International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
May 31, 2019
Senators fail to protect civil liberties by adopting Bill C-59 without crucial amendments
ICLMG 30/05/2019 - Canadian senators missed an important opportunity to protect fundamental rights and freedoms in Canada and internationally by failing to bring necessary amendments to the National Security Act, 2017 (Bill C-59) before sending the bill back to the House of Commons.Senators adopted Bill C-59 at third reading today, without any further amendments than the minor changes adopted at committee earlier in May. This move ignored calls from leading civil liberties and human rights groups, and hundreds of letters from the public to bring further changes to the bill.

“Once again, Canadian lawmakers have failed to act to ensure that national security laws do not come at the cost of privacy, free expression, due process and government transparency,” said Tim McSorley, national coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. “Senators missed an opportunity to defend the rights of people in Canada today.”

The Liberal government has touted Bill C-59 as being a “fix” for the previous government’s controversial Bill C-51 (the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015). But while it brings some important improvements, Bill C-59:
  • Continues to allow CSIS to engage in secret and dangerous threat disruption powers;
  • Maintains the secretive No Fly List, which violates due process and has never been proven to be effective;
  • Preserves overly-broad information sharing rules that infringe on privacy and free expression;
  • Transfers the weaker aspects of current national security review bodies to the new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency;
  • Grants sweeping new surveillance powers to both the CSE and CSIS, including the collection of metadata, vaguely defined “publicly available information,” and the incredibly broad category of “unselected information” (which essentially means any information);
  • Introduces new powers to give CSIS agents or designated individuals immunity for committing crimes in the line of their work;
  • Fails to prohibit the use and sharing, in all circumstances, of information linked to mistreatment and torture;
  • Allows the CSE to engage in broad and powerful new “active cyber operations” with little oversight, creating the risk of retaliation as well as attacks from leaked new cyber-weapons.

The amendments adopted earlier by the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defense to reduce the number of years before Bill C-59 is reviewed, and to allow the Intelligence Commissioner to suggest conditions on surveillance authorizations, are positive, but severely insufficient.

The ICLMG has welcomed aspects of the bill:
A redress system for those erroneously caught up in Canada’s No Fly List will help ensure less travellers face undue interrogations, searches and delays at airports; although, due to unresolved issues around secrecy and due process, we maintain our position that the no-fly list regime should simply be abolished.

The new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) and Intelligence Commissioner will both help to bring greater accountability to Canada’s national security activities. At the same time, senators failed to ensure that these bodies will have all the tools necessary to accomplish their important work: greater transparency and independence; the power to make binding recommendations; and the ability to provide redress for complainants when abuse is found, though, are all essential aspects missing from this bill.

Even if review and oversight were improved, though, it still would not make up for bad laws, warns the ICLMG. “The NSIRA and the Intelligence Commissioner will only be able to enforce the rules set out by lawmakers. Bill C-59 grants new powers for surveillance, maintains secretive CSIS disruption activities, allows for concerning new active cyber operations, and fails to address real threats to due process, free expression and privacy,” said McSorley. “With laws like these on the books, these bodies risk simply becoming rubber stamps.” Source


Letter to Justice Minister: Release Report and Launch Public Inquiry into Hassan Diab Case Now
ICLMG 29/05/2019 - Minister Lametti,
I write to you today regarding the necessity of making the report into the extradition of Dr. Hassan Diab public, and the ongoing need for a full, public and independent inquiry into the case of Dr. Diab, and the Extradition Act overall.

It has come to our attention that the report, written by Mr. Murray Segal, has been submitted to your office, but that there has been no commitment to when – or if – the report will be made public. After the more than a decade ordeal that Dr. Diab and his family have been through, and the severe allegations of misconduct towards officials in your office, it is imperative that the details of what occurred, and what recommendations are being made, be rendered public.

On behalf of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Groups’ 46 member organizations, I am urging you to immediately release the Segal report publicly. Further, we are once again calling on your office to initiate a public inquiry into Dr. Diab’s extradition and the failings of the Extradition Act itself. Regardless of the findings of Mr. Segal’s report, the mandate of his external review was too narrow. For example, it did not include an examination of the Extradition Act, nor did it grant Mr. Segal the power to compel testimony or documents.

