International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
May 24, 2019
Islamic Relief Canada joins the ICLMG!
ICLMG 23/05/2019 - We would like to officially welcome Islamic Relief Canada as the 46th member organization of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group!

With the increase in right-wing extremism, Islamophobia and xenophobia, the membership of IRC is doubly important at this time. It strengthens the ICLMG and affirms our conviction that people in Canada do care that human rights and civil liberties be honoured and protected by our government in these very troubled times we are experiencing.

IRC does very important work and we are looking forward to working with them in protecting human rights and civil liberties from the negative impact of national security in Canada. Thank you to IRC for their confidence in our work and for joining the ICLMG!
Meet ICLMG's co-chair: Inter Pares' Rasha Hilal Al-Baiyatti
Inter Pares 2018 Annual Report - Having grown up in Iraq, Rasha Hilal Al-Baiyatti knows all too well the danger of restricting free speech and democracy. She has seen first-hand the consequences of a brutal government crack-down on civil society. This is why Rasha – an Inter Pares staff member – is now passionately involved with the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG). Inter Pares is a founding member of ICLMG and in 2018 Rasha was elected Co-Chair of their Steering Committee. For Rasha, this role is personal, professional, and political.

ICLMG was founded to protect human rights and freedom of expression from encroachment by the Canadian state. It seeks justice for individuals targeted by an “anti-terror” agenda. ICLMG challenges growing social and legal intolerance and xenophobia in the name of national security. In 2018, ICLMG launched a campaign to address concerns about Bill C-59, the so-called new National Security Act. Among its problematic measures, the bill empowers national security agencies to conduct mass surveillance by collecting bulk data on Canadian citizens with no requirement that it be lawfully obtained. Data can be used to repress dissent and place further restrictions on already marginalized communities. In the name of counter-terrorism, elements of this legislation dilute civil liberties and fuel fear of “the other.”

Rasha warns that we not allow this fear to erode our freedom. Too often, national security legislation reduces our freedom, without evidence that it makes us any safer. Rasha continues to support ICLMG to prevent Canadian society from moving further towards a climate of repression and injustice, and to promote civil liberties and our fundamental rights and freedom s. Source
Why wasn’t Bissonnette charged with terrorism?
Global 23/05/2019 - New Zealand has added an unprecedented charge of terrorism to the 51 murder charges against Brenton Tarrant, the suspect in the mosque massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand. As Amanda Jelowicki reports, the latest charge has Canadians questioning why Alexandre Bissonette was never charged with terrorism for his role in the 2017 Quebec City mosque attack. Watch the video

Mustafa Farooq, Executive Director of NCCM, was on Global News yesterday after the NZ mosque shooter was charged with terrorism. For many, it brought to mind the horrific attack on the Quebec City Mosque that left a community in anguish, fear, and in terror. Now, as we look forward in the days after the attack, our focus is on the other ways in which Canadian Muslims, and other minorities are being made to feel fear when it comes to going about their daily lives. Because the Quebec City mosque continues to face threats of violence. Because Bill 21 will marginalize members of the Quebec Muslim community who choose to wear the hijab. We have our work cut out for us. As we continue to challenge issues like these that stop Canadian Muslims from leading their best lives, we need your ongoing support. Learn more about the NCCM’s work and how you can make a difference at nccm.ca . Source
'Distasteful alliances': The secret story of Canada's fight against migrants
Radio-Canada 21/05/2019 - In 2009 and 2010, two boats carrying hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka — the Ocean Lady and the MV Sun Sea — reached Canadian shores. Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed to do everything in his power to prevent the arrival of other ships carrying what he called "illegal" migrants.

This Migrant Smuggling Prevention Strategy Harper created was maintained under Justin Trudeau's government, which now dedicates nearly $18 million a year to it — more than was spent annually while the Conservatives were in power. Federal employees agreed to talk to Radio-Canada to shine a spotlight on some of the most secret aspects of the operation Canada has been undertaking abroad for years.

