International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
1er novembre 2019
New ICLMG Video: Justice for Hassan Diab!
ICLMG 27/10/2019 - Hassan Diab tells us about his fight for justice, in his own voice. Hassan Diab, a Canadian university professor and father, was extradited to France based on weak, confusing evidence, where he spent more than three years in prison, without charge or trial. He is thankfully free and back in Canada, but justice hasn’t been served. Dr. Diab deserves answers and we need changes to Canada’s broken extradition act. The only solution is a full, independent, public inquiry. Send a message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: A public inquiry must be a priority for his new government!
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ICLMG - We would like to thank Colin for his generous support! We receive no government funding, therefore our work is made possible because of people like him - and you!

Thanks to all the people and organizations who support our work in many different ways. Find out how you can help as well!
ICLMG Signs the International Declaration Calling for a Moratorium on Facial Recognition Technology for Mass Surveillance
ICLMG 22/10/2019 - We just joined 80 other groups around the world calling for a moratorium on Facial Recognition for mass surveillance. Rife with bias, coercion and fraud, we need to stop the spread of this tech. Shout out to EPIC privacy and The Public Voice coalition! Source

The signatories want the following:
  1. We urge countries to suspend the further deployment of facial recognition technology for mass surveillance;
  2. We urge countries to review all facial recognition systems to determine whether personal data was obtained lawfully and to destroy data that was obtained unlawfully;
  3. We urge countries to undertake research to assess bias, privacy and data protection, risk, and cyber vulnerability, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications associated with the deployment of facial recognition technologies; and
  4. We urge countries to establish the legal rules, technical standards, and ethical guidelines necessary to safeguard fundamental rights and comply with legal obligations before further deployment of this technology occurs.
Trudeau’s decision to keep refugee families separated is unconscionable
Ricochet 29/10/2019 - Justin Trudeau was elected as prime minister in 2015 based on a platform of refugee protection. During that election campaign, after a dead Syrian child was photographed on a Turkish beach, Trudeau took a strong stand against the Conservative government for separating children from extended family in Canada and thus failing to prevent an avoidable death. Yet four years later, he has turned his back on stateless children in similar circumstances, even separating them from their immediate family in Canada.The prime minister made the decision to split up three Snowden Refugee children earlier this month, prior to the federal election. This leaves Keana Kellapatha in Canada without her sister, Sethumdi, and her brother, Dinath, both stateless.

Three families, collectively known as the Snowden Refugees, lawfully sheltered American whistleblower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong in June 2013. Keana, who is now safe in Montreal along with her mother, Vanessa Rodel, was granted refugee status and Canadian permanent residence in March 2019. More than half a year later, the remaining five Snowden Refugees continue to wait in limbo and fear for Canada to provide them protection. These vulnerable families, including the two stateless children, are stuck in Hong Kong, a jurisdiction that is openly hostile to asylum seekers and international law, that has already refused their applications for protection and that we are now contesting to prevent their deportation to Sri Lanka, where they face arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and death.

Canada continues to drag its feet. These families are afraid, separated from their own and criminalized, and risk 22 months of imprisonment if caught working. They rely entirely on private donations to survive. Not only are they ostracized, discriminated against and persecuted, they are now exposed and in great fear of the Hong Kong authorities’ use of police violence against civilians in its largest human rights crisis in decades. Eight-year-old Sethumdi fears leaving her home and breathes tear gas on her way back from class, and at times even inside her own home. In spite of knowing all of this, Canada fails to act. With the assistance of Montreal-based lawyers led by Marc-André Séguin and the sponsorship of NGO For the Refugees, the Snowden Refugees all filed Quebec private sponsorship applications for refugee protection in Canada on the same day in January 2017.