The severity of what Dr. Diab has gone through merits the scope and thoroughness of a public inquiry. Only this will ensure a full accounting of the facts, full redress for Dr. Diab, and the information needed to make the necessary reforms so that no Canadian faces the same travesty again. The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group is a coalition of human rights, civil liberties, labour, humanitarian, faith-based and environmental organizations working to protect civil liberties in the context of national security and anti-terrorism. We have been active on Dr. Diab’s case from the start, as it raised serious questions about the low level of evidence and “guilty until proven innocent” approach that surrounds many terrorism related proceedings. We rejoiced when Dr. Diab returned to Canada and to his family and friends. But unless there is a full inquiry, justice for Dr. Diab will never be achieved. Read more - Lire plus

TAKE ACTION: Feel free to use this template and send your own message calling for the public release of the report, and the launch of a public inquiry into the case of Hassan Diab: David.Lametti@parl.gc.ca and/or mcu@justice.gc.ca .

Open Letter to GCHQ on the Threats Posed by the Ghost Proposal
The ICLMG is one of the 47 signatories to the letter.
Lawfare 30/05/2019 - Last fall, Lawfare published a piece by Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson of GCHQ entitled Principles for a More Informed Exceptional Access Debate . Our organization, the Open Technology Institute, has worked alongside other people and organizations to coordinate a response from an international coalition of 47 signatories, including 23 civil society organizations that work to protect civil liberties, human rights and innovation online; seven tech companies and trade associations, including providers that offer leading encrypted messaging services; and 17 individual experts in digital security and policy. Our coalition letter outlines our concerns that the GCHQ proposal poses serious threats to cybersecurity and fundamental human rights including privacy and free expression. We shared our letter with GCHQ officials on May 22, and we are now releasing it to the public as an Open Letter to GCHQ .

In their Lawfare piece, Levy and Robinson set forth their proposal for “silently adding a law enforcement participant to a group chat or call.” This proposal to add a “ghost” user into encrypted chats would require providers to suppress normal notifications to users, so that they would be unaware that a law enforcement participant had been added and could see the plain text of the encrypted conversation. Levy and Robinson state that they offer their proposal in an effort to have an “open and honest conversation” about how law enforcement can gain access to encrypted communications. We appreciate this call for a discussion and have organized our coalition in response. Lawfare has already published other pieces addressing the GCHQ proposal here and here .

Our letter explains how the ghost proposal would work in practice, the ways in which tech companies that offer encrypted messaging services would need to change their systems, and the dangers that this would present. In particular, the letter outlines how the ghost proposal, if implemented, would “undermine the authentication process that enables users to verify that they are communicating with the right people, introduce potential unintentional vulnerabilities, and increase risks that communications systems could be abused or misused.” If users cannot trust that they know who is on the other end of their communications, it will not matter that their conversations are protected by strong encryption while in transit. These communications will not be secure, threatening users’ rights to privacy and free expression.

Our letter concludes by urging GCHQ to abandon the ghost proposal and any other approach that would pose similar risks to digital security and human rights, and by noting that we would welcome further dialogue on these important issues. The Open Letter to GCHQ is available here . Source

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Lawyers filed a humanitarian appeal in Canada on behalf of four of the Snowden refugees
Twitter 29/05/2019 - Full video of today’s press conference in Montreal, where lawyers for the Snowden refugees announced they have filed a humanitarian appeal on behalf of four of the refugees, and explained their claim of persecution by Hong Kong authorities. Source
Yasser Ahmed Albaz's Detention In Notorious Egyptian Prison Renewed Yet Again
The Huffington Post 25/04/2019 - The daughter of a Canadian man who has been languishing in a brutal Egyptian prison for more than two months says his detention has been renewed yet again. Amal Ahmed Albaz told HuffPost Canada her father Yasser still hasn't been charged with anything or told why he is being detained. "A part of us is still in shock and can't wrap our heads around what's happening," Albaz said. The Oakville, Ont. family's nightmare began on Feb. 18 — Family Day in their province — when he was taken in for questioning by authorities at the Cairo airport while waiting to catch a flight back to Toronto. After sending them a text message to say he loved them, Yasser vanished.