Robert [not his real name] closely followed the wide-ranging operation launched by the Harper government to prevent boats carrying migrants from making it to Canada. In an exclusive interview with Radio-Canada, the former federal employee said it offended his core values when he learned that Canada was working hand-in-glove with a colonel charged with atrocious crimes in the West African nation Guinea. The Harper government had dispatched field teams in Southeast Asia and West Africa to thwart the efforts of migrant smugglers. Those teams landed in multiple source and transit countries for migrants, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Guinea.

The teams included members from the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). They were aided by the Communications Security Establishment, which uses information technology in intelligence work. The Foreign Affairs and Immigration ministries also supported the strategy against clandestine migrants, which was overseen by a special adviser to the prime minister.
To this day, the Trudeau government works with local authorities in foreign countries in order to ''disrupt, interdict and deter human smuggling operations,'' Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Guillaume Bérubé said in an email to Radio-Canada.

Canadian police officers are not allowed to conduct searches or make arrests in foreign countries. They must rely on local authorities to apprehend alleged smugglers or intercept migrants. But some of those local police forces are notorious for their brutal methods. One of Canada's main allies in Guinea has been Col. Moussa Tiégboro Camara. He is the boss of the state's fight against drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism. ''Col. Tiégboro Camara helped us a lot, but he had too much baggage for me to feel comfortable [with the fact] that Canada worked with him,'' Robert said. ''His name had to be left out of reports. It does not look good for a government to work with someone like that.'' Col. Tiégboro Camara was formally charged in 2012 for his alleged role in a massacre at a stadium in Conakry, Guinea's capital, three years earlier. On Sept. 28, 2009, over 150 people were murdered, hundreds were tortured or brutalized, and more than 100 women were raped during a peaceful protest at the stadium. Col. Tiégboro Camara's trial has yet to be held. In 2009, an International Commission of Inquiry put in place by the United Nations, identified him as one of those responsible for atrocities it described as ''crimes against humanity.'' [...]

[François Crépeau, who was the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants between 2011-2017,] warned that equipment Canada supplies to security and police forces in repressive regimes could end up being used to violate human rights. ''The surveillance systems, they will be deployed elsewhere and will be used to watch minorities ... [to] monitor political opponents, journalists, students,'' he said. [...] Crépeau said he believes that Canada is acting in a self-serving manner. ''What outrages me is always the hypocrisy, somewhat natural, of countries such as Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain,'' he said. "In a nutshell, they decide that, 'We will welcome refugees when they make it to our borders, but we will do everything in our power to prevent them from making it to the border.' As such, they will finance, arm, train, equip security forces in countries where human rights are not guaranteed." Read more

Outcry after Trump officials reveal sixth migrant child died in US custody
The Guardian 23/05/2019 - The Trump administration has been forced to reveal that a 10-year-old migrant girl died in its custody more than seven months ago, sparking further outcry after a spate of recent migrant child deaths while detained by the US government. The 10 year-old girl from El Salvador is the sixth child to die in custody in the past eight months. Her death was not previously reported by authorities and was only made public late on Wednesday after a report by CBS News .

The spokesman said the child was taken into the custody of an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) facility in Texas on 4 March last year in a “medically fragile” state. The girl underwent surgery and was left in a coma after complications with the procedure. She was eventually transferred to a children’s hospital in Nebraska and died on 29 September “due to fever and respiratory distress”. The revelations follow the announcement of another child death in custody earlier in the week. Carlos Hernández Vásquez, 16, an unaccompanied minor from Guatemala, was found dead in immigration custody in south Texas. The teenager had been held in custody by US border patrol for a week, twice the time that is legally allowable. Reports indicate the teenager had been diagnosed with flu before his death but it remains unclear what, if any, treatment he received for his illness from authorities.

Carlos is the fifth child from Guatemala to die in immigration custody over the past eight months. Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez, two, died earlier this month after being taken into custody in April and falling sick. Juan de León Gutiérrez, 16, an unaccompanied minor, died on 30 April after falling ill in detention in south Texas. Felipe Gómez Alonzo, eight, died in December 2018 in New Mexico after falling sick in custody. And Jakelin Caal Maquin, seven, died the same month after contracting sepsis in custody. Jess Morales Rocketto, chair of Families Belong Together, a group that campaigns against the forced separation of migrant families after crossing the US-Mexico border , said: “Yet another tragedy on our watch.”

