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May 29, 2004
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny
A few weeks ago I wrote a letter to Minister Anne McLellan,
asking that I be granted an interview with her about my kidnapped husband.
Her reply was the standard balderdash you can expect out of government: She
cannot get involved because Ernst's case is before the Federal Courts of
Canada - if I have complaints about CSIS, I might consider writing to SIRC,
the alleged "watch dog" of CSIS, but in fact, a rubber stamp
outfit for CSIS, as we already learned in 1996.
It's called the Royal Runaround. Besides, Ernst wrote to
SIRC already - which triggered a punishing transfer the very next day from
the fairly humane, albeit raggedy prison in Thorold to the abominable
hellhole where he is now!
Ernst's case will now be submitted to the Supreme Court of
Canada, asking that leave be granted. If leave is granted, and if a miracle
occurs and he actually wins against CSIS, it means that five Canadian-based
Arabs, held under practically identical brutality, and who are probably as
innocent as Ernst, will benefit.
These men insist that they are innocent and certainly no
threat to Canada. Yet they are stuck in Guantanamo North. To my knowledge,
not one of them has the means, or the know-how, or the tenacity and will, as
Ernst does, to challenge the satanic power that is trying to force a
dictatorship by judicial decree and subsequent administrative punishment on
all of Canada.
One might assume that these five Arabs would be grateful for
the supreme sacrifice the Zundel case entails. The irony and sad reality is
that the Arab community is as prejudiced and biased against Ernst as the
Canadian system is against Arabs.
In their releases and communiqués, the Arabs always talk of
"five men" as victims of CSIS, as if they didn't know - how can
they not know? - that there are six, one in a cell right next to one of
their own, without official permission to talk to each other. (Let's say
that I dreamed that sometimes they do!)
At any rate, if you want to get a glimpse of Marxist Canada,
here is as good a summary as any:
[START]
Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui
tel. 514 859 9023, justiceforadil@riseup.net,
www.adilinfo.org
Security Certificates: Is this Canada?
3 May 2004
On 21 May 2003, Montreal resident Adil Charkaoui brought his
pregnant wife to her gynaecologist, dropped her at a cousin's and began to
head towards the University of Montreal, where he was taking a Masters
degree in teaching. In the middle of the highway, he suddenly found himself
surrounded by police and summarily arrested. With great media fanfare, but
no evidence, he was declared a threat to national security. He has been
imprisoned without charges, on allegations that neither he nor his lawyer
are allowed to see, ever since. For almost a year, he and his family have
been living under the constant fear of his deportation to Morocco, the
country where he was born. There, because of the case that has been made
against him in Canada, he is likely to suffer further attacks on his dignity
and rights; such as imprisonment without charges, torture, cruel and unusual
punishment - and even death.
Mr. Charkaoui describes years of intimidation and harassment
by CSIS agents leading up to his arrest. He vehemently denies that he is a
"terrorist" and that he represents any danger to the public or to
national security. He says his arrest is directly related to his refusal to
use his connections to Muslims in Montreal to become an informer for CSIS.
He also recognises that the Canadian government is under political pressure
to produce high profile cases like his to show the White House that they are
doing their part in the "war on terror", a campaign that, all too
often, uses terrorist techniques itself.
Charkaoui is one of Canada's Secret Trial Five, five Muslim
men whose lives have been torn apart by accusations they are not allowed to
fight in a fair and independent trial. Three men are imprisoned in Toronto:
Mohammad Mahjoub, a refugee from Eygpt who has been in prison since June
2000 (almost four years in prison without charge); Mahmoud Jaballah, a
refugee from Egypt who was arrested in August 2001 (three years this
summer), and Hassan Almrei, a refugee who has been facing deportation to
Syrian torture, just like Maher Arar, since October 2001 (two and a half
years in solitary). The fourth man, Algerian refugee Mohamed Harkat, was
arrested in Ottawa in December 2002, ironically on Human Rights Day.
All five men were arrested under "security
certificates," a measure of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
(IRPA) which has been described by Amnesty International as
"fundamentally flawed and unfair". They are imprisoned without
charges on secret evidence and face deportation to their countries of
origin, even if there is a substantial risk of torture or death.
Talking Points
The court is not given the power to decide on the truth of
the allegations. A Security Certificate is issued by the Minister of Public
Safety, Anne McLellan. Although a judicial review of her decision is
allowed, the court is not given the power to judge the truth of the
allegations. The judge can only decide on whether it is possible that the
allegations are true; on whether the Minister had "reasonable
grounds" to sign the certificate. In the end, this is a political
decision, which is fought in the arena of media sensationalism, public
opinion, party politics, pressure from the United States administration, and
behind-the-scene games in the shadowy spy world of CSIS and the RCMP. It is
the end result of this political struggle, not facts weighed up in a fair
and independent trial, which will determine the fate of the"Secret
Trial Five".
Secret trials are fundamentally unfair. Neither the detainee
nor his lawyer are informed of the precise allegations or provided with the
full information against him &endash; they are only given a summary.
Evidence, which is not included in the summary, can be presented at any time
to the judge in the absence of the detainee and his lawyer. Normal standards
of evidence are explicitly waived. As lawyer Edward Greenspan wrote,
"The evidence can be hearsay, double hearsay, triple hearsay".