The family had no idea where he was for almost a week. Their confusion turned to abject horror when a lawyer in Cairo told them Yasser was questioned and taken to Tora prison, a notorious institution that has been accused of human rights violations. Albaz said that since then, Yasser has been receiving extensions on his detention from the state prosecutor without being charged. The most recent renewal was on April 15. "They just go [to the prosecutor], they just renew his extension and he leaves. It's very routine," she said. "The Canadian government has no knowledge of anything and even our lawyer on the ground has no knowledge of anything."

Albaz said her father's situation is only getting worse. He is still sleeping on concrete floors in a cramped cell and eating unclean food. Her uncle in Egypt has been allowed to visit Yasser. He tells them he is physically unharmed but appears to be in "psychological shock." "He's trying to tell us he's strong, that he's fine, but I know he's just telling that my uncle for our sake, to give us some peace and solace." Albaz said her father's absence has hit the family hard. She said she is reminded of how long he's been away just by looking at how much her three-month-old son has grown since. [...]

Albaz said Canadian consular officials have contacted Yasser to provide support. She also said that Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland reached out in person to express her concern and support to the family. "We just hope that she will take personal action on this case. She's kind of our only hope in this situation," she said. The family is worried that fabricated charges will be laid in Yasser's case, Albaz added, which would lob it into a whole new dimension of legal issues. She is afraid the case will slowly resemble that of Hazem Hamouda, an Australian-Egyptian citizen who spent more than a year in Tora prison without ever being charged. Although he was recently freed, Hamouda "vanished" for a month shortly before his scheduled release date in February, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Right now is the best time for the Canadian government to intervene, because if it turns into a trial or if it enters the judicial process based on fabricated charges or evidence or anything like that, then it becomes much more difficult for the government to intervene." Source
Egypt: Serious Abuses, War Crimes in North Sinai
Human Rights Watch 21/05/2019 - Egyptian military and police forces in the Sinai Peninsula are committing serious and widespread abuses against civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Some of these abuses, part of an ongoing campaign against members of the local ISIS affiliate, the Sinai Province group, amount to war crimes.

The 134-page report, “ ‘If You Are Afraid for Your Lives, Leave Sinai!’: Egyptian Security Forces and ISIS-Affiliate Abuses in North Sinai ,” provides a detailed look into an underreported conflict that has killed and wounded thousands of people – including civilians, militants, and members of the security forces – since fighting escalated in 2013. Human Rights Watch’s two-year investigation documented crimes including mass arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, and possibly unlawful air and ground attacks against civilians. While Egyptian military and police forces were responsible for the majority of abuses documented in the report, extremist militants have also committed horrific crimes, including kidnapping and torturing scores of residents, killing some, and extrajudicially executing detained security force members. Read more

Criminal charges dropped against group that occupied Muskrat Falls in 2016
CBC 29/05/2019 - Criminal charges have been withdrawn against 14 people who were involved in protests at the Muskrat Falls project site more than two years ago. "I cried happy tears of joy when I saw my name and my son's name on the list," said Beatrice Hunter of the Labrador Land Protectors group. Hunter — who was imprisoned for refusing to tell a Supreme Court judge she would abide by an injunction ordering her not to block traffic or enter the work site — is one of many who have been tied up in both civil and criminal court proceedings since the site's occupation by protesters in October 2016.

The Crown said because the same set of circumstances were dealt with through civil proceedings in Supreme Court, trying them again as criminal charges would violate the legal principle that person can't be tried twice for the same charges, known as "double jeopardy". "It's so relieving to have your criminal charges dropped. It's not like we were hiding anything when we went inside the Muskrat Falls gate," Hunter said.

For the most part, the 14 people who had their charges dropped were facing one charge of mischief and one charge of disobeying an order of the court each. In one case a charge of taking a motor vehicle or vessel without consent was also dropped. "It means we're not criminals and hopefully it means for other protectors, like water protectors everywhere, that they're not criminals as well," Hunter said. "Even though it's been almost three years out, it's like the light at the end of the tunnel now." Civil contempt proceedings, which Hunter is also a part of, concluded last week, and the judge is expected to rule on those matters sometime this summer.

