International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
February 1, 2019
Matthew Behrens: Canada ignores national security threat posed by violence against women
rabble.ca 30/01/2019 - Every other day in 2018, a woman in Canada was  murdered . These crimes were almost always committed by men. Sexual assault crisis centres reported  a record numbers of calls last year. And according to a new report, male violence against women has  claimed the lives of at least 10,495 women and girls in Canada since 1961, an average of 184 murders per year. "Femicide is recognized internationally by the United Nations as the most extreme form of violence and discrimination against women and girls," according to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. "Its definition varies across disciplines and world regions, but broadly captures the killing of females, primarily by men, because they are female." Despite such massacre-scale figures, successive federal and provincial governments have refused to recognize and act upon the scale and severity of a national security threat that daily targets more than half the population. It's certainly not news to those who courageously -- and almost always without the necessary funding and resources they need to do their jobs -- staff the shelters and sexual violence hotlines counselling the targets of hundreds of thousands of daily acts of male violence. While the Trudeau government has thumbed its nose at a United Nations commitment to enact and properly fund a  National Action Plan to End Violence Against Women and Girls , its Public Safety minister also refuses to recognize the national security implications of male violence. Indeed, when a man inspired by extremist misogynist ideology (the so-called incel movement ) went on a murderous Yonge Street rampage in 2018, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale had the audacity to  declare  the terrorist act did "not appear to be connected in any way to national security." Instead of naming and addressing this major national security threat, the Canadian government continues to rely on racist tropes generated by white supremacist state security agencies to imagine threats that are minimal at worst but which, when parroted by a compliant media, actually make life even more dangerous for anyone who does not enjoy the protective shield of white privilege. Nowhere was that more clear than in the arrests last week of two people in Kingston on an alleged terror plot. While one of those arrested was released without charge, the media continue to spout inflammatory lines about the non-charged individual being part of a refugee family fleeing Syrian violence. Needless to say, that irresponsible reportage was immediately picked up by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who  reinforced  the utterly nonexistent notion that falsely equates refugees with terrorism. (Indeed,  research concludes that new immigrant communities have lower crimes rates than those who came before them). Read more - Lire plus

Amira Elghawaby: Why we're holding vigil for Quebec's Islamic Centre victims
Ottawa Citizen 28/01/2019 - This past Sunday marked International Holocaust Memorial Day. Around the world, people gathered to reflect, share, and mourn the genocides that destroyed lives and shattered families in Germany, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia and Darfur in decades past. “Together we bear witness for those who endured genocide, and honour the survivors and all those whose lives were changed beyond recognition,” reads the United Kingdom-based Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website. While it’s overwhelming to imagine the millions of people who have been killed for no other reason than their race, religion, or ethnicity, it’s also absolutely critical that we do remember them. It’s part of an ongoing healing process, points out sociologist Nancy Berns, author of  Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us . Writing about the importance of memorials, Berns argues that remembrance provides an opportunity for people to share their stories, builds public bonds, documents history, and inspires movements for social change. “Storytelling does not just benefit survivors and victims’ families. Individual stories can help the world understand the human toll of mass tragedy,” she writes. It’s why, Tuesday, thousands of people across Canada will be holding vigils and events to remember the six men killed at the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec exactly two years ago. Many of us are now familiar with the events of that horrific night. It was a frigid evening on Jan. 29, 2017 when Alexandre Bissonnette walked towards the mosque and began shooting. Within minutes, he had shot dead Ibrahima Barry, Mamadou Tanou Barry, Khaled Belkacemi, Aboubaker Thabti, Abdelkrim Hassane and Azzedine Soufiane and had severely injured many others, including Aymen Derbali, who was paralyzed. We need public memorials and commemorations in order to demonstrate our collective commitment towards addressing the hate that would drive someone to murder her husband simply because he was Muslim. “When societies have crisis of identity, or other forms of crisis – economic or political – it becomes all too easy for unscrupulous leaders to say ‘Those others among us, they’re the problem,’” surmised former Brock president and history professor Jack Lightstone during a lecture about the Holocaust at the Niagara Falls Military Museum this past weekend. “It’s easy to blame the stranger among us, even if they’re not really a stranger at all. I think that’s the lesson.” Lightstone’s words apply to the circumstances that drove Bissonnette to commit his atrocities. He told police that he wanted to save Canada from terrorist attacks, based on anti-Muslim rhetoric he was consuming online through the accounts of a wide range of far-right leaders, white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Court proceedings further revealed he was angered by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tweet welcoming refugees to Canada, the day after U.S. President Donald Trump’s had instituted the first so-called Muslim ban. As is so often said, those who forget history are bound to repeat it. [...] Here in Canada, hate crimes against Muslims increased by nearly 50 per cent the same year of the massacre, along with a significant rise in attacks on Jewish and Black communities. We clearly must do more to confront the hatred and bigotry that persists. Memorializing Jan. 29 with vigils, public memorials, and as a nationally designated day, are urgent and necessary steps. Read more - Lire plus 