After filing refugee claims with Ottawa through Quebec’s refugee sponsorship program, it was expected that Trudeau’s government would immediately provide international protection to all three families, since Canadian immigration law provides for expedited processing for vulnerable applicants like the Snowden Refugees. Initially, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s office confirmed in writing that their applications were being expedited. But in a shameful and inexplicable turn of events, seven weeks later Minister Hussen’s office backtracked, leaving the cases in limbo. The Trudeau government inexplicably delayed the process for two long years and then brought Vanessa Rodel and her daughter, Keana, into Canada as refugees, while leaving the others behind, separating Keana from her brother, sister and father in Hong Kong. Our government did this knowing full well the remaining Snowden Refugees would endure continued discrimination, threats, abuses, harm and persecution by Hong Kong authorities. The consequences to date have been devastating, the separated stateless children most seriously affected. Read more - Lire plus
Court to hear why sending refugee claimants back to the U.S. breaks Canadian law
Amnesty International Canada 29/10/2019 - From November 4th to 8th the Federal Court of Canada will hear a challenge to the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country for refugees. The court will hear that sending refugee claimants back to the US violates Canadian law, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Canada’s binding international human rights obligations.

The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), Amnesty International (AI) and The Canadian Council of Churches (CCC), alongside an individual litigant and her children, initiated the legal challenge in July 2017. The hearings are taking place at the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto, at 180 Queen Street West. “We are asking the court to look at the impact of the Safe Third Country Agreement on women, men and children who can’t find safety in the U.S. and to assess the legality of Canada sending them back to detention and potential deportation to persecution,” said Claire Roque, CCR President. “The impacts are particularly severe for women, because of U.S. policies that close the door on women fleeing gender-based violence. The conclusion is clear to us: the U.S. cannot be considered a safe country for refugees.” “The Canadian Council of Churches has long advocated that every human being who is physically present in Canada has a legal right to life, liberty and security of person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” said Peter Noteboom, General Secretary of The Canadian Council of Churches. “The U.S.-Canada S afe Third Country Agreement stands in the way of guaranteeing those legal rights.” Read more - Lire plus





Court challenge to Waterfront Toronto/Sidewalk Lab’s smart city continues
CCLA 31/10/2019 - Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs have been negotiating to determine whether everything pitched in the over-reaching 1500+ pages of the Master Innovation Development Plan should be considered in the final evaluation process. Today’s announcement is that Waterfront Toronto has decided to limit the scope of what they will consider. But the real question is not whether the project should be on 12 acres or 190. It is not whether there can or should be a guarantee of transit to the precinct. It is not even who should control the data collected, because that framing presupposes that data should be collected in the streets, buildings and homes of the neighborhood in the first place. The question is whether any version of this particular smart city project should continue. CCLA believes the answer to that should have been “no.” This project needs a re-set, not just a retrenchment.

Since it was not, we will continue with our lawsuit. The decision by Waterfront Toronto to continue considering and consulting on partnering with Google-sibling Sidewalk Labs to build 12 acres of infrastructure embedded with sensors to collect data from the public takes us back to where we began with the proposal two years ago. In our litigation, we argue that Waterfront Toronto simply didn’t have the jurisdiction to have entered this deal in the first place. We further argue that the deal will lead to violations of Charter-protected rights to privacy, liberty and free association, in a sensor-laden, intensively surveilled landscape that is planned to extend into streets, shops and even homes. Waterfront Toronto and the three levels of government who are parties to our litigation should now have no further reason to delay the hearing of our case. We continue to push Waterfront Toronto and the governments to set a date to have this challenge determined by the Court. Read more - Lire plus



Young people take over House of Commons
Our Time 28/10/2019 - At 9:30am on October 28th, 27 young people were arrested today for taking over the House of Commons calling on our newly elected MPs to come together, put partisan politics aside, and govern for a Green New Deal. It’s the only plan that gives Canada a real chance of tackling the climate emergency.

They brought 338 mandate letters — one for every MP in the house of commons. They want every MP to accept their letter and pledge to make a Green New Deal a top priority when the House resumes. Read more - Lire plus

South Dakota Governor drops anti-protest laws in settlement agreement with ACLU
International Cry 25/10/2019 - South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg yesterday  backed down  from their unconstitutional attempts to silence protesters. Under a  settlement agreement , which was submitted for court approval yesterday, the state agreed to never enforce current state laws that prohibit protected speech and are aimed at suppressing protests against the Keystone XL pipeline. The settlement will make permanent an earlier federal court ruling that temporarily blocked  enforcement of unconstitutional provisions of the anti-protest laws.