"I pray and hope every day that our civil charges will get dropped as well because we're only trying to save our own lives from Muskrat Falls," Hunter said. "There's still no independent study on the North Spur, and the methylmercury isn't cleared, and that's what drives us." Other individuals facing criminal charges for their alleged actions at the Muskrat Falls site, including Justin Brake, who was a journalist at the online Independent at the time, had their court matters set over to mid-June. Read more - Lire plus


After Standing Rock, protesting pipelines can get you a decade in prison and $100K in fines
Grist 14/05/2019 - Cherri Foytlin and her fellow protestors spent much of last summer suspended 35-feet in the air in “sky pods” tied to cypress trees. They were hoping to block the Bayou Bridge Pipeline from running through their part of Louisiana. At the time, Energy Transfer Partners was building the pipeline to move oil between Texas and St. James Parish in southern Louisiana, crisscrossing through the Atchafalaya Basin, one of the largest swamps in the country. Foytlin and others with the group L’Eau Est La Vie (“Water Is Life”) set up wooden platforms between trees along the proposed path of the pipeline. The construction crew couldn’t build the pipeline with a protestor dangling above.

Though the protesters were on private land with the landowner’s permission, some were eventually arrested by St. Martin’s Parish Sheriff’s deputies in mid August. The pipeline was completed in March, yet Foytlin could still face up to five years in prison and $1,000 in fines. That’s because Louisiana’s Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, signed HB 727 into law last spring, making trespassing on “critical infrastructure” property a much more serious crime than garden-variety trespassing. What was once a misdemeanor is now a felony. The law takes a broad view of what’s “critical”: pipelines, natural gas plants, and other facilities, as well as property on a proposed pipeline route, even if the pipeline isn’t there yet. Foytlin is one of at least 16 people in Louisiana who’ve been arrested and charged with felonies under the new law, according to Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley, who’s representing Foytlin. All of them were jailed and had to post bonds, some as high as $20,000 to get out. The district attorney hasn’t officially charged any of them yet, Quigley said.

“These are people saying let’s make sure we have something left for future generations in the most beautiful swamp in the world,” Foytlin said. “And for that we were charged with felonies, we were beaten, we were stepped on, I was choked.” To her, the law allows the state to jail people for unpopular political views. The effort to punish pipeline protestors has spread across states with ample oil and gas reserves in the last two years and, in some cases, has garnered bipartisan support. Besides Louisiana, four other states — Oklahoma , North Dakota , South Dakota and Iowa — have enacted similar laws after protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline generated national attention and inspired a wave of civil disobedience. Just last week in Texas, House lawmakers passed a bill that makes interfering with some oil and gas operations a third-degree felony — on par with indecent exposure to a child. Lawmakers in at least seven other states , including Minnesota, Kentucky, and Illinois, are considering similar legislation. Read more - Lire plus
Le compte Twitter de TLMEP remis en service après avoir été signalé par un internaute
Radio-Canada 26/05/2019 - Tout le monde en parle continue de faire jaser, malgré une pause estivale. Son compte Twitter a été remis en service samedi après avoir été suspendu, apparemment en raison de démarches entreprises par un internaute mécontent du passage d'Omar Khadr à l'émission, en avril dernier.

La situation a été constatée vendredi par des membres de l’équipe de l’émission. « Ce compte a été suspendu », pouvait-on simplement lire lorsqu'on tentait d'accéder à la page Twitter de l'émission. Un utilisateur de Twitter qui prétend être à l’origine du signalement qui a mené à la suspension du compte affirme que Radio-Canada a fait « l’apologie du terrorisme » en invitant Omar Khadr à l’émission. Accusé d’avoir tué un soldat américain alors qu'il avait 15 ans et détenu à la prison de Guantanamo pendant des années, le Canadien était présent pour raconter sa longue bataille juridique, lui qui vient d’obtenir en mars dernier sa pleine liberté . Lire plus 


It's 'immoral' to not let Canadians detained in Syria come home: human rights advocate
CTV News 30/05/2019 - “Given the security situation on the ground, the Government of Canada’s ability to provide consular assistance in any part of Syria is extremely limited.” That comes from Global Affairs Canada. How then can journalists, family members, aid workers and intelligence officers readily travel back and forth?

Clive Stafford Smith is a human rights advocate who has spent his life pursuing less than popular causes—death row inmates in America, prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. And has now turned his attention to the stranded women and children of eastern Syria.
Of Canada he says bluntly: “It’s just immoral not to take a little infant like that back to Canada.” UNICEF, the international children’s agency, has issued its own plea for help and understanding. It estimates there are more than 9,000 foreign children detained in Syria, most of them under the age of 12. “They are a very special case,” says Juliette Touma, a UNICEF official based in Jordan. “They need special care. They need assistance. They are like any other child in the world.”