Les remarques du Premier ministre du Québec niant l'existence de l'Islamophobie dans la province sont offensantes et inexcusables
CNCM 31/01/2019 - Le Conseil national des musulmans canadiens (CNMC) estime que les commentaires du premier ministre François Legault aujourd’hui niant l’existence de l’islamophobie au Québec sont « très offensants et inexacts », et exhorte ce dernier à se rétracter publiquement. Selon certains bulletins d’information , lorsqu’on lui a demandé ce qu’il pensait d’une journée nationale pour commémorer la tragédie de Québec, François Legault a déclaré : « Mais il y en aura pas. Je ne pense pas qu’il y a de l’islamophobie au Québec je ne vois pas pourquoi il y aurait une journée ». « Ces commentaires, formulés moins de 48 heures après la participation publique du premier ministre à la commémoration du meurtre de six musulmans québécois dans l’attentat de la mosquée de Québec du 29 janvier, sont absolument insultants pour les familles des victimes et les communautés musulmanes québécoises et canadiennes qui continuent de vivre un deuil dans la foulée de cette tragédie, déclare Ihsaan Gardee, directeur exécutif du CNMC.
« Le premier ministre Legault est manifestement déconnecté des réalités de l’islamophobie sur le terrain au Québec. Il devrait immédiatement se rétracter et s’excuser à la suite de cette remarque grandement offensante et inexacte, et reconnaître que l’islamophobie, comme toutes les autres formes de haine et de racisme, existe au Québec et nécessite d’être abordée », ajoute M. Gardee. « Ces commentaires témoignent soit d’un aveuglement volontaire, soit de l’ignorance : les deux sont inexcusables de la part d’un député de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec, et à plus forte raison de la part du premier ministre. De telles déclarations ne font que flatter les sentiments réactionnaires et populistes au détriment des musulmans du Québec, lesquels sont déjà vulnérables et continuent d’être confrontés à la discrimination simplement en raison de leur identité religieuse, affirme Leila Nasr, coordinatrice des communications du CNMC. « Il s’agit d’une remarque particulièrement irresponsable, alors que nous observons une montée de l’extrémisme de droite. On craint réellement que les commentaires du premier ministre Legault soient interprétés par certains comme une autorisation d’agir dans le sens de leurs opinions haineuses », explique Mme Nasr. Statistique Canada a récemment révélé que les crimes haineux déclarés par la police et commis contre les musulmans avaient augmenté de 151 % de 2016 à 2017. Les crimes haineux visant des musulmans ont atteint un sommet en février 2017 et représentaient 26 % des incidents signalés ciblant les musulmans pour l’année au Québec. En outre, en 2018, les deux tiers de tous les crimes haineux dans la ville de Québec ciblaient des musulmans, d’après la police de Québec . Source


Response to Quebec mosque killings stands in stark contrast to arrest of teen in Kingston
rabble.ca 29/01/2019 - January 29 marks the second anniversary of the Quebec City massacre, when a young man by the name of Alexandre Bissonnette walked into a mosque during evening prayers and started shooting worshippers at random. He killed six and injured 19. The day before this grim anniversary, a 16-year-old was arraigned in a court in Kingston, Ont., on charges related to terrorism. Although no violent acts were committed in the second case, in many ways the media, the criminal justice system and politicians treated the Kingston youth as a greater danger to public safety than the mosque shooter. Prior to the mosque shooting, Bissonnette had frequently expressed violent, far-right, racist and xenophobic views on social media, yet he was not, as far as we can tell, on the radar of any security service -- be it the Sûreté du Québec, CSIS or the RCMP. When authorities charged Bissonnette, it was only with murder and attempted murder, not with any terrorism-related offences. They made that choice notwithstanding the fact that the killer had stated quite clearly his motive for terrorizing a peaceful group of people at prayer was his burning hatred for Muslims. To invoke terrorism in such a case, the authorities explained, there would have had to be evidence of collaboration with some sort of organized terrorist group. Two years later, in a Kingston court, the crown arraigned the 16-year-old youth for facilitating a terrorist activity, as defined by section 83.19 of the Canadian Criminal Code. Lawyer and anti-terrorism expert Leah West noted that the criminal code section under which the youth was charged makes no reference to terrorist organizations. [...] Two years ago, politicians were circumspect, non-partisan and solemn in their reaction to the horrific crimes of Bissonnette. In the case of the Kingston youth, however, at least some political figures have been quick to use it for partisan advantage. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer did not even wait for the arraignment before suggesting the accusations against one 16-year-old prove that Canada must re-examine its refugee screening system. Of course, we do not know anything about the identity or origins of the accused youth, except that he, apparently, speaks Arabic. That did not stop Scheer from exploiting the situation as a cudgel with which to beat the notionally too-soft-on-refugees Trudeau government. When an old-stock English- or French-speaking Canadian commits a crime, however brutal and bloody, we tend to see it as a crime and nothing more. In our collective eyes, the only guilty person is the perpetrator himself. His guilt does not extend to any group or community; nor does it pose a threat to the peace and order of society at large. We react that way even when, as in the Bissonnette case, the criminal himself loudly and proudly proclaims his fiercely ideological motives. Read more - Lire plus