The agreement comes in a lawsuit  filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of South Dakota and the Robins Kaplan law firm on behalf of four organizations: the Sierra Club, NDN Collective, Dakota Rural Action, and the Indigenous Environmental Network; and two individuals: Nick Tilsen with NDN Collective and Dallas Goldtooth with Indigenous Environmental Network. All are currently protesting or planning to protest the Keystone XL pipeline and/or encouraging others to do so.

The lawsuit challenged unconstitutional provisions of several South Dakota laws, including the  “Riot Boosting” Act , that threatened activists who encourage or organize protests, particularly protests of the Keystone XL pipeline, with fines, civil liabilities, and/or criminal penalties of up to 25 years in prison. In September, U.S. District Judge Lawrence L. Piersol found the anti-protest provisions of the laws unconstitutional and temporarily blocked state officials from enforcing them. Under the terms of the settlement, Noem and Ravnsborg will send a letter to the state’s attorneys in each county, telling them to direct law enforcement in their jurisdictions not to enforce the unconstitutional provisions of the laws. They will also compensate plaintiffs for attorneys’ fees. Read more - Lire plus
Baghdadi Is Dead. The War on Terror Will Create Another.
The Daily Beast 29/10/2019 - After U.S. special operations forces dealt a violent end to the leader of the premier jihadist group in Iraq, the president hailed the importance of the moment. The man was a monster, the president declared, responsible for a regional campaign of devastation, even the beheadings of American hostages. True, the killing would not mean the end of the broader war, the president noted, but the U.S. had dealt “a severe blow” to the jihadists. George W. Bush said this in 2006, following the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. 

After U.S. special operations forces dealt a violent end to the leader of the global jihadist movement, the president hailed the importance of the moment. The man was a monster, the president declared, responsible for a global campaign of devastation, and particularly the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. True, the killing would not mean the end of the broader war, the president noted, but the U.S. had reaped “the most significant achievement to date” against the jihadists. 
Barack Obama said this in 2011, following the killing of Osama bin Laden.
 
After U.S. special operations forces ensured a violent end for the leader of a new global jihadist movement, the president hailed the importance of the moment. The man was a monster, the president declared, responsible for a global campaign of devastation, even the beheadings of American hostages. True, the killing would not mean the end of the broader war, the president noted, but it showed that “these savage monsters will never escape their fate.” Donald Trump said this on Sunday, following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

These three fatal milestones all point to the strategic incoherence within a global war that has now lasted an entire generation. No one, not the Trump administration nor its critics, believes that the so-called Islamic State is finished because Baghdadi is dead. As proficient as U.S. special operators have become at manhunting these past 18 years, and as central as manhunting has been during that time, there is no campaign plan, not even a theory, by which the killings of jihadist leaders knit up into a lasting victory. Asking for one would require reckoning with the catastrophic failure represented by a war that only perpetuates itself. 

There would have been no Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had Bush not invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. This history matters because it shows that the expansive war the U.S. launched does not fight against a static enemy. It generates enemies—the slain al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki is another example—and provides opportunities for new ones to arise. Baghdadi himself experienced four years of captivity in the U.S. detention facility at Camp Bucca in Iraq before his 2009 release. Trump on Sunday recalled the horror of seeing American detainees dressed in orange jumpsuits without recalling that ISIS chose the orange jumpsuits to evoke the ones worn by detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

No one should think the fall of the caliphate, let alone Baghdadi’s death, means that U.S.’ jihadist adversaries have achieved their final form. Whatever else the war on terrorism is, its history shows it yielding further generations of jihadists as long as there are American forces hunting, surveilling, and killing Muslims worldwide. Part of that dynamic involves those newer generations emerging when U.S. forces pull back but leave intact the apparatus of the war on terrorism—the drone strikes, the surveillance dragnets , the lethal raids—as happened in Iraq in 2011 and, very likely, will happen in Syria now, in 2019. Maintaining that apparatus is supposed to hedge against withdrawals from agonizing ground conflicts. Yet at each turn of the war’s ratchet, the jihadists have only come back in more violent form and greater mass, the exact opposite of what any war is supposed to achieve.