She added, about the latest report: “It is simply outrageous. It is unacceptable that the nation is hearing about this tragedy for the first time eight months after her death, and it raises serious questions about how many other migrant children’s deaths the Trump administration either doesn’t know about, doesn’t care about or is sweeping under the rug.” Congressional Democrats are calling for an investigation into the death of the 10-year-old girl as US border agents temporarily closed the primary migrant processing facility in south Texas due to an outbreak of poor health conditions. Read more - Lire plus





Amnesty Urges U.S. to Pay Reparations to Syrians After Killing 1,600 Civilians in Assault on Raqqa
Democracy Now! 23/05/2019 - Amnesty International is calling for the United States to pay reparations to survivors of the U.S.-led military coalition attack on Raqqa. A recent investigation by Amnesty International and Airwars showed the U.S.-led coalition killed more than 1,600 civilians during the 2017 offensive to oust ISIS militants from the Syrian city. The coalition launched thousands of airstrikes and tens of thousands of artillery strikes on the city. U.S. troops fired more artillery in Raqqa than anywhere since the Vietnam War. At the time, the United States claimed it was the “most precise air campaign in history.” We speak with Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA. She returned earlier this week from a research trip to Raqqa. Read more - Lire plus 
Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues
The New York Times 23/05/2019 - Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, has been indicted on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for his role in obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday — a novel case that raises profound First Amendment issues.
The  new charges  were part of an expanded indictment obtained by the Trump administration that significantly raised the stakes of the legal case against Mr. Assange, who is already fighting extradition proceedings in London based on  an earlier hacking-related count brought by federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia.
The case has nothing to do with Russia’s 2016 election interference, when Mr. Assange’s organization published Democratic emails stolen by Russia to help elect President Trump, the case has nothing to do with the election interference. Instead, it focuses on Mr. Assange’s role in the leak, by the former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, of hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and diplomatic files. Justice Department officials did not explain why they decided to charge Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act — a step also debated within the Obama administration but ultimately not taken. Although the indictment established a precedent that deems criminal actions related to obtaining, and in some cases publishing, state secrets, the officials sought to minimize the implications for press freedoms. [...]

Still, the Trump administration’s move could establish a precedent used to criminalize future acts of national security journalism that are essentially the same from a legal perspective, said Jameel Jaffer of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The charges rely almost entirely on conduct that investigative journalists engage in every day,” he said. “The indictment should be understood as a frontal attack on press freedom.” Mr. Demers left the press briefing without taking questions, and a Justice Department official who stayed behind to answer questions on the condition that he would not be named would not address any about how most of the basic actions the indictment deemed felonies by Mr. Assange differed in a legally meaningful way from ordinary national-security investigative journalism — working with sources to obtain secret information of news value and publishing that information without the government’s permission.

Notably, The New York Times, among many other news organizations, obtained precisely the same archives of documents from WikiLeaks, without authorization from the government — the act that most of the charges addressed. While The Times  did take steps to withhold the names of informant s in the subset of the files it published, it is not clear how that is legally different from publishing other classified information. Barry J. Pollack, a lawyer for Mr. Assange, said his client was being charged with a crime “for encouraging sources to provide him truthful information and for publishing that information.” That dramatic step, he said, removed the “fig leaf” that the case about his client was only about hacking. “These unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have taken by the U.S. government,” he said. Read more - Lire plus



The Espionage Axe: Donald Trump and the War Against a Free Press - podcast & video
The Intercept 15/05/2019 - Another alleged whistleblower has been charged with espionage. This week on Intercepted: Donald Trump is set to shatter Barack Obama’s record of prosecuting journalistic sources under the 1917 Espionage Act. Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, talks about the weaponization of this law for use in stopping investigative journalism and the case of Air Force veteran Daniel Hale, who is facing 50 years in prison. Jeremy Scahill tells the story of the prosecution of Socialist leader Eugene Debs in 1918 and its echoes in the modern era. Read more & listen - Lire plus & éco uter + Video
‘We won’t be complicit’: Italian dock workers refuse to load Saudi arms ship over Yemen war - video
RT 21/05/2019 - Italian unions have refused to load cargo onto a Saudi ship carrying weapons, in protest against Riyadh’s war on Yemen. The dock workers have gone on strike, refusing to work until the ship leaves port in Genoa.