Mosquée de Québec: une veuve reconnue comme victime
La presse canadienne 27/01/2019 - À l'approche du triste anniversaire de l'attentat contre la grande mosquée de Québec, une veuve a obtenu gain de cause face au régime d'indemnisation des victimes d'actes criminels (IVAC). Après deux refus, l'IVAC a finalement reconnu Khadija Thabti et ses deux enfants âgés de 5 et 13 ans en tant que victimes de cette fusillade, qui a coûté la vie de son conjoint. L'avocat de la famille, Marc Bellemare, précise que la ministre de la Justice, Sonia Lebel, est intervenue dans ce dossier vendredi, à quelques jours du procès qui devait s'amorcer devant le Tribunal administratif du Québec. Khadija Thabti pourra finalement être indemnisée pour sa perte de revenus et obtenir des traitements psychologiques aussi longtemps que nécessaire, tout en étant remboursée pour ses frais de déplacement. Il reproche à l'IVAC de parfois refuser des prestations sous prétexte que le demandeur n'était pas sur place au moment du crime _ un motif qui est, selon lui, "ridicule et contraire à la loi". "La loi exige que la personne ait subi un choc mental à l'occasion d'un acte criminel. Donc, la personne peut l'avoir subi en arrivant précipitamment sur les lieux du crime, en étant confrontée à des images d'horreur, en étant inquiète que la sécurité d'un proche ait été menacée", illustre-t-il. C'est ça, un stress post-traumatique: t'es pas obligé d'être là quand la balle sort du fusil!" Un changement de mentalité est selon lui de mise du côté de l'IVAC, qui relève de la Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail. Certaines victimes se retrouvent sans ressources pour se battre et en voient leur guérison compromise, fait valoir l'ex-ministre de la Justice. Lire plus - Read more

Undercover agents target Toronto-based cybersecurity watchdog Citizen Lab, which reported key details in Khashoggi case
The Associated Press 25/01/2019 - The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found. Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded. Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert described the stunts as “a new low.” “We condemn these sinister, underhanded activities in the strongest possible terms,” he said in a statement Friday. “Such a deceitful attack on an academic group like the Citizen Lab is an attack on academic freedom everywhere.” Citizen Lab, based out of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, has for years played a leading role in exposing state-backed hackers operating in places as far afield as Tibet , Ethiopia and Syria. Lately the group has drawn attention for its repeated exposes of an Israeli surveillance software vendor called the NSO Group, a firm whose wares have been used by governments to target journalists in Mexico , opposition figures in Panama and human rights activists in the Middle East. Read more - Lire plus