At a Reuters forum in September , I asked former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis why military officers never put forward a theory of victory in the war on terrorism. He responded that terrorism was a persistent reality, “an ambient threat,” and so was an American response. “This desire to have the war over, I understand it, but this is a war that springs from root causes that will have to be addressed at the same time we’re fighting,” Mattis said. “It will be there throughout our lifetimes.” Terrorism, as old as human history, will indeed be present throughout our lifetimes. But that elides the choice America makes to wage a war against it that only makes jihadism worse. While the bombs drop, American officials never get around to addressing Mattis’ undefined “root causes,” because some of those root causes are the bombs themselves. And all that means Baghdadi’s death gains the U.S. as much as the broader war on terrorism does: ultimately nothing, only a fleeting feeling of national pride briefly concealing the worsening wreckage of a generation. Read more - Lire plus


WhatsApp sues Israeli firm, accusing it of hacking activists' phones
Haaretz 17/10/2019 - WhatsApp has launched an unprecedented lawsuit against a cyber weapons firm which it has accused of being behind secret attacks on more than 100 human rights activists, lawyers, journalists, and academics in just two weeks earlier this year. The social media firm is suing NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company, saying it is responsible for a series of highly sophisticated cyber-attacks which it claims violated American law in an “unmistakeable pattern of abuse”.

WhatsApp said it believed the technology sold by NSO was used to target the mobile phones of more than 1,400 of its users in 20 different countries during a 14-day period from the end of April to the middle of May. In this brief period, WhatsApp believes those who were the subject of the cyber-attacks included leading human rights defenders and lawyers, prominent religious figures, well-known journalists and officials in humanitarian organisations. A number of women previously targeted by cyber-violence, and individuals who have faced assassination attempts and threats of violence, as well as their relatives, were also the victims of the attacks, the company believes. WhatsApp’s lawsuit, filed in a California court on Tuesday, has demanded a permanent injunction blocking NSO from attempting to access WhatsApp computer systems and those of its parent company, Facebook. It has also asked the court to rule that NSO violated US federal law and California state law against computer fraud, breached their contracts with WhatsApp and “wrongfully trespassed” on Facebook’s property. Read more - Lire plus
Republicans propose mass student surveillance plan to prevent shootings
The Guardian 24/10/2019 - Senate Republicans have a new plan for preventing mass shootings: require public schools to use surveillance technology to monitor students’ online behavior for signs of violence or self-harm. A new Republican bill that claims “to help prevent mass shootings” includes no new gun control measures. Instead, Republican lawmakers are supporting a huge, federally mandated boost to America’s growing school surveillance industry. Millions of American students, across thousands of school districts, are already being monitored by tech companies that scan everything they write in school emails, chats and shared documents, looking for signs of suicidal thoughts or plans for a school shooting. This surveillance technology doesn’t turn off when the school day is over: anything students type in official school accounts is monitored 24 hours a day , whether they are in their classrooms or their bedrooms.

There is still no research evidence that demonstrates whether or not online monitoring of schoolchildren actually works to prevent violence. Despite this, new legislation introduced Wednesday by Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and longtime ally of the National Rifle Association (NRA), would update the Children’s Internet Protection Act to mandate that public schools adopt “a technology protection measure that detects online activities of minors who are at risk of committing self-harm or extreme violence against others”. A spokesperson for Cornyn did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why he and other Senate Republicans are mandating that public schools adopt a new technology before there is any clear evidence that it’s effective in preventing violence.

The Cornyn bill, entitled the Response Act , includes a range of other policies without strong evidence of reducing mass shootings, including expediting the federal death penalty for perpetrators of mass shootings, a priority of Donald Trump. Privacy advocates say pervasive surveillance is not appropriate for an educational setting, and that it may actually harm children, particularly students with disabilities and students of color, who are already disproportionately targeted with school disciplinary measures. “You are forcing schools into a position where they would have to surveil by default,” said Amelia Vance, the director of education privacy at the Future of Privacy Forum. “There’s a privacy debate to be had about whether surveillance is the right tactic to take in schools, whether it inhibits students trust in their schools and their ability to learn,” Vance said. But “the bottom line,” she said, is “we do not have evidence that violence prediction works”.