Canada’s unwillingness to intervene, as other countries have intervened, seems to be entirely political. As I have been told countless times, it’s all about the next election. The Liberal Party not wanting to be seen as soft on terrorism. “Political cowardice,” says Smith. “They’re not willing to do the right thing, because they might be politically unpopular with the xenophobes. That’s just wrong.” The families back in Canada are exasperated by the government’s response and terrified by what news they’re getting from sporadic text messages sent on smuggled phones. One mother, who doesn’t want to be identified, described her daughter as sick, down to 45 kilos and desperately frightened. “Someone will die there,” she told me. “I’ve been fearing this every day.” Read more - Lire plus 


US Navy wants 350 billion social media posts
BBC 28/05/2019 - The US Navy is seeking to create an archive of at least 350 billion social media posts from around the world, in order to study how people talk online. The military project team has not specified which social media platform it intends to collect the data from. The posts must be publicly available, come from at least 100 different countries and include at least 60 different languages. They should also date between 2014 and 2016. The details were revealed in a tender document from the Naval Postgraduate School for a firm to provide the data. Applications have now closed.

Additional requirements included:
  • the posts must come from at least 200 million unique users
  • no more than 30% can come from a particular country
  • at least 50% must be in a language other than English
  • location information must be included in at least 20% of the records
Private messaging and user information will not form part of the database. "Social media data allows us for the first time, to measure how colloquial expressions and slang evolve over time, across a diverse array of human societies, so that we can begin to understand how and why communities come to be formed around certain forms of discourse rather than others," T Camber Warren, the project's lead researcher, told Bloomberg . Read more - Lire plus
Les dockers de Marseille refusent de charger des armes à destination de l’Arabie saoudite
Le courrier de l'Atlas 29/05/2019 - Le port de Marseille-Fos «ne servira pas à charger des armes ou des munitions», a assuré ce mardi 28 mai à l'AFP Laurent Pastor, secrétaire général CGT des dockers de Fos-sur-Mer, où doit avoir lieu un chargement de munitions françaises à destination de l'Arabie saoudite selon le média indépendant Disclose.

Selon laurent Pastor, le chargement du cargo Bahri Tabuk a été présenté aux dockers comme du «matériel civil pour un projet lié à l'énergie». «On sera présents pour vérifier ce chargement, car la confiance a ses limites», a-t-il assuré à l'AFP, ajoutant que ces opérations étaient prévues pour mercredi, mais qu'elles pourraient être «retardées en raison du mauvais temps».

Cette nouvelle livraison, si elle est confirmée, intervient alors que le gouvernement français est accusé par plusieurs ONG de livrer à l'Arabie saoudite, de manière licite mais opaque, des armes susceptibles de tuer des civils au Yémen. Cette «sale guerre», selon la formule même des autorités françaises, a fait depuis 2015 des dizaines de milliers de morts et entraîné l'une des pires crise humanitaires au monde, selon l'ONU. Read more - Lire plus

Congress Needs to Take Responsibility for America’s Wars
Slate 23/05/2019 - More than any other time since its passage in 2001, a serious movement is afoot to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which passed by an overwhelming margin in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The law, often abbreviated as AUMF, was meant to allow President George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan, but in the years since it has been invoked—by Presidents Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump—to justify military operations against terrorist groups in at a dozen other countries. And the legal case for this expansion has always been dubious. [...]

Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, has waged a lonely war against the AUMF since the law was passed. (In fact, she was the only member of Congress to vote against it in 2001.) Now, though, she’s attracting some allies , even among Senate Republicans, out of the growing concern that Trump may use the AUMF as an excuse to go to war against Iran without seeking congressional approval. Whatever one’s views on Syria, Iran, and the global war on terror, the AUMF is clearly outdated: It neither authorizes nor says much of anything, one way or the other, on the majority of battles that U.S. troops are fighting today, 18 years after the 9/11 attacks. However, the move to repeal or revise the law doesn’t necessarily mean that Congress will resist Trump’s—or any other president’s—march toward war. Read more - Lire plus
These laws make police get public buy-in on surveillance tools
CNET 28/05/2019 - A surveillance camera caught Kendra Tatum's attention. Mounted on a pole in a St. Louis commercial district, the camera could have a line of sight into MoKaBe's, a coffee shop where local activists like to get together. An activist, Tatum finds herself keeping track of devices that police could use to keep track of her. The city's police department maintains a hub called the Real Time Crime Center that combines data from surveillance cameras, automated license plate readers and microphones that listen for gunshots to help police respond to events in real time. But it could also use this technology to track groups that plan protests against the police, Tatum worries. "It's hard to draw the line with not wanting to be paranoid, but also being wise and conscious about the work I do," Tatum said.