UK Royal Air Forces classified the Stansted 15 as an ‘enemy force’
Morning Star UK 30/01/2019 - Chilling Royal Air Force (RAF) files reveal that anti-deportation activists were regarded as “enemy forces” before a secret expulsion flight from its Brize Norton airbase two years ago. The RAF issued its sinister definition of protest in the wake of a major demonstration at Stansted airport, where peaceful demonstrators chained themselves to the wheels of a deportation jet bound for west Africa. That flight was cancelled and 15 activists from the End Deportations group were convicted under a draconian anti-terror law, in what human rights groups warned was an attack on freedom of expression. With the “Stansted 15” due to be sentenced next week, the Morning Star can now reveal the shockwave their protest sent through the government’s hostile environment policy. Stansted airport was so concerned about a copy cat incident that it banned the Home Office from using its runway for deportations to Nigeria and Ghana. Read more - Lire plus 
Canada denies Rohingya couple's asylum claim
Vice News 02/01/2019 - A decision by Canadian officials to reject the asylum claim of a young Rohingya couple exposes what they warn could become systemic issues for Rohingya people fleeing violence in Myanmar and seeking protection in Canada. Earlier this year, the Immigration and Refugee Board denied the claim of a 35-year-old man, who evaded authorities in Myanmar for years to obtain multiple fake I.D.s, including a forged passport, and relied on human smugglers to get out of the country alive. He eventually made his way to Canada, with his 26-year-old wife. In its decision, the Refugee Protection Division (R.P.D.) of the I.R.B. cited their forged documents as evidence of dishonesty. And it said it could not verify the couple’s Rohingya ethnicity because they were unable to find a Rohingya translator, and had to rely on an Urdu speaker instead. The couple is now appealing the decision and allege that the R.P.D. panel’s errors, if repeated, amount to systemic hurdles for Rohingya claimants seeking asylum in Canada. They have asked only to be identified by their initials out of safety concerns. “There’s a clear pattern of misunderstanding of both my clients’ stories and claims,” says Washim Ahmed, lawyer for the couple in their appeal. “In this case, there also seems to be a real lack of awareness of the plight of the Rohingya, and what they have to do to survive.” In recent years, waves of Rohingya have been forcefully displaced from Rakhine state, where most Rohingya live, as Myanmar’s security forces carried out campaigns of mass killing, arson, and rape against them. Since August alone,  more than 600,000  people have fled. Multiple governments around the world have recognized Myanmar’s violent persecution of the Rohingya as a “genocide,” including Canada — a declaration that came in September, shortly after the I.R.B. decision in this case. “It’s so frustrating,” M.S., the husband, told VICE News in an interview. “It’s like they have no idea what’s happening to us at all.” Read more - Lire plus 
Commissaire à la protection de la vie privée du Canada: La liberté et la démocratie ne peuvent exister sans la vie privée
Le Devoir 28/01/2019 - En cette Journée internationale de la vie privée et après une année où elle a été gravement malmenée, il est intéressant de se rappeler pourquoi il est essentiel de la protéger. La vie privée est souvent perçue comme un concept abstrait ou sans grande valeur associé à un désir de garder secrets certains aspects de nos activités ou de notre personnalité que nous préférons taire. Il s’agit là d’une perception étriquée de la réalité. En fait, la vie privée n’est rien de moins qu’une condition préalable à la liberté : la liberté de vivre et de se développer de façon autonome, à l’abri de la surveillance de l’État ou d’entreprises commerciales, tout en participant volontairement et activement aux activités courantes d’une société moderne. Lire plus

Sept. 11 defense lawyers threaten hearing boycott over FBI interview of paralegal
McClatchy DC 25/01/2019 - The attorney for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 plot, on Monday threatened to refuse to participate in this week’s pretrial hearing, saying he was disturbed by the FBI questioning a former 9/11 defense team paralegal at an Army base in Texas. Defense attorney David Nevin said the questioning by federal agents raised a new challenge to attorney-client confidentiality in the terrorism trial. Defense lawyers have repeatedly claimed that intelligence agencies were interfering in their independent relationships with their clients. They’ve found listening devices that looked like smoke detectors in their meeting rooms, which the original case judge had removed; a remote court audio kill switch, which the judge ordered unplugged; and the FBI recruiting defense team informants, which the judge ordered investigated. The new judge in the case, Marine Col. Keith Parrella, sought to reassure defense lawyers that none of them were under federal investigation. But the paralegal said in court documents that intelligence agents pointedly asked about defense team dynamics in three days of questioning at Fort Hood, Texas last month. “The agents wanted to know all sorts of information about the work of the defense team, the personalities of the team members, the communications,” the paralegal, Army Staff Sgt. Brent Skeete, wrote in a  sworn affidavit  filed in federal court. They sought “my opinions of everyone, and lots of other privileged information.” Read more - Lire plus


ACTIONS & EVENTS
Next week Political Policing of Social Movements: Upping the Anti launch
Organized in collaboration with OPIRG Carleton & ICLMG
Thursday, February 7 from 7-9pm
Jack Purcell Community Centre,
320 Jack Purcell Lane, Room 101

Join us the Ottawa launch of the Upping the Anti #20 and a panel discussion on political policing and the suppression of social movements. Upping the Anti is a journal of theory and action that publishes theoretical and critical articles, interviews and roundtables. The panel discussion will feature Professor Christabelle Sethna, Mariful Alam and Matt Cicero. Professor Sethna will be speaking about the history of RCMP infiltration of the Women's Liberation Movement. Alam and Cicero will be focus on the infiltration of activist communities in Ottawa and Southern Ontario that were engaged in opposing the 2010 Olympics and the G8/G20 Toronto.
Free, Wheelchair Accessible, Snacks will be provided.
Tonight Justice for Abdirahman | Community Vigil
Friday, Feb 1, at 7 PM – 9 PM
2 Spadina Ave, Ottawa

Please join us in an evening of remembrance, support and solidarity for Abdirahman Abdi’s family.