There’s no hard data on how many public schools are already monitoring what students write 24 hours a day. But Vance estimates that only a third of US school districts, at most, currently use this technology. If Cornyn’s bill becomes law, “you’re going to force probably 10,000 districts to buy a new product that they’re going to have to implement”, she said.
That would mean redirecting public schools’ time and money away from strategies that are backed by evidence, such as supporting mental health and counseling services, and towards dealing with surveillance technologies, which often produce many false alarms, like alerts about essays on To Kill a Mockingbird. Fear of school shootings has already fueled rapid growth in the school surveillance industry, particularly after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida , last year left 17 people dead. Companies that sell this technology are marketing it to schools with bold claims of lives saved – numbers based only on internal, anecdotal estimates, not independent analysis. Read more - Lire plus
The FBI Spends a Lot of Time Spying on Black Americans
The Intercept 29/10/2019 - The FBI has come under intense criticism after a 2017 leak exposed that its counterterrorism division had invented a new, unfounded domestic terrorism category it called “ black identity extremism .” Since then, legislators have pressured the bureau’s leadership to be more transparent about its investigation of black activists, and a number of civil rights groups have filed public records requests to try to better understand who exactly the FBI is investigating under that designation. Although the bureau has released hundreds of pages of documents, it continues to shield the vast majority of these records from public scrutiny. The sheer volume of documents those surveillance efforts have produced is troublesome, advocates say. The latest batch of FBI documents — obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and the racial justice group MediaJustice and shared with The Intercept — reveals that between 2015 and 2018, the FBI dedicated considerable time and resources to opening a series of “assessments” into the activities of individuals and groups it mostly labeled “black separatist extremists.”

This designation was eventually folded into the category of “black identity extremism.” Earlier this year, following an onslaught of criticism from elected officials, civil liberties advocates, and even some law enforcement groups, the FBI claimed that it had abandoned the “black identity extremism” label, substituting it for a “racially motivated violent extremism. ” Critics say that this designation conveniently obscures the fact that black supremacist violence, unlike white supremacist violence, does not actually exist. Although the FBI has frequently changed its labels and terminology, the surveillance of black Americans has continued. As The Intercept has reported, following the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, the FBI began spying on Ferguson activists and tracking their movements across states, warning local law enforcement partners that Islamic State group supporters were “urging” protesters to join their ranks. The FBI also drafted a mysterious “ race paper ,” the contents of which remain secret even though the bureau has disowned it. And as the Young Turks reported , the bureau has established a program dubbed “Iron Fist” targeting so-called black identity extremists with undercover agents.

The latest documents were turned over to the ACLU and MediaJustice after the groups sued the FBI last March over its failure to comply with a public records request. While the bureau is expected to release more documents in the coming months, what it has turned over so far is so heavily redacted that it is largely incomprehensible. In addition to removing entire paragraphs and all geographical and other identifiers from the documents, the FBI simply withheld hundreds of pages in full. “These documents suggest that since at least 2016, the FBI was engaged in a national intelligence collection effort to manufacture a so-called ‘Black Identity Extremist’ threat,” Nusrat Choudhury, deputy director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program, told The Intercept. “They are spending a lot of energy on this and they are clearly reaching out to other law enforcement.” “We are troubled about the fact that so much information is not being made available to the public,” she added. “We just know that the government is likely redacting information that should be disclosed to the public — it frequently does.” Read more - Lire plus

Targeted Killing of Journalist Reflects Global Pattern + Application of the death penalty to foreign nationals and the provision of consular assistance by the home State
UN 29/10/2019 - AGNES CALLAMARD, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, outlined the findings — presented to the Human Rights Council in June — of her 2019 investigation of the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which showed him to be “the victim of a planned, organized, well‑resourced, and premeditated extrajudicial killing for which the State of Saudi Arabia must bear responsibility.” While the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia finally acknowledged this last month, “albeit indirectly”, she expressed regret that “to date, the obligation of non‑repetition has not been recognized and implemented, and neither has credible accountability been initiated”. She also voiced regret that neither Saudi Arabia nor the United Nations have taken steps to criminally investigate the chain of command behind the operation leading to Mr. Khashoggi’s execution. This execution, she observed, is “emblematic” of a global pattern of killings which target journalists, human rights defenders and political activists around the world; killings which are denounced by Member States, including through Security Council resolutions. The State has a duty to warn individuals of credible threats against their life, she stressed, outlining various initiatives for tackling the issue, among them, a protocol for the investigation and response to such threats; a Special Procedures Task Force for rapid joint interventions, and a recommendation that the United Nations equip itself with a standing international instrument to investigate targeted killings, based on the model of the independent accountability mechanisms for Syria and Myanmar.

