Qaida sleeper agent and Ottawa resident Mohamed Harkat reasonable, making proceedings for his deporation imminent.
In a ruling issued Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the controversial security certificate process.
The decision, issued by all eight Supreme Court judges, marks the end of the security certificate appeal process for Harkat, who has been fighting the government on this front for more than 12 years. It’s a worst-possible outcome for Harkat, who now faces deportation.
“The ruling is difficult to describe in words. It’s more than disappointing. It’s devastating for Mr. and Mrs. Harkat,” said Boxall. “This does bring an end to the security certificate proceedings, but I’m sure it doesn’t bring an end to Mr. Harkat’s right to clear his name and maintain his right to live here.”
Harkat and his wife Sophie first heard the news from Boxall Wednesday morning. While they were at the Supreme Court when the ruling was issued, they did not speak with reporters.
Harkat was born in Algeria and moved to Canada as a refugee in September 1995. The former pizza delivery man was arrested outside his Ottawa home in 2002 on a national security certificate. The security certificate regime allows the federal government to detain and deport non-citizens deemed security threats without presenting all evidence against them.
Watch this 12 min. television interview on CBC News. Host Evan Solomon talks to Mohamed Harkat and wife Sophie Harkat about their reaction to the recent Supreme Court decision:
VIDEO LINK
by Andrew Duffy
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: May 14, 2014
Ottawa’s Mohamed Harkat once again faces deportation to his native Algeria after the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday declared the federal government’s security certificate regime constitutional.
In a unanimous ruling, the high court said the security certificate regime crafted by Parliament in 2008 – although an “imperfect process” — offers a fundamentally fair process that also protects national security information.
The Supreme Court ruling provides a detailed roadmap for trial judges to ensure that future security-certificate cases are conducted fairly.
In upholding a key element of the government’s anti-terrorism strategy, the Supreme Court decided that Harkat’s lawyers had failed to show that his security certificate hearing was unfair or had undermined the integrity of the justice system.
“In the present case, Mr. Harkat benefited from a fair process,” the court declared in a ruling that puts Harkat back on the legal road to deportation.
The high court reinstated the December 2010 judgment of Federal Court Judge Simon Noël, who deemed Harkat a terrorist threat to national security.
Noël said Harkat was a member of the al-Qaida network and linked him to a number of Islamic extremists, including Saudi-born Ibn Khattab, Canadian Ahmed Said Khadr, a key al-Qaida figure, and Abu Zubaydah, a facilitator in the Osama bin Laden network.
The ruling represents a much-needed victory for the government at the Supreme Court and a devastating loss for Harkat, who had been hoping the court would put an end to his almost 12-year legal odyssey.
Click on the photo of Mohamed to see all items related to him. JUNE 2017: Mohamed Harkat once again faces deportation to his native Algeria after the Supreme Court of Canada declared the federal government’s security certificate regime constitutional.
This fight is not over. The Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee will re-double its efforts to see that justice is done for Mohamed Harkat and that the odious security certificate system of injustice is abolished once and for all.