Nearly three years later, the injustice and pain of Abdirahman’s death continues to ripple through his family and his community. On the friday before the upcoming judge-only trial for Abdirahman’s case, we are gathering once more to remember, mourn, and begin to heal. At the Vigil, we hope to inform the public on ways that you can show up for and support Abdirahman’s family through the trial period, set to begin on February 4th, 2019.

We will meet at Somerset square park for a welcoming and collectively make our way to Bayview yards for speakers, refreshments and time to connect. Our walk to Bayview yards will be a silent candle light walk. We encourage folks to bundle up and bring any signs, posters and banners they may have. Follow Justice 4 Abdirahman on Twitter.
Last chance to sign! Parliamentary Petition: Release Edwin Espinal!
We call upon MPs to: 

- Urgently intervene in the case of Edwin Espinal, spouse of Karen Spring of Elmvale, arrested January 19, 2018, on trumped-up charges in the wake of popular protests; and

- Immediately ensure that Honduras release Espinal and four other political prisoners still held in inhumane maximum-security military prisons, and drop all charges against 22 political prisoners.
Remember January 29
On Jan. 29, 2017, a lone gunman entered a mosque in Quebec City and opened fire on dozens of Muslim-Canadian worshipers. By the time the shooting had ended, six had been tragically killed, and 19 more injured.  W e, citizens and residents of Canada, call on the government of Canada to henceforth designate January 29th as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia and other forms of religious discrimination or a National Day of Action against Hate and Intolerance .
Tell the Senate to Fix Bill C-59 before it's too late!
From mass surveillance to the No Fly List, the new National Security Act fails to undo past problems and brings in new powers that threaten our rights & freedoms. Send a message to the Senate that they need to fix Bill C-59.
Share on Facebook & Twitter .
Partagez sur Facebook & Twitter .
All-in-one action page: Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture
Call PM Trudeau, write a letter to Public Safety Minister Goodale & your MP, and sign Sophie Harkat's petition to stop the deportation of Moe Harkat. If sent back to Algeria, Moe faces detention, torture and death. No one should be deported to torture. Ever.
Call on Justin Trudeau to ensure justice for Abousfian Abdelrazik
In September 2003, Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan, while he was back in the country visiting his ailing mother. Over the next three years he was imprisoned for nearly 20 months and was held under house arrest for 12 months. He was denied a lawyer, and was never charged or brought before a judge. There were lengthy periods when he had no family or consular visits. During that time he was badly tortured in three different prisons. Not only did Canada fail to take steps to protect him, CSIS officials frequently obstructed efforts to secure his release. Those actions prolonged his detention, with no concern for the obvious risk of mistreatment he was facing.
Don’t invest my CPP contributions in Trump’s racist agenda
An investigation by the Guardian just revealed that the  Canada Pension Plan (CPP), is pouring millions of your pension dollars into the US private prison corporations that are executing Trump’s cruel and inhumane anti-immigration agenda. That’s your money.  If you’ve ever worked in Canada, you’ve paid contributions to the CPP fund. We can’t let our CPP contributions flow to corporations that are profiting from Trump’s cruel immigration policies.

Tell the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB): Stop investing our savings in private US prison corporations that are executing Trump’s cruel and inhumane anti-immigration agenda.
Five Eyes: Save encryption
Ministers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the U.S. have gone public with their plans for a huge attack on our personal security.

They want to force companies to crush the encryption that protects our private data and messages. But ordinary people need and use encryption every day, in everything from online banking to personal messaging in apps like WhatsApp.
Tell ministers to stop their attacks, and commit to protecting our privacy and security.
Iran: Release Saeed Malekpour!
Saeed Malekpour, an Iranian national with permanent residency in Canada, has been imprisoned in Iran since his arrest on 4 October 2008. In late 2010, he was initially sentenced to death for “spreading corruption on earth” in relation to a web programme he created for uploading photos which the Iranian authorities said was used on pornographic websites. This was an open source programme and Saeed Malekpour has maintained that the use of this web programme on other websites was without his knowledge. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 2012.
MORE NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES
Access to information
Accès à l'information

Terror financing lists
Listes de financement terroriste

Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG.
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