Turning to her report (document  A/74/318 ), on the application of the death penalty to foreign nationals, she outlined challenges faced by individuals in such cases, including unfamiliarity with the local language, legal system, and their rights on arrest. Consular access would mitigate such disadvantages; the lack of such support, where death sentences are concerned, is “deadly”, and impinges on individuals’ universal right to life. “This leads to distinct and complementary obligations on both the prosecuting State and the home State concerned.” Prosecuting States must fulfil their obligations by international law to give foreign nationals access to their consulates — “which is not always best‑settled in practice” — while home States must provide effective consular access, she said, adding that her report cites existing best practices in this emerging norm of customary international law. She expressed concern about cases of foreign nationals accused of terrorism, in which their abolitionist home States are tolerant of the death penalty by proxy, deeming such individuals “unworthy of equal human rights protection”. All States must assist their foreign nationals, she stressed, adding that cases where individuals stand accused of heinous crimes “require greater diligence, not the opposite”. Her report sets out 10 pages of guidelines for providing effective consular assistance in such cases, she added. Read more - Lire plus
Ethiopia: Release of ‘coup’ suspects without charge follows continued abuse of anti-terrorism law
Amnesty International 30/10/2019 - The release without charge of 22 government critics who were arrested and detained for months on allegations of terrorism illustrates the Ethiopian authorities’ continued abuse of the country’s anti-terror laws, Amnesty International said today. The 22, released late on Tuesday, were among more than 200 people arrested in June after the killing of army chief Seare Mekonnen and Amhara Regional State President Ambachew Mekonnen – termed an attempted coup by the Ethiopian government. Most of those arrested have since been quietly released without being formally charged in court.

“The release of these 22 people without formal charges ever being filed against them is one consequence of the authorities’ continued misuse of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to arbitrarily arrest and detain government critics. For them to have been detained for four months without an iota of evidence being adduced is blatantly unjust,” said Fisseha Tekle, Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher. “The Anti-Terrorism Proclamation continues to be the government’s tool of choice for arbitrarily arresting people. Dozens of other people are still languishing in detention under the ambiguous and overly broad anti-terrorism law. They must be immediately released or charged with clearly defined and recognizable offences.” Amnesty International is calling on the Ethiopian authorities to expedite the revision of the anti-terrorism law in line with international human rights standards. The revised law should among other things provide suspects with the right to bail pending trial, as well as ensure any criminal offence is clearly defined in accordance with international human rights law. Read more - Lire more
Iraqi PM Sends Counter-Terror Force To Put Down Street Protests
RELRF 27/10/2019 - Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has ordered the country’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) to help put down anti-government protests that have rocked the country over the past weeks, Western news agencies are reporting. Mahdi on October 26 ordered CTS forces onto the streets of the capital, Baghdad, and the southern city of Nasiriyah and were told to “use all necessary measures” to shut down the protests, Reuters quoted security sources as saying. Reuters reported that CTS troops took over checkpoints in neighborhoods surrounding Baghdad's central Tahrir Square as midnight approached and began moving protesters out of the area.

Regular security forces were earlier unable to clear the square of protesters despite firing tear gas. Police sources told Reuters that four people were killed in the capital after being struck in the head by tear gas canisters fired by security personnel. In Nasiriyah, police and security sources said CTS soldiers broke up rallies late on October 26 and early on October 27 by beating and arresting dozens. At least 67 people have been killed and hundreds injured over the past two weeks in clashes with security forces across Iraq, the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights said on October 26. Read more - Lire plus


UK man who fought ISIS found guilty of terror offence in retrial
The Guardian 24/10/2019 - A British man who trained to fight with Kurdish units against Islamic State has been found guilty of a terrorism offence in a retrial at the Old Bailey. Aidan James, 28, from Formby in Merseyside, was found guilty of training in weapons with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) in Iraq. But he was cleared of a second charge of attending a place of terror training with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria . James was remanded in custody to be sentenced on 7 November. It is the first time a Briton has been put on trial for travelling to Syria to oppose Isis, after similar charges were dropped against former soldier James Matthews, 43, from east London, in 2018.