Some clarity might be on its way. Cities around the country have passed laws that would create a public process for deciding how police can purchase and use surveillance technology. Police departments in 13 jurisdictions including Seattle, Oakland, Santa Clara County, Nashville and Cambridge have seen similar laws pass. More states and cities, including St. Louis, are weighing whether to follow suit. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department declined to comment on the pending bill and didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on concerns it could use surveillance tools against activists. The department confirmed it operates a surveillance camera at the intersection Tatum named.
Throughout the country, It's hard to know just how many surveillance tools police are using, because of the secrecy that has surrounded their use. The federal government alone has more than 330 cell site simulators, which detect nearby smartphones, according to an investigation by the US House Oversight Committee in 2015, but it's unknown how many of the devices are used by state and local police departments. An investigation by the New York Civil Liberties Union found that a state agency had funded the purchase of 422 license plate readers, with at least one in every county in the state. Other agencies in the state had also purchased the devices. According to Reuters, 9,000 surveillance cameras monitor New York City in real time.

Many of the community oversight laws are based on Community Control over Police Surveillance, or CCOPS, a legal model designed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Earlier this month, the concept got its biggest boost to date when San Francisco became the first jurisdiction in the country to bar law enforcement and other city departments from using facial recognition technology. Local lawmakers around the country took notice, and they didn't miss the fact that the ordinance created a CCOPS process to monitor how police use all surveillance technology. They've been calling the ACLU to learn more, said Chad Marlow, senior advocacy and policy counsel at the civil liberties advocacy group. Read more - Lire plus
Privacy International Wins Historic Victory at UK Supreme Court
PI 15/05/2019 - Today, after a five year battle with the UK government, Privacy International has won at the UK Supreme Court. The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the Investigatory Powers Tribunal’s (IPT) decisions are subject to judicial review in the High Court. The Supreme Court's judgment is a major endorsement and affirmation of the rule of law in the UK. The decision guarantees that when the IPT gets the law wrong, its mistakes can be corrected.

Key point: UK Supreme Court rules that the UK spying tribunal - the IPT - cannot escape the oversight of the ordinary UK courts

The leading judgment of Lord Carnwath confirms the vital role of the courts in upholding the rule of law. The Government’s reliance on an ‘ouster clause’ to try to remove the IPT from judicial review failed. The judgment confirms hundreds of years of legal precedent condemning attempts to remove important decisions from the oversight of the courts.

Privacy International's case stems from a 2016 decision by the IPT that the UK government may use sweeping 'general warrants' to engage in computer hacking of thousands or even millions of devices, without any approval from by a judge or reasonable grounds for suspicion. The Government argued that it would be lawful in principle to use a single warrant signed off by a Minister (not a judge) to hack every mobile phone in a UK city - and the IPT agreed with the Government.

Privacy International challenged the IPT's decision before the UK High Court. The Government argued that even if the IPT had got the law completely wrong, or had acted unfairly, the High Court had no power to correct the mistake. That question went all the way to the UK Supreme Court, and resulted in today's judgment. Read more - Lire plus

Pakistan: Investigate North Waziristan killings
Amnesty International 27/05/2019 - The Pakistani government should immediately order an independent and effective investigation into the reported killing of at least three activists on Sunday, Amnesty International said today. Two parliamentarians affiliated to the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) were leading a procession of activists to the Khar Kamar area of North Waziristan, along the Afghan border, when firing broke out, leading to the deaths.