Information based on confessions under torture and plea-bargains, which
would generally be inadmissable, or at least highly questionable on grounds
of ethics and credibility, is apparently used. There is no right to
cross-examine witnesses who have made allegations. The result is that both
the original approval of the certificate (by the Minister), and then the
judgement on whether it is "reasonable" (by a Federal Court
judge), are based on one-sided arguments, without access to counter-evidence
and context that a defense would normally bring forward. This violates a
fairly fundamental playground rule: that both sides of the story are heard.
There is no appeal. Once the Federal Court judge decides
that there are "reasonable grounds" to issue the security
certificate, there is no appeal. Similarly, once the judge reviews the
decision on whether to grant protection there is no appeal. Lawyer Greenspan
calls this "a glaring violation of a basic tenet of the rule of
law." Constitutional lawyer Julius Gray argues that it is in fact
unconstitutional, along with other elements of the secret trial process.
The detainee can be imprisoned indefinitely. Refugees are
not given any chance of release on bail during the proceedings. They can be
held indefinitely: years of prison without charge. In the case of Mohammad
Mahjoub, this has meant jail for almost four years! For permanent residents
like Adil Charkaoui, the court is required to conduct a detention review
every six months. In Charkaoui's case, the judge has already refused release
on bail twice, on the basis that the secret evidence he has seen makes him
think that it is possible that a threat exists &endash; before the case
has even been heard! In effect, his decision reverses the fundamental rule
of innocent until proven guilty.
The men can be deported, even if their lives are threatened.
A substantial risk of torture and even death exists for all five men &endash;
in some cases, because of the case that has been made against them in
Canada. For example, under Immigration Canada's own assessment, Adil
Charkaoui faces a "risk of torture," and a "threat to his
life or risk of cruel and unusual punishment" if he is deported to
Morrocco (ERAR, 21 August 2003). Both Human Rights Watch (25 March 2004) and
Amnesty International (28 July 2003) agree with this assessment and it is
further substantiated by a detailed report on Morocco's
"anti-"terror measures, released in February 2004 by the
Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH). But
this is not enough! Deportation may still go ahead, even though torture is a
crime against humanity. The UN Committee against Torture actually had to
remind Canada in 2000 that it is a violation of the UN Convention against
Torture to deport someone to a substantial risk of torture, including when
there are security concerns. Where security concerns actually do exist,
other solutions can and must be sought. Nothing justifies knowingly sending
someone to torture, cruel and unusual punishment, and death.
The security certificate process undermines the Charter of
Rights and violates Canada's international obligations. Amnesty
International "is of the view that the security certificate process may
very well result in arbitrary detention and thus violate the fundamental
right to liberty." Amnesty also believes that the Secret Trial Five are
"effectively denied their right to prepare a defense and mount a
meaningful challenge to the lawfulness of their detention." According
to Amnesty, this puts Canada on the wrong side of articles 9 and 14 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Amnesty International,
31 March 2004).
This is a discriminatory measure. Security certificates only
apply to Permanent Residents and Refugees. They thus deny certain classes of
people in Canada their fundamental rights &endash; a completely
unacceptable discrimination. Human rights are inalienable and do not depend
on legal status.
Secret trials for refugees and immigrants are just the
beginning. Muslim and Arab communities and civil liberties more generally
are being threatened by hysteria around national security. The Security
Certificate, which dates back to 1991 and was reintroduced in the
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in 2002, is one of the roots of the
attack that has been mounted, with frightening rapidity, on civil liberties
and international norms since 11 September 2001. Now, "national
security" is endangering all of us. It is being used to justify Bill
C-18, which would amend the Citizenship of Canada Act to subject naturalized
citizens to indefinite detention, secret trials, and deportation. With C-36,
the Anti-Terrorism Act, similar violations of rights are extended to all
citizens. The historical parallels are clear: Japanese interned in Canada
during World War II; the "red scare" of the McCarthy era; even the
rise of fascism in Germany in the 40s. These should stand as warnings to us.
If national security is not about safeguarding our fundamental freedoms and
values, then what is it about?
We must not let fears about terrorist attacks blind us to
some very obvious questions:
* Why are these men not permitted to argue against precise
charges in a free and fair trial?
* Why don't ordinary standards of evidence apply?
* Why is there no appeal?
* Why can't the Minister's security concerns be satisfied by
less abusive measures than a secret trial, indefinite imprisonment and
deportation to torture or death?
We are asking Anne McLellan to:
1) immediately release all five men;
2) if any case against them actually exists, let them fight
it in a fair and independent trial;
3) guarantee that they will not be deported;
4) cease using Security Certificates and re-write the
security provisions of IRPA in compliance with the constitution and the
Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN
Convention against Torture and principles of justice; and
5) stop the racist scape-goating of Arab and Muslim
communities and the attack on civil liberties in Canada.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.adilinfo.org
or www.homesnotbombs.org or www.zerra.net/freemohamed.
Please also feel free to contact the Coalition for Justice
for Adil Charkaoui for further background material, including all of the
reports and articles cited in this document:
tel 514 859 9023 or justiceforadil@riseup.net.
[END]
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Reminder:
Help free Ernst Zundel, Prisoner of Conscience. His
prison sketches - now on-line and highly popular - help pay for his defence.
Take a look - and tell a friend.
http://www.zundelsite.org/gallery/donations/index.html
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Write to Canada's Prime Minister and complain
over the unfair treatment Ernst Zündel has received.
Prime Minister Paul Martin
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: (613) 992-4211
Fax: (613) 941-6900
Email: Martin.P@parl.gc.ca |
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