James, who had been repeatedly turned down by British armed forces due to poor mental health, had no previous military knowledge when he set out to join the war against Isis in 2017. The court heard how he was in contact with the anti-terror Prevent programme before he left Britain for Iraq in August 2017. According to an officer’s notes of a meeting in April 2017, ruled inadmissible in the trial by Mr Justice Edis, James had said he wanted to help the “PKK YPG” in their battle against Isis. Days later, he was arrested on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts after broadcasting his intentions on Facebook. During his interview with police he claimed he was heading to Syria to help with “humanitarian aid” and dismissed the suggestion he was going for terrorism as “ridiculous”. James said at the time: “Nothing will stop me going, even if you take my passport off me I will still find a way to go. I cannot sit at home and watch people getting fucking butchered because it’s another country.” Read more - Lire plus
What we've been up to!
What we've been up to so far and what's to come for the second half of 2019!
ICLMG - 2019 has been very busy so far, and it's not looking to slow down for the second half of the year!

As I write these lines, we are continuing to work on, among other things:

  • The immediate public release of the report from Murray Segal's external review of the case of Hassan Diab, and the launch of public inquiry into Dr. Diab's case and the Extradition Act overall.

  • Stopping Mohamed Harkat's deportation to torture and getting the Public Safety minister to allow him to stay in Canada.

  • Obtaining a strong and effective review mechanism for the Canada Border Services Agency, and more restrictions on the collection of Canadians' data by military intelligence.

  • The repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, as well as putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada for flights that do not fly over the US, let alone land there.

  • An information card detailing how the different federal parties have voted on national security legislation since 2001, and calling on federal parties to commit to protecting human rights and civil liberties in the context of national security. Campaign coming soon!
ACTIONS & EVENTS
Send a letter opposing cameras in the ByWard Market
Send a letter in support of CAMS Ottawa's response to Mayor Watson. While we share concerns about ongoing violence in the Market, installing surveillance cameras is not an appropriate solution. The very premise that CCTV can deter violent crime is highly doubtful. Video surveillance also raise significant concerns regarding the treatment of marginalized members of our community. We urge you to take the above problems and the following evidence into consideration and reconsider implementing such an ineffective, costly, and intrusive system.
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.
Stop CSIS from targeting everyday citizens & community groups
A recent report revealed that CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, collected over 8,000 pages of documents, spying on citizens like you, people who exercise their democratic rights by attending a community meeting at a local church or taking peaceful action for what they believe in. And CSIS shared this info with Big Oil corporations.

Sign this petition to tell the govt to stop using taxpayer money to unconstitutionally spy on Canadians part of peaceful community groups.
Stop Facial Recognition in Canada
Facial recognition is invasive, biased and unreliable. But Canadian agencies and law enforcement have started using the tech despite the huge controversies.
Canada’s out-of-date privacy laws don’t yet cover facial recognition tech, leaving our government free to experiment on us with no oversight or regulations. We need to slam the brakes on the spread of this dangerous technology before it’s too late. Demand a moratorium on the use of facial recognition technologies and a full review of our privacy laws — before it becomes entrenched as a surveillance method in Canada.
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.
Canada must act to end Islamophobia in Xinjiang, China
There is credible evidence that up to one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other mainly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are being detained in secret internment camps. Detainees are brainwashed, tortured and are forced to renounce their religion and culture.


And send a message to Chrystia Freeland demanding that Canada actively support an independent and unrestricted international fact-finding initiative to Xinjiang.
Free Ahmed Mansoor
Ahmed is an award winning human rights defender and blogger. The UAE has said Ahmed had been arrested for using his social media accounts to “publish false information that damages the country’s reputation” and to “spread hatred and sectarianism”. Right now, Ahmed is being held in solitary confinement and has not had access to a lawyer, an d he is on hunger strike. Act now and demand that the UAE release Ahmed immediately and unconditionally. TWITTER ACTION
All-in-one action page: Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture
Call PM Trudeau, write a letter to Public Safety Minister & 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.
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”. The UN Committee against Torture called on Canada to launch a thorough and impartial review to ensure accountability.
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.
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. 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.
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 .
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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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