One of the parliamentarians, Ali Wazir, is currently in custody of the Pakistani military. There are conflicting accounts of the incident, with the military claiming that PTM activists assaulted a checkpoint and PTM activists insisting that no shots were fired from their side. Phone and internet services were shut down after this incident, adding to the confusion. “The Pakistan government must immediately order an independent and effective investigation into the killing of activists on Sunday in North Waziristan. If the reports are correct that the army killed protestors by unlawfully using live ammunition, this would be a very serious violation of international law,” said Rabia Mehmood, South Asia Researcher at Amnesty International.

“Under international law, lethal force can only ever be used by law enforcement authorities when strictly necessary to protect life. When lethal force has been used, every incident should be fully investigated to determine if there was any use of excessive force and if any resulting killing was unlawful. Those found responsible for the use of excessive force or for unlawful killings should be brought to justice through fair trials without resort to the death penalty.”
 
Background: The PTM is a movement that says it uses non-violent means to campaign against extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations suffered by Pakistan’s Pashtun ethnic minority. In the past, senior government officials – including Prime Minister Imran Khan and army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa – have said they recognize and sympathize with the PTM’s grievances. Despite these statements, however, the Pakistani authorities have intensified a crackdown against the group. Dozens of its supporters have been arrested, arbitrarily detained, subject to surveillance and intimidation, and even threatened with violence. Across the country, their rallies have been banned or disrupted, denying them the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Read more - Lire plus
ACTIONS & EVENTS
NEW Release Yasser Albaz from arbitrary detention in Egypt
On February 18, 2019, my dad, Yasser Albaz, was stopped at Cairo airport, his Canadian passport was confiscated, and he was kidnapped by Egyptian State Security. My dad remains in the notorious Torah prison where he is forced to sleep on cold, concrete floor. He has not been charged and continues to receive 15-day extensions to his arbitrary detention.

Sign to tell PM Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to do everything in their power to bring this Canadian citizen home to his family.
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.
Canada: Don't roll back refugee rights
The federal govt plans to significantly roll back the human rights of refugees, and is hurrying these rights restrictions into law by including them in the federal budget (Bill C-97).

The new restriction would stop any refugee claimant from having an independent hearing to decide on their claim, if they previously filed a refugee claim in the United States and in certain other countries.

Using the quick tool below, call on Parliament to reject the rights-violating amendments to IRPA proposed in Bill C-97.
Your phone is not safe at the border
Canada’s border agents can search your phone and laptop at borders and airports, including looking through your private photos, personal messages, and call history.

These ‘digital strip searches’ are allowed because our laws are incredibly out of date. But politicians are refusing to update them for our digital age.

Fight back with us: demand updated laws , learn more about your rights, and make a complaint if your privacy has been violated at the border.
OPP must be held accountable for violent repression of land defenders
The terrifying incident happened in April 2008 during a land occupation and road blockades by members of Tyendinaga Mohawk Nation, near Belleville, Ontario. Although the road blockades involved only a small number of community members – none of whom were armed -- the Ontario Provincial Police sent more than 200 officers, including the Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU), tasked with responding to “the most serious threats to peace and order”. 

There has never been any formal, independent review of how and why the police response went so badly wrong. In December, the UN Committee against Torture called on Canada to address this glaring gap in police accountability by ensuring that a thorough and impartial review is finally carried out.
Respectez les droits des migrant.es!
Migrer ou mourir. Des milliers de personnes d'Amérique centrale, y compris des familles, ont été forcées de quitter ce qu'elles connaissent et aiment pour trouver la sécurité et une vie meilleure pour leurs enfants. Elles ont marché pendant des semaines vers les États-Unis pour échapper aux menaces, à la violence et à une pauvreté extrême - non par choix, mais par obligation.

Mais Donald Trump et son administration travaillent dur pour s’assurer qu’ils ne pourront pas rechercher la sécurité aux États-Unis.
Les droits humains ne dépendent pas du document que vous possédez ou de votre nationalité. Ils appartiennent à tout le monde.

Signez cette pétition pour soutenir les personnes et les familles en quête de protection.
Tell China to close its secret ‘re-education’ camps for ethnic minorities
It is estimated that up to one million people - predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities - are being arbitrarily detained in “de-extremification" camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Among them are Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minority groups whose religious and cultural practices are key to their identity.
The detentions appear to be part of an effort by the Chinese government to wipe out religious beliefs and aspects of cultural identity in order to enforce political loyalty for the State and the Communist Party of China.
Make January 29 a National Day
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 .
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: Free 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
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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