While the Saudi Arabian ship, the Bahri-Yanbu, was expected to leave for Jeddah by the end end of the day, it seems the delivery might end up being rather late. After unsuccessful attempts to have the ship barred from docking in Italy altogether, it was greeted by banners and a protests as it arrived in port Monday.

Workers were joined by human rights campaigners who oppose stocking the ship over fears the supplies will be used against the civilian population in Yemen. The demonstrators held signs opposing the war and arms trafficking. “We will not be complicit in what is happening in Yemen,” union leaders said in a statement. Port officials have acknowledged that the generators that protesters fear may be used for military purposes have been blocked from being brought on board, but say some non-critical goods will still be loaded. Union leaders are scheduled to meet with the port’s prefects to discuss the impasse.

The ship was loaded with weapons in Belgium, but successfully blocked from picking up additional arms at a French port as a result of a similar protest.
The UN describes the four-year-long Saudi-led war as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world today, with the death toll expected to top 230,000 by the end of the year. Italy’s 5-Star movement has fought to end the government’s arms deals with the Saudi kingdom for years. Read more - Lire plus
Architects of Post-9/11 CIA Interrogation Program to Testify Before a Military Tribunal
Time 21/05/2019 - Two former CIA contractors who designed the harsh interrogation program used after the Sept. 11 attacks are being summoned to testify before the military tribunal at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were among a dozen approved witnesses listed in a letter sent Monday by prosecutors to defense lawyers for five men charged in the 2001 attacks.

Defense lawyers in the long-running Sept. 11 military tribunal want to question Mitchell and Jessen as part of an effort to exclude statements the defendants made to the FBI at Guantanamo after being subjected to brutal treatment in clandestine CIA detention facilities. The defense lawyers are also seeking to compel testimony from dozens of current and former CIA officers who were involved with what the government called the “enhanced” interrogation program.

“This will be the first time Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen will have to testify in a criminal proceeding about the torture program they implemented,” said James Connell, a lawyer for Ammar al Baluchi, one of the five Guantanamo prisoners facing trial by military commission for their alleged roles in the attack. Mitchell and Jessen helped design an interrogation program that included such abusive techniques as prolonged sleep deprivation, confinement in small, enclosed spaces and waterboarding. The former contractors have defended their work, arguing it was legal and necessary.

A Senate investigation in 2014 found that Mitchell and Jessen’s techniques were not effective. At the earliest, the two former contractors would testify at a pretrial hearing scheduled for July, though it could be later. The proceedings have faced repeated delays, largely because of legal issues related to the treatment of the five defendants while in CIA custody. Read more - Lire plus
Family of Jailed Saudi Feminist Loujain Al-Hathloul: She Was Waterboarded, Flogged & Electrocuted
Democracy Now! 21/05/2019 - It’s been a year since women’s right activist Loujain Al-Hathloul was detained and jailed in Saudi Arabia for leading a movement to lift the kingdom’s ban on female drivers and overhaul its male “guardianship” system. Despite international outcry, she’s been imprisoned ever since. During that time, her family says, she’s been held in solitary confinement and faced abuse, including electric shocks, flogging and threats of sexual violence. The Saudi government has resisted calls from human rights groups and lawmakers from around the world to release Loujain and the other jailed activists. They were accused of undermining national security. We speak with two of Loujain’s siblings, Walid and Lina Al-Hathloul. Read more - Lire plus
Access Now on the Christchurch Call: rights, wrongs, and what’s next
Access Now 15/05/2019 - Establishing a process for identifying and removing objectionable speech that could facilitate violence, discrimination, or other harm is a complex task and has numerous possible failure points. The definitions must be narrow and specific, the process must be transparent and fair, and those who are required to act must be clearly identified and provided incentives not to go too far in removing legitimate discourse or commentary.

This applies to the Christchurch Call, which aims to address “terrorist and violent extremist content,” a concept that can vary between countries and in some cases can be used arbitrarily to harm human rights. For example, journalists in Jordan have been prosecute d under the country’s terror laws for rep orting that is critical of the government.
The Call also urges action by “online service providers” without defining what is meant by that. Under this broad umbrella term, we could see numerous unrelated internet services, such as infrastructure providers like DNS operators or telecommunications carriers, affected by rules not intended for them. To resolve this, the Call should have asked governments to ensure the use of clear, unambiguous, limited, and specific definitions in any related policy or regulations.

The Call also relies heavily on upload filters as a technical tool to prevent the dissemination of violent content. While in some cases it may be clear that content is not appropriate, in most the interpretation requires meaningful human involvement and evaluation of context. This makes the analysis and determination of violent content incompatible with automatic filtering. The use of automated systems in content moderation must be carefully evaluated before roll out and deployed only in a limited set of circumstances, as this use has serious implications not only for freedom of expression but also other fundamental rights, such as privacy.

Last but not least, the Call focuses primarily on putting the responsibility for identifying and removing violent extremist content on internet companies. These companies do have a key role to play and must live up to their responsibilities to society as well as their duty to respect human rights. However, governments should never outsource the regulation of speech to private entities, as doing so removes principles of due process and government accountability. Users deserve a clear, predictable, and human rights-compatible framework for the protection of their freedom of expression online. Governments, together with companies operating within their jurisdictions, are responsible for providing the conditions for the enjoyment of human rights. Read more - Lire plus 
Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes
The New York Times 15/05/2019 - President Trump has indicated that he is considering pardons for several American military members accused or convicted of war crimes, including high-profile cases of murder, attempted murder and desecration of a corpse, according to two United States officials.

The officials said that the Trump administration had made expedited requests this week for paperwork needed to pardon the troops on or around Memorial Day. One request is for Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs, who is scheduled to stand trial in the coming weeks on charges of  shooting unarmed civilians  and killing an enemy captive with a knife while deployed in Iraq. The others are believed to include the case of a former  Blackwater security contractor  recently found guilty in the deadly 2007 shooting of dozens of unarmed Iraqis; the case of Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, the Army Green Beret accused of  killing an unarmed Afghan  in 2010; and the case of a  group of Marine Corps snipers  charged with urinating on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said they had not seen a complete list, and did not know if other service members were included in the request for pardon paperwork. [...] Mr. Trump has often bypassed traditional channels in granting pardons and wielded his power freely, sometimes in politically charged cases that resonate with him personally, such as the conviction of the former  Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio . Earlier this month, the president pardoned former  Army First Lt. Michael Behenna , who had been convicted of killing an Iraqi during an interrogation in 2008.

"These are all extremely complicated cases that have gone through a careful system of consideration. A freewheeling pardon undermines that whole system,” said Gary Solis, a retired military judge and armor officer who served in Vietnam. “It raises the prospect in the minds of the troops that says, ‘Whatever we do, if we can get the folks back home behind us, maybe we can get let off.’” Read more - Lire plus 

ACTIONS & EVENTS
Call on the Senate to fix Bill C-59 and protect our rights!
Why fight to fix Bill C-59?

- Conservative-era issues brought in with Bill C-51 have not been fixed, including: CSIS's dangerous and secret threat disruption powers; overly-broad information sharing rules that infringe on privacy and free expression; the secretive No Fly List, which undermines due process, among other fundamental rights.

- The new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and Intelligence Commissioner are good developments for accountability, but must be strengthened.

- Broad new data collection powers for CSIS and the CSE need to be restricted - especially the collection of "publicly available information" and "unselected information", meaning any information basically - to avoid new forms of mass surveillance.

- New CSIS powers will grant agents or designated individuals immunity for committing crimes in the line of their work.

- The CSE's new "active" cyber powers give it the power to engage in secret, pre-emptive cyber attacks with little oversight and the potential for retaliation and serious repercussions for people in Canada .


No Weapons for Saudi. No New Nuclear Arms Race. YES to Peace
CANSEC, the largest war profiteer/arms manufacturer trade show in Canada is coming up. Multinational corporations making billions in profit off nuclear weapons manufacturing and violence overseas – including Canada’s weapons sales to Saudi Arabia - will be there.
Join us at the EY Centre in Ottawa at 7 am on May 29th: it's time to send a message to the Government of Canada, to take a stand for peace and a for a greener future.
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
Discrimination and hate
Discrimination et